In the calm before the storm with comrade Paul Limberea

A gloomy February morning in the year of our Lord 1950. [The alarm clock rings, we’ve just eaten our porridge and the door opens. The guard, Fătu, shouted in a hoarse voice: “Whoever hears your name, pack your bag and come out!” and then began to shout a list. Those called out were only students. […]

So, in the jubilee year of 1950, the birth of the good Jesus, our King and Saviour, we too go on pilgrimage. But wherever we go, the spirit of Satan will reign. But we knew nothing. […] We were taken to the station where, on a remote line, the van train was waiting for us, another novelty of the communist regimes.  […]

I tried to banish my dark thoughts by praying and looking at the sky. In the van I sat next to Paul Limberea, obviously a student and the son of a priest from Pitești. Thin and taller than me, he is eloquent and tells me with pleasure about his town, Pitești. He told me that we were privileged to go there because the prison was new (built in the 1930s on the orders of Armand Călinescu) and therefore not as damp and gloomy as Aiud or Gherla, not to mention Jilava.

I have often thought of that dear comrade who will go there only to be killed in that dastardly and monstrous action called “re-education”, but which I prefer to call Satanisation. Paul Limberea’s father, an Orthodox priest of the White Church on Calea Victoriei in Bucharest, will also perish in prison.

We arrived safely in Pitești, unaware of the horrors that had begun there on 10 December 1949 under the leadership of Eugen Turcanu. We crossed the dirty and dusty town to the sound of chains, surrounded by a strong corridor of militiamen. We walked next to Paul Limberea, who was so happy to be back in his city.

(Puiu Năstase – Temerarii, edited by Gheorghe Andreica, Metafora Publishing House, Constanța, 2004, pp. 197-198)