Alexandru Ghica – “Prince both literally and figuratively”

The winter of 1963-1964 was the hardest period of my imprisonment. I spent a total of 65 days in solitary confinement, and the only one who surpassed me in terms of punishment was Prince Alexandru Ghica, who spent more than 70 days in solitary confinement. I do not want to make any comparison between this outstanding personality of the Romanian nation and those who were imprisoned for an idea in the service of such a great and sacred ideal, but I am obliged to point this out.

As far as I know, Prince Ghica did not write and publish his memoirs. At least in this way the sufferings of this great man will be known. […]

In the left wing of the cell, from cell 1 to cell 20, we were isolated under a harsh regime for the last days of November, December and twelve days of January, and from then on the punishments began. In December a terrible frost trapped me in a cell whose walls were sprinkled with primer and salt to keep the room damp. In the isolation cells of Ward I, I ate only once every three days and was given cold water mixed with salt in the evening. For 17 hours I had to walk around the cell until, exhausted, I fell onto the cold, frozen cement. I remember a guard saying that it was freezing outside and that the thermometer would go down to -20 degrees Celsius. I know that at that time the prison administration made the one exception for us and took us all out of solitary confinement and sent us back to the cells we had left.

There I was greeted with a smile by Prince Alexandru Ghica, literally and figuratively a prince, a great lord of the land. Speaking of the greatness of this man, I would put him alongside the great medieval knights who left the heart of Europe to liberate Jerusalem, or the Ceahlău who dominates the vast Moldavian countryside far beyond. Those of us who opposed re-education had to endure constant terror, one of the ways being to wash the floor of the cell, even twice a day, throwing as much water as we could, which never dried, and inhaling the steam into our lungs. We took turns doing this. I have never forgotten that whenever it was my turn, Prince Ghica would not let me do it, because I was ill. He also performed this operation on me, lying on his stomach under the beds and rubbing a floorboard that seemed to get thinner and thinner every day. On 13 January 1963 I was taken out of my cell and taken to the barracks.

Months later, in November of the same year, we were forcibly removed from the barracks and taken to the former canteen, where the re-education sessions were held under the auspices of Colonel Gheorghe Crăciun. As we approached, we met several well-known personalities, both in Romania and abroad, who had moved to the other camp, either by choice or by necessity.

Victor Biriș, who was among them, met the eyes of Prince Ghica. Good friends, they had both been under arrest since January 1941. The difference was that they were now on opposite sides.

– What are you doing, Alecule? asked Victor Biriș.

– Fine! replied the prince. But what are you doing, what are you doing there? Do you think it’s a good place to live, Victor?

– Yes, I’m sure it is.

– And if you come to the conviction that your choice is not good, what will you do?

– I’ll kill myself! comes the answer…

– Well then, Victor, you’re going to kill yourself!

After the pardon decrees of 1964, Victor Biriș was also released. A few years later, when a former comrade from prison met him by chance at the station in Mediaș, he told him:

– Well, Victore, what about your position in Aiud?

An express train from Cluj had just arrived at the station. He grabbed his arm and said:

– One moment, please! And Biriș, as if he had seen someone he couldn’t miss, hurried off to meet the arriving train. In a few moments, Biriș jumped from the platform and landed right under the wheels of the train…”

This was the result of the dialogue between the two former comrades and friends.

(Grigore Caraza, Aiud însângerat, edited by Adrian Alui Gheorghe, 5th edition, Tipo Moldova Publishing House, Iași, 2013, pp. 147-148, 141-142)