“Doctor Vasile Voiculescu carried his Cross with great dignity”

It was the winter of 1959. It was cold and hungry enough in Jilava. New “clients” arrived in the cell (not quite “cell” because it was a rather large room with about 60-80 inhabitants – the cell was only 2/4 m, 3/4 m with a smaller load), only at night, in the early hours […].

One night the door opened and three old men and a younger man entered the room (cell). I remember them all, because they were all people known in Romanian culture […].

The four of them:

1. University Professor Tudor Popescu – Professor of Church History at the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest […].
2. Doctor Vasile Voiculescu;
3. Doctor Dabija – medical doctor;
4. Sandu Tudor – old monk.

[…] In the cell Vasile Voiculescu told little stories, but I remember that the beginning of his soul-searching took place in the church of Pârscov, where as a child he had looked through the liturgical books and everything that was redeable. It was there, in the village church, that he began to “think”, and throughout his life he thought like a “man of God”. He did not, as you can see from his writings, talk explicitly about God, he did not urge “go to church”, but what he said made you seek the church. He had come (in his understanding, far from us ordinary people) to understand the concept of love. For him, love was the beginning of creation, the purpose, meaning and destiny of man on earth. The words of St. Paul, represented everything and “without love there is nothing, there is nothing”, he repeated and it was not only part of his thinking but of himself, of his “essence”, as C. Noica would say.

He seldom spoke of his work in his cell, because he did not expose himself in any way. I remember now the late night when he entered his room in Jilava. Four people came in (as I said above) after a “strip search”. If the “Cerberus” saw fit, the order to “bend over” was followed by a search of the anus. He “did it” because he wanted to humiliate you, not out of curiosity or interest, but out of command. You entered the harem with a small ball in your hand, containing the remains of the search – a shirt, a pair of hams (two at the most), two – three handkerchiefs, one – two pairs of stockings, if you were lucky; if the guard wanted, he would leave you a sweater – a jersey and, of course, your boots – shoes without laces. You entered the cell barefoot, wearing only your shirt and hat. The room was large and at that time there was no serpentine. It was furnished with three rows of bunk beds stacked on top of each other. And when it was overcrowded, you slept on the floor, on the cement – under the clothesline – that was serpentine.

The first night they slept as best they could. The first day after the reception – the head of the room made the allocation of the newcomers. The three of them: T. Popescu, Father Daniel and the poet V. Voiculescu were placed on the ground floor – according to their age – and Dr. Dabija on the upper floor, and all three were spared the drudgery of carrying the buckets, the ones for excrements, plus bringing the bucket with water. And from now on life begins normally.

After introductions – legitimisations – we all wanted news from outside – news of all kinds – political (they were the most important) then personal – trial – cause – co-defendants – convictions – the course of the trial – the courage or weakness of the accused and always the names of the investigators.

Then began the “milking” of the newcomer, i.e. telling us everything he knew – of and about the culture, of course – the speciality if that was the case, or about lathes and types of lathes – or about cheese if he was a shepherd – horses and oxen, bees or pigs, etc., etc., etc.

We wanted to find out everything the newcomers knew in as few days as possible. And the more they knew, the more they were “milked”. For days on end, four, five, six of us surrounded the newcomer to tell his story.

In the evenings there were conferences. Each one (who could) dealt with a subject. From theology (the most requested subject) to culture in general – istoie – to technology, to agriculture. Some listened, others were educated, others killed time. Newcomers were warned not to hold “conferences”. Some held them, even though we were being watched by the magic eye and the speaker was being sought. The next day – not infrequently – the “lecturer” was taken out of the room and beaten to a pulp, or even taken to the “neagra“.

All new arrivals had to deal with this. […]

The doctor, more afraid, shied away – he didn’t expose himself. He had tried and failed. In a small circle of two or three, he talked a lot and very nicely. He knew a lot, he could talk, and above all he was attractive. I became even closer to him. […] I was thirty years younger, but we became closer. I’m not exaggerating, he liked me, I gained his trust, he told me a lot about his life, especially about his family – he had a cult for his wife, whom he adored. After the introduction, he had his reasons. He told me a little about the children. He didn’t trust Ion.

The desire to do something filled his life and “Lică” (his wife) “always understood me”.

In prison we were in the habit of cataloguing and giving marks, many competent voices in the field gave the best mark, after Eminescu, to Vasile Voiculescu, although we did not know the “sonnets” […]; so we thought that now we would learn poems by V. Voiculescu. To our great disappointment, he didn’t know the poems by heart. We could only learn “A Ray Knocked at the Gate of Heaven”, which we thought was his greatest poem – up to Sonnets, and as a book of poems we loved and “thought it was good”, “Poems with Angels”, then “Hourglass”. As prose, he liked only “Zacchaeus the Blind Man” and “Handy Cures” – as a study. The sonnets were his life. He would do anything to save them. Surely he would endure any death, even starvation, so that only the sonnets would remain. […]

1. Voiculescu knew everything he had read and written in the culture of the world. He knew Shakespeare almost by heart, Saite Beuve and Decartes in detail. He easily found himself in painting and music, Bach – he declared him a saint. But where he dominated was in Christian, patriotic philosophy – he felt, he thought patriotically. And in the unchurched field, if he expressed orthodox views, they were on the line. […]

He carried his cross with great dignity and courage, which he did not know. He was not modest, but humble in all things. He did not suffer from hunger, for he was not a glutton, but he did suffer from cold, for on his bones and skin the striped zega did not warm him, and a blanket was not allowed to keep him warm on his back.

I spent much time with him in Jilava, in Aiud and in his cell.

He loved three people very much: V. Streinu, Dr. Cîmpeanu – our great surgeon, and perhaps even more M. Condeescu, the poet and essayist.

(Radu Leonte, letter addressed to Ion Nica, professor and curator of the V. Streinu Memorial House. Voiculescu in Pârscov – Vasile Voiculescu. The Martyred Writer and the Burning Bush, Vol. I, edited by Sabina Măduța, Florile Dalbe Publishing House, Bucharest, 2001, pp. 129-136)