Jilava Prison, 1948

After the investigation at the Ministry of the Internal Affairs, we were taken to Jilava prison and put in room 24 “secret”, the last room in the corridor of the second section of this prison.

In this room we found about 20 other people – all former great Romanian political figures. There I met Dumitru Groznea, the dean of the Ilfov Bar Association; one Simca, a journalist from “Universul”; General Zaharia, Marshal Antonescu’s aide-de-camp; and other valuable people who had been expelled from the life of the country and thrown into this underground darkness.

The prison regime – at that time – was not as harsh as it would be a short time later. It was quite mild. People even had money with them. If you gave the guard 100-200 lei, he would let you go from room to room until the evening count.

The most influential men of Romanian public life, imprisoned in the second section, were in this room, so others gathered here to put the country in order.

We, the pupils and students, numbered about thirty, maybe more, so we were in the majority. We had no enlightened representative among us, only one Toma Simion, but we all sat quietly on our benches, without getting involved in politics.

We retired to our own corner, where we took books and taught each other what we knew best, learning mathematics, history, foreign languages, drawing, modelling soap statues and so many other useful things. Everything, absolutely everything, except politics, for which none of us had any vocation, talent or ability, in fact we all felt a certain nausea.

(Gheorghe Andreica – Testimonies from the hell of communist prisons)