Mircea Mârza, the orphan-loving martyr

Mircea Mârza was a boy from Sibiu. He was the son of a retired general and (it is said) of a German noblewoman. At the time of his arrest, he had just graduated from the Naval High School in Constanța as class valedictorian. He was tall, well-proportioned and angelically handsome. Nelu Duca and I would stop for a walk – often – and look at him, marvelling at how generous nature had been in bringing this boy into the world. Nature, yes, was generous, but, as you will see, not the fortune tellers…

He shared everything he had with Nelu Hornea, a very poor boy, orphaned by both parents and brought up in the Children’s Home. Mârza adopted him and taught him languages. German and French, which he knew from his family. They were the same age.

Mârza Mircea left with the first batches that went to the Danube-Black Sea Canal (in the autumn of 1950). And on the canal he became friends with the motherless Nelu Man… Whenever Mârza Mircea’s mother came to the loudspeaker, they arranged for Mircea to be accompanied by Nelu Man, so that he too could feel the warmth of his mother’s love.

Mircea was given a short sentence. After his sentence was over, he worked on a floating electric excavator. One day there was a power cut. He couldn’t wait for the maintenance electrician to come and fix it, so he went to fix it himself. Bad luck and fate guided his steps, for there was his end. While trying to fix it, he was electrocuted and thrown to the ground.

Eyewitnesses say that poor Mircea struggled in the grip of death for about four hours until his heart stopped beating. No one was allowed to come to his aid. In Capul Midia at that time, no rescue, no help was allowed. There was a line of unfrozen coffins at the entrance to the camp. The soldiers said to those who came through the gate: “You will only get out of here if you are packed in these boxes”.

His comrades cried in silence.

(Gheorghe Andreica – The new Târgșor. The imprisonment of minors 1948-1950, Printeuro Publishing House, Ploieti, 2000, pp. 100-101)