Passion Week – Pitești Prison, Room 3 Basement, 1951

Easter 1951…

We were sure that after Țurcanu’s visit, Zaharia would come up with a new method of torture.

After dinner, Zaharia returned like an angry bull and discussed his musical repertoire. He chose ten of us and, together with the committee, applied Gheorghiu’s law of love to us.

Then he gave us a new position on the podium: instead of keeping our hands on our knees, we had to raise them above our heads. After the beating we received, we could hardly move, and holding our hands in a fixed position increased the nervous excitement to such an extent that it was unbearable.

We were all convinced that, in the end, we would not be able to stand it and would have no choice but to leave the Legionary Movement or go mad (…).

The week that followed was unforgettable.

The new fixed position was so unbearable that I wished more than ever that death or an earthquake would come and demolish the fortress of Pitești, and that its ruins would bury us forever. How desirable and sublime the death of a martyr now seemed to us! But only God knew when and how this ordeal would end.

Easter was approaching, and we were terrified at the thought that what had happened at Christmas would be repeated at Easter, but with more satanic aspects than the imagination of sane people can create.

It was Palm Sunday, before Holy Week. That afternoon, Zacharias returned from Room 4 Hospital and made another redistribution of the beds.

Suddenly it occurred to me that something strange, something unspeakable, was brewing about Passion Week and Easter.

The first on the list, according to the new order, was Maglavit, followed by Nedelcu, Bordeianu Dumitru, the author of these pitiful memories, Popescu Paul, Zelică Berza, Grigoraș, Hutuleac, Sântimbreanu, Reus, Gheorghiu and Andrișan. When we saw this new order, and above all the fact that we all belonged to the mystical group without knowing it, we were overcome with fear, because we sensed what was waiting for us.

On Monday of Passion Week, shortly after noon, Zacharias returned with a pile of papers in his hand, several shredded brooms, a ball of thick thread, some empty cans, mangal and a small bottle.

He placed them on our prici and told us to make crosses out of the broomsticks.

One of the bigger crosses was for Ungureanu.

I had no idea what Zachariah was going to do. He made a cauldron out of the tin can and distributed the papers he had brought to those who had renounced the Legionary Movement and to the five or six who had been on guard duty since 15 January.

After all this had been prepared, Zaharia addressed us as follows:

“Mystics and – for the others in the room – bandits, because you believe in God and His Passion, and as you know, I do not believe in such nonsense, and because it is Passion Week, you too should see what torments these mystics will endure”.

No matter who told me, and no matter what I read in the most pornographic literature, I could never have imagined that some sick and satanised minds could concoct such antics to persecute and insult the Majesty of God, His Holiness and His Justice.

As I said on the occasion of Christmas 1950, for the sake of the wealth of culture and books I have acquired during my years of study, for the sake of the common sense and modesty of a humble Christian, I will not allow myself to present to my readers such abominations addressed to God. If I were to say or write them, I would be making myself the mouthpiece of Satan and his minions.

What would be the point of describing pornography, insults and jokes against God? Believers will take our word for it, having God and those who have endured such tortures in His name as witnesses. Atheists, who also blaspheme God without being tortured, will not believe us.

From Monday afternoon until Good Friday, when the Proclamation was sung in our churches, and during the three days of Easter, the Proclamation was sung all the time, by the ten who had rejected the movement, plus the plainsong, the whole repertoire of pornography, jokes and scabrousness beyond imagination.

We, the “mystics”, were carried on our knees from one end of the room to the other for eight days, led by Ungureanu, imagining the Passion of the Lord.

Ungureanu was crowned with thorns, and tins were filled with mangal, sprinkled with kerosene gas and set on fire to be used as incense, while we knelt and made prostrations.

I saw Ungureanu crying as never before, horrified at what they were forcing us to do.

What shook my soul during this spiritual torture was the image of my mother, whom I saw before my eyes, grieving as she understood how to live the week of the Saviour’s Passion.

I saw her weeping; perhaps she was thinking of my sufferings, although poor her, she did not know what hell I was in.

In the same way, I saw all the mothers of those who were tortured and who were afraid to curse God, weeping. If these mothers had seen what their sons were going through, many of them would have lost their minds.

After eight days of kneeling, our trousers were torn and our knees were just a wound.

The only one of us who refused to take part in this satanic ritual was Nedelcu Aristide. Crazy as he was, he broke away from the procession. He was tolerated because, they said, he was out of his mind.

At the end of eight days of torture and humiliation, from morning to night, broken in spirit, disgusted with ourselves, with our helplessness and weakness, we begged heaven to take our days.

From walking on cement, our knees were a bleeding wound, and when we touched the cement it seemed as if we were stepping on pins and needles. But apart from the physical wounds, this spiritual degradation left deeper wounds in our souls and consciences.

At that time I wondered with horror if we would have to spend other feasts of Christ’s birth and resurrection in the same way, while our parents, brothers, sisters and friends would experience the joy of true celebrations.

Such orgies took place not only in room 3 Basement, but in all the other rooms, as those who experienced them, like us, confessed after the exposé.

This is the ultimate goal of communist re-education: to remove God from people’s hearts and plunge them into nothingness.

(Dumitru Bordeianu – Confessions from the Swamp of Despair)