The persecution of the university environment
The atheist persecution also affected the academic world. Hundreds of teachers at the universities of Bucharest, Iași and Cluj were forced to leave their jobs. According to Professor Victor Coroianu, at the Medical Faculty of the University of Cluj alone, 92 teaching staff – professors, directors of studies, assistants and preparators, “the elite of Cluj” – were dismissed, “most of them unemployed, without a guaranteed livelihood, and this on the eve of winter”.
Many scientific and cultural personalities were thrown into prison. The famous philosopher Ion Petrovici, for example, was placed under forced residence at the beginning of June 1945, in accordance with Law No. 312 of 24 April 1945, and placed under the surveillance of the public order authorities. He was later sentenced to ten years’ hard labour. Another well-known philosopher of the time, Nicolae Bagdasar, who had studied in Germany, was arrested because he had been director of the “House of Schools” since 1942. In this capacity, during the height of the war, he published and distributed textbooks for schoolchildren under the Antonescu regime. Nicolae Bagdasar also bought books written by various personalities of the time, thus helping to improve their financial situation. His brother Dumitru Bagdasar was appointed Minister of Health under the communist regime, and after his death his wife Florica took over.
On 18 May 1946, Mircea Vulcănescu was arrested and imprisoned in the army arsenal with other leading intellectuals. Professor Dumitru Drăghicescu, a renowned liberal sociologist and political scientist, chose suicide, throwing himself, according to C. Rădulescu-Motru, “from the top floor of the house onto the pavement”.
Other scholars of the time hid from the police and security authorities for a long time. Nichifor Crainic, for example, wandered around the country from 23 August 1944 to 27 May 1947. He first stayed in Sibiu, at the Arpașu Monastery, a foundation of the ruler Constantin Brâncoveanu. From there he travelled to Alba Iulia, then to Lacrămul lui Blaga. Then he went to Abrud, Blăjani, in the Apuseni Mountains, to one of the springs of Criș Alb. Then he passed through Brad and the last refuge was in Cerghid, at the house of Father Ioan Sămărghitean. Nichifor Crainic, considered a “war criminal”, asked the priest to hand him over to the Gendarmerie Legion, which he did at the end of May 1947. Also, in September 1948, Dr. Gheorghe Fulgeanu, former director of the Bacău State Hospital, “went to the Neamț Monastery with the intention of becoming a monk”. They stayed there until October 1948, under the protection of Abbot Melchisedec, Dumitru and Olga Sturdza.
Others, after months of wandering, crossed into Yugoslavia, hoping to escape the hell of Romania. So did Colonel Alexandru Badea Constantinescu, who first reached the White Church on 14 October 1948. Seized by the border guards, he was imprisoned in Panciova prison and then “handed over to the Romanian authorities”. But others, led by Iosif Broz Tito, managed to cross into the neighbouring country. A group of five young men – Constantin Nistorica, Mihai Amarandei, Cornel Onaca, Teodor Doca and Teodor Teodorof – tried unsuccessfully to cross the Romanian-Yugoslav border. According to the five-decade-old testimony of one of the daredevils, Cornel Onaca, a second lieutenant in the Bihor county militia from Oradea Mare, the five met on 1 July 1951 in the seaside resort of Băile Felix, where they decided to leave the country for good, but among the five was a “snitch” infiltrated by the repressive state authorities in the person of militia lieutenant Teodor Teodorof, who foiled their entire plan. All the conspirators, except the hated informer, were arrested on the evening of 3 July 1951 and, after a thorough investigation that lasted about ten months, sentenced to years in prison. Cornel Onaca was initially sentenced to 12 years in prison. The prosecution appealed and the sentence was increased to 15 years’ hard labour, not only because of the fraudulent border crossing, but above all because of ‘undermining public order’.
(Constantin I. Stan – Cross of Re-education)