Helping partisans in the mountains and the arrest

Uncle Gheorghe Șuța was shot in 1947. In ’47 he started the feud to scare the peasants. His son, Mr. Iancu, the great captain that Mr. Neluț died in the Trata Mountains… Mr. Tomiță was in the Royal Guard. He was in the army, that is, he was employed there. He went to this school. Well, ma’am, politics threw him out. He didn’t leave him at home either, he had land, he worked. He didn’t let him. He started looking for him. Colonel Arsenescu came from Câmpulung, brought by Mr. Tomiță’s father-in-law, and brought him here, to his house. He brought him here.

When he saw that they were looking for him and following him, he left. He went to the mountains. He didn’t want to leave them there either! So in ’49 they started to go up the mountain. There was Arnăuțoiu brothers, with Arsenescu three, with Chircă four, then Chircă’s boys joined, and Ticu Jubleanu with his wife Mărioara and his son. He was the last one left and shot himself in the house, where they caught them. That’s how it was, I’m not lying. 

They took turns leaving. It was one after the other, one after the other. We helped them. We didn’t leave until they took us away and put us in prison. A gypsy. It was bad, ma’am. Look, I’ve got a bullet hole in the door, you can see it, a bullet hole. And they’re mad at me for talking. Well, I would shout, ma’am. There’s so much to say… But I’m afraid, I’m not 38 years old anymore. I can’t run through the gardens, I can’t walk, you can see my feet and hands. 

I remember how they put these tin glasses on me, God forbid you should know what they are, and took me by the arm because I couldn’t see in the corridor. And either he stopped me or I stumbled – I came down, like this. And he kicked me here, in the side. He lives in Pitești. Oprea. A lady I was sitting with in the cell came and said to me: ‘Come and see Oprea’s belly. I said: ‘He has a belly and I’m all dried up, because you can see me as I am, just skin and bones. I’m like a mask now, madam, due to the tortures I’ve suffered and the ill heart I’ve had. There. And I’ll live at home and find nothing! I have found nothing. If I cut my finger, I’d have nothing to bind myself with. Everything I left in my house and in my shed and in my yard – I found nothing. I can’t tell you how much bitterness I had inside me and how much pain those thieves caused me…

Ten years in the mountains. Ten years later the Security Service caught them.

Then Chircă was dead in the mountains, his boys were locked up, I was locked up. But I left another one in my place. I spoke to her before she locked me up. Marinico, I say, if she locks me up, watch out! I mean, don’t starve. But they didn’t catch me, ma’am, God protected me and I knew how to protect myself and I didn’t tell anybody. And now I have a lot of secrets, but I won’t tell them until I’m dead. Because look, madam, you don’t know who you’re talking to and they’ll hear you and shoot you. 

(Elisabeta Rizea – Elisabeta Rizea’s story, pages 25-28)