Memories about Mircea Vulcănescu
”He was a truly exceptional individual.”
Alexandra Elisabeta de Hillerin, Sandra, as she is known in her family, is the middle daughter of philosopher Mircea Vulcănescu and lives in Paris. She’s a bright and kind person. She was kind enough to welcome us on a late spring afternoon, which turned into a real feast. She spent several hours talking to us about her father, a brilliant representative of the “golden generation” of the inter-war period, and many other great intellectuals of the elite who tragically ended up in the communist prison of Aiud. His portrait is based on memories that are still vivid, despite the years that have passed, and is very patriotic. In the Romanian salon of the house, I received a lesson in the true cultural and spiritual values of the nation, and I’m truly grateful for it.
“Gardener of souls”
– Mrs. Alexandra, what are your fondest memories of your father? He was a public figure and a brilliant intellectual. Did he have time for his children?
– I’ve loved my dad since I was very young. I have very old memories from before my sister Măriuca was born. I even remember the day she was born. My dad took me to the Fairground to make the wait more bearable. He took me on the Ferris wheel, which made me a bit nervous, but then he got me a whistling earth teapot, a colourful paper mill and a few other bits and pieces to cheer me up. I was really happy to be with him because I felt safe. I remember the carriage ride home clearly. When I was three, I went to Cornova with my parents, who were on Dimitrie Gusti’s sociological team. When I was even younger, about a year and a bit, they took me with them to Drăguș, in Transylvania.
I was the youngest member of Gusti’s team. We were always together from the start, which really brought us closer. I was the ugly one and the sickly one, so he always took better care of me. Măriuca was a very attractive woman, sometimes even more so than she wanted.
My older sister, Vivi, from my father’s first marriage, was also very attractive. I was less gifted, though, and that’s why my father was especially protective of me. He was always looking for ways to help me and was always teaching me something new. I remember him holding me in his arms and showing me pictures of ancient sculptures or the faces of philosophers, telling me about each of them. He’d tell me what to remember about each one, even though I was only a few years old. He told me the phrase “Everything flows” from Heraclitus, and at that age, I was convinced that in the philosopher’s house the taps were all broken and I kept wondering why someone hadn’t come to fix them. I’m glad I didn’t ask out loud; I would have looked pretty foolish.
Then my dad explained this famous phrase and lots of others like it in my own language. He was really simple and gentle, and sometimes he was funny. My father was pleased that I was able to retain so much of what he taught and explained to me. He used stories to teach us and get us excited about learning. He was amazing! He was a very bright and kind man.
He was like a gardener of souls, tending to the people he met and nurturing them. This rule wasn’t just for us, his children, but also for his friends who came to visit. I wish every child had a father like that, who made learning fun. He’d chat with us like a friend, get down to our level without us realising it. He used play to lift us up and take us where he wanted. He always had an answer for whatever we asked him. He was always happy to answer any questions we had.
It’s worth noting that I did ask him a question after the war, when things were already going badly. The “joys” were coming from outside, from the east more and more often. I remember he didn’t answer me, but sent me to the dictionary to find the answer to what I didn’t know.
This had never happened before. I think he was pretty distressed about what was going on in the country at the time. I was surprised because he never tried to influence our thinking. He encouraged us to look on the bright side. He was really kind and understanding towards us. He was generous enough not to make things difficult for those around him. He taught us more than just poems. He showed us how to clean, how to bake cakes, and even how to dress, iron, and move. He had a huge influence on our childhood. I think he was great at adapting to different situations. With us kids, he was one of us. With the philosophers, he was one of them. And with his students, he was a student again.
– Your father was a very busy man. Over the years, he held several high-profile roles, including Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Finance, Director of Public Debt in the same Ministry, Director General of Customs, Director of the Autonomous House of Financing and Amortisation, President of the Autonomous House of the National Defense Fund, and assistant in the Sociology Department of Professor Dimitrie Gusti. He was a man who was deeply involved in the social and historical context of his time. It’s pretty amazing that he was so present in family life, even though he was so busy.
– He knew how to make the most of the time he spent with us. He was always on the go and made sure to use every moment to teach us something. He didn’t take any holidays, but in the summer he took us to the seaside, where we stayed with my mother. He used to come on Saturdays and Sundays to stay with us. He was crazy about the water. He was like a fish and would swim out to the open sea, where my mum would take a boat out after him. He wanted to teach us to swim, he wanted us to know everything.
