The renunciation
The content of this concept was and still is very controversial, even among the Holy Fathers during the Christian persecutions. Pitești’s renunciation process of the young legionaries from the Legionary Movement took on much more complex forms than renunciation in ordinary circumstances. I explain my renunciation mystically.
We who went through Pitești and Gherla were and will be accused of cowardice by our comrades, and our enemies will have reason to point the finger at us for what we did. We will answer first of all to our comrades who are still alive and to those who will come after us.
Yes! We were weak and powerless, and we admit it. But not out of fear of death, a death we wanted every moment, but out of fear of losing our minds, like Pintilie, Nedelcu, Șoltuz, Ionescu and the others…
Let those who accuse us live this terror and horror in the same conditions we did, and we shall speak then.
Those of us who have been killed have redeemed our weaknesses with their sacrifice. The Legion will live on through its martyrs, heroes and fighters. We wanted to die every moment, but we were not allowed to die or commit suicide. The purpose of torture was not to kill us, because that would have been considered genocide, but to make us notorious killers and informers. The doctors in the Nazi concentration camps were somehow more humane in that they condoned death, while the Communist doctors in the prison medical cabinets, agents of the Security Service and partners of Țurcanu in crime, prevented it in order to make the torment worse.
To our enemies who persecuted us, when they sarcastically remind us that “death, only the legionary death, is the most sought after wedding of all weddings…”, we will answer with a question: what did they do in the communist regime in Romania? We know very well what they did, so we ask them: where are their heroes and martyrs? And their complicity in so many crimes? If they had been beaten with hundreds of clubs on their bodies, what would have become of them?
We do not ask the people for forgiveness or understanding, because compassion no longer warms. It is so easy to blame when not even a finger was laied on you!
Five months of systematic torture went according to plan. The mysterious investigator of 26 October had warned us that he would take us to the point of madness when he said to me: “Even if you are made of reinforced concrete, we’ll still melt you…”
After those five months of unimaginable torture, we had all gone mad, but not all of us.
When the interrogator asked me if I was still a legionnaire, I replied that I could not be anything else because that is what I had been condemned for. He went on to tell me that one day I would be able to say that I was no longer a legionnaire.
And he had achieved his aim, but not with those who were killed or driven mad, because they continued to confess their faith in God and the Legion.
Our disloyalty was followed by unbearable and constant torture. We wondered if this renunciation was just a lie, because it was formal. The answer remains to be given by the Creator. We asked ourselves again: did our renunciation of the Legionaries harm anyone? Did we harm them or ourselves? Perhaps both. Only the free declaration, free from any kind of constraint, physical or moral, is valid. We left the Legion not out of fear of death, but because we were convinced that the tortures would continue indefinitely and that we would lose our minds. Is not death preferable to madness for a man of sound mind? Anyone who wishes to verify these assertions only needs to visit a lunatic asylum.
This was the state we were in when Zacharias asked each of us if we were still Legionaries. The non-legionaries were grouped to the right of the door.
The first to be questioned was Ghiță Reus. A Christian and a legionnaire to his core, a young man of impeccable morals, he had been tortured on the orders of Țurcanu in particular, as one of his most bitter opponents.
In response to Zaharia’s question, Reus said: “I was arrested, tried and sentenced for illegal legionary activity. That was the statement I gave and signed at the inquiry. But there is no article in the penal code where you can be sentenced for legionary activity. From a legal point of view, we were convicted under Article 209 of the Penal Code, for the crime of incitement against the social order”. “If I have not been convicted as a legionnaire, how can you say whether I am still a legionnaire from a legal point of view? Does the communist regime consider me a legionnaire or not? If it considers me a legionnaire because of my legionary activities, then no law gives the authorities the right to force me to stop being a legionnaire. Does it? If, according to the penal code, I am not a legionnaire, why am I obliged to renounce what I am not?”
“I have paid for what I have done, either as a legionnaire or as a non-legionnaire. What I am or am not is a matter of conscience, and no one in this world can force me to deny my conscience.
Conscience is strictly personal, and I alone am master of its intimacy. I can only be judged and condemned from a Communist point of view if I publicly express my opinions or beliefs by confessing that I am against Communism. No law in the world can force me to externalise my thoughts and the privacy of my conscience”.
At Reus’s exhibition, Măgirescu, who had just graduated from law school, said nothing. In private, he agreed with Reus; he had probably said the same thing to Țurcanu.
