A normal day in the workshops

Since Zeller had warned us that the debunkings in Gherla would continue and that we students would expose all the “bandits” in the Romanian People’s Republic, our prospects were very bleak. This meant that, for us, this cruel fate would only end with our execution, as in Stalin’s time.

We were not taken to the workshops during the week announced by Țurcanu, because the selection had to be made. Those who had not been proposed by Țurcanu for work were taken away from us and taken to the torture chambers.

In the room where I was, the head of the committee was Pop Cornel.

Măgirescu had been taken out of the room to perform the function of “barber”, which in fact consisted of collecting information from informers and passing it on to the political officer. I don’t know what Măgirescu did as a barber. From the look on Țurcanu’s face, I was convinced that something irreconcilable had happened between them.

At Gherla, Țurcanu no longer led the demades alone, but together with Popa Țanu. Nicolski needed Țurcanu, but he also needed Popa Țanu, that Mongolian killer from Soroca, on the banks of the Dniester.

I can believe that Popa Chanu, under Bogdanovich’s protection, infiltrated the Legionary movement as a Russian spy. For when Turcanu and his followers were condemned to death and executed, Popa Țanu escaped with his life, although he had led the demolitions and assassinations in Gherla, where more people died than in Pitești.

In 1957 he was alone in a cell in Aiud. We find him again as a prosecution witness in Țurcanu’s lot, in the trial of Vică Negulescu, stating that he had received orders from Horia Sima to carry out the Pitesti and Gherla debunkings.

It was clear that Popa Țanu had played a more than suspicious role.

For us, another week of wandering through the torture chambers followed. We were fascinated by one fact: we couldn’t recognise the tortured people, either because they were disfigured, had their heads covered, or were lying in such a position that we couldn’t see their faces.

I was convinced that Țurcanu had done this whole show with us in order to frighten us and instil as much fear in us as possible. The walks through the torture chambers in Gherla had a terrible moral effect on us, those of us from Pitești. When we saw others being tortured, most of us experienced their suffering and at that moment we would have preferred to be ourselves instead of the bastards lying on the floor. A paradoxical statement. We all experienced this state of mind and a feeling of pity and compassion filled our souls.

When you are being tortured, you cannot feel pity and compassion for yourself, because at that moment only your strength of resistance and patience to endure the torture are at work. When you see another being tortured, you experience his pain, because it connects with your pain and awakens in your consciousness, with maximum intensity, pity and all compassion towards him, which is all the greater because he is your brother of suffering and struggle. But it is very difficult for people to understand this state, especially if they have no experience of it.

In view of what has been said, I am not trying to understand or convince anyone, but I confess that it was not easy to see our brothers and comrades in the most bitter suffering for a month.

After a month of mental torture, the day came when we were taken to work in the workshops. The day before, Țurcanu and Popa Țanu had walked through the rooms and warned us:

“If you say a word about the debunkings, because we have the possibility of discovering the culprit, and if you don’t start working seriously, sabotage or do something else in the workshops, you know what awaits you, you’ve seen it with your own eyes!”. Țurcanu repeated: “You know that we are not joking and that we keep our word.”

We were so physically and morally weakened that if a normal person outside the prison had seen us, he would have compared us to the undead or walking corpses.

We were led out of the rooms, not by guards or soldiers, but by the prisoners, Țurcanu and Popa Țanu’s helpers. We all experienced a feeling, not hatred, but something else, inexplicable, incomprehensible: how could we be escorted and insulted by our own comrades and colleagues?

Another special feeling was the fact that instead of being confined to a few square metres of cell or room, we had a large space to move around in.

Of the nearly 200 students who were sent to work that day – it was the end of October 1951 – only five of us were assigned to the carpentry workshop. The head of the workshop was a legionary master carpenter, arrested during Antonescu’s time, who had also been demoted and had such hatred and horror for the students that he wouldn’t even look us in the eye.

In a few minutes we were given our tools and shown what to do and how to do it. Then the foreman informed us of the compulsory standard we had to achieve in eight hours’ work, making it clear: “I didn’t make the standard, you did, and if you’ve done it, you still have to do it”.

I would like to point out that wherever political prisoners worked, the rules were made beyond the strength of a robust and healthy man who would have worked in freedom under normal conditions. But for us, who were wrecks, weakened to the point of dystrophy by food that was far too inadequate in quality and quantity, and who were not even craftsmen, it was impossible to reach the required production quote.

As a result, we fell ill from physical exhaustion and lack of food. But the lack of medical care explains why so many political prisoners of all ages and categories died in these forced labour camps.

Wherever political prisoners worked – at the Canal, Poarta Albă, Salcia and in all the prison workshops – the work rules and the control of production were carried out by political and common law prisoners. From this category of prisoners, those who had undergone demarcation or were willing informers were selected. The normators were among the most hated and despised, working hand in hand with the political officer and the prison or camp administration. I have never seen people more despised, reviled and vilified than these normators. And they deserved it.

The second category were the timekeepers. In the workshops there were two categories of political prisoners: those who had undergone debunkings (workers, peasants, students, pupils and some intellectuals) and those who had not.

The latter, who came to Gherla at about the same time as us, had no warning of what was to come. That’s why, before we were taken to the workshops, Țurcanu told us not to say a word about the debunkings.

On the day when we, the 200 students who had gone through the debunkings in Pitești, were taken to work, we experienced the joy of seeing each other again after so many years, but not fully, because we didn’t dare to talk to each other.

What greater tragedy of the soul can happen than not being able to share your thoughts and feelings with the one you love after so long? Who can understand such a state of mind?

(Dumitru Bordeianu – Confessions from the Swamp of Despair)