“Go and die in your faith, you bandit!”

Another seriously ill student, Eduard Masichievici, to whom the family had sent special medicine (streptomycin), was summoned by Sleam, who made their release conditional on politically motivated information. If he accepted, he would receive the life-saving package immediately. Masichievici indignantly refused[1].

– Then go and die in your faith, you bandit!… and Masichevici returned and died in his faith.

Perhaps some would be inclined to say that he could have formally accepted the role of informer and, when he was restored to health, broken his promise. With bandits, you behave like a bandit and there’s no need for scruples. But Masichevici was so honest in spirit that he did not even formally accept this villainy; he knew that once he had gone down this road, he could not go back; the Communists took cruel revenge on those who did not keep their promise.

(Aristide Lefa – Fericiți cei ce plâng, Eminescu Publishing House, Bucharest, 1998, pp. 98-99)

Another account of the confession of the pupil, the student Martyr, is given by the former political prisoner and Christian victim Aurelian Guță: “It was blackmail, blackmail that the political officer used. He would call them to his office – individually, of course – and explain the situation and the possibility of receiving some things from home in exchange for the treasonous acts and information they gave. There was also a special case: there was a student, Masichievici called him, he was told that if he wanted to save himself he should accept this position and he would receive medicine from home. He even got a packet of streptomycin. He said to him, “Here’s streptomycin: do you want it…?” – No, I won’t take it under these conditions,” the boy replied. And then the officer replied sadistically: “Then go and die there, in your faith”. (Testimony of Aurelian Guță in Father Voicescu, a Confessor of the City, edited by Ioana Iancovinescu, Bizantine Publishing House, Bucharest, 2002, pp. 117-118)