“Through Roman Traian we understood once again that the Romanian was ontologically Christian”

On a starless night, we were loaded into five or six wagons. The destination was unknown.

Those who had once been imprisoned in Russia were terrified. Across the vast expanse of the former USSR, filled with prisons, they had often been transferred from one dungeon to another, or from one labor camp to the next. Each time, they were deceived into believing that they were being sent home — back to their beloved Romania.

But as the French say, ventre affamé n’a point d’oreilles — “a hungry belly has no ears.” We no longer listened to the lies of the Russians. Their words had become meaningless, the language of deceit itself. To lie to soldiers once decorated with medals, but now reduced to dystrophic, skeletal shadows of men — that was a criminal act of wickedness. It was human misery laid bare beneath a black, starless sky — a satanic mockery of life orchestrated by those camp commanders.

The train journeyed endlessly, circling and winding. We traveled through the night and the following day, not knowing where we were. There were no windows to look through, and the stations were invisible. Only at a few halts, on dead tracks, did the soldiers who guarded us open the sliding doors to let in a breath of air. The almost full latrine buckets sloshed with every movement of the train, releasing their stench at each platform.

It was a harrowing journey. Eventually, we arrived at a ferry crossing. Then came the island of Brăila. A breakwater rose before us. Each prisoner was forced to carry three cubic meters of material per day in a wheelbarrow. Anyone who failed to meet the quota was made to run between two rows of soldiers and civilians armed with truncheons at night. No matter how fast you ran, you could not escape the blows. The only thing you could protect was your head — covering it with your hands — while your back was left bare to the satisfaction of the torturers.

Here I was fortunate. I met Traian Roman, a teacher from Valea lui Mihai in Bihor County. He was small, sturdily built — an angelic soul, a true Romanian of the countryside, but with a will as strong as our highest mountains. I was among those who had to pass through the two “corridors of honor” — those savage lines of beatings.

After the first march, I reached the end of the corridor, exhausted and covered in blood. The next evening, the wonderful teacher Roman asked me to move to the back of the line of those who had not fulfilled their quota. I did not understand why. I assumed the guards — the executioners — might be more tired toward the end. But they were not.

Roman went through the “corridor of massacre” among the first. He received four or five blows but, being strong, did not fall. His great soul carried him through. When he reached the end, he quietly came to the back of the line, pulled me out, and went in my place. It was not our names that mattered to the guards — only the number of those to be punished. They could not even see our faces, so absorbed were they in their violent frenzy. At the end of the session, those who counted the victims were satisfied — as though it had been some grim race.

Roman was — and, I believe, remains — a great Romanian Christian. A Christian gives himself. He lives for others. His soul grows more fertile the more he sows goodness in other hearts. The Christian constantly strives to break the chains of selfishness — even to the point of overcoming the instinct of self-preservation.

Through Traian Roman, I once again understood that the Romanian soul was ontologically Christian. His entire existence on this earth was interwoven with deeds and feelings of faith. It was a magnificent antonymy — between those who beat us for not fulfilling the quota, the investigators whose sadism had been imported from their eastern masters, and Romanians [1] like that humble teacher from Valea lui Mihai.

(Dionisie Dărău – “Nights Without Stars,” Vremea Publishing House, Bucharest, 2013, pp. 207–209)

[1] Such sublime acts of sacrifice — enduring torture in the place of the sick or the elderly — were often practiced in the communist gulag, particularly in Jilava Prison during the reign of Maromet. One such hero, with the spirit of a saint, was the young Nica Voloshniuc, known as “Românașul,” who was discovered after he had repeatedly substituted himself for elderly prisoners due to be tortured. The political officer’s remark left even the brutal guards speechless:

“Don’t you see what they’re doing? Would you die in my place?”