Some aspects of the Gherla extermination prison
The torture of political prisoners was a constant practice, either by depriving them of food or by beating them for no reason other than the desire to torture the defenceless. Often, the cell door would open and the administration would burst in and start beating people, to trample them. I saw the same system applied in Aiud, Galați, Jilava… So it was organised torture, according to the rules.
From morning to evening you were not allowed to lie on the bed, but only on the edge of it, with your eyes on the door, or to walk around. If you went out for a walk, you had to run between the militiamen’s batons to avoid being beaten. Young people escaped more easily, but old people who couldn’t run away were well beaten, to the amusement of the beasts.
A special case occurred in 1956. In a cell of 12 people, there were some old people, including elder Florea, a farmer from Bihor County. He was arrested with two children because two of the leaders of the uprising were hiding with him. They were in the barn and refused to surrender. The Securitate forces then set fire to the barn and burned them alive. They arrested the host and the two boys. The old man, in his seventies, was weak, sick and could hardly move. The younger men in the cell decided to protect the old man by exposing themselves to the beatings: before being taken out for a walk, they wrapped themselves in blankets and put their prison outfit over them. This made it easier for them to bear the blows.
On one of the days mentioned, when they went out into the yard, the prisoners were surrounded, as usual, by 4 militiamen who beat them thirstily while the others slipped away. Behind the group, Ionescu Romică, a young student from Bucharest, was left to take the blows of officer Dodea, while protecting old Florea, who was coming down the stairs. As he was at the end of his tether, he could not go out into the courtyard, because a group of militiamen, led by Istrate, a lieutenant, burst into the corridor to start the beating in the rooms. Seeing that Ionescu Romică was young and young at heart, they set upon him. Warmed up by the beating he had received a few seconds earlier, Romică, a tall boy, stopped, grabbed Lieutenant Istrate by the lapels, lifted him up and slammed him against the wall. He fell like a turd, unable to utter a word. The other thugs rushed Romică, beat him and carried him up to the guardhouse. For 24 hours, all the militiamen passed by and trampled over him.
The next day, after being informed of the crime that had been planned against the prisoner Romică Ionescu, the Colonel Doctor of the Securitate – Sin – went to the place where he was being held. He tried to enter, but was stopped by a militiaman who told him that he had an order from Lieutenant Istrate not to let anyone in.
After a harsh exchange, the door was opened. On the cement lay the young Ionescu Romică, in a pool of blood. He was taken to the infirmary by order of Colonel Sin, where he received immediate medical attention. Due to the loss of blood and the injuries caused by the countless blows he had received all over his body, he could hardly be saved. But the deep scars remained.
(Cicerone Ionițoiu – Graves without crosses. Graves without crosses. Contributions to the Chronicle of the Romanian Resistance to Dictatorship. Volume III)