Pitești – The crucifixion of a generation (en)

How the re-education began

Pitești prison is known and will remain in history for the atrocities and crimes committed during re-education. I had the good fortune, or perhaps the misfortune, to be in Pitești Prison during this period, where I was able to see “how man is made”, with his virtues or his weaknesses. I was able to see how a man can, willingly or unwillingly, become an instrument of torture for his fellow men, or how he can accept martyrdom with serenity. In order to understand how such crimes could be committed, I believe it is necessary to follow, as far as possible, […]

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 […]

Christmas in the hell of Pitești, 1950

Just as I have never forgotten the Christmas of 1948 in Suceava, I will never forget the Christmas of 1950, spent in the cellar of room 3. We were so dehydrated and weak from the drought that we looked more like shadows than people. If the tortures of beatings and thirst had not yet reached absolute degradation, what I am about to confess would have entered the realm of pathology and satanisation would have reached paroxysms. I could never have imagined that man, a rational being, could humiliate his fellow man to such an extent. What demonic mind could have […]

The last tortures in the fortress of Pitești

After the unbearable physical and moral torture, we had nothing to hide and no physical or moral means to resist the torture. While the moral torture was going on, the physical torture was going on, until the public statements in the cell and the written ones in room 4 Hospital were almost finished for those who were sentenced to hard labour and hard imprisonment. Țurcanu, on Nicolski’s orders, was in a hurry to finish the written statements for several reasons: – to make known all those who had not come forward during the official investigation, to condemn those who had […]

Christmas in the Pitești dungeon, 1949

There was an oppressive silence until the door opened and someone was pushed inside with blows and curses: – Bandit, on another occasion you’ll die in the cellar! That’s how Ion appeared, the roommate who had told me about the tortures in room 4 Hospital the night before. Ion waited until evening to tell me about it: – They took me to the re-education committee, where I’d done my self-debunking. I had to prove my sincerity. I was given a piece of paper to write down everything I had seen and heard here. I was supposed to be taken back […]

The last “resurrection” at Hell’s Gate, 1949

Easter 1949 had arrived. The curfew had been lifted. The “Great and Holy Week” was for everyone a time of recollection, of upliftment, of growing spiritual strength, as only prayer and fasting together can bring. It was midnight and the bells of the city’s churches were ringing out the hour of Christ’s great resurrection. Hot tears streamed from under dirty and worn blankets onto the faces of the hungry and suffering, yet youthful and supple. On the road beyond the far wall of the prison yard, hundreds of lights slowly advanced, carried by their bearers, shaded by the darkness of […]

At the “Casimca” of Pitești

After the parcels had been cut, the prisoners were redistributed in the cells according to a plan and a precise objective that we prisoners could not guess. I ended up in a room with Valeriu Gafencu, who had been sentenced to 25 years’ hard labour for being a legionnaire. He had done nothing against the Antonescu regime. In the same room was Traian Dumitrescu, known as “Matcă”. People were not very enlightened about the last days of the Second World War and the conditions under which the peace treaty with Romania was signed in Paris in 1947. Since I was […]

“You don’t even know what is in store for you. Even if you are made of iron, you will still be softened!”

Pitești Prison: A smaller dungeon than Aiud. It has isolated cells but also common rooms. We were greeted with hostility, which soon turned to brutality. Here we met the newly arrested young men. They were all students. Most of them were well-defined and well-educated personalities. They were the elite of that generation. From the beginning there was no distinction of political colour, we all formed a compact anti-communist group. Among them there were some of particular value, but the ones who created the atmosphere were the old prisoners, including Valeriu. Faced with the regime of terror, the terrible food, the […]

Prison regime after the start of re-education

The prison regime was very harsh, starting with sleeping on beds where we could not rest because of the large number of people. We had no place to lie on our backs. We were packed like sardines in a box… To get back to the other side you had to train the others, which was no easy task. The food was below subsistence level and consisted mainly of pickled cabbage juice with a piece of porridge or bread, which some of us calculated to be around 800-1000 calories. After a while we started to wobble on our feet, but that […]

Unleashing the Calvary – Christmas Day, 1949

Christmas Eve – the night before Christmas Day – was filled with carols, bells and the voices of carolers (from the town of Pitești). We lived in the same overcrowded atmosphere, where on the one hand you had to lie down and on the other hand you couldn’t sit on your back or in any other comfortable position, because it was so cramped that you could hear your breath and sweat mixing. The sarabande of metal bars, struck in a certain way by the guards, heralded the awakening on Christmas Day. I don’t remember if we even had a chance […]

Easter celebration in cell 18 of Pitești prison, 1949

Easter was approaching, towards the end of April. And we were preparing to celebrate our first Easter in prison. The comrades arrested during Antonescu’s time had memorised a rich repertoire of Radu Gyr’s poems. We set about learning them by heart. Then something extraordinary happened, which once again demonstrated the unshakeable love and unity of these young people, determined not to compromise in their fight against communism. A day or two before Easter, a comrade from Bucharest, whose name I prefer not to mention for reasons of discretion, received a parcel of food through the back door. We were not […]

Director Alexandru Dumitrescu – defender of the torturers

The day after Christmas, the door suddenly opens and in appears Alexandru Dumitrescu, frowning and holding a club. Țurcanu reports that the legionaries have jumped on the re-educated to kill them, because they want to re-educate themselves! – Who are these bandits who don’t want to be re-educated? Who are their bosses? There were 20 of them. We were all leaders of legionary groups. The attackers had two or three times as many. The rest retreated in terror to the back of the room. That’s when Țurcanu started shouting names: -“That bandit! Come out!” Barely crawling, my good comrades came […]

Explanations of Țurcanu’s first attack at Pitești prison

So the “re-education” began with six people, led by Țurcanu. As the minds were brainwashed, the people compromised and turned into beasts, Țurcanu increased his team of robots. They carried out every command with unimaginable fidelity. The number of robots increased with every young man who died. In fact, in addition to the six who carried out the first attack, there were as many who were planted in various chambers as spies to “prepare the ground”. Any exposure of this action was punishable by death through torture. The tortures were carried out in front of others who watched in horror […]

The beginning of the Pitești debunkings – 10 December 1949

Here is the beginning of the Pitești debunkings. Around the time of the debunkings, a day or two before they began, a rumour circulated that on the night of 10 December, Țurcanu Eugen, Popa Alexandru, known as Țanu, Mărtinuș, Cantemir and three others whose names I have not found out, were taken out of prison and taken to a hole on the bank of the Argeș River, where they were told that that night they would form the team that would shoot all the legionary leaders in Pitești prison. When asked if they agreed, they all replied that they were […]

Prison regime at the beginning of the debunkings period

The prison is located somewhere on the outskirts of town. The outer wall is quite far from the prison building (unlike other places of detention in the country). You could see that beyond the wall there was a road, and on the side of the road there were people’s houses, and further to the right you could see open fields. At the beginning of the Pitești period, the regime seemed mild, except that the food was extremely poor. On the verge of survival. In the cells there were no tents for physiological needs, only small urinals. For other physiological needs […]

The worsening of the prison regime

From the day the speaker was scheduled to begin, a regime of unimaginable severity was imposed. Postcards were stopped and parcels were cut up for everyone. Dozens of colonels and other higher ranks opened their visas from morning to night and studied us. I also saw many civilians. Through the cracks in the door I saw Ana Pauker several times, spying on the prisoners. I also saw other well-known figures from the portraits that hung on all the walls of the institutions, who belonged to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Romanian (Communist) Workers’ Party. My God, […]

Resurrection night at Pitești prison, 1949

And here is the night of the Resurrection. With the ringing of the bells that reached us, candles began to be lit in the street, beyond the houses that were attached to the prison wall. But this decoration, which for us had taken on cosmic proportions, also had the meaning of a spiritual message from those who had not forgotten us and who now wanted us to know that they were with us in spirit. We could only answer them with a “Christ is risen!” that began softly and then broke out from the 800 or so voices. If anyone […]