Gherla – Goiciu’s hell

This prison is located in the town of the same name, on the river Someșul Mic, south of Dej. This place of torture has given the town a bad name. No one in Romania has not heard of Gherla. Those who have had the misfortune to know the hell there see Goiciu all the time. Only the name is human, the rest is a beast, a wild animal that only knows how to hit, curse and hit again. His fame was known before he came here. The prison of Galați knew him to the full extense of his maddness. This brute, Goiciu Petre, was transferred here in 1952. Before him, Cseller, another sinister figure, remembered in connection with the tortures of Pitești during his re-education, has committed suicide, after the replacement of those guilty of crimes there with others just as diabolical.

Gherla was the prison through which frontiersmen and those without political colour passed. That is why we find here all kinds of intellectuals of repute, headed by the high priests of the Catholic Church of both rites and many priests, including Orthodox. The village teachers will also be among the people, since the number of peasants who passed through here was in the tens of thousands. Officers and lawyers also increased the number of Gherla martyrs. But the young were also on a par in numbers, and especially in attitude. We will find names of those who stood up to Goiciu and spared no effort in the struggle to improve the situation here.

In order to establish the regime of terror in the prison, the Ministry of the Interior gave Cseller a free hand to bring in collaborators. I will mention some of those who led the process of human destruction: Mihalcea, an animal whom Goiciu made his son-in-law.

Lieutenant Istrate, Tudoran, Domocoș, who cannot be considered part of the human species, Andraș, Ardeleanu, Avădanei, Bărbosu Ion, the doctor of administration, who was apparently also executed by the communists, Bodea, Bota, Cârciu, Chioreanu, Deneș, Dimiș, Gheorghiu, Mihăilescu, Mesaroș, Pop 1 and Pop 2, Potcoavă, Sabo, Șomlea, Todea Vomir, Sebestany. ..

A better grade, maybe even a pass, could be achieved by: Guști, Petrică Stan, Zahanu…

In an attempt to intimidate the prisoners and spread terror, the communist state leadership and the Ministry of the Interior decided to send the students re-educated in Pitești to other extermination sites: Aiud, Ocnele Mari, Peninsula, Târgu Ocna and Gherla.

Here, Colonel Cseller brought Țurcanu Eugen, to whom he gave the prison as a reception for the beginning of the re-education. Among those who arrived were Bucoveanu Codin (Polytechnic Bucharest), Calciu Gheorghe-Dumitreasa (Medicine), Cerbu Ion, Crăciunescu Gr, Diaca Dan (Medicine), Dumitrescu Dan (Iași), Glodeanu, Grama (three brothers), Henteș, Ionescu Eugen, Juberian Constantin, Leonida Titus, Levinschi Mihai, Lucinescu Dan, Mărtiniș, Mandinescu Sergiu, Munteanu Eugen, Pop Alexandru, Popescul. ., Pușcașu Ion, Rec Ludovic, Șerbănescu Paul (student), Sobolevschi, Stoian (student), Teodoru, Tomița Octavian, Voinea Nicolae Octavian.

This re-education campaign started in room 99 of the hospital and is still expanding. Meanwhile, in the extermination camp on the peninsula, Dumitrache and Doctor Simionescu were killed and others maimed by the team led by Bogdănescu Ion, a medical student from Pitești. From there we managed to send some data to Turkey about these heinous crimes. Radio Ankara broadcast the information received. Of course, this also contributed to the confusion in the Ministry of the Interior. On 14 November 1951, four months after the murder of Dr. Simionescu, the demolitions in Gherla stopped, and about 10 days later a group of 10 thugs, led by Țurcanu Eugen, left in chains. At about the same time, the student torture brigades in the extermination camp – PENINSULA – were disbanded, and shortly afterwards more than ten executioners also left in chains.

