Costache Oprișan – the pillar of resistance against re-education
That evening, a rather large group of students entered the room[1]. Aurel Obreja whispered to me:
– This is Costache Oprișan.
I only knew him by reputation. Although he was very weak and ill, his physiognomy inspired confidence; his slightly protruding chin gave him an air of great will.
Everyone seemed timid, but not desperate. Until midnight we were chased with heavy sacks on our backs until we were exhausted. Towards midnight, a bony man entered the room, his head larger than the rest of his body, his shorts with hairy, bony, disproportionate legs sticking out, short-sleeved overalls, his face rather broad, asymmetrical and bestial. The eye, this illuminator of the body, is the first window through which I look into the depths of this unknown, the human soul.
The eyes of Țurcanu, whom I saw for the first time, were the eyes of the villain, capable of sacrificing everything dear to him in order to achieve his evil goal.
At his entrance, his subordinates and collaborators, who had committed so many crimes in the Gherla branch, took up a respectful position, and one of them commanded everyone:
– Stand up!
All the prisoners obeyed, more or less correctly, according to their physical abilities. We were then ordered to sit down in the basement. Oprișan was at the front, in the middle. Țurcanu had sunk his name, Eugen, a symbol of purity of soul and body, into the mire of hatred and sadistic murder. Oh, if only each of us had in our conscience the thought that we will be called to the Last Judgement with the name with which God created us through Baptism and took us out of Satan’s hand! And we will not be able to answer, “Present!” because we have, through sin, obscured the mark inscribed on us as sons of God. And not being able to read it, God takes it away from Himself. Țurcanu sat at some distance from Costache Oprișan.
– From the very beginning, you were destined to become what we call the new man of socialist and ultimately communist society. The fact that from the beginning you refused to consciously commit yourselves to this path has led us to act on your consciences in order to find yourselves, to make you consciously commit yourselves, each one of you, to the coordinates of honesty, to the ideals of the dialectical materialist conception, which aims to liberate man from the yoke of mystical dogmas and to achieve his happiness on earth.
He no longer underestimated the impact of the speech and waited for the enthusiastic reaction of the vulgar. But the reaction was contrary to his expectations.
– If these are the methods of the ideal of which you speak, you will not achieve happiness, replied Oprișan. Why didn’t you come up with rational arguments worthy of scientists, as you call yourselves, connoisseurs of material realities and the human spirit? Why have you resorted to vile, barbaric methods of coercion and coercion of conscience? And why do you not even now accept discussion, but continue to terrorise and torment? With these methods you are not convincing anyone, on the contrary, you are driving us away or creating spiritual and social monsters!
Țurcanu listened intently, but did not interrupt him. He wanted to see what had become of all his work. And suddenly he burst out nervously:
– Shut up! It is because of you that I have delayed for so long the work of transformation that I have undertaken![2]
– You will not and have not achieved anything! Everything you think you have achieved is a figment of your sick mind!
This public confrontation, like the falling of swords in a decisive duel on both sides, gave a ray of hope to the souls oppressed by Țurcanu. Instinctively, everyone gathered around Oprișan, as if he were the last point of salvation to be saved. With the last twitch of a beast that senses its end, Țurcanu approached Oprișan, ready to tear him apart. He stopped halfway, gritting his teeth.
Oprișan looked at him without blinking. The words of the holy archangel Michael in his battle with Satan over the body of Moses flashed through my mind: “The Lord rebuke you, Satan!”
Țurcanu waved to the workers who approached. Then he ordered Oprișan: “Lay down!”
Many bowed their heads, others closed their eyes. We didn’t know what would happen next. Pușcașu and Livinschi passed by on either side of Oprișan, lying face up. Țurcanu, with his hands on their shoulders, climbed onto Oprișan’s chest. He leaned on his chest with all his weight until the air was forced down his throat, suffocating him; from time to time he released the pressure, so that the completely exhausted victim seemed to atone with short breaths. The ordeal was repeated until blood began to seep from the lungs to the corners of the mouth in coughing spurts. Then, with a diabolical satisfaction, Turcanu pressed both feet to the chest once more and sank down:
– Get up! This is how you die! Slowly! Slowly, slowly! Drop by drop.[3]
Oprișan struggled to his feet. It was a miracle: he had risen from the dead! I had never seen anything like it. I prayed to God all the time, not knowing what I was asking for, just the thought screaming inside me:
“Lord! God!”
This kind of public torture was one of the methods used to terrify consciences.
(Virgil Maxim – Hymn for the Cross Bearer, Vol. II, 2nd edition, Antim Publishing House, 2002, pp. 272-274)
[1] The action takes place in Gherla prison, while the Pitești experiment of re-education through torture enters the “export” phase.
[2] Sometimes even the devil’s minions speak the truths they can no longer bear. In Holy Scripture, the demons who possessed the two outcasts in the land of Gadara exclaimed at the sight of Christ the Saviour: “What have you to do with us, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come here before your time to torture us?” (Matthew 8:29). By saying this, the demons actually acknowledged that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and that there would be a final judgement of the whole world, after which the devils would be sent to eternal torment. Thus the devils were able to speak truths that the Jewish priests and scribes vehemently denied.
Returning to our episode, we notice that this “be silent, for it is because of you that we have delayed the work of transformation so long” is said as a reproach, as an accusation. We can deduce from this that there is a deep frustration that Țurcanu cannot suppress. With this reproach, Țurcanu practically admits that Oprișan was the pillar of resistance against the re-education that he, the “great” and “almighty” Țurcanu, had stumbled upon and could not overcome. Although the happy confessor Constantine had temporarily fallen under the effects of re-education, his long patience and holy obstinacy in resisting the torturers made him a landmark of resistance, a model that showed that the hell of re-education could be defeated. Constantin Oprișan thus became an icon of the victory over the communist hell.
[3] Here is Turcanu’s barbarity in all its perfection. Even death was no longer an escape from the hell of torture, but was itself ‘offered’ by the torturer as a hell prolonged to the point of paroxysm.