“They beat him until he went mad”

…Țurcanu came back and moved me from my seat to the other bed, telling the committee to allow me to lie down on the bed and that the lights out signal must find me under the blanket.

I was about to witness another shocking scene, when they beat up Ion Pintilie.  They beat him until he went mad. In this state, he started cursing them, sometimes in Romanian, sometimes in French, and then he started laughing and cursing again. Those who beat him thought he was faking it, and they kept beating him until the medical student from Iași could say no more.

Ion Pintilie was the son of a worker from Tecuci, the only child of his parents. On St. John’s Day (7 January) they brought a jar of pickle to our room and gave each of us a cup of brine, and a litre to those who were celebrating their name day, and then for 2-3 days they gave us no more water, except for those who promised to accept the re-education. From the litre of brine, Ion Pintilie seemed to be drunk with thirst.

He had hidden a poem in his hat, which he liked very much and which he had not handed over when we searched him. Someone else must have known about it, because the question was asked repeatedly “if anyone else had anything hidden”. Ion Pintilie said nothing. They took off his hat and found the poem. That is why he was beaten. It should be noted that there was nothing political in the poem. When they realised what they had done, they laid him on the bed in front of me. I haven’t seen him since. I found out later that he was also taken to the infirmary, where he died. By choice, by necessity, I lay on the bed under the blanket.

(Neculai Popa – Descent into Hell)