Father Sinesie Ioja – “He had a gentle voice with much goodness in it”

One day, in the middle of the night, the door to our room opens noisily and tells us to get our bags and go outside. Now I had to say goodbye to my children. Even though I had prepared them for this, it was still very difficult to say goodbye.

One by one, as we were called after the table, we were led to the place where prisoners got bounded in chains. Not everyone was chained. Only those who were considered more dangerous and the group leaders. I was chained together with Father Ioja Sinezei, from the community of Ranusa, Arad county. He was a kind and good man, with much love for people and much faith in God. We are both in heavy chains. The chains were thick and wide, cold as winter. It was the end of January 1950. Father Joachim Syene’s left leg was bound. We had to be very careful and walk together, otherwise we would trip or pull each other.

That’s how we spent our days, bound with handcuffs and heavy chains. That’s how we slept, that’s how we went to the toilet together. We looked at each other with resignation and hope that one day we would escape. Father Sinesie’s kind eyes encouraged me. He was older than me. He was over 40. In handcuffs and heavy chains I walked in time to the heavy dungeon of Aiud, the mad Aiud of Radu Gyr’s curse.

There were 30 of us. On the way to the cart there was a symphony of heavy chains. And now I keep the clatter of their killing metal in my soul. We lived through the days of the hard climb to death, the hard climb to the dawn of another light, the light of freedom for which we now pay dearly. Others paid with their lives. Once in the van, we climbed up with chains on our legs. Pushed and cursed by the guards, we climbed up, the skin taken off our feet. The shackles, heavy as they were, gnawed through our thin stockings. With great difficulty we got into the car. The van was waiting for us at the station. It was a specially built prison van, with heavy metal doors and solid barred windows. At the station it was another ordeal for us as we had to struggle to get out and into the van. We were helped by the swearing and punching of the guards. From now on we were off into the unknown.

No one told us a word about the destination of the journey. It was their secret. It was part of their torture. With Father Sinesie beside me, in the chair, in the wagon, we both carry our bitterness.

She had a soft voice with a lot of kindness in it. It would raise your eyebrows and you’d forget your troubles. He had the gift of the priesthood. After a day and a night on the Iron Road, we came to a station. It was Aiud. From the station we got into a van. We’d learned our chains. Sometimes we even had fun. Once in Aiud, a group of guards led us into a small courtyard. They kept calling us “bandits, bandits”.

One by one we were led to a stump where a common law prisoner, a blacksmith by trade, with a chisel and hammer in his hand, cut the chains from our legs. As each chain fell, there was a sigh of relief. From here, in a column of two, we entered a section with many larger rooms. This was the second section at Aiud.

Here we are in the infamous Aiud, our place of doom for many years.

***

Father Sinesie Ioja died of tuberculosis in Târgu-Ocna, after many years of imprisonment.[1]

(Anastasie Berzescu – Tears and Blood. Armed anticommunist resistance in the Banat mountains, Timișoara, Marineasa Publishing House, 1999, p. 125-126)

[1] According to the research conducted by historian Adrian Nicolae Pectu, Father Sinesie Ioja passed away on 2/3 August 1958, at Văcărești penitentiary. The cause, according to the death certificate, was “severe cranioencephalic contusion, basic fracture”. (ACNSAS, Criminal fonds, file 689, vol. 2, f. 78, 80, 81)