“That man full of kindness and goodness was the great writer Vasile Voiculescu”

– Dear Mr. Aristide Dobre, as the old saying goes, better late than never. It is more than thirty years since you carried the burden of a sacred message. All kinds of obstacles have prevented you from delivering it. Here I am, ready to be your messenger.

 The circumstances in which I have been entrusted with this message are dramatic; they are not just the drama of a few people, but the drama of a whole country. In 1958, while working at the Câmpina refinery, I was arrested for reasons that now seem ridiculous. As you can see from my release certificate, I was “detained” in prison from 6 February 1958 to 1 February 1964 for “conspiracy”.

For six years I was taken through the famous detention centres of Aiud, Salcia, Insula Mare a Brăilei, Jilava, etc. After my arrest, I was detained for a year in Ploiești prison. I think it was on the 11th or 12th of February 1959, when I was taken to the prison yard one night with other prisoners. We were divided into two groups: those under 15 and those over 15. Those of us over 15 were chained hand and foot and then taken to the railway station. They crammed us into a wagon coming from Bucharest, which was already full of prisoners. In the wagon full of corpses we could barely find a seat on the floor. There, among the prisoners from Bucharest, I noticed the figure of Crist, an elderly man with whom I spoke. He was sitting on the bench and, seeing me in such distress, offered me his seat. We became friends over the two and a half days it took to get to Aiud. I would later learn that this man, full of kindness and goodness, was the great writer Vasile Voiculescu.

– How did you endure the inhuman conditions of transport?

– Almost all of us fell ill. The cold was alleviated by our warmth and breath. The hunger was satisfied by bacon and cheese, but they were so salty that a terrible thirst followed. Water was scarce. When we reached Aiud, another disaster awaited us. I don’t know why, but the militiamen rushed us out of the wagon – “Quick, quick!” they shouted. The steps of the carriage were very high, even for a man without chains. We were pushed out of the wagon and fell like sacks by the side of the track. The poet Vasile Voiculescu fell as well, but on top of another man, which lessened the impact. When we finally reached the entrance corridor of the Aiud prison, I remember that a priest and Vasile Voiculescu made the sign of the cross, thanking God that we had escaped alive. Seeing them, a guard slapped the priest and Voiculescu cursed him, saying: “You are praying to God that we die?!” The poet Voiculescu and I decided to stay close to each other, to be together. We were lucky, they put us in the same cell, cell 20. Twenty people rushed to choose their beds, but we managed to stay in close beds.

– How long were you together in cell 20?

– For four months I had the privilege of being around the great writer Vasile Voiculescu, sharing his kindness and great culture. I have never met a more cultured man than Vasile Voiculescu.

– Do you remember Mr. Dobre and other personalities with whom you shared cell 20?

– Yes, I do. Among those who came with the Voiculescu “lot” were Sandu Tudor, Professor Porsena, Prior Făgețeanu, the engineer Gheorghe Valentin and many other names I can’t remember at the moment. I know that Sandu Tudor and Professor Porsena died in prison. They were all part of the “Burning Bush” circle. Their meetings were both religious and patriotic. As V. Voiculescu told me, “The Burning Bush” meant a reference to Moses’ bush, in other words, they prayed to God to save the Romanian people from the red beast. In fact, they prayed even in prison, we all prayed to God to get out alive. The most sober and the one who prayed the most was Abbot Făgețeanu. There were also some who got angry and asked: “What is all this praying for? The answer came promptly: “If we all prayed, the prison gates would burst open with faith!”

– How did Dr. Voiculescu seem to you during the four months you spent in the same cell?

– As when I first met him: gentle, courteous, calm and resigned. He also prayed, but not loudly, not ostentatiously. I suspected he was praying when I saw him in a certain posture. With me he acted like a real parent, I was 44 and he was 74. Sometimes I would ask him, “Doctor, why do you have to suffer at your age?”

“Mr. Dobre, that was my cross to bear,” he would reply. He told me about his family, his friends, and he was very worried about the manuscripts that had been confiscated on the night of his arrest. I remember him saying that about 380 manuscripts had been confiscated. The “last sonnets” had a special place in his heart and I am glad now to know that they were not lost, that they could see the light of print, but unfortunately too late… I also told him about my children, Paul and Magdalena. She wrote a poem for my little girl, to soothe my longing for her, but I don’t remember all of it. It went something like this: “My little girl with golden hair / Little girl, if you weren’t a stranger among strangers / Like a flower among thorns…”.

– Under what circumstances did you part from your great friend V. Voiculescu?

– Around April he fell ill. He had a high fever, he couldn’t eat or speak well. I thought his end was near, especially because he wanted to ask me: Mr. Dobre, when you get out of prison, please go to my family at 34 Dr. Staicovici Street and tell them how I died and give my niece Daniela a kiss from me. I called the caraliul and asked him to send for a doctor to give her some medicine. I think it was a few days before they could bear to take him to hospital. He couldn’t walk on his own, they took him in on a stretcher!

– When you got out of prison, did you look for the Voiculescu family?

– While I was in prison, I didn’t know anything about what had happened to the writer V. Voiculescu. There were rumours that he had died. I was transferred to the Large Island of Brăila and other places of sad fame. When I was released, I went to the address, but I was told that no one from the Voiculescu family lived there anymore, that no one could or would guide me to find little Daniela. Then I was glad that his grandfather, the great writer Vasile Voiculescu, had not died in prison and that he had seen his beloved granddaughter. Perhaps it was his longing for her that helped him resist and not die in prison. But I would ask you to pass on this message to Daniela, whom I see after all these years as a little girl whose image was always present in the heart of the great poet Vasile Voiculescu.

(Testimony of Aristide Dobre in dialogue with Sabina Măduța – Vasile Voiculescu. The Martyred Writer and the Burning Bush, Vol. I, edited by Sabina Măduța, Florile Dalbe Publishing House, Bucharest, 2001, pp. 43-46)