From the hell of Pitești to the American exile – The Golgotha of an apostle
I have written in the pages of this book that I have known exceptional people, true martyrs of the Romanian nation or of an angelic nobility, around whom I have felt how the grace of God that descended upon them was also reflected in the nature of those around them. During the communist persecution, the presence of such people in the prisons of Romania concentrated thousands of spiritual values, as I said before, the whole cream of the Romanian nation.
Some were killed by Machiavellian methods, others resisted without putting any price on their own lives, except perhaps that of sacrifice before God. […]
In those troubled times, mass extermination had become a kind of second nature of the prisons, or a kind of terminus for any political prisoner. With the transfer of prisoners from one prison to another, information also circulated, and so it was that an extraordinary fact became known in many circles of political doom. In the four cells of Casimca Jilavei, specially built in the premises of Fort 13, 16 prisoners considered to be particularly dangerous were to be exterminated. Among them was Costache Oprișan, a survivor of Pitești, who waited for his end to come: starving, suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis and without medication. A young man from the same cell – a third-year medical student at the time of his arrest – saw him in the most terrible agony and took his canteen and went to a corner of the room, unseen by the guard who was always “spying”. The young student, Gheorghe Calciu, used a sharpened aglet to open a vein in his hand and a certain amount of blood flowed out. After stopping the bleeding, he waited a few minutes for the blood to settle and, with the last of his strength, brought it to the dying man’s mouth. Sadly, it was in these moments that Costache Oprișan passed on to a better world…
I have known the priest Calciu for a long time since that event, when I was in Aiud, in a very troubled time, with heavy clouds over our poor heads and the whole dungeon. When he was asked to take part in the “cultural-artistic activity”, the student Calciu replied frankly that he already knew what re-education was from Pitești and refused any further discussion on the subject.
*
At the first Pitești trial, held on 10 November 1954, the student Gheorghe Calciu appeared like lightning in the defendant’s box and firmly asserted that re-education was carried out by General Drăghici, Nicolschi and that Pantiușa (Pintilie – conspiratorial name), 100% Russian, was not a mere devil or a legion, but represented the whole of hell with all its depths and darkness. The court and the secretaries in the courtroom were astonished by his outspoken attitude, which naturally involved a number of risks that were easily suspected at the time, so the president adjourned the hearing until the next day. For a whole night the young man was beaten for his intervention, and the next day he was asked to retract what he had said. But the next day, from the same box, the young man shouted at the panel, louder and with a more confident voice, as if he were in command of a military unit:
– Those who ordered the re-education and directed it from the shadows are the ones I named yesterday: Drăghici, Nicolschi and Pantiușa. From this moment on, I won’t answer anything until these three criminals are standing next to me in the box!
The astonishment was so great, and the effect so powerful, that it was as if a hurricane had shaken the foundations of the building that was about to collapse. Under these circumstances, the hearing continued on the third day, but the Pitești trial was turned upside down and took a completely different turn. It was to this man that we owe the salvation of many of his fellow prisoners, the exposure of a cruel truth and the beginning of a story that, like it or not, should have been told as it happened.
The reaction of the student Gheorghe Calciu was like a bombshell and remained a protest against the diabolically woven scenarios against anti-communist fighters.
*
I was out of the country, in exile in the USA. A former medical student, now a theology professor and priest, Calciu had made up his mind to defend the Romanian Orthodox Church at all costs, whatever the consequences. After the vile Ceaușescu regime began demolishing churches, the first of which was the church of Ena, he preached the famous “Seven Words” to young people, especially theology students. These were in fact seven fiery sermons delivered outside the gates of the kingdom, a cry of alarm against the unruliness of the communist system. There were so many people that not only were there no seats in the church or in the courtyard, but people were listening from the streets, climbing fences, cars and trees.
As a result of this audacity, the priest Gheorghe Calciu was arrested and will serve his sentence in one of the dungeons now dedicated to political prisoners in Romania.
*
I was in New York, and through the press, through the priest of the Romanian Church, I called on Romanians to come to the demonstrations we were going to hold in front of the Romanian Consulate General. We multiplied photos of Father Calciu and put them on placards. For months, years, until Father Calciu was released, we continued the demonstrations, we spoke on Free Europe and Vocea America, we published articles in the exile press, we announced in church and we shouted from the windows of the Romanian Consulate building in New York until we were hoarse, until our voices could no longer help us.
In the end, Father Calciu was released – and I would like to believe that the demonstrations we held, which became known throughout the world, had the desired effect.
After his release, Father Calciu was forced to live in his personal residence in Bucharest until he was allowed to leave the country, which took him to the United States.
