Biography of Dr. Ion Simionescu
Ion Simionescu was born on 30 September 1894, in the family of the priest Ion Simionescu from com. Erbiceni – Iași. He graduated from the Infantry Military School. He fought in the war and was decorated with the orders “Steaua României” in the rank of knight and “Coroana României” in the rank of officer. Graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in 1926. After obtaining his doctorate, he was appointed, by competitive examination, as a doctor at the Mixed Hospital in Chilia Nouă, Ismail County (now in the Republic of Moldova), from 1927 to 1934, during which time he specialised in France and Germany.
He was transferred to Turnu Măgurele as a primary surgeon until 1942, then to Sfântul Spiridon Hospital in Galați for 2 years. From 1944 to 1945, he was on the battlefield in the field hospital, where he worked with the rank of major surgeon until the end of the war.
Engaged in politics, he held the posts of Prefect of Romanați under the Goga-Cuza government and Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Health under the Gigurtu government, from which he resigned after the surrender of Northern Transylvania. Towards the end of the war, during the communist campaign to remove General N. Rădescu from power, he was dismissed from all the country’s hospitals on 23 February 1945. He opened a private practice in Bucharest (1945-1946) and a private sanatorium in Alexandria (1946-1950). He was arrested several times and investigated, but only briefly. He was arrested again in 1949. Sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment for contributing to the “catastrophe of the country”. From Jilava he was briefly transferred to prison. Aiud.
At the end of November 1950, he was taken by van to the canal, together with Colonel Dr. Surgeon Traian Mihăilescu, Prof. Mihail Paulian, Prof. Architect George-Matei Cantacuzino, Ernest Bernea, Victor Jinga and many other personalities. After Poarta Albă, he ended up in the Peninsula camp in 1951. He was assigned to a brigade working on the excavations at Mamaia. He tried to go unnoticed, but informers, especially the students of brigades 13-14, soon found out that a former minister was among them, and Bogdănescu and Enăchescu, both doctors, went to the polygraphist Chirion and informed him of their discovery. Bogdănescu asked Chirion to assign him to the brigade he was leading, to teach him how to work “for the construction of socialism”. Enăchescu also asked to be assigned to his own uncle, the Manist lawyer and deputy Marin Pițigoi, who had “exploited the peasants”. The requests were granted and the two were taken to the new brigades, having first passed through the political officer’s office, where they were thoroughly beaten.
Dr. Ion Simionescu was forced to work hard, and when he returned from the construction site he had to wash his bedroom every night so that he could not rest. His foreman was always unhappy, kicking him with his feet and beating him with a bat. Sometimes he would call Bogdănescu for help, who would also administer his share of beatings.
He was subjected to this regime of terror for months, two or three hours a night. The only moments of silence were when the brigade was on action, i.e. the “recalcitrants”, the enemies of the regime, were brought in and beaten until they fainted, water was poured over them to make them recover, and they were beaten again. This was done while accordion music was played and blankets were placed over the windows so that no one could see what was going on inside. In the morning, those who had been beaten were thrown into the ditches around the barracks to recover and go to work.
On 12 July 1951, his wife and son came to see him with a parcel, but he was not allowed to see them because he was being punished, in fact he was not allowed to see them in the state he was in, with broken ribs, a crushed and swollen body. So he was forced to work, with a student always with him, accompanying him wherever he went, even to the toilet. And so it was on 12 July 1951 at the Constanța brickworks, where the students were working. The one who was his undivided shadow was called Cojocaru Petre, a student from the commune Țepeș Vodă – Constanța.
On that Thursday, 12 July 1951, around noon, he was working with a wheelbarrow, carrying rubble from the hall to the yard. He worked hard and did not load the wheelbarrow fully, but his supervisor claimed (this was in 1995) that he closed his eyes and even helped him to load. He also claimed that before lunch he left the wheelbarrow and went to the toilet without telling him. As there were two cubicles, Cojocaru immediately went into the next one to carry out his supervisory duties. But he probably didn’t notice that just as he was closing the door, Dr. Ion Simionescu came out of his cubicle and made a beeline for the security cordon.
A shot rang out, and when he came out of the toilet he saw the doctor lying on the floor as the alarm went off. The incident was reported to the Peninsula office, investigators arrived at the scene, took the report, and the doctor’s body was loaded into a truck. About a month later, a commission of inquiry from Bucharest arrived at the camp.
In the meantime, news of the tragedy had spread both at home and abroad. The news came like a thunderbolt to the family, who were informed a month later, on the day of the spokesman.
Commander Georgescu said to his son in a harsh tone: “I think you understand, your father is dead, don’t make a fuss or I’ll arrest you”.
In the cemetery of the village of Valea Neagră, the priest pointed with fear to the doctor’s grave. The priest was arrested for his gesture. On 4 September 1951, after the arrival of Albon Tiberiu and Cseller Ludovic, ten of the camp’s torturers were put in chains and sent to Aiud as factory managers, among them Bogdănescu Ion, Enăchescu Simion, Cojocaru Ion, Grama Octavian, Livinschi Mihai, Lupașcu Pill, Sobolevschi Maximilian, Petrică Ion, Sofronie Constantin, Prisăcaru Adrian.
Among the thugs who remained in the camp were Lie Pompiliu, Stancu Ion, Burculeț Viorel, Griga Ion, Soroiu Gheorghe, Sebeșan Ștefan, Țăranu Ilie, Voineanu Octavian, Laitin Dănilă, Roșca Gheorghe and others. Some of them were executed on the orders of their leaders in order to cover their tracks. Seven years after the murder of Dr. Ion Simionescu, his remains were exhumed from the Valea Neagră cemetery and buried in the St. Parascheva cemetery in Bucharest. Commemorative plaques and a statue were erected in his memory at the Medical Students’ Palace on Izvor Bridge in Bucharest and at the new pavilion of the hospital in Turnu Măgurele, which bears his name.
(Cicerone Ionițoiu – Victim of the communist terror. Arrested, tortured, imprisoned, killed. Dictionary. The Typewriter Publishing House, Bucharest, 2000)