The sacrifices that followed on the Golgotha of Aiud

After half a year of this regime, the prisoners began to die on their heads. One by one. First, the oldest. Their age didn’t allow for such an effort.

The phenomenon of death manifested itself as follows: a swelling of the legs began, which gradually increased, the stomach and the face began to swell, as if one were being pumped with air. It was dystrophy, oedema. The heart, weakened, powerless, could no longer pump water out of the tissues and so death came. I don’t know how many people died in Aiud at that time. Probably half of the 5,000 surrendered to the Pope. In 1950 they started giving the swollen ones a special diet and some could still be saved. The official doctor made frequent visits to check on the health of the prisoners. I think in April-May they were all swollen or showing signs of swelling. In June my legs started to swell. But they didn’t put me on the same diet as the swollen prisoners they were trying to save, but since the official narrative from Bucharest was that there had been enough deaths, they started to improve the diet for all the prisoners in Aiud. The improvement was slight, but it was enough to stop the process of the prisoners bloating and slowly producing their recovery.

Those who were on a diet were kept on it, as they could not recover on the general diet. Oppression also decreased. Outings for fresh air and recreation became normal, i.e. daily. We saw each other. We could find out who had died. They were mostly old, but also young. Death took them by storm according to its unknown criteria.

The result of the famine in Aiud: devastation. Half dead, the other half very weak and frail. I learned that in other places the regime had been harsh at that time, but not as the one in Aiud.

(Fr. Nicolae Grebenea – Memories from the Darkness)