Oltea Manoliu – an example of endurance and determination

And now, in order not to sin by omission, it is necessary to point out that in Suceava about 50 girls were examined and cruelly beaten, maybe there were some ladies among them, I don’t know!

Most of these girls were students, but there was also a university professor, Viorica Pârnac, a very good mathematician from the Faculty of Iași. All of them, without exception, endured the ordeals of the investigation with great courage and strength. All credit to them, girls!

As an example, I would like to mention Oltea Manoliu, a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine in Iași, whose screams I heard several times when she was called in for questioning. She resisted with tenacity and stubbornness, without betraying anyone. I recognised her by her voice and warned my flatmates: “Oltea is being investigated again! Listen to the way she screams! How much more can she take?”

She lasted longer than we thought. But all her stubbornness was in vain, because the judges sentenced her to many years of hard labour. It seems to me that she came out of prison alive and practised medicine.

(Vasile Lazăr – Six years in hell, Marineasa Publishing House, Timisoara, 2000, pp. 94)