Unleashing the Calvary – Christmas Day, 1949
Christmas Eve – the night before Christmas Day – was filled with carols, bells and the voices of carolers (from the town of Pitești). We lived in the same overcrowded atmosphere, where on the one hand you had to lie down and on the other hand you couldn’t sit on your back or in any other comfortable position, because it was so cramped that you could hear your breath and sweat mixing.
The sarabande of metal bars, struck in a certain way by the guards, heralded the awakening on Christmas Day.
I don’t remember if we even had a chance to wash our hands and faces, as the washbasins in the two toilets were mostly illusory for the 100 or so of us.
We breathed a sigh of relief as we began to move around and say our prayers. […]
At last the porridge (or coloured water) of Christmas Day 1949 arrived…
We began to shake hands with each other with the greetings appropriate to the holiday and, to top it all, we noticed that more and more of the re-educated were trickling in from the ranks.
What a fraternal gesture! I thought to myself. It seems that even the re-educated feel the need for a fraternal atmosphere on this day of joy – as it is also called Christmas Day.
Suddenly – I hear – a signal, a cry, and I’m hit, without being able to see who hit me in the eye, in the head, in the stomach… as if the sky was falling around me. Groans, screams… I see some falling to the ground. I felt myself falling and I didn’t know anything anymore.
One day I woke up with Silviu Murgu’s hand on my forehead – also covered in blood – and realised that there were more of us huddled under the floorboards of room 4 Hospital.
What had happened? I couldn’t tell. I could feel myself being dragged by my feet, screaming:
– Get out, you bandits! Into the light, to be seen!
We were all taken out from under the beds, and in the room, in the light of day, the guards looked at us with batons in their hands. Among them I recognise Țurcanu, Sobolevschi, Popa Țanu and many others…
There are also the faces of Cori Gherman, Nuți Pătrășcanu, Burculeț and others we thought were with us.
– They wanted to kill us legionaries!” shouted Țurcanu to the guards. Then there was another clatter of sticks, clubs, maybe even spears, and the trampling of boots.
It was more than childish, but typical of the communist ideology of using terror by any means necessary.
If an inch of us escaped unscathed from our brothers, the guards covered us in blood.
We didn’t understand, we didn’t realise why these things were happening on this day of joy, the day of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ?
We had nothing to bind our wounds, which were open and bleeding.
It was already evening. There was no food in the evening. Who could eat otherwise?
Some of the re-educated stayed with us to guard us. The others gathered on the opposite side and began to sing a communist march, which they repeated incessantly.
– “Bandits!” thundered Țurcanu’s voice. You’re going to say everything, you’re going to spill out everything you didn’t tell the guards (the term Țurcanu used was vomit): “You will spill everything you have inside you”). That’s your job now: to rack your brains. There must be nothing left that could endanger the security of the communist state.
We were truly destroyed. The beating of the guards confirmed that we had no one – on this earth – to turn to. We felt abandoned in the hands of these executioners.
And yet it was Christmas Day. It was the day the Christ Child was born, but for us it was Good Friday, the Friday of Calvary and despair.
A ray of light -maybe- strengthened me a little to think that Jesus on the cross was -even He- in despair… But not my will, but your will be done…
Another avalanche of blows came upon us. This time I could see that Cori Gherman was hitting me hard.
– What, and you?
– Shut up, bandit! I know you well! Tell me everything, everything you didn’t tell the guards. There must be nothing left in you.
They confused Țurcanu’s blows with those of Sobolevschi, Burculeț, Nuți Pătrășcanu… They were all beating helpless, mortally wounded beings. We were crushed both physically and mentally.
(Aurel Vișovan – My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?)