Eduard Masichievici – “he was like an angel, a handsome individual, a bright face”

It was a great sorrow among us that we could still see that he was dying. Masichievici’s turn came.

I was in the room with Cezar Tănase, and in the meantime something had happened. The political officer called Masichievici and said:

– Hey, see the medicine? How did your people find out you were here, how did you communicate?

– I don’t know, sir, I didn’t communicate, I don’t have a postcard, I didn’t talk to anybody.

– Hey, you’re a bandit, tell us how you communicated? Look, you got your medicine in there, you tell me what’s going on inside, you give me information, I give you your medicine.

– Lieutenant Major, don’t make me an informer, I’m a man of honour, I can’t tell you to hurt someone, to lie. That would be lying. I’d rather endure whatever happens to me, I can’t lie, hurt anyone.

– Bandit, you’re still a bandit. Go out and die in your faith!

The young man has come back.

– What have you done, Edi, my love?

He whispers to me:

– My dear, he forced me to become an informer, but I said I couldn’t do anything, I’d never signed anything and I’d never sign anything. And he said to me: go and die in your faith.

And that is how poor Masichievici died. I published an article about him, but it didn’t get any attention because people don’t care anymore. The way a man dies is painful. He was like an angel, a beautiful face, an enlightened face. He didn’t know how to hurt anybody.

(Excerpt from an interview with former political prisoner Nicolae Itul – Aiudule, Aiudule, edited by Dragoș Ursu and Ioana Ursu, Renașterea Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 2011, pp. 157-158)