*
It was 9 August 1985. At Kennedy Airport in New York, many Romanians in exile were waiting for Father Calciu, and since he was a hunted person, hated by the Communists, the police decided to give him protection. A strong guard of policemen, every two metres, stood in front of those waiting for him. When Father Calciu finally emerged from the customs post, there was a cry from the crowd:
– Father is coming!
The policemen, turning their heads, noticed a little too late that a citizen had broken through the cordon and was running towards the priest. Two of them ran to catch the fugitive, but gave up the next moment because he had already reached Father Calciu, and the two of them remained in each other’s arms for some time.
– Who are you? was the newcomer’s question.
– I am Grigore Caraza. Welcome, Father!
It has been more than 33 years since we last saw each other.
– Do you remember, Father, Aiud 1952? And now it’s 1985, in New York!
Like in a film, I think Father’s memories of those days of persecution came back to him, his eyelashes reddened and his eyes searching through the heavy pall of past selfish actions…
*
At the airport, he was welcomed by three priests on behalf of Bishop Nathanael Pop, who presented him with a set of ecclesiastical vestments, a consecrated cross and the epitrachelion, which signified the lifting of all the restrictions to which he had been subjected by the Romanian Church leadership, namely his defrocking.
Equally impressive was the meeting with Father Roman Braga, also a former student of Pitesti, both of whom had experienced the hell of the communist dungeons. The two men, who did not recognise each other, then embraced for a long time, a moment that was captured by the press and television, and commented on by the American media.
*
In the years that followed, Father Calciu was present at all the protests in the United States and Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, England, etc.), fighting for the same just cause: respect for the rights of Romanians. I remember that in Vienna, after the evening television broadcast, Father Calciu was approached on the street the next day by a lady who asked him in German: “Aren’t you, Your Holiness, the priest who was on television last night?”.
In Munich, at Radio Free Europe, the priest spoke several times and once, at my request, he gave a speech for my brother Gheorghe Caraza. On the American continent, he was present between the Atlantic and the Pacific, between Mexico and Canada and, crossing the border, in Hamilton – in the Romanian field, in Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, etc. Wherever he went, Father Calciu was a constant presence, and his firm stance was strongly felt in communist Romania, especially by the Security Service and by the man who unfortunately ruled Romania during those years, Nicolae Ceaușescu.
In the course of our history, few Romanians have fought as hard and as courageously for the Romanian nation as the priest Calciu, which is why he also made many enemies, but their bite remained without effect. By the way, I would like to recall the obstinacy and wickedness of a certain Aurel, who wanted nothing more than to make waves in favour of his enemies. I was the one who was in a position to defend Father Calciu, and because the wickedness of the people and the number of voters prevailed at the time, I resigned as a protest as vice-president for the USA of the Geneva-based Association of Former Political Prisoners, of which the priest was a member, and I also gave up my founding membership.
Father Calciu is the one who founded Romfest, he is the one who took part in the demonstrations that took place all over the USA, from New York to Washington and Los Angeles, then in Europe, in Paris. It was he who breathed new life into various activities, both on the ground and in the press, and who, during the Romanian Revolution of December 1989, went to the Romanian Embassy in Washington and asked the ambassador to hand over the archives and documents to that institution. It was also Father Calciu who, in Los Angeles, after a demonstration organised by Nicolae Popa, asked Romanians to form groups of volunteers to go to Bucharest to fight against the Security Service, which was shooting at the revolutionaries. Among those who volunteered to go to Romania, apart from Father Calciu and Nicolae Popa, were myself, Andrei Calciu and others.
I had decided to return, and in a conversation before I left, Father Calciu said to me:
– If you decide to stay, come to Washington and, while I am still alive, I will serve as a priest and you, as a cantor, will give me an answer in the pew. And then, dear Gregory, when we die, we’ll bury each other…
*
When I returned home, I rejoiced and lived with every blade of Romanian grass that came my way, I breathed insatiably with every pore of my body the air I had missed for so long, and I walked timidly on the earth stained with the blood of so many fighters for the justice of the nation. I thought that my longing would forever be confined to this place, my homeland, but it is still running wild around a man I loved and cherished so much, Father Calciu.
In a recent telephone conversation he told me that he too had decided to return home…
When he comes, perhaps the grass, the water, the dirt and the hearing will be brightened by the warm, shaggy smile of my good friend Ghiță Calciu…
(Grigore Caraza, Aiud însângerat, edited by Adrian Alui Gheorghe, 5th edition, Tipo Moldova Publishing House, Iași, 2013, pp. 252-257)