In Gherla, Ion Fluieraș was killed by Henteș and Rek Ludovic. Aurelian Pana is the second person killed by Dan Diaca and Rek Ludovic. Since Rek Ludovic is the common factor in both murders, I will try to introduce him in a few words, according to the information I have gathered. He was a member of the Party before the arrival of the Russian troops, and after 1944 he worked with Gheorghiu-Dej, Chivu Stoica, Gheorghe Apostol and other executioners of the Romanian nation. A misunderstanding between them, in which Rek Ludovic was suspected of playing on several sides, led to his arrest. The accusation was soon found: during the so-called illegality, he had given information to the Securitate in Galați about some suspected communists who were spying for Russia. This sinister figure would remain in prison until 1964, and we would meet him during the second re-education, when he would play a nefarious role together with Sorin Popa and other scoundrels.

In March 1952, the so-called re-education through labour was introduced in Gherla and the prisoners with lesser sentences were taken out under the direction of a certain Benedek, a civil foreman who, together with his son, terrorised the people in the workshops. Hatmanu, a former train driver from Vaslui County, became a kind of boss and tool of the administration, beating and swearing worse than the guards. In the smithy, under Hatmanu’s blows and shouts, the inmates were beaten with the sledgehammer at a hellish pace until they collapsed in exhaustion.

In the autumn of 1952, Petre Goiciu took over as commander. In October of the same year, another group of torturers left the camp, also in chains. Among them were Voinea Octavian and Pop Alexandru, two violent torturers. The Ministry of the Interior launched an investigation into the events in Pitești, trying to exonerate itself and blame the students, who had acted on their own initiative. Some were executed, others were given long prison sentences.

In July 1953, more than 2,000 prisoners arrived in Gherla from the “Death Canal”, where work had been stopped.

On 20 February 1954, Goiciu introduced total solitary confinement and torture took on insane forms. I will recount some aspects of this. At that time, the country was experiencing one of its worst winters. In the prisons, the effects were felt even more because of the lack of food and the cold. For imaginary reasons, the guards punished with beatings and solitary confinement. In those days, solitary confinement was tantamount to a death sentence. Some were found to have died in solitary confinement. Many contracted TB. Gherla’s organised crime industry was in full swing and Goiciu was doing his duty as executioner.

According to a person with links to the Gherla prison administration, more than 30,000 political prisoners passed through Gherla by the end of 1954.

We have kept a tiny fraction of them:

Bălănescu Nicolae, teacher from Craiova, Balaș Emil; Blaga Ion, Buta Vasile; Buzdugan Alexandru; Comăndășescu Mucenic – from Arsenescu’s partisans; Cinciu, priest from Craiova; Ciuceanu Radu, (student from Craiova); Coconeți Victor, (from Bucharest); Coșereanu Alexandru; Cotruț Tudor, from Teleorman; Crișan Ianoș (from the commune Mirișu Mare, Satu Mare County); Diaca Cornel (student from Iași); Desideriu Ion (lawyer); Drăgănescu Vlad, student, Flueraș Ion, socialist leader, secretary of the Great National Assembly of Alba on 1 December 1918, killed by the re-educated students. Fortunescu D.C., teacher from Craiova; Hodorog Vasile, peasant from the commune Ovidiu jud. Constanța, former liberal mayor; Iacobescu C., student; Iovănescu Paul, student from Craiova; Man Leon, priest from Caianul Mic jud. Bistrița Năsăud, died in prison in March. 1953; Micle Alexandru, doctor of law, from Satu Mare; Nuțu Nicolae; Pană Aurelian, former minister, killed by re-educated students; Păiș Mihai, officer; Rebreanu Aurelian; Roncea Viorel; Socaciu, father and son, peasants, barbarically tortured; Sereanu Nae from Balș; Stănescu S. Tătaru Vasile, a priest from Bistrița Năsăud, spent more than five years in prison after being imprisoned by the Hungarians in Seghedin as a young theologian. Timaru Mihai, motorised officer, arrested in a group with Jenică Arnăutu, with the Resistance Organisation of the Ceahlăului Mountains. In 1954 he was tormented by the isolation made in extermination conditions; Tudor Dumitru, student from Craiova; Tudorache Tudose, from Craiova; Vasilache; Vlad Mircea; Bobescu Traian; Barbu Ion, from Felmer-Făgăraș Comm.

(Cicerone Ionițoiu – graves without crosses. Contributions to the Chronicle of the Romanian Resistance to the Dictatorship. Volume II)