Father Filaret Gămălău – sentenced to death for the “guilt” of saving a soldier’s life

I discovered in my archive an old video from 1992, an interview with Father Filaret Gămălău, from Moșuni, Mureș County, who was Nichifor Crainic’s cellmate for four years in Aiud Prison in the 1950s. Filaret Gămălău was also the “external memory” of Nichifor Crainic, a religious poet, teacher and Minister of National Propaganda in the Gigurtu and Antonescu governments.

From 1947 to 1962, Nichifor Crainic was imprisoned (he was taken from Cerghid, where he was staying with Father Sămărghițan!) and spent most of his time in Aiud. During the time they shared a cell, Nichifor Crainic dictated the poems he had written to Father Filaret Gămălău, who had been sentenced to death and then commuted to 25 years’ imprisonment.

His fellow prisoners in the Aiud cell in 1950 were General Pantazi, Admiral Măcelaru, General Topor, Colonel Dumitrescu Anton, General Trestioreanu, Radu Mironovici, Nichifor Crainic and Father Filaret Gămălău. The story of the “Memorandum” began one December night: “Nichifor Crainic had a dream on Christmas night and wrote a poem. He woke me up and told me: Filaret, I had a dream and as a result of the dream I wrote a poem! What do you think, could you memorise it?” “Let’s try!” – replied the priest. (And Nichifor Crainic dictated to him the poem “Prayer for Peace” – n.m.). I repeated it three or four times and then went to bed. The next day Nichifor Crainic asked me: “Well, Filaret, I told you something last night, do you remember anything else I told you?” And Father Filaret Gămălău recited his poem. From then on, the poet dictated dozens of texts, many of which Father Gămălău remembered. I listened to him recite them with devotion and joy. In all the hell of prison, Nichifor Crainic’s poetry was “a prophecy”, as Father Arsenie Papacioc, the great confessor of the Monastery of Mary in Techirghiol, would say.

– Father Gămălău, you served for more than twenty years in the village of Moșuni, Mureș County. But before you arrived here, you went through a very difficult experience. In 1949 you were sentenced to death. What were the charges?

– First of all I was accused of harbouring German officers who were not allowed to cross the border. I walked along the Tisza. There were fences everywhere. I even saw the bodies of people who had been shot on the banks of the Tisza. I couldn’t cross the German officers in such conditions.

– Were you at the front?

– I was. Since 1941. I went to the telegraph school in Roman. When the war started, I went to the front. I went all the way to the Don. There were many prisoners from our army. Some of us managed to escape from the encirclement. In Odessa they put us together with another unit. There were about fifteen of us Dorobants, and they supplemented us with the 68th Infantry Fortification Regiment, which was in Kahul at the time.

Some German officers were caught in our country after the war took a different course and we switched to the Soviets. They stayed behind the front and, of course, tried to save themselves. They took off their officer’s clothes and with the clothes of some peasants they managed to reach me in Câmpulung Moldovenesc.

– What year did this happen?

– In 1944. How could I not receive them? I said: these are the tragedies of war. I didn’t go to Russia to die alone. Nor did they come from their own country to die in a foreign country. And I took them in. One of them stayed with me for three years and seven months. I disguised him as a priest. I had a cousin who was a notary at the town hall and I made him a false identity card. I also made other false papers. I turned Johann Meilinger into Teoctist Vrânceanu.

-Did you teach him Romanian?

– He learned Romanian very quickly. Within a year he had learned it so well that you couldn’t tell he was a foreigner. I also taught him how to present himself to the Church. But what happened? After three years and seven months, an inspector came to the monastery. His name was Rafael Dominte. He was a priest. I was out of town, and one Saturday evening the inspector said to him, “Come, Father, let’s have vespers!” Well, poor Johann, “He had a cassock and a beard, but he didn’t know the service.” Then, thinking the inspector would understand, he said: “Most Reverend Father Inspector, I am not a priest, I am a German officer staying here with Father Filaret!” Then the latter began to shout at him to leave before him. “Johann replied, “Well, how can I leave before Father Filaret comes? I wasn’t even at home when he began to make a fuss at me for having the German in my house. I said to him, “Father Inspector, these are the tragedies of war…”. As a priest I thought I was saving people!” He replied, “What, are you lecturing me? Get out of here at once!” I may have made a mistake then. I told him that if he didn’t like it, his Holiness should get out! He got into his car and went straight to Emil Bodnăraș. I should tell you that he went to school with Emil Bodnăraș. They were on a first-name basis. He betrayed me. His brother Emil Bodnăraș came and arrested me. He came with a Soviet adviser. They took me and the German and took us to Suceava. From Suceava, with three planes, IAKs, those with double command, they put each of us on a plane and took us to Bucharest, to the Securitate, to Plevnei. Many people were arrested there. We were among those considered enemies of the people. We stayed there for several months. Then a prosecutor came and took us in for questioning. He said: “Father, tell me what you want. I admire your deed, you have done a Christian deed, but the Soviet adviser will take you to Russia! Do you speak Russian?” “I know it as I do Romanian!” – I said. “You must speak only with an interpreter!” And so I did, until one day the policeman, the colonel, said to a lieutenant major: “Kill this dog if he doesn’t say anything! At least let him say that he wrote and received a letter from Germany, that’s all! After the colonel left, the lieutenant major beat me. Until then he had taken me out every night and given me my share of beatings. I had wounds on my legs, boot-kicks from the investigation, for about fifteen years! He had a couple of broomsticks, a couple of bats, and he started hitting me wherever he could. I thought, if they’re going to kill me, at least tell them I speak Russian. So I started talking to him in his language. Suddenly I disarmed him. He threw the bat out of his hand. He told me to sit down. And I started to tell him the whole drama, how it was. At lunchtime he brought me a bowl of food. In the evening, when the policeman came in, he swore at him. Then he asked, “Didn’t you kill that dog?” “He speaks Russian like us!” he replied. Then he asked me: “Do you speak Russian?” “Of course I do!” “Why didn’t you speak it before?” “I wanted to see how honest you were!” We weren’t allowed to call them gentlemen or comrades. We talked to you and you. I even talked to him for a few hours. I explained everything to him. Then they took me to my cell. For four months nobody asked me anything and they didn’t take me out for interrogation. After four months (there were several Romanians there, in Deveras, in Odessa, most of them officers, convicted as war criminals) they took us out and the same policeman told us that the Party had seen fit to send us back to the country.