The revelation shocked everyone in the room, even Zaharia, the head of the torture committee. He wrote down what Reus had said in order to inform Turcanu.
Then it was Tudose’s turn, who replied that he had never thought about whether he was still a legionnaire or not, because, as Reus had said, it was a matter of conscience.
The third was Gelu Gheorghiu, who replied to Zaharia with his good-man attitude, interpreting everything from a moral point of view:
“I wonder if I was ever a legionnaire, because from my point of view, to be something is to identify with what you claim to be. So I wonder, have I identified myself with the Legionary Movement?”
“Corneliu Codreanu was the first to identify with what he said he was, and that is why he was murdered. Moța and Marin also identified themselves with what they said they were, and so they died. All the legionary martyrs identified themselves with what they said they were, and so they were murdered”.
“In this room there were two legionaries, Pintilie, whom you killed – and Nedelcu, who went mad. And if I had succeeded, I would have killed myself (as I judge now, I would have been a coward), and now I am asked whether I am still a legionnaire or not”.
“I put it this way: I loved a very beautiful girl, I loved her with all my heart, but one day I had to tell her that I would no longer marry her. The girl asks me for explanations, but what explanations can I give her, because my attitude towards her remains unchanged?
“I can’t give any explanations, because someone is torturing me with the baton and forcing me, without my will, to tell her what he wants, not what I feel. So, gentlemen, what you ask is only a formal act, for you will never be able to penetrate into the privacy of my conscience. But you are only interested in formal acts, and if that is what you want, you will get what you want as a result of the tortures you are using and will continue to use. But this never corresponds to reality, because no matter how much we renounce the Legionary Movement, we will still be considered Legionaries”.
“But I will answer this question, but allow me to think about it”.
Gelu Gheorghiu’s statements gave many of us the opportunity to respond in the same way. After Gelu Gheorghiu it was my turn. The comrades in the room did not know about the tortures in room 2 on the ground floor and had not witnessed my denial of the Legionary Movement.
But I was convinced that, after the tortures I had suffered and would continue to suffer, I and my comrades, instead of going mad, should formally renounce the Legionary Movement.
I replied that I had not thought about it and that I would have to think about it because it was a matter of conscience that could not be pronounced immediately.
When Măgirescu asked me how much time I needed to think about it, I said one or two months, and Zaharia brutally intervened: “I’ll make you shorten the time”. But Măgirescu told him to leave me alone for now.
After us, everyone else: Dinescu, Sântimbreanu, Ciornea, Sârbu, Ungureanu, Popescu Paul, Zelică Berza, Grigoras, Hutuleac, etc. asked for time to think.
Nedelcu and Ionescu, non-legionaries who showed signs of losing their minds, were not asked anything. Of all of them, only five declared that they were no longer legionaries, the young men chosen by Zaharia to stand guard during the night.
The next day, in the evening, after Zaharia had given his report to Țurcanu, he came to see us.
It is impossible to describe Țurcanu’s physiognomy in such situations. As soon as he entered the room, he went straight to Reus and said ironically: “Colleague, you’re making a case, aren’t you? It’s still a case, because we were colleagues at the university, I can’t argue with you. But you will see for yourself, and you will feel on the skin of an incarnated legionnaire the method I am going to apply to you, so that you can say you are not a legionnaire as long as you live, even if Horia Sima hangs you”.
“Do you remember when they started to destroy you bandits in this room, I told you that I would force you to tell everything you know and don’t know, and that I would do with you what I want, right? Well, get it into your heads, bandits, that I will apply to you methods of “love” – he was alluding to Gheorghiu – so that you will say that you are no longer legionaries and that you will not need so much time to think, as that mystic bandit, Bordeianu, signed. And you know, bandits, that I will keep my word, as I have always done”.
He looked at everyone on the stairs and left with Zachariah without another word.
The public statements continued, in the room, as well as the written ones, in hospital room 4.
We were sure that after Turcanu’s visit Zaharia would come up with a new method of torture.
After dinner, Zaharia returned like an angry bull and discussed his musical repertoire. He chose ten of us and, together with the committee, applied Gheorghiu’s law of love to us.
Then he gave us a new position on the beds: instead of keeping our hands on our knees, we had to raise them up, next to our heads. After the beating we could hardly move, and holding our hands up in the fixed position increased the nervous excitement to an unbearable degree.
We were all convinced that in the end we would not be able to stand it and would have no choice but to leave the Legionary Movement or go mad.
(Dumitru Bordeianu – Confessions from the Swamp of Despair)