Atanasie Berzescu in the communist dungeon
The anti-communist armed resistance movement was a national phenomenon of rejection of the regime imposed by the Soviet tanks, especially from 1948. The Romanian mountains were full of resistance groups waiting for the Americans to liberate them, and the people in the surrounding villages were the main supporters. One of them was Atanasie Berzescu, a teacher from Slatina-Timiș, Severin County. He was born on 4 March 1921 into a working class family in Teregova. After graduating from the elementary school in Caransebeș and Deva, he attended the Theological Academy. As a teacher in Slatina-Timiș, he was one of those who gave all the necessary support to the people of the Semenic Mountains, grouped around Spiru Blănaru. On 25 January 1949, the young Berzescu was arrested. Three days later, Major Aurel Moiș of the Caransebeș Securitate forced him at gunpoint to betray Spiru Blănaru.
But the Securitate operation in Teregova failed, and Berzescu escaped from his confinement. He was included in a group of 21 young men accused of so-called activity in the Brotherhood of the Cross. Atanasie Berzescu was sentenced by the Military Tribunal of Timișoara to 10 years of hard labour for the crime of “conspiracy against the social order”, by decision no. 1766 of 9 December 1949. After being detained in Timișoara, Berzescu was transferred to Aiud Prison on 18 February 1950. Here he had to resist the harsh regime imposed by the guards, as he recounts in his memoirs, from which we quote a sequence: “Around noon, in the lathe workshop where I was working, a guard appeared and asked:
– Who is Mitoiu Dumitru? And what about Berzescu Atanasie?
Dressed in our scanty clothes, trousers and shirt, with only wooden shoes on, he asked us to follow him. We looked at each other in confusion, we didn’t understand anything, we hadn’t done anything wrong.
After him, with trembling hearts, we went to the Cellular. Went down the stairs to the basement. In the corridor, an iron door opened in front of us. With obvious satisfaction, the guard pushed us inside and slammed the door behind us. We woke up in the dark. The room had no window and no light bulb. The floor was ankle deep in water… We were all confused. Why had they brought us here? We prayed to God to help us through this ordeal. Father Mitoiu prayed for all of us. There were nineteen of us. When the door opened, we could see the walls of the cell by the light of the bulb outside. They were plastered with cement and covered with large stains of blood. Who knows how many had died in agony, banging their heads against the walls. Death had left its face painted on the cell wall, which was nothing more than a torture chamber. In the darkness, our faces beaded with sweat, our mouths opened for a breath of air, we prayed silently for help from above. More and more we felt the lack of air. We could no longer breathe and resist. After a while, thirst and hunger began to torment us, but above all thirst. The door would open and an officer would appear and ask us what we wanted. We asked for water. He immediately ordered a guard to bring two buckets of water. In front of us, at the officer’s command, the guard approached the door with a jug in his hand so that we could drink. As we approached, he threw the water on the ground at our feet, cursed us and told us to drink the water from the ground. Parched with thirst, we watched the water being thrown on the ground. Satisfied, the officer and the guard closed the door, smiling with extreme sadism. Humiliated, with our heads bowed, we prayed to God to give us strength. And He did. We held out for forty hours, without water, without food, without air, without light. We believed and we prevailed. On 24 August 1952, at 7 a.m., the director of the prison, Captain Dorobanțu, came, took us out of the room, put us in a single row, walked past each of us, measured us from top to bottom and said:
“- Now go to the factory and tell the prisoners what happened to you on 23rd of August!”
Atanasie Berzescu was released from the dreaded prison on 27 September 1957, but only on paper, as he was to remain in the Communist concentration camp universe. He was sentenced to 24 months of forced residence in Lătești. A year later, a commission of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs decided that Atanasie Berzescu should be sent to a labour camp for 36 months, first to Culmea and then to Periprava. On 12 September 1961, Berzescu received another decision that sent him to a labour camp for another 36 months. He was released on 6 May 1964.
(Adrian Nicolae Petcu – Lumina Newspaper)