“You know I’m going to be forced to beat you”

We were taken out of our rooms and cells and taken to room 99 on the same floor (…).

Most of the people I met in room 99 were students: Costache Oprișan, Stuparu Mhai, Ghiță Calciu, Magirescu Eugen, Păvăloaia, Bordeianu Virgil, Lică Condurache, I don’t remember the names of others. (…)

Finally, dinner was served, roll call was taken and the end of the meeting was announced.

Costache Oprișan came up to me and told me that he knew me from hearsay, that he was a friend of Paragina’s and that he was happy to have met me in person. At one point, Costache Oprișan takes me aside and says: “You know I’m going to have to beat you up”. I looked at him in astonishment, I didn’t know what he was going to say to me. And I asked him very fascinated: “But why should you hit me? He measured me and said: “You’ll understand later”.

Less than two minutes later, Țurcanu entered the room.

I had never seen him before and had never heard of him in prison until that hour. (…) Together with Țurcanu, or immediately after him, the real team of torturers entered: Livinschi, Popa Țanu, Mărtinuș, Pușcașu Vasile, Morărescu, Fux, Steiner Rek, Jubereanu and others whose names I no longer remember.

Țurcanu enters the room, followed by his executioners, and addresses us with authority: “What are you doing here, bandits? Are you holding a legionary meeting?”

At that moment, all eyes turned to him in amazement and indignation, and I rose to my feet, stepped in front of him and asked him: “Who are you? And how dare you insult us and call us bandits?” In the same way, Petrica Duduța also stands up and confronts him. (…)

Țurcanu raises his hand with authority and orders: “Catch them, the bandits”.

At that moment, everyone in the room, except for the 14-16 victims, took out clubs and broomsticks from under the mats and blankets and rushed at us and started beating us with sticks, feet and hands, wherever they could, on the head, on the face, on the body.

At one point I see Costache Oprișan coming towards me and he starts beating me too, but I feel his blows and I realise that they are different from the others.

Oprișan’s eyes were filled with tears, and with each blow I felt a drop of tear fall from Costache’s eyes. And that’s when I understood, perhaps even later, that he, Costache Oprișan, had to make his last test in front of Țurcanu, so that he would not be beaten and tortured anymore: he had to beat Mihai Timaru.

(Mihai Timaru – Memories from Gherla, Editura de Vest, Timișoara, 1993, pp. 54-56)