The trial

On 4 April 1959 they put us on trial. 4 April! Fifteen years ago, we took our exams, a day when Bucharest was bombarded with indescribable fury.

The night before, I had a revealing dream, which I later explained. I was in church and on the sacred altar table I counted 22 candles, 6 of which were burning. I was sentenced to 22 years in prison, of which I served 6.

A prophetic dream!

At six in the morning, as never before, Colonel Socol came “downstairs”, took me out into the corridor and said:

– See that you are on trial today! Watch what you say! Don’t forget what you’ve been through…

The figure of the female officer, beautiful, smiling, the most effective Securitate investigator in Craiova, came to my mind like a flash. She was sensitive. She had a method that never failed. The effect was guaranteed. How many men could be whole after passing through her hands? She was delicate…

They led us into the courtyard through the blindfold. We could hear the engine of the van and unsteady footsteps to our left and right. There were 23 of us, students and pupils. The oldest were Professor Julea and myself, 46 and 35 respectively. A typographer was about the same age, and the rest of the young people were about 20.

Poor Professor! His shoes were tied with string across the soles. He’d obviously been through the fiery ordeal of pipe-hitting in his shoes too. He was shivering. Not due to the cold. I encouraged him as best I could. I wasn’t too brave myself, but I was a bit more controlled. Gavrilescu smiled knowingly. Cutuca, a mechanic, a monk whose name escapes me, a teacher from Valea Stanciului and the two Mihăilescu brothers. They held hands, terrified, one 17, the other 15.

They put us in the pits. There was a guard behind each one. Gavrilescu and I were guarded by an officer; we were only the initiators!

We weren’t allowed to look into the hall. The military tribunal tried us. For a long time I didn’t know where we were, although I knew the city well. We were diverted through various streets until we reached the courtyard. It wasn’t until lunchtime that I realised where we were. We were given half a loaf of bread with jam. Even the security guards had distributed the food. Strangely, I walked past the sky-high mass I had witnessed, as if it didn’t concern me. Prosecutor Ardeleanu’s accusation was lightning:

-Here, dear comrades! This dangerous gang of bandits, led by a legionnaire, was preparing to overthrow the government by force…

What could we do? Only family members were allowed in the courtroom, one person from each family.

The trial lasted until midnight. In the afternoon session, the priest Dan Mihăilescu was introduced.

The prosecutor: – Is it true that since 1945 you have told the accused that, since you serve together, you should only have service relations and never discuss politics under any circumstances?

Priest: – Yes!

The prosecutor: – You see, Your Honour? Since then they have been organised. The priest was a legionary commander and the accused worked in the legionary shop, next to Codreanu.

Father, who knew we were permanently in the security zone, told me not to talk about it. He did this out of caution. Now he was called as a witness. He was arrested in court because he didn’t want to admit that he knew nothing about our organisation. And he didn’t. But he had to be there, in front of the court, where the fate of 23 young people was being decided, some of whom had never even met, but who, in 1958, had dared to think that the communist yoke could be shaken off. Poor dreamers, how dearly we had to pay for this hope, and how many thousands of Romanians like us, many of whom, like Father Dan, paid with their lives.

I was not surprised when, after six years of hard imprisonment and hard work, I found Lieutenant Didu and his subaltern, Second Lieutenant Busu, full colonels, full of money and glory.

That they dusted off all they had achieved is another story that has no place in these pages.

In the evening they filled our bowls with arpacaș and at two in the morning they took us to the prison. Seven doors opened and shut behind us. It was a warm April night, and the queen of the night in the flowerbeds exhaled her perfume, which we savoured thirstily, desperately.

A great white moon followed us. How long had it been since I had seen the moon, now so splendidly enthroned in the clear, star-studded sky.

Then, with my eyes closed, I read Dante’s verse that opens the previous chapter. I read it with a mind dulled by the “love” with which we were surrounded here.

The most inhuman, the most communist prison of all those I’d been through was still Craiova. It was still ours. Here the guards beat you for the pleasure of giving. There were 18 of us in the cell. There were four bunk beds.

July 1959. We took turns under the bed, where the air was easier to breathe. Otherwise it was hell.

Eighteen people in a room where at most four would have been able to live under normal conditions! We slept (that’s one way of putting it) three to a single bed. Two side by side, the third on top. Six on the floor, taking turns. We were very hungry. We had a hundred grams of black bread a day, and a stew in which – as a fortunate event – someone found 17 beans.

I thought it was the hardest time in detention, but it was only the beginning.

The blanket was taken out in the morning and in the evening before the count, so we had to face the wall. It wasn’t surprising that you woke up with a blow to the back of the head, you had to watch your nose, because at first you didn’t know what you were doing, you’d smash it against the wall. But with what a man doesn’t get accustomed?

I closed my eyes. How often have I tried to find the way to the seas beneath the wilderness, reached by thorny paths. There I found a clearing of the soul, on the slope so often bizarre and grotesque, ending in the land of pain and obsession. I collected in my mind’s eye the pleasures of the waters of the Jiu, I inhaled the thin air that I needed so much, I offered a thought of love to those who were still beside me, I stole from under my eyelids a corner of the spring sky. When he took us for a walk, even then the cranes of the soul lingered on the brim of a fountain from which hung moonstars, and thirst and hunger no longer tormented me.

After two weeks, the Tudor-Gavrilescu group was taken out for grafting. We were herded into a corner of an empty room with a table and a chair. The windows had been painted over and the bars had been removed. A man in his 60s entered.

He started to read, the sentences:

Gavrilescu V. 25 years hard labour.

Tudor Ilie: 22 years hard labour plus 7 years hard labour for facilitating fraudulent border crossing.

Gavrilescu was caught trying to flee the country.

Cutuca M. 20 years old hard labour.

The Mihăilescu brothers, 16 years in prison and I don’t know. I really laughed then. A laugh out of place, angry, stupid. The optician – a clerk – looked at me in amazement. And the others? Some were tearing their hair out, crying. Professor Julea was absent. He was huddled up and silent. Gavrilescu looked surprised and couldn’t find his place. I haven’t seen him since. They put us in different cells. We asked everywhere. I understood that he had been in Gherla for some time. I was taken to the execution prison.

(Ilie Tudor – De sub tăvălug, 3rd edition, MJM Publishing House, Constanța, 2010, pp. 16-19)