Marcel Cazacu – the man who approached perfection

On the 23rd of January 1957, I left the prison to go to Răchitoasa in Bărăgan. […]

We were accommodated by Ion Vorovenciu, an economist from Rucăr-Muscel, where my friend Alfred Cureliuc was also staying.

After waking from a deep sleep, I went with Alfred to meet Marcel Cazacu. Originally from Rădăuți, Marcel was only a year younger than me, a handsome, intelligent, even shy and serious young man, much older than his years. I realised that evening that he was a very special man. Later I was to find out that he – like me – felt that we had met in another world, in another life, in another realm…

His parents had owned a bookshop and a small factory in Rădăuți, but they had to leave the town to avoid being counted among the landlords. So they moved to Zlatna-Alba and then to Timișoara.

In 1948, on the night of 13-14 May, while Marcel was on his way back to his homeland, which he missed dearly, he was arrested and thrown into prison. After 8 years in prison, with all the horrors of the communist regime, he was released on 14 May 1956. He was unrecognisable!

Marcel’s father had come to Gherla about three days before, and from time to time, as if by chance, he would pass by on the pavement in front of the prison like a simple pedestrian. On the day of his release, as he walked along that path again, he saw a thin and badly dressed young man coming out of the prison gate, walking dishevelled along the rather uneven pavement. Suddenly he stumbled and tried to hold on to the wall to keep from falling… He didn’t succeed and remained motionless on the ground.

When the prison gate had closed and there was not a living soul on the street, Gheorghe Cazacu crossed the street and picked him up, trying to keep him standing, leaning against the wall.

– What’s your name?” he asked the young man, frightened.

– Marcel, the young man whispered. Marcel Cazacu…

Gheorghe Cazacu shuddered: father and son met after a long time in a heartbreakingly painful embrace, crying so loudly…

My family’s situation was quite precarious, so I didn’t dare ask for anything from home. I just wrote that I was not allowed to leave the area and that if I did, I risked being thrown back in prison, this time for a common crime.

I had worked in Aiud, in the prison factory, from May 1951 to about October 1953, and my total cash holdings amounted to about 250-260 lei. […] So that was all my wealth at that time, plus the rags I was wearing – what was left after almost 8 years of wretchedness.

Since I was in a better situation, Marcel helped me a lot, so that he brought me a bottle of milk every morning throughout February, which made a huge difference in curing my pulmonary TB. […]

Destiny also wanted to take me to Răchitoasa, where we were all like a family, united by the same sufferings and aspirations, rejoicing at every thread of life that appeared in the harshness of the Bărăgan. The friendship with Marcel Cazacu was one of the beautiful gifts ordained from above, during the F.R., representing one of the most luminous figures around whom one was spiritually elevated. In addition to his pleasant face, he had a very special character and impeccable morals. Although he was the youngest among us – in 1956, when he arrived at Bărăgan, he was only 26 years old – even older people and intellectuals of the race consulted Marcel on various matters. He was very sober, thought deeply and found the best solutions in difficult situations.

Throughout this period, Marcel was a role model for everyone. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that he was the man who approached perfection, and this is not just my statement as his closest friend, but that of everyone who knew him. There, in Răchitoasa, Marcel was considered by those close to him to be one of the two “princes of the Bărăgan”, with the bearing of a Roman patrician on whom the divine had so generously wished to shower so many graces.

From time to time there would be a party that we would attend. To get Marcel to dance, we would invite the most beautiful girl we had prepared, introduce her to him and ask him to dance with her. He would blush, almost dizzy, carry her around for a few rounds, then apologise and withdraw. Later he’d show me his fist and say: “You got me, Grigore!”

(Grigore Caraza, Aiud însângerat, edited by Adrian Alui Gheorghe, 5th edition, Tipo Moldova Publishing House, Iași, 2013, pp. 109, 111-112, 119)