The re-education in Suceava
For me, the very word re-education carried such a sinister connotation that I could not define it. How could one re-educate oneself? And what exactly was I to re-educate? Was it my way of life, my way of thinking, my faith, my worldview, my dream, my struggle? What was I expected to drive out of myself? My faith in God and my love for Him? Was I to replace His Gospel with proletarian ideology, charity with hatred and class struggle, truth with lies, sincerity with hypocrisy, harmony with terror, mercy with violence?
Should I banish God from my soul and put the Party in His place? Should I hate my family and friends, betray them, and live in terror, fear, mistrust, suspicion, and insecurity? Ultimately, was I to abandon myself entirely—replacing everything with the rule of Satan, worshipping and serving him, venerating the Party as a new god, and adopting communism as a religion of evil?
Those who could give reliable information about the beginnings of this satanic game are gone: Țurcanu, executed by his masters, and Bogdanovici, killed by Țurcanu. Thus, the true origins of re-education remain shrouded in mystery. What is known comes from whispers and fragments. In the summer or autumn of 1948, it was said in prison that Bogdanovici had access to a loudspeaker. Some claimed this was arranged by the Suceava Party cabinet, approved in Bucharest, and facilitated by his father, then prefect of Botoșani. Rumor had it that father and son spoke alone, with no witnesses. From this conversation, the so-called “re-education” of Suceava began. According to the same rumors, Bogdanovici’s father pleaded with him to abandon his political convictions in order to save his life. From his close associates, it was learned that before his arrest Bogdanovici had frequent clashes with his father on political matters, with his mother often intervening to reconcile them.
Yet a troubling question remains: why was Bogdanovici sentenced so harshly if he had supposedly embraced re-education? Testimonies from Pitești suggest he had not initiated re-education in Suceava at all. In his understanding, re-education had to be a conscious and voluntary process—not one of coercion and violence. If he had embraced violence, he would have been rewarded, not killed.
At the time, Bogdanovici was rector of the University of Iași, overseeing the faculties of Law, Letters and Philosophy, and Natural Sciences. Medicine, Pharmacy, and Polytechnic institutions were separate. The Legionary student body was led by Neculai Simionescu, a law student from Soroca, Bessarabia. Confusion has surrounded who denounced whom. It was not Bogdanovici who betrayed Țurcanu, but Ștefan Caciuc, his old classmate and later colleague at the Iași Faculty of Law.
Țurcanu’s trajectory is revealing. Active in the F.D.C. only in 1940–41, he ceased Legionary activity after January 1941. By 1946, when questioned by Caciuc, he declared openly: “What you do is your business. I am a communist! I am friends with the brothers of Emil Bodnăraș. They support me and will help me build a career in diplomacy. So this is the last time I will speak to you.” These exchanges show that Țurcanu had become a communist even before his arrest. By autumn 1948, he was reportedly being prepared by Ana Pauker, then Foreign Minister, for a diplomatic career—possibly even as ambassador to Yugoslavia. His arrest, however, came about because Caciuc repeated their conversations to investigators. Out of jealousy over a woman, he denounced Țurcanu, who received seven years in prison as a result. This twist proved fateful: once arrested, the communists saw in Țurcanu the perfect instrument for their plans at Pitești and Gherla.
The conversation between Bogdanovici and his father preceded Țurcanu’s arrest. Communist officials in Bucharest, learning from Caciuc’s denunciations, likely informed Party leaders, who then instructed Bogdanovici’s father to persuade his son to cooperate. In this way, the communists worked on two levels: Bogdanovici, tortured but still resistant, and later Țurcanu, who executed their plan more directly. Bogdanovici’s role was to test the unity of young Legionaries—probing who remained firm and who faltered under pressure. Through him, mistrust and suspicion were sown.
I saw Bogdanovici with my own eyes during an investigation. His face and body bore the marks of unspeakable torture. Despite his suffering, he was no initiator but rather a victim and a tool used by the communists to dismantle solidarity among Legionary youth. Later, at Pitești, he was kept alive longer than others—until winter 1951—so that, under torture, he might reveal everything he knew. Ultimately, he too was killed on Țurcanu’s orders, carried out at the behest of Russian agents.
From the outset, the plan for re-education was never about reforming individuals. It was about extracting hidden information, destroying resistance through torture, and then using the broken survivors for the Party’s own ends. Țurcanu, believing he was securing his future, became a loyal executor of this satanic design. He thought he would be rewarded with freedom and political advancement. Instead, after carrying out his masters’ will, he and his collaborators were isolated, interrogated, and ultimately executed—sacrificed by the very Party they had served. This was the inescapable logic of communism: betrayal was rewarded only until the betrayer himself became expendable.
It is important to emphasize: neither Bogdanovici nor Țurcanu alone conceived or directed the re-education campaigns. They were mere tools. In communist regimes, no bird flies without the Party’s knowledge. The entire machinery was imposed, directed, and controlled by Moscow, executed in Romania with the collaboration of Ana Pauker, Vasile Luca, Teohari Georgescu, General Nicolschi, and Colonel Zeller. The plan’s goal was not simply to dissolve the Legionary Movement but to annihilate an entire generation of youth—physically, morally, and spiritually.
Some naively believed they could gain preferential treatment, better food, or even political careers by collaborating. In truth, they only became pawns in a system that devoured its own. The tragic story of re-education in Suceava, Pitești, and Gherla reveals not only the brutality of the communist regime but also the deeper spiritual battle at its core. Those who sought to serve the Party by betraying their comrades were ultimately consumed by the same system.
As Vasile Pârvan once said: “A nation does not exist and does not endure because of its cowards, deserters, and traitors, but because of its martyrs, heroes, and fighters.” So too it was in the prisons of Romania: survival and dignity rested not with those who bent to Satan’s game, but with those who endured to the end, faithful to their God and their conscience.