As was only natural, the capital accumulated from the investment at Pitesti
could not remain unutilized. The first Securitate that directly used the
"rehabilitated" students in order to squeeze from the arrestees more
than could be gotten by the bludgeon, was that of Pitesti. A wing of the prison
containing a number of cells was placed at the Securitate's disposal for use
with detainees yet untried, usually members of a group that escaped arrest on
the first raid; or those whose cases were complicated and would require more
time; or those few who still, despite all conventional tortures, had not talked
enough and were sent "into storage. " The "re-educated"
students recommended by Turcanu were put in the cells with these men in the
hope that where the Securitate failed they would succeed.
The method usually followed was very simple. The "re-educated"
individual introduced into the cell had to show several scars from
maltreatment, but was to maintain a prescribed attitude of complete silence, of
suspicion toward all the newcomers, and of refusal to discuss anything with
them for fear of "being denounced to the Securitate. " After a while,
when he felt he had by such bearing gained their confidence, he would approach
the person he had been ordered to cultivate, carefully advising him as a
younger neophyte to stay away from everyone, for "you can't tell
whether the one you talk to might not be a secret agent of the Securitate.
" This warning won him the confidence of his prey when later he gradually
inquired into details of the man's case, constantly offering helpful advice as
to how he should behave when interrogated. Usually success with the newcomer
was certain, especially if he was not a student. Romanians who had not attended
a university had traditionally felt great respect for and trust in students
over the years, and now, when such a man most needed a confidant, a moral
support to help him bear the brutality of his captors more easily, it was the
natural thing to lean on this helpful, respected, and better educated student,
giving him full confidence. Later, during interrogation, he discovered his error,
for the interrogator repeated everything he had told his "adviser" in
confidence, but when he was returned to the cell, his confidant was no longer
there.
This method of eliciting secrets from newcomers was used extensively at the
Ministry of the Interior, where several re-educated students were shifted from
cell to cell for a year to act as "advisers" to persons recently
arrested. Here are some examples:
The student Caravia was used at the Ministry of the Interior to spy on the
group of parachutists led by Alexandru Tanase in 1953. Freed in 1956 for a
brief period, he was then re-arrested.
At Iasi, then Barlad, then Hunedoara prisons, a former industrial student
named Tudose was evidently a man who got results, for in 1956-57 he was still
performing this dirty work for the Communist regime.
At the Brasov-Codlea Securitate, the student Craciunescu from the Faculty of
Agronomy was used in 1954. He was in charge of stalking the Legionary group
that formed a resistance skeleton in the Fagaras Mountains.
At the Securitate of Constanta, the student Iuliu Anagnostu from the Faculty
of Letters in Bucharest was used for over two years, especially with Macedonian
students arrested throughout villages in Dobrogea. He was responsible for the