I remember how he used to celebrate our birthdays when we were kids. He was really good at it. It was a really special time, and there were some amazing, unforgettable moments.
For instance, my little sister’s name is Maria-Ioana and she had several days and holidays on the calendar that we kept. My father was the driving force behind all the celebrations in our house. He made sure everything was taken care of, even the little details. The same was true for Easter and Christmas, when we always played Bethlehem, which he wrote just for us kids.
For my birthday, he always got me something a bit more special and grown-up. Maybe I was a bit more serious. I remember once he bought me a toy typewriter so I could learn to write on it. He often told me that he hoped I would become his secretary and that we would travel the world together. He helped me prepare for this and encouraged me to write as beautifully as I could. Unfortunately, my illness has left me unable to hold a pencil. If I made a mistake, he told me that I couldn’t be first, that it was okay if I was second or third, but that I had to do everything I started thoroughly and seriously. Perhaps he was more authoritarian with Măriuca because she was the most impetuous, being the youngest. I think what really upset him was that he only had girls. I think he would have liked a boy a lot. Maybe he would have followed him more closely in what he studied and wrote.
– Did he have time to make friends?
– A lot of his friends came to our house, but one at a time, because we had a small house and my mother preferred not to crowd us. So, my father met his friends most often at the Corso café on Calea Victoriei, which was on the corner, near the Palace, above Capșa. That’s where he met them and they had a good chat. Among those who came to our house was Mircea Eliade, but my father looked at him in a way that seemed a bit condescending.
That’s how I felt at the time. We didn’t even have to talk. We just looked at each other and knew what we were talking about. On the other hand, though, he had a lot of respect for him and what he’d achieved. He kept in touch with him even when he was away in India. I believe my father was supposed to go on the YMCA scholarship to India, but because of the birth of Măriuca, he didn’t go. He had to stay with my mother, which gave Eliade the opportunity to go instead. I remember the envelopes he sent her were marked “Dr. Mircea Eliade”. My father didn’t have a doctorate. He did his doctoral studies in Paris at the Sorbonne, where he was with his first wife. My eldest sister Vivi was born there, and although he did his thesis, he never defended it because he had to work.
When my father was young and liked a book, he would tear it in half and give one half to a friend. They would read it one at a time and then discuss it. These books from his younger days were kept in our house, in a little room. Later on, he developed a passion for books and liked to buy certain books on art to arrange in the huge library, which was taken from us with the house and everything we owned after my father was arrested. My dad was always keen to share his knowledge with others, particularly his friends. He was really into friendship and sacrifice for the sake of friendship. You saw that later in prison..
“Beloved, Lord!”
– How old were you when he was arrested?
– I was 15 at the time. He was first arrested in May. I believe he was held for approximately ten days. Then, in the autumn, they picked him up again and that was it.
– Did you see him again after he was arrested?
Have you seen him since he was arrested?
Yes, I saw him at the trial first. I was in sixth grade privately, so I could be present at the trial involving other ministers and undersecretaries of state. Some of his friends defended him at the trial, but it was to no avail. When he was given the chance to speak in his defence, the courtroom was completely silent. His defence lasted several hours, which is longer than they’re normally allowed. It started around mid-morning and went on until late afternoon. It was a great learning experience. There were a lot of people in the hall and they all listened to him with respect. Everyone was hoping for a not-guilty verdict, but the sentence was already decided by others. It was clear from the outset that the trial was a farce. During the breaks, we were able to chat with him. During one of those breaks, he taught us the prayer “Dear Lord…” and encouraged us to pray without ceasing, because tough times are ahead.
I’d seen him in court before, too, when he was giving evidence in another trial. Then he was wearing chains on his hands and feet. That was the last time I got to hold him. He was coming down the stairs and we were coming up, and his guard let us have a few seconds together. Later on, I also went to Aiud Prison with my husband, but my father was behind two rows of bars, so we couldn’t get close to him. I was with a distant relative of his who’d brought him goose fat. That was the last time I saw him in person. He was really quite thin. He told my mother it was hell and not to send him any more food. He knew it was tough at home to get by, and there, in prison, they’d make fun of him because they’d let him see the food, then mix it with sand and other stuff and give it to him like that.
Despite his condition, he still wanted to teach me something. He told me that behind the prison was the plain where a battle of Michael the Brave took place.
