“Mircea Vulcănescu, one of the most brilliant minds of the inter-war generation”

One by one, the cells were opened and the teams were led to the boarding area.

As I crossed the corridor on the second floor, where we were, I saw a ragged prisoner rubbing the floorboards with turpentine.

His big, glassy eyes and the boldness with which he looked at us caught my attention, because I knew that political prisoners were obliged to look at the floor when they met another prisoner or group of prisoners. I walked right past him. It was Mircea Vulcănescu.

He whispered to me: “Go to work”. I saw a kind of joy mixed with bitterness in his eyes.

He was kneeling on the floor, only his eyes and his forehead, which seemed clouded, reminded me of the man of the past. His corpulence was reduced to a skeleton, dressed in striped clothes. His spine was visible through the prisoner’s outfit.

Mircea Vulcănescu, one of the brightest minds of the inter-war generation, former Under-Secretary of State for Finance, had been sentenced to eight years’ hard labour for “the economic enslavement of Romania to the Nazi Reich”.

I attended his trial. The defence benches, like the judges’ desks, were full of dozens of files in which Mircea Vulcănescu proved not only that the Romanian economy was not suffering in its relations with the Reich, but that, on the contrary, it was prospering.

The Germans paid us in gold for the grain and other foodstuffs they bought from us. We also had a large quantity of gold – two wagons, if I remember correctly – which the Germans advanced to us for subsequent deliveries of grain.

The courtroom where Mircea Vulcănescu’s trial took place was packed with lawyers, professors, economists, journalists (the terror had not yet been organised, it was 1946). Mircea Vulcănescu, through the files he had at his disposal, proved with indisputable evidence the correctness of the Germans in their commercial relations with the Romanian State and, consequently, the skill and care with which Mircea Vulcănescu had managed this economy.

General Stoenescu, a career military man, had the great quality of having surrounded himself with skilful collaborators, and among them the most experienced and skilful was Mircea Vulcănescu.

With all this evidence, with all the documents proving even the smallest contract, Mircea Vulcănescu was sentenced to 8 years of hard labour, which was tantamount to a death sentence, knowing that Mircea Vulcănescu died of pulmonary tuberculosis in Aiud, without any medical care.

Later, I can hardly remember the year, I spoke to a former secretary of the YMCA – Bucharest – Zahiernic branch, in whose arms Mircea Vulcănescu died. Zahiernic told me the following: Mircea Vulcănescu had a cavity in his left lung.

Mircea Vulcănescu had learned from other prisoners that people with a cavern in their left lung die during sleep. His will to be aware of everything that was happening to him was so strong that he made superhuman efforts not to sleep – which weakened his resistance.

His medical care was reduced to a few aspirin a day, and not even that every day. Although he was admitted to the prison infirmary in the final stages of his illness, he was not given any specific medication. The foreign medicines in the infirmary’s storeroom were only used to treat informers or common criminals.

– He died, Zahiernic confessed to me, in my arms, with his last words: “Tell Anina to forgive me!” (This was Anina Rădulescu-Pogoneanu, his first wife).

The murders of Mircea Vulcănescu and George Manu were two of the most monstrous murders in Aiud.

(Gabriel Bălănescu – From the Kingdom of Death. Pages from the History of the Iron Guard, ed. Gordian, Timișoara, 1994, p. 130)