Niță Corneliu (en)

“Don’t kill me, Mr. Țurcanu!”

What is the strongest memory you have of your time in Pitești? I was in room 4 of the hospital at the end of February 1950 when they beat Cornel Niță to death. They took the team of thugs, stripped him naked and beat his feet with sticks and then all over his body. Do you remember who was in the team? I don’t remember. And then they beat him in the stomach, in the kidney and liver area. They were beating him like animals, chasing him because he was on the ground, on cement. And I remember when he […]

At the tomb of the young man with a pure soul, Niță Corneliu

In the central cemetery of Bacău lies the grave of the young with a pure soul Niță Corneliu, a young man from Bacău who was killed on Good Friday in the demonic Pitești prison, of which Solzhenitsyn said that “Russia has never seen such a phenomenon”. The body of this young man was brought from the Pitești cemetery to Bacău by his cousin, Jana Tabarcea, who suffered the consequences of the regime. This handsome and modest 23-year-old was tortured in front of his fellow prisoners in order to weaken their resistance and faith. Niță Corneliu endured tortures beyond belief. He […]

From the terrible sufferings of Confessor Niță Cornel

I remain like this, thinking of freedom and the coming judgement; of the punishment of the criminals who have made it their life’s work to destroy man as he was created by God; to replace him with another who, at least according to Țurcanu’s words, will be the Marxist man, the Marxist creature… I’m asleep… but not for long. Movements and whispers that seemed bizarre to me disturbed my sleep! On the cement, two metres from my feet, through the half-open poplars, I saw Țurcanu’s head. In his hands he seems to be holding the neck of a victim. Next […]

Niță Cornel – confessing God at the expense of his life

At the end of January[1], Țurcanu personally killed a young legionnaire named Niță Cornel, who was the honorary prize-winner of the Theoretical High School in Bacău and one of the best students at the Polytechnic in Bucharest. Țurcanu killed him by crushing his liver with his feet because he had publicly confessed – overheard by those behind the sheets – that he was a Christian and a legionnaire and wanted to die in this faith[2]. There is no doubt that Țurcanu had taken him to room 4 of the hospital to demonstrate to the hidden one – who may well […]

Cornel Niță, “a pious and skinny martyr”

I knew Corneliu Niță from afar, we lived in the same neighbourhood. He was a classmate of my younger brother Aurel at the same high school. We saw each other almost every day, but I only said hello to him. We got to know him well and in the autumn of 1949 we became friends in the Suceava prison. We slept on the same plank and on the same piece of matting until January 1950, when he died in Pitești prison. The fact that I knew him, and then his end, makes my heart even sadder. I remained as lonely […]

The ordeal of the martyr Niță Cornel

The climax of this Calvary, however, was the punishment of poor Niță Cornel on the evening of 28 February 1950, a moment which, with its tragic end, led to our removal and dispersal to another section. The evening show was over and, after closing time, Țurcanu again mobilised his team for operations. He had to extract some statements from the young man from Bacău, who had not yet been persuaded to tell everything he knew or suspected. After a few questions, accompanied by the usual threats, Țurcanu, seeing that the answer was unsatisfactory, turned the crowd against him. He threw […]

The death of the student Niță Cornel

It was towards the end of February 1950 when one day a young student with a child’s face was brought into the room. He must have been 19-20 years old1. His name: Niță Cornel. He was taken directly to the “re-education fires”, that is to say, to terrible tortures with the rest of us. We spent the whole night under terrible tortures inflicted by Țurcanu himself or by his team of more than thirty torturers, all of us “brainwashed” and turned into docile robots with no will and no initiative other than that imposed by Țurcanu. The floor was splattered […]

Cornel Niță – An unknown hero of the resistance

I met Cornel Niță in Jilava in November 1949, in one of the periods of relative relaxation of the prison regime, when we were taken for a “walk” twice a week. As we were locked in different cells, our contacts were few, perhaps 7-8 meetings in all, but as we were the same age and both students at the Polytechnic, we quickly became friends. Despite the hunger, the cold and the weakened state we were in as a result of the agonising months of investigation and imprisonment, we would optimistically discuss the most varied subjects, from politics, history, religion and […]

A cruel death

Sir, I have seen…, I have witnessed a cruel beating. I will give you just one example: a third-year student at the Faculty of Architecture in Iași, Corneliu Niță, was beaten so badly… that he died. Do you remember who beat him? Țurcanu and his men. Țurcanu with Pușcașu… This guy had connections in Bacău with a team that killed Russian soldiers. And they beat him to tell them. “I don’t know them! I don’t know them”… “How can you not know? You must know… Do you know them? Yes, I must”… “No, no, no.” They beat him, they beat […]