Even though he was in a bad way, he still wanted to teach me something. He told me that behind the prison was the plain where Michael the Brave had fought a battle.
He always encouraged us to learn at our own pace, making sure we understood the basics before moving on. He always made sure we got it. When I heard he’d passed away in prison, it felt like the whole world had gone dark. For five years, it felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. There was no one to tell me what was going on around us.
– I’d like to know what happened to the family after your father was arrested.
– It was a tough time, and there were lots of people in the same boat as us, but there was a lot of solidarity. We had friends who took us in when we were asked to leave. Before they kicked us out of the house, I remember that for days they would come in the morning and make us take the sheets off the bench in the courtyard. We would sit all day by them, and in the evening they would let us put them back in the house and sleep another night. It was awful – they did everything they could to taunt us. My sister Măriuca was arrested for two years as soon as she turned eighteen. She was related to a ‘war criminal’. My father, through his energetic interventions, made the Germans pay for the wheat taken from Romania during the war with 8 wagons of gold. The Russians loaded and took out of the country, just as my father was being tried.
I wasn’t arrested because I was pregnant and unwell. I was so weak that I think they assumed I wouldn’t survive. I only found out about my father’s death two years later. By chance, my mother found out. She was staying with some friends, and they talked about the prisoners and how, when they died, the prison doctor would send a postcard home with a strange text: ‘Prisoner… X has nothing in the storeroom’.
We also got a notice at our old address on Popa Soare Street, but we’d already been evicted and only found out about it later. You can imagine what happened next. It was a really tough time. My mother’s brother went to Aiud and found the death certificate. We also tried to find out where he was buried, but it was difficult because two years had already passed. We asked around to find people who knew him and that’s how we met Mr Frățescu, who spent a whole year with my father in his cell. He got out of prison and came to see us. When he saw us, he said: “My sisters, I would recognise you out of a thousand, because your father told us about you every day.” My father actually untied his woolly stockings and crocheted mittens with two sticks to give to St. Nicholas for this man. He put them in his boots that night because the man’s hands were always freezing.
We also saw other items that had belonged to my father. He told us that if anything fell on the floor, he would give it to him, saying: “This thing doesn’t want me anymore, so I’m giving it to you.” This man told us that my father encouraged him, gave him moral support, brought him to his faith and taught him German and French. He even shared recipes for food and cakes with the six of us in the single-bed cell because my father was good at that too. Finally, Frăţescu told us, “Your father was my Christ!”
Despite being told not to discuss what happened in prison, not to see anyone and not to share any information, this man still came to us to tell us what he knew because he had promised my father.
He made the ultimate sacrifice to save a young man who was his cellmate and a fellow prisoner, driven by his faith, generosity, and love for humanity.
Yes, we know what happened. There’s been a lot of talk about it. They were taken out of the cell, stripped naked, and a blanket was put over their heads. Then they were made to walk in a circle, one after the other. The guards hit them from the side with bats. They were badly beaten, my father’s rib was broken, which also injured his pleura, and then they were thrown in the “black hole”, in solitary confinement, for several days in the dark, with water running down the walls, on the cement dirty with faeces. To keep from freezing, they started moving as best they could in that small space. He then realised that his situation had worsened and told the others to at least save the one younger than them. He was a teenager, but physically weak and unable to stand. My father was lying on the cement, and the young man was lying on top of him like a mattress. As a result, my father’s lung disease got worse, which led to his death. I later found out that the boy my father saved survived and would have ended up working at the Brâncovenesc Hospital.
“He was a very beautiful man.”
– Can you tell me what your father looked like? If you could, try to describe him as you saw him then, when he was a child.
– He was quite tall and well built. Later in life, he started to gain weight, but he wasn’t overweight. He was very light on his feet and always had a cheerful disposition. He used to take us out on Sundays for a run and a race. I remember once I was lagging behind and my dad was running with his tie blowing in the wind. Two ladies out walking recognised him, and I heard them say: “Have you seen him?” That’s Mircea Vulcănescu. I was pleased that people he didn’t know recognised him on the street. He was a very handsome, pleasant man with a gentle face and splendid eyes. When I went to Cornova, he was 27 and had grown a beard. I remember there was a wedding in the village, and my father was there, staying at the mayor’s house. He had a great way of lifting everyone’s spirits. He had a knack for lifting everyone’s spirits with his kindness. But sometimes he’d withdraw from us and become pensive.
