Interrogation report of 22 April 1952
INTERROGATION REPORT[1]
The arrested: MAXIM VIRGIL, without profession, born in Com. Ciorani, Reg. Prahova, on 6 December 1922; last place of residence: Com. Ciorani, Reg. Prahova.
22 April 1952, Bucharest
Interrogation began: 9 a.m.
Ended: 4 p.m.
Question: In your previous statement, you admitted that you were beaten by a group of prisoners during your detention in Gherla Prison. Will you tell the investigation the circumstances in which this occurred?
Answer:
The event mentioned in my previous statement — the beating I received in Gherla Prison — took place under the following circumstances:
I arrived at Gherla Prison on 15 June 1951 and was placed in Room 105 with several other prisoners. In the meantime, I had heard that at Pitești Prison there had been violent clashes between student detainees, which had resulted in their division into two opposing camps: the “fighters” and the “thugs.”
I stayed in Room 105 for about a week. During the first few days, I was visited by STOIAN IOAN, PUȘCAȘU VASILE, and POPA ALEXANDRU, who questioned me about my legionary activities. About a week after their visit, I was transferred to Room 99 together with STOICA MARCU AURELIAN.
There, I found a group of students, among them ROMANESCU GRIGORE. From the way the discussions went, I realized that they wanted to make me talk — to learn my legionary views and political stance. I was careful, however, and refrained from discussing international politics.
On the evening of 1 July, one of the prisoners came to me and asked me to tell him something about life in the Legion. I refused. I noticed that something was brewing in the room — everyone seemed tense and hesitant. Suddenly, PUȘCAȘU VASILE, together with several others, rushed at me, threw me face down on the floor, tied my hands, legs, and mouth, and began to beat me with a club on my feet, buttocks, and all over my body.[2]
I understood that the same thing was happening to the other prisoners who had been brought into the room with me — LUPOAIE CONSTANTIN, OBREJA AUREL, ISMANĂ IOAN, NEAGU DUMITRU, and STOICA MARCU AURELIAN.[3]
The beating lasted about an hour, after which we were untied and forced to remain in an extremely painful and exhausting position — with our backs to the wall, legs and arms extended, eyes fixed on the lightbulb. We stayed like this throughout the night.[4]
The next day, we were summoned by PUȘCAȘU VASILE and ROMANESCU GRIGORE, who demanded that we reveal everything we had not declared to the Securitate. I replied that I had nothing to add, as I had already been convicted in 1942.
After my answer, ROMANESCU GRIGORE began a new series of beatings, striking me on the head with wooden clogs and a club. These beatings were repeated almost daily for two months and took increasingly brutal and varied forms. I was violently thrown to the ground and kicked, punched in the chest, and lashed across the palms of my hands.
About a week after the first beating, I was again seized by PUȘCAȘU VASILE, STOIAN ION, and ROMANESCU GRIGORE, stripped naked, and forced to lie face down on the floor. Then, as before, they beat me savagely, PUȘCAȘU VASILE being particularly ruthless. Afterward, STOIAN IOAN brought a stick smeared with excrement and shoved it into my mouth. The same humiliation was inflicted on my companions — LUPOAIE, OBREJA, and others.[5]
This was followed by more days of beatings and torture. […] During this period, we were forbidden to eat with our hands and were forced to drink hot soup directly from the trough, kneeling on the cement floor.[6]
Another form of torture, also used by ROMANESCU GRIGORE, consisted of extremely strenuous and exhausting physical exercises — bending, jumping, or running around the room, sometimes for hundreds of repetitions. From time to time they would allow a brief rest, only to start again — both the physical exertion and the torturous positions.
Among the many forms of torment I endured, I forgot to mention one particular scene, which I will now recount:
After the first beatings I received from STOIAN, PUȘCAȘU, and ROMANESCU, they took me upstairs, stripped me naked, and lined me up against the wall with five others: NEAGU, STOICA, OBREJA, LUPOAIE, and ISMANĂ. Then, the others in the room came over and spat on our backsides, forcing us to lick one another.[7]
Before this scene, ISMANĂ ION had been beaten. During the beating, he still had his personal belongings with him. When he told PUȘCAȘU this, PUȘCAȘU ordered him to eat his excrement. ISMANĂ pulled down his trousers and obeyed.
At some point we heard that ROMANESCU GRIGORE had gone home. We could feel the difference — for a while, there was silence.
At the beginning of August 1951, a new group of prisoners arrived in our room. From their demeanour and the marks on their bodies, it was clear they had endured the same tortures. Among them was POPESCU GHEORGHE, who replaced ROMANESCU GRIGORE. Throughout August, the beatings continued and were extended to the newcomers.
