The Gherla prison beatings
After we were tied up, we heard the same voice—it was Țurcanu:
“Systematic beatings!”
The precision with which this satanic procedure was organized showed that many such attacks had taken place before. Yet there were no surviving witnesses willing to testify.
I was grabbed on the spot, seized with fists. They took hold of me wherever they could: my clothes, my neck, my nose. Up, down, bruised on the right, bruised on the left.
I was bounced around like a ball—like children kicking a ball in a wild, frenzied game.
They hit me with everything they had. And they had so many objects, all ready at hand, that we didn’t even see them all.
They struck with pieces of wood from the ends of nails, rods from the workshops, heads of firewood, ropes twisted and soaked in water, pieces of electric cable with metal wire inside, belts, spoons, forks—anything the mind could imagine, or could not imagine.
It did not matter where they struck or what might happen. It did not matter that the blows could kill or cripple me.
They hit the head, the stomach, the ribs—anywhere they could—mercilessly, without a shred of mercy. Screaming, shouting, yelling, they drove us around the room amid relentless blows. The noise surrounded the room like nothing imaginable in hell.
This method—torturing while shouting and enjoying the suffering—was designed to demoralize. It was used not only by Țurcanu during “re-education” but also by the secret police during investigations.
On 5 November 1958, Gheorghe Andreica recalled being tortured at Cluj Security by Major Gruia-Grimberg. While beaten with a crowbar on his feet, around twenty secretaries gathered, shouting, clapping, throwing their helmets—they looked like a pack of hungry wolves tearing at a baby deer, each taking a bite.
Amid this rain of savage, merciless blows, I imagined the scene as a convoy of cannibals capturing a rival tribesman, preparing for a ritual feast. The ritual, horrifyingly, was carried out.
This horror lasted not one minute, not two, not twenty—but about three hours without interruption. When Țurcanu finally ordered the “ritual” to stop, we were like rags soaked in water and thrown to the floor.
Then they brought in many young people from other rooms—just arrested—to witness the humiliation of the leaders, “from whose cause they are not free.”
Țurcanu shouted at the top of his lungs:
“Look at those who keep you in prison!”
Many believed him, their minds consumed by fear and terror. Others wondered:
If these are the guilty, what have they to do with the rest of us?
(Testimony of Aurel Obreja – Testimonies from the hell of the communist prisons)