My grandmother told us that when he was younger, he went through a really tough time. He was a student and they went with their teachers and classmates to Bird Lake, got into boats and came to a place where the water was swirling. One of the boys moved the boat and it capsized. Two of his friends, his sister and brother – the children of the principal of St. Sava High School, who couldn’t swim – were in the boat with him. My father was able to save the boy, but sadly not the girl. They both got caught in the weeds at the bottom, and the girl, whom my father loved very much, drowned. He just about managed to pull himself to shore. He then had a high fever and was left with a profound sense of guilt. It was a terrible tragedy. He even wrote a couple of diary pages about it. The first sentence is: “It’s all over. From now on, just help!” At that time, Anina, his first wife, came along and supported him, and I think he was going through a kind of spiritual rebellion. He made a recovery and even considered becoming a monk, but his friends advised him that he could be of greater service to the world outside the monastery. He was faithful, without being a bigot, he was deeply religious.
On holiday, we went to the Mântuleasa Church, where he often assisted the teacher or the priest. On Good Friday evening, before Easter, my father wore the Epitaph, the Holy Air, which was a great honour for me. On top of that, when he went to Paris to get his doctorate, he lived in the Romanian church houses. At the time, it was Priest Cazacu who was in charge of the church. At that time, he married Constantin Noica, who was a close friend of his, to Wendy, the mother of Rafail Noica, who I also met later on.
– Did you leave the country straight after your father passed away?
– No, I didn’t. I would have stayed in the country and not left at all. My husband, who was born in Bucharest but is from a French family, started to be persecuted at work and decided to leave. My elder sister, who was only half-sister, left in 1944 after my father. She was taken out of the country by her uncle, who escaped with his life. Her other uncle, Victor Rădulescu Pogoneanu, was a hero who died in prison in Râmnicu Sărat. Vivi first went to Switzerland and always encouraged us to leave too. She then spoke to the French and helped us get out of the country in 1969. We were all in tears on the train, it was a very emotional journey. It was a pretty rough experience. I was unwell for quite some time after that. I had a really rough time and I still get emotional when I think about leaving.
The thought of Măriuca staying there, the idea that the whole country, my memories, my father… I was really close to Măriuca, more so than to Vivi, who didn’t have much of my father. She only came by on Sundays. I think my father was criticised by my grandmother’s family for being too materialistic. My grandfather built my father the house we lived in. My father’s first wife wanted him to tear down the house that my grandfather had built and rebuild it on her land on the road. My father said he couldn’t force his father to tear down his house. That’s when things started to get heated, then my grandmother started to denigrate him. My grandmother wasn’t happy with her husband. Her parents were very against him.
After the divorce, they made her wear only black. She was a very unhappy woman. On top of that, we stayed in touch with our sister, and it was thanks to her that we ended up leaving the country. My husband wasn’t happy in France either, not long after we arrived. They used to call him “the most Romanian of the French”. His parents were born in Romania, but his grandfather was French. We speak Romanian at home, and my children and five grandchildren all speak it too. Our eldest granddaughter also writes poetry in Romanian.
So we’ve always lived between two worlds, between two nostalgic worlds, and sadly, we’ve passed this on to our children. Sometimes, my son suddenly realises what’s going on and says to me: “You’ve always been a bit down in the dumps, you’ve always been a bit of a grump, you’ve always seen the glass as half empty.” I was happier when I was in Romania! I made a point of going to Romania every year until my mother passed away in 1987. My daughter often heads to the countryside, and then she comes back and tells me about what’s changed in the Bucharest we know. She talks about the smell of the lime tree on Romulus Street and how the cobblestones sound in spring on our street. For a moment, I feel like I’m not so far away from those places.
I know that my dad’s disappearance was the end of an era for us. And it wasn’t just us who were affected. I still find it hard to believe he’s gone. I’m still struggling to make sense of it.
Given how he died, how he disappeared, and the fact that his bones haven’t been found, I’m inclined to believe that he didn’t want that, that he wanted to remain in solidarity with the thousands of unknown prisoners who were brutally murdered in those years. I hope that, in their memory, you young people will help to revive the country.
(Alexandra Elisabeta de Hillerin, Paris, March, 2013 – Interview by Otilia Țeposu, Formula AS magazine no. 1078 (27), year XXIII, July 18-25, 2013)