Towards the end of August, yet another group of prisoners arrived: DROHOBETCHI ANTON, HAJEK ZOLTAN, FÂNTÂNA, TEJA CONSTANTIN, POPA IOAN, and others. All of them, like me, were savagely beaten.
One evening, TEJA CONSTANTIN tried to report the abuse to the guard, but the guard told him to come back the next day, saying they did not take reports in the evening. That night, TEJA CONSTANTIN was brutally beaten by PUȘCAȘU VASILE and POPESCU GHEORGHE for attempting to report them.
Soon after, a group of about 20 students from Pitești arrived, together with ȚURCANU EUGEN. For about two weeks, they too were assaulted under ȚURCANU’s command. The beatings in this room affected nearly everyone, with few exceptions. The PETRESCU brothers, for instance, were beaten later.
Throughout my detention in this room — from approximately June until November 1951, when I was transferred back to Room 105 — it functioned as a torture chamber, controlled and used by prisoners STOIAN ION, PUȘCAȘU VASILE, ROMANESCU GRIGORE, and POPESCU GHEORGHE.
Question: Was the situation in Room 106 the same as in Room 99?
Answer: In that room there were also beatings, but much less severe than in Room 99. As for me, I was never beaten there, and in November I was assigned to work in the workshop.
Having heard what I have stated, I stand by it and sign.
ss/Maxim Virgil
Securitate Sergeant Filip Vladimir
(Interrogation report — Horror Memorial. Documents of the Re-education Process in the Prisons of Pitești and Gherla, 2nd edition, Vremea Publishing House, Bucharest, 2012, pp. 24–27)
[1] Typescript; file of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, pp. 372–375. 24 [n. ed.]
[2] Alexandru Popa (Țanu), leader of the “re-education” campaign in Gherla Prison, testified during the “Țurcanu Eugen and others” trial that “the beatings were organized according to my instructions as follows: those to be beaten were restrained by teams of four or five prisoners, blindfolded and bound so they could neither see nor scream, and then beaten on the buttocks, soles, backs, or arms with belts, broomsticks, or bedpost legs. Then they were questioned about the information desired, and under the blows they would ‘admit’ what was required.” (Idem, p. 148)
[3] In his memoirs, Virgil Maxim describes the torture episode as follows: “Suddenly the windows were shut and all those who surrounded us rushed in, beating us with sticks, boots, and fists, shouting and screaming in a frenzy of rage. There was no time to defend oneself — nor could one. […] We were thrown to the ground, stretched out, and received blows especially on our wrists and legs, as well as heavy strikes to the head and choking. I quickly lost consciousness.” (See Hymn for the Cross Carried. Abecedar duhovnicesc pentru un frate de cruce, 2nd ed., Antim Publishing, Bucharest, 2002, p. 263.)
[4] Virgil Maxim repeatedly experienced this agony, compounded by sleeplessness. Alexandru Popa also admitted that “those who refused to speak were beaten again and not allowed to sleep, kept standing or in exhausting positions for 10–14 consecutive days without rest — as in the cases of prisoners LUPOAIE CONSTANTIN, STOICA AUREL, MAXIM VIRGIL, NEAGU DUMITRU, ISMANĂ CONST., and others.” (Memorial of Horror…, p. 148)
[5] Recalling this scene of extreme humiliation, Virgil Maxim wrote: “In the end, these satanized men brought excrement into the room and forced us to eat it: ‘Look, since you refused to eat cooked food, we serve you a tasty dessert.’ When we refused, they struck us in the mouth with a piece of wood, pried it into our jaws, broke our teeth, and poured the filth in.” (cf. op. cit., p. 265)
[6] This scene actually preceded the one where they were forced to ingest excrement, as Maxim’s memoirs clarify: “I tried to bend over the trough but fell face-first into the hot soup, scalding my lips, nose, and eyes, and collapsing beside it, spilling the contents. The same happened to the others. Under blows, we were forced to lick the spilt food off the floor. The ordeal lasted several days; our mouths were raw flesh. The brine-water burned our mouths and stomachs, yet we had to drink it in the same position — though we could no longer move our tongues.” (cf. ibid.)
[7] These spiritual tortures — unprecedented in history — were not only a means toward the “re-education” through torture but an end in themselves: satanization. “We were kept naked the whole time and, to complete the blasphemy, forced to kiss one another’s buttocks with our heads against the wall while being beaten, stinking of the parody of the honour Christians give to the Holy Cross and the Holy Icons.” (cf. ibid.)