Engineer Ion E. Bujoiu – an idealist in the communist dungeons
Happy, it is said, is the man who carries an ideal within him and obeys it. Such a man was the engineer Ion E. Bujoiu, who followed his ideal to the last moment of his life.
To this great man I am immensely grateful, and with his presence always alive for all of us who were beneficiaries of his gifts, blessed by God, I want to answer those who ask about him, like the poet Nichifor Crainic: “Where are those who are no more?
They will find the answer in his unforgivable deeds and actions, which I will try to recount with my modest powers of evocation, with deep respect for truth and objectivity, as he taught us.
He was a man of character, a man who was not tormented by envy or malicious innuendo. He was, as very rarely happens, a friend to everyone he worked with or met in various circumstances.
Why this unusual privilege? Simple: the consistency of the ideal that I have shown he possessed and put into practice…
He was a charming interlocutor, spontaneous, without artifice or unnecessary assertions, practising a dialogue in which, when necessary, he used discretion and a touch of “nobility” – as Mr. Andrei Pleșu remarked – “even if his opponent lacked it…”.
Sometimes he appeared to be a sober man to those who met him for the first time, but this turned out to be a mere appearance, because one immediately discovered an “open” man with a fine and quality humour, when the opportunity arose to punctuate the dialogue in this way.
To sum up, after meeting I.E. Bujoiu, engineer, president of the “Petroșani” Society, Minister of Industry or president of the Christian Youth Association of Romania since 1938, you felt like a different person, you gained energy, you regained your balance, a new horizon opened up before you.
He wasn’t just a man of words, he gave you solid support and a sense of security. As a close associate, I benefited from his support in organising C.Y.A.R. events as well as in my own spiritual development. And I remember well that he introduced me to the works of great figures such as Salvador de Madariaga, Sigrid Undset, Louis Bromfield, Thomas Mann, André Maurois, Miguel de Unamuno and others.
The engineer Ion E. Bujoiu was born in Bucharest on 16 September 1894, the son of Elie Bujoiu and Maria Bujoiu, who she was born Dragomir.
His father, Elie Bujoiu, had studied engineering in Paris with Ion C. Brătianu and Vintilă Brătianu, at the Polytechnic and at the School of Bridges and Roads, where he was first in his class. Ion Bujoiu completed his secondary education at the Matei Basarab Gymnasium in Bucharest and his university studies at the École des Mines in Paris. In 1918 he interrupted his university studies to return to the country, where he went to the front as a second lieutenant in the regiment commanded by the future Marshal Averescu. After the war he married Ana Ștefănescu, daughter of N.P. Ștefănescu, president of the Romanian Bank, and returned to Paris to complete his studies in mining engineering. In 1921 he had his first child, his daughter Maia, who was to marry Eng. Andrei Sculy Logotheti, and in 1922 their second daughter Ioana was born, who would marry Eng. Șerban Ghica and then an Englishman, Lord Roderic Gorden, who lived in Paris.
On his return to the country, after finishing his studies, Ion Bujoiu was appointed as a trainee engineer in Câmpina, at the “Steaua Română” Company, where he worked until 1922, when he was appointed General Manager at the “Lupeni” Company, then at the “Petroșani” Company (until 1945). From the moment he joined the “Petroșani” Society, he began his great activity as an organiser, as a specialist in mining issues, and at the same time he started a wide social activity for the improvement of the miners’ life.
In those years, the Romanian industry and trade were booming, and as such the “Petroșani” Society had considerable advantages. The engineer Ion E. Bujoiu used these profits to build a house and a garden, a hospital, a maternity hospital, a nursery school, a school for pupils, accommodation for officials and teachers, a cultural centre with a theatre, a cinema, a library, etc. for every miner in the Jiu Valley.
He encouraged young people to take up sport by setting up clubs. I personally knew Grigore Socolescu, one of the members of the golden team of Romanian rugby and a good engineer, who was hired by Eng. Ion Bujoiu at Soc. “Petroșani”, becoming a great animator and trainer of young athletes, but also with important professional achievements! He left us, at the age of over 95, 2-3 years ago!…
The ever renewing spirit and the creator of conditions for professional and artistic training led Ion E. Bujoiu to enlarge and modernise the School of Arts and Crafts, located in Jiu Valley. The Infinity Column by the great sculptor Constantin Brâncuși was cast in these premises, and many other works were created by the miners. Does anybody else know about them?…
In 1937 he was appointed professor of mining at the Faculty of Mining and Metallurgy of the Polytechnic School of Bucharest.
He became vice-president of the UGIR (General Union of Romanian Engineers), president of the Association of Metallurgical and Mining Industries, member of the Superior Council of Mines (9 April 1937) and member of the Ministry of Labour and Health (6 July 1937). At the end of 1937, he joined the cabinet of Gheorghe Tătărescu as a “technician”, as Minister of Industry and Trade (17 November-28 December 1937).
During the monarchical regime, Bujoiu was appointed by King Carol II as a member of the Higher Economic Council (8 April 1938) and of the Board of Directors of the Romanian Aircraft Industry Company (1 June 1938); Minister of National Economy (1 February-28 September 1939; 29 September-23 November 1939); member of the Directorate of the National Revival Front (20 January 1939); and First Secretary for Industry and Trade of the National Revolutionary Front (23 January 1940).
At the personal suggestion of King Charles II, Ion E. Bujoiu was appointed President of the Christian Youth Association of Romania in 1938.
The YMCA was founded 156 years ago in England by a young Englishman who was joined by five other young people, all working in a London post office, to work in their spare time. The result: the virtue and divine grace of our Lord Jesus Christ met the desires and needs of young people in England and elsewhere, and laid the foundations for what became known as the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association).
In our country, the Young Men’s Christian Association was founded in 1919, on the initiative of Queen Mary and an honorary committee that included, among others, Prof. Nicolae Iorga, Prof. Dimitrie Gusti, Constantin Angelescu, Minister of Education, Romulus Voinescu, etc..
The aim of the Association was to guide young people towards a practical life based on living Christian virtues and learning good skills. In an atmosphere of friendship, it offered its members the possibility of intellectual, moral, physical and technical training, more comfortable means of living, a circle of friends, a place for recreation and sport.
In Romania, as in all five continents, CYA has developed in the spirit and tradition of the people concerned, with a common programme based on the Christian concept, which offers remedies against the degradation of the human being. The arrival of the engineer Ion Bujoiu at the head of CYA meant a lot. Through the programmes and initiatives he proposed, he instilled in young people the respect and nobility of work, courage and confidence in their own strength.
Thus, artistic and cultural events were organised with the participation of great personalities in the field, among whom I would like to mention George Enescu, Dinu Lipatti, Constantin Silvestri, Mihail Jora, Egizio Massini, Liviu Rebreanu, Ionel Teodoreanu, Alice Voinescu, etc.
On 1 September 1939, a camp was organised in Timișul de Sus for more than 600 young Poles who had come to our country as refugees because of Hitler’s aggression. It should be noted that a prayer shrine was built in Timiș on the mountain for these young people. Today, this altar is being rebuilt as a symbol of friendship between these two Christian countries, Poland and Romania.
In a radio conference for young people, Ion Bujoiu said, with all the warmth of his generous soul: “Human society cannot do without any category of workers” (…); “if some of you are now ‘on the books’ and others ‘at work, in your trade’, know that you have the same honour for the country as you will earn for yourselves through your work. For all of you there are CYAs waiting to join you in your dreams, your needs and your desires”.
“Let the will be yours, and the means of achievement ours, so that you may become men of confidence, of formed and balanced character”.
On 17 June 1940, the so-called “Sunday of Orthodoxy”, on his initiative and with his support, 2000 young trainees from the Bucharest units went to confession and received Holy Communion in 16 churches consecrated by the BOR Patriarch Nicodemus, and 25 trainees and the CYA Committee, led by Mr Bujoiu, received Holy Communion in the Patriarchal Cathedral itself. On two evenings, a Christian meal was held at the “Mihai Viteazul” Guard Regiment, and cultural and artistic performances were organised at the headquarters and in the respective factories!
For the refugees from Transylvania and Bessarabia, hostels, canteens and employment agencies were also organised.
Despite his many worries, Eng. Ion E. Bujoiu kept a constant and humble faith in God and in his Church, building with his financial support a church, consecrated in 1943, in the village of Preoțești, Balotești commune, whose founders, as written in the “pisanie”, are ION and ANA BUJOIU.
From the above, it can be seen, albeit briefly, that the engineer Ion E. Bujoiu, for the period in which he worked, was a personality with advanced, modern ideas, placed at the service of the common good.
After the war, with the establishment of the People’s Republic, by force and fraud, terror became state policy.
In 1948, the terror was imposed mainly on the urban population, and the following year, with the beginning of the forced collectivisation of agriculture, it was extended to the world of the villages.
In March 1948, massive and continuous arrests began, mostly at night. The methods used by the torturers were identical to those of the N.K.V.D. or Hitler’s Gestapo, and often worse.
Many of those tortured succumbed to physical or psychological exhaustion and, in the course of the investigation, signed the statements, some of them quite absurd, which were forced upon them and which were necessary for the judicial bodies set up in the offices of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs. Most of the subsequent trials were highly publicised, with the central press publishing in full the prosecution’s indictment, the defendants’ statements in court, the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses – in most cases also in custody – and, of course, the verdict of the military tribunal. These reports were accompanied by the publication of editorials inciting hatred and violence, accompanied by so-called motions unanimously adopted at workers’ meetings, calling for severe punishment of the accused, even the death penalty.
The first “great trial” in this category was the one that made headlines in the press of the time: Trial of the “subversive organisation National Resistance Movement, led by Popp Alexandru and Bujoiu Ioan”. The most absurd aspect of this trial was the fact that its leaders brought together in a single group a Jew, Max Auschnitt, a former tycoon of the Romanian steel industry, several legionnaires, including Nicolae Pătrașcu, a former high official of Marshall Antonescu, namely Admiral Horia Măcellariu, and a group of industrialists with liberal or peasant sympathies, such as Alexandru Balș, Ioan Bujoiu and Alexandru Popp. The last two were considered in the trial to be the leaders of the lot, i.e. of the subversive group that was destined to overthrow, by force and with the logistical support of the Anglo-Americans, “the legal government of the democratic regime of the Romanian people”.
This is not the place to analyse the motives behind the trial, or the reasons why the governments of the time gave it an almost greater scope than the trial of the PNT leadership in 1947.
Suffice it to say that the government had to prove that the accused had betrayed state secrets and Romania’s national interests to the ‘Anglo-American imperialists’.
I would also like to point out some of the jargon used in the indictment itself:
“Excerpt, Bujoiu, Popp…. They are common robbers, bandits who, for years, have robbed thousands and thousands of working people and exploited them to the point of bloodshed” (Scânteia, 30 October 1948).
The trial took place between 27 October and 2 November 1948, and the full list of defendants was as follows Max Auschnitt, Alexandru Popp, Ioan Bujoiu, Gheorghe Manu, Horia Măcellariu, Nicolae Pătrașcu, Eugen Teodorescu, Nicolae Mărgineanu, Alexandru Balș, Dimitrie Gheorghiu, Gheorghe Bontilă, Nistor Chioreanu. The panel of judges was composed of Major General Alexandru Petrescu, Lieutenant Colonel Simion Stănescu, Colonel Colceag, Colonel Eremia Sârbu, Lieutenant Colonel Zănescu.
The indictment was drafted by the first military prosecutor Dumitru, and it was defended before the court by the prosecutor Colonel Constantin Stanciu, who finally asked for the maximum penalty for the accused, i.e. death, according to the legal classification made by the second representative of the prosecutor’s office, Lieutenant Colonel Călin Eftimie.
The conclusion I draw from the documents examined is that of a gross judicial frame-up.
During the trial, all the accused admitted the statements they had made during the investigation and responded like automatons to the interrogation conducted in court by General Magistrate Alexandru Petrescu (“Scânteia”, 29, 30, 31 October). They had become mental and physical wrecks. All of them were sentenced by the military tribunal of Bucharest on 2.XI.1948: Max Auschnitt (in absentia), Alexandru Popp, I. Bujoiu, George Manu, H. Măcellariu, Nicolae Pătrașcu, E. Teodorescu, hard labour for life, Nicolae Mărgineanu, 25 years hard labour, D. Gheorghiu and N. Chioreanu, 20 years hard labour each, and Alexandru Balș and Gh. Bontila, 15 years hard labour each. With the exception of Max Auschnitt, who was sentenced in absentia, almost all of them died in communist prisons.
Irrespective of the relationship between their real deeds and those staged in the investigation offices, they were martyrs for the suffering they underwent during interrogation and later in prison, because they had tried to oppose the communist totalitarianism and the Sovietisation of Romania.
As for Eng. Ion Bujoiu, he would be involved in a new trial for gold and currency hoarding, and on 11 July 1949 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
He would spend his years of imprisonment in Jilava and in the lead mines of Baia Sprie.
During his imprisonment, Ion E. Bujoiu remained a man of character and modesty. (…) After prisoner strikes, he was sent to Zarca-Aiud, from where he was subjected to a “particularly harsh” investigation, after which he was admitted to the prison hospital in Văcărești, where he died on 20 May 1956!
He was buried in the Jilava prisoners’ cemetery, in the same grave as the prisoners who died on the same day. In 1959, with the family’s permission, he was reburied in the family vault in Bellu cemetery.
What else is there to say?
In September 1948, the authorities banned the Christian Youth Association, confiscated the camp at Timișul de Sus and all its assets, after forcibly closing the 16 branches in the country and the headquarters in Bucharest. All papers and archives existing since 1919 were confiscated in the search for evidence of “American spies”, which led to persecution and a series of tortures and dismissals from the service of many members, unless they were sent, like many others, to camps or directly to … prisons.
(Aurel Savin – Memoria magazine no. 31/2000, pp. 56-62)