For me, the teacher Grigore Caraza is the Hero-Martyr, the type of teacher we are missing today
I can hardly contain my emotions as I briefly write a few lines in memory of a true patriot and hero who was martyred for his unshakeable faith in Orthodox Christianity and his love for his nation. I am from the Ardeal region, therefore a “papist”, as the Orthodox brothers call us, and between me and Grigorenco, as we used to call him, there was in some cases an inherent difference of form, not of substance. But I have never forgotten, and I cannot compare my 6 years with Grigorego’s 21 years in prison, plus 2 years of compulsory residence. The torture of starvation in Maria Theresa’s huts, dedicated to the Romanian serfs, was the creative application of Leninist policy: ‘the enemy must be eliminated’.
It is said that there were no more political prisoners after their release in 1964, but Grigore was still executed in Aiud… 7 years, from 1970. I can’t forget the shudder I felt when, entering the new cell, I read, in the deathly silence of 1950, what was written above the doors of two adjoining cells: Vultur Ion, 20 years hard labour; Vultur Vasile, 20 years hard labour. Ioan Seceanu describes it suggestively:
I’m writing you a book, Mother of Aiud.
From the dungeon with padlock and bars,
From the cold walls where no one can hear
How my dreams die in chains.
Grigore survived Aiud’s prison, endured punishment and isolation with stoicism, and even refused to leave Aiud for the great dungeon called Communist Freedom. I won’t insist on describing his rich patriotic activity and his life after emigrating to the Free World, I’ll go on to his brutal end, proof that the Stalinist system of elimination still applies today if you don’t keep your mouth shut.
Grigore was sitting on a bench in front of the block of flats in Piatra Neamț where he lived when a mentally deranged man came and dragged him down to the pavement, beat him with his fists and feet and said: “I’ve been looking for you”. The result, a fractured pelvis and an intestinal obstruction, led to his painful end a few months later, on 10 November 2014, immobilised in bed, selflessly cared for by his wife, Mrs. Rodica Caraza. In February 2015, when Grigore Caraza would have been 86 years old, Mrs. Rodica Caraza asked a journalist to write a few lines in a newspaper. The refusal was answered by someone else, who justified “that Grigore was a communist and not a simist”. “As if chains or handcuffs were easier for some or others. Or the porridge was better for some, or the isolation was brighter and warmer for some. It’s outrageous!” concludes Mrs. Rodica Caraza. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. Those who did not know the communist dungeons are undeservedly driven to them, like the victims of Christmas 1989. For me, teacher Grigore Caraza is the hero-martyr, the type of teacher we lack today, necessary to educate children, they alone are the hope of a nation in distress, at a dangerous crossroads. Grigore, you have forgiven your deranged assailant, and I wish a long life to the true moral author, the one in the shadows; today it is fashionable to get rid of an inconvenient babbler by means of a mentally ill person. Leave no trace. Forgive him, Lord, for not knowing what he was doing. In time he will understand that ideological hatred is no substitute for Christian love. Grigore, those of us who knew you won’t forget you. Like a tear of blood, a star has fallen…
(Aurel Vlad – Permanențe Magazine, Year XVIII, No. 2, February 2015)