– Did you know at the time that you were facing the death penalty?

– No, I didn’t. They sent us to the countryside and the military court in Iași sentenced us to death. Then they put chains on my legs, you know, with rivets, thick chains. And I spent five months in chains. Because I was stubborn and didn’t want to sign the petition to have my sentence commuted. I said: “You’ll kill me anyway!” The prosecutor also told me: “Don’t be so stubborn, sign it!” And I signed! And then, after five months in chains, he came to me and said: “You see, you didn’t want to sign and I reduced your sentence to 25 years in prison!”

I would like to point out that in the group I was in at the time, there were 84 people sentenced to death, 11 of whom were sentenced to death, but only two of them were executed. A Groșaru and a Cușgă, former camp commandants somewhere.

– Do you remember any important names from this group of 84?

– I don’t remember. Some doctors and some soldiers who had been arrested for war crimes. Then they put me in because they couldn’t prove I was a spy, because I was a conspirator against the state.

After they had commuted my sentence, they took me to cut my chains. I knew that those who had their chains cut in the evening were taken away and executed. Those who had their chains cut in the morning had their sentences commuted.

Then I went through Jilava and ended up in Aiud, where I spent more time in the hole because I had a long sentence. There were only those with 25 years or life sentences.

– In what year did you arrive in Aiud?

– Around ’50. And I was lucky enough to work in the factory, in mechanics. A mechanical engineer, a former officer, a former captain, took me in and taught me mechanics. Hello. After that I did a lot of work in mechanics.

– Who were you with in the cell?

– In the cell I was with General Pantazi, Admiral Măcelaru, General Topor, Radu Mironovici. I was also with Professor Nichifor Crainic. I also sat with Colonel Dumitrescu Anton, with General Trestioreanu.

– Did you know Nichifor Crainic before or did you meet him for the first time in Aiud?

– No. I met him when he was Minister of Propaganda under Antonescu. I served with the military priest and he was a student of Professor Crainic. I went with him to Nichifor Crainic’s house once. And then the priest sent me to him with some gifts. That’s how I met him. I ended up living with him in his cell – there were four of us in the room. There were eight in the cell. They had bunk beds. It was under these circumstances that I came to memorise some of his poems that I had written in prison.

– How did Nichifor Crainic come to draw on your memory?

– I had a good memory at the time. Nichifor Crainic had a dream on Christmas night and wrote a poem. He woke me up and said: “Filaret, I had a dream and as a result of the dream I wrote a poem! What do you think, could you memorise it?” “Let’s try!” – I replied.

And he started reciting the poem. I repeated it three or four times and then went to sleep. The next day he asked me, “Well, Filaret, I told you something last night, do you remember anything else I told you?” And I began to recite the poem. (The published version is very different from the prison version, which suggests that, as with all the poems here, we are dealing with an unpublished text. 

After I had recited the poem to him, he said: “Oh, Filaret, you have a wonderful memory. How come I didn’t have you as a student? “Well, you will now, Professor!” After that he began to tell me other poems. Some of them I had forgotten, and many had been changed, even the titles they had.

– The titles he gave in Aiud as opposed to the published versions?

– Compared to how they appeared in the volumes that came out later, because I bought them as soon as I came across them.

– Did you find any of the poems you learned by heart in prison in these volumes?

– Sure, they’re published, but they’re not quite like that. For example, Ancestral Song was first called 23 August. Then it was called The Barbarian Raid. Finally, it appeared in the book under the title Ancestral Song. 

– How many of Nichifor Crainic’s poems did you learn by heart in prison?

– I memorised a lot, I can’t remember how many.

– How many of them do you remember, decades later?

– Quite a few, if I try to remember. If you had asked me 15-20 years ago, I would have told you all the ones I remembered. 

– What kind of man was Nichifor Crainic?

– To put it simply, he was not very tall. He was a pleasant man, but not for everyone, because many criticised him.

– Even in prison?

– Even in prison. Why? In order to compromise him, they would often call him into the graft, where they would serve him coffee and who knows what else. And then they’d call one by one and say: “Look, he’s an informer!” I mean an informer, but, you know, in prison they used to call them snitches, who would inform on one or the other for things they did or talked about. When he talked, he talked great. Wonderful! As tired as I was, because I was working in the factory, when he started talking he kept me awake.

– What did he talk about in general?

– Theology.

He also worked in the factory. I did his work there. Because if he didn’t do his work, they wouldn’t feed him. I was with him for four years. If you like, I’ll tell you about another of his poems.

– I’m listening.

– The Night of the Resurrection. It’s a story that happened once upon a time in Muscel, on a Bratien estate. A young man armed himself with an axe to rob their building, where they had their manor house, to strike a blow because he thought they had gold and money. And he couldn’t have picked a better time than Easter Eve.

– How did you manage to memorise the longer poems?

– I would write them on the sole of my boot or on the wall in the corridor when the guard looked away, memorise them and then scrape the wall. If he found them written down, we’d be punished, put in solitary confinement. They put us in a dark room with no light. Two days they didn’t give us any food, and one day they did. I did about 21 days of “black”.

– When did Nichifor Crainic usually dictate your poems?

– Mostly at night. At night, when it was quiet, he would think and then wake me up: “Come on, Filaret, I want to tell you something else!” And he’d tell me what I could remember, what I couldn’t write on the soles of my boots or on the wall, and I’d remember it later.

– Were you the only one he dictated poems to?

– As far as I know, yes. I don’t know of anyone else I dictated poems to, at least during those four years.

In our cell, he only dictated to me. General Trestioreanu was with us. He used to get angry with him and say: “Let the man sleep”. But I liked him telling me poems, I was young then and I liked listening to him. He was wonderful. He was charming.

– Did he talk to you before about his life, about politics?

– He didn’t talk much about his life, because there was always the danger that if anyone heard, if they found out about things from the past, about his travels in this country, in that place, the informers would turn him in and he would be investigated immediately.

– How did Nichifor Crainic cope with his imprisonment?

– Very hard. He was starving. He was hungry all the time. I had dried up like a bedbug and I was weak.

– Could he work?

– They’d put him to light work, not hard, complicated work. But even that couldn’t do him much good, poor thing. He was very weak, too weak.

– Didn’t you also feel the urge to write poetry, after you had done that memory exercise with Nichifor Crainic’s poems?

– I tried it myself. But I failed miserably.

– Did you write in prison or after your release?

– Afterwards. I’d like to tell you about a poem I’ve written here since I’ve been in Moșuni, dedicated to my wife and entitled Separation. 

– Father Filaret Gămălău, are there big differences between the versions of the poems that Nichifor Crainic dictated to you in prison and the versions published in books after 1990?

– There are several. For example, the poem You. In the book it is called Laudă. I know it from the poet Nichifor Crainic.

– When did the ordeal of your sentence end?

– In 1964. Nichifor Crainic went before that. War criminals were also released. I was released with the decree of 1964. But I was as afraid of the former totalitarian regime, of the Securitate, as I had been in prison.

-Father Filaret, after being sentenced to death, would you give a definition of death?

– I could. There is physical death and there is spiritual death. In the places where I was, the desire to be, to live, the spiritual, the faith that I had, in the power and the goodness of God, I never lost it, all the time that I was in prison. I may have had my weaknesses, my failures, when I thought – there was an epidemic of suicides – why should I live to please these savages? I thought that one morning, when they were taking us to the factory, I’d jump between the stairs on the fourth floor and end it all. At night I had a dream, like watching a film on television. I dreamt that I was in cell 297, that I had been there for a long time, and that the door opened and a man of rare beauty came in, with a white shirt, shiny, down to the floor, and I saw the stigmata – beard in a fork, chestnut, rich, wavy hair running down his back, I saw the stigmata and I realised it was Christ the Saviour. I jumped out of bed. It was only a dream. And he asked me: “What are you going to do? Have you forgotten that you were a servant at My altar? “And I said, “Lord, if you’ve given me a heavy burden to carry, give me strength! ” And he said, “You shall have it!”.

When I woke up the next day, I thought I was the strongest man in the world. I defied all the torturers that were there. And I did another five years after that, but they weren’t as hard as the first ten.

– Did you see Aiud, Aiud prison, again after you were released?

– I only saw it again from the train, from the car.

– Would you have had the strength to go back to the cell where you were imprisoned?

– I don’t know, I’m afraid of a heart attack.

– If you were to meet Nichifor Crainic now, what would you say to him?

– I don’t know. I would have a lot to tell him about what happened after he left. He lived another ten years after his liberation. He was released in 1962 and died in 1972.

– Thank you also for your attention and your kindness and your effort to show something of the past of our lives, which has been so tormented, and to make it known to our descendants.

(Interview by Nicolae Băciuț, published under the title “Nichifor – Poetry of detention, detention of poetry” in the literary supplement of “Mesagerului de Bistrița” of April 2006, p. 3)