In Bessarabia
“When Bessarabia was taken, I was arrested in Chișinău. And here, in the prison, I had a great blessing, because Mrs. Russo came, who had constant contact with the legionnaires in the prison. After the period of quarantine in the large room (about 12 metres by 12 metres) in the cellar, which was very damp, they sent us to the tower, where there was a great draught.
So I should have been condemned for life, along with everyone else, but God took care of us.
After the incident with Armand Călinescu, they started looking for the other people I knew in the Prato team, and after the investigation in Ploiești, they sent me back to Bucharest. Here they prepared us for the trial where we were finally sentenced. We spent some time in Jilava, and from there we were sent to Chișinău, where we received the above mentioned treatment. After we were in the tower, they took us down and we sat in the prison with all the legionaries.
When Mrs. Russo learned of the arrival of the Russians at the moment of the surrender of Bessarabia, she came to the prison director (who had already sent his family to Ploiești and was resting peacefully). He came to him and said: “What are you doing, my dear, are you keeping them here to shoot them all?” And he came to us and consulted with us. We loaded the prison archives into 2-3 wagons and left for the border. Mrs. Russo stayed there, in Chișinău: that’s what she learned from Moța – sacrifice! And they took her, along with all the others, and took her to Siberia.
On the way we met all kinds of people. Among us, some theology students and Ovidiu Găină got into conversation with some children who had obviously finished primary school. And one of the children said to us:
“And now, please, do me one last favour:
“Kiss the land for me too!”
That brought tears to our eyes.
In the wagons we had not only the prison archives, but also food, clothes and even prison weapons. Some of us had also been given weapons to guard the convoy, as there were not enough guards. As we approached the Prut, some Romanian officers who were returning home passed us on horseback. One of our officers said to them: “Why are you doing this? You’re making the soldiers panic.”
The officers passed by, but to take revenge, at the bridge on the Huși side of the river, they reported that some communists were coming with weapons. We reached the bridge. The officer guarding the bridge took us all and led us to a mound of earth, and then another officer, a civilian who knew very well what had happened at the centre of the legionary movement in Prahova, asked the major to stop the execution. The civilian officer asked the prisoners holding the guns who they were, where they came from and what they were doing. Then he asked the major to allow him to talk to the armed prisoners. I replied exactly who was the head of the legion in the district and who was the superintendent. When he saw that I had answered correctly, he, who knew all the moves, said to the Major:
“They are really Legionnaires, as they say, not Communists, and they came to the country with the prison’s assets and archives, together with the prison warden”. That’s how I escaped death.
From here I went to Huși, where I stayed in prison. But since we were able to walk around and buy what we needed, we got in touch with the Codreanu family, who helped us with everything they had.
(Fr. Marcu Dumitru – Confession of a Christian. Father Marcu de la Sihăstria, edited by monk Filoteu Bălan, Petru Vodă Publishing House, 2007, pp. 32-34)