In communist prisons, the collapse, degradation and animalization of man was experienced
No previous regime in our country made a more audacious claim than the communists. They asserted that they stood on truth, that their system was scientifically justified and therefore modern, and that all others were outdated, obsolete, and anachronistic. Yet no one was as blind as they were, for they were infidels; no grace from above illuminated them. Self-sufficient, relying solely on their own intellect, they could not progress rightly.
The overwhelming number of inmates in our prisons and the iron grip of tyrannical authority within the dungeons revealed the extremes of human inhumanity. When man forsakes God and embraces materialism and atheism, he reaches depths of cruelty previously unimaginable.
In our dungeons, inmates faced the maximum limits of human endurance before collapse, degradation, and animalization began.
Nowhere was the strength of the spirit more evident than in the communist prisons. It was immense, surpassing all previously known examples. Thousands of people were held in Aiud on a diet of 600 calories a day for over a year, some for up to a year and six months. What was expected to last one or two years sometimes extended to eleven. The strength of the human spirit preserved life under conditions that seemed utterly impossible.
Beyond the lack of food, prisoners endured the absence of heat, sunlight blocked by shuttered windows, bare furnishings, arbitrary punishments, beatings to intimidate all, insults, threats, psychological pressure, and terror.
What force kept the prisoners sane, alive, and balanced under such harsh conditions? There is a secret here. While logically all should have perished, a higher power sustained them. This power came from God and was accessed through prayer. With no human aid in sight, the prisoners turned their eyes heavenward, and their fervent prayer opened the heavens. Invisible grace descended, strengthening them.
Through the dungeon, some were saved from failure, others sanctified, others shielded from sin, and many became convinced of the supremacy of Christianity. They came to know Christ, to love Him, and to turn to Him—like the admirable Jew Nicolae Steinhardt, who was baptized within the prison walls.
(Fr. Nicolae Grebenea – Memories from the Darkness)