Marin Naidim – “the most perfect man I have ever met”

In Baia-Sprie, about six months after we arrived in the colony, my friend Emil Budei asked me if I had ever talked to Marinică Naidim, because in his opinion he was the most perfect man he had ever met. That’s how I met him. What was charming about his attitude and his words was his simplicity and his attentiveness. Christian humility was lived in all its fullness. Although he was the most obeyed and respected of the group of young men who had come from Aiud, nothing in his behaviour showed that he considered himself superior to them. He knew all the secrets of friendship. First of all, sincerity is based on love and infinite discretion.

When he confided in me, he told me that before coming to the colony he had received news from home that filled his heart with joy: his three younger sisters had been admitted to a convent. She had looked after them for six years.

(Nicolae Goga – The Triangle of Death. Memories from Baia-Sprie 1950-1952, ed. Marineasa, Timișoara, 1995, pp. 81-82)