“Fănică Tumurug had this warmth that brought us closer to him, gathering us like little chicks under the warm wing of their mother”

[Fănică Tumurug] was a teacher and physical education instructor at the “Miroslava” High School in Iași, where he was also appointed pre-military instructor and organiser of some rare beauty contests. He had a violin that he played for us, and we students listened ecstatically, without blinking an eye, as if we were carved out of stone…

Most of us, like him, were war orphans. The age difference between him and me was small, and as a war orphan I felt the need for a warmth of soul… and not only me, but all my colleagues.

Fănică Tumurug had that warmth that drew us closer to him, gathering us like little chicks under the warm wing of their mother.

We finished school and our paths parted. General Antonescu’s persecution followed, then the war, and we never heard from him again. At the end of 1965 I learned of his tragic death from a guard, a former guard of the Sălcia camp.

(Testimony of Bucur Brașoveanu – The Saddest and Happiest Testimonies from the Communist Darkness, edited by Gheorghe Andreica, Constanța, 2003, p. 65)