The disbanding of the colony. Return to prison
It was spring. We had dug up the vines, pruned and tied them. The two guards, Rusu and Avram—now militiamen under the new regime—warned us to liquidate our households because we would soon be taken to Aiud.
We slaughtered what remained alive: two pigs, a few lambs, and the poultry. The meat we divided among ourselves. Towards the end of April 1948, ten or twelve young militiamen arrived—freshly trained in the Marxist spirit—to take over the administration of the colony and all material goods. But they found almost nothing: only a little flour and some potatoes.
They were bewildered, unsure what to do with the command they had assumed or how to organize the work. The next morning, they lined us up before the wagons and gave the order:
— Go to work!
— Where? we asked.
— Where? To work!
— Which of us?
— All of you! Like who?
We sat still, watching them.
— Don’t you want to work? one demanded.
— Yes, comrade militiaman, but show us the place and what we must do there—how many men are needed for the task, and when is the right time for it.
— How did you do it before?
— We did it as we knew how, because we were in charge. But now you are in charge, and you will be responsible for the result. You have taken away our right to organize and manage the colony.
They conferred among themselves in confusion. Rusu and Avram refused to take part in the discussion. When they saw that they could not impose authority, they tried instead to recruit some of us. They turned to Valeriu Gafencu. With a compassionate gaze, he said quietly to the militiaman:
— I pray that God may forgive you this sin. But know that He will not forgive you unless you confess and receive Holy Communion.
They returned to Aiud and reported that we refused to work.
On 4 May 1948, two large carts arrived. We were loaded onto them and taken to Aiud. As we passed through the village, people came to their gates and called out:
— God help and protect you!
We waved in farewell, but the militiamen shouted threateningly:
— Put your hands down!
In Aiud we were housed in the first and second sections. We found the churches desecrated, their furniture destroyed—but the doors left open. During the day, when we were allowed into the courtyard, we would enter the church to pray.
Whenever we prayed—whether at nine or ten in the morning, or in the late afternoon around three or four—two “war criminals” appeared at the doorway. One was General Topor, the other General Macici. They would lean against the entrance, watching silently as we knelt and prayed. They never crossed the threshold, never bowed; they stood motionless, with a kind of frozen astonishment.
We would usually read an Akathist or a Psalm from the Psalter. When we finished and stepped outside, they would still be there, staring at us with the same expressionless faces, before walking away without a word.
At first, I could not understand why they came. But later, I began to comprehend—when I remembered what had happened at Susai.
These men, once great army commanders in the struggle against communism, now condemned and defeated, did not dare to come before God with humbled hearts, to confess their unworthiness. The desecration of the bones of the heroes of the 1916–18 war at Susai had annulled their dignity as warriors for the Cross and the national ideal. They had risen to positions of command without any spiritual or mystical consecration—followers in name only of Christ’s faith, defenders in form but not in spirit of Romanian national honor.
The curse of the mocked heroes weighed upon their souls.
(Virgil Maxim, Hymn to the Cross Bearer. Abecedar duhovnicesc pentru un frate de cruce, 2nd edition, Antim Publishing House, Bucharest, 2002, pp. 172–174.)