The first draconian measure: confiscation of clothes
In order to make the regime that will be applied to us from now on even clearer, the biggest search I have ever seen (i.e. endured) in a prison is organised. Simultaneously, on all floors, the operation began with an unprecedented number of guards. Where did so many come from? A search? Oh no! In fact, it was the most barbaric form of prisoner robbery. Almost all of our meagre luggage is confiscated, and all of the rags that we have obtained, who knows how and from where, to protect our lungs and bones from the unrelenting cold in our cells are torn from our prison clothes. We are told that the order only allows plain sweaters, no fur clothing.
My God, what was to happen to my coat? I was desperate! I was searched by a guard who’d been on our floor for three months. He’s quiet and apparently mean, wearing a watch with a red strap on his hand. When he puts our food bowl on the pulley, the speed of his hand makes the bracelet look like a red flame. Not long ago, he suddenly entered our cell and surprised his nephew Costică Drăgoi, who was working with a needle on a rag. Then I had an inspiration: to remember something about Bihor and the village of my childhood, who knows, maybe it’s from my home region. Interestingly, he didn’t react at all to my very undisciplined intervention, as would be expected after his fame as a bad guard. This fame was probably enhanced by the fact that he had a scar (not too big) on his face, and among Romanians, old proverbs warn that “scarred” people (with a scar or deformity) are bad people.
Now, in the great perquisition, I have the misfortune to be his victim. Bad luck? So far, in my despair, I think so. Calmly and quietly, he placed what is allowed on one side and what is forbidden on the other. After removing all the patches and rags from my clothes, he picked up the coat – the saviour of my life so far. He stood still with it for a moment, as if weighing it. Those seconds seemed like an eternity to me. Then he rocked it from side to side. His indecision was murder to me. Where was he going to throw it? And suddenly he drops it on the pile of permitted objects. Thank you, Lord. At that moment, I was ready to swear that I saw my guardian angel holding the hand of the one on whom my survival depended. Sceptics might not believe me! Nor do I claim to have seen him with the eyes of the body, but I have experienced too many moments of happy coincidence in my years of imprisonment and persecution to believe that all the moments of my life of persecution and imprisonment were carried out solely according to the laws of nature.
As soon as we entered the cell, I took a quick look around. On all the floors, in front of the doors, there were piles of rags. Poor people! They had been stripped of the few rags they had used to wrap their skeletal, frozen bodies.
Happy to have saved my coat, I felt as if the dark cell had been filled with light. My inner joy echoes off the gloomy walls. God, how little it takes to make a man happy! I can’t get over what’s happened. Have I survived this far only because of the physical strength my ancestors gave me? I think not! According to the doctors’ prognosis, I should have been dead by now, or at least in the last stage of tuberculosis.
(Pr. Liviu Brânzaș – Ray from the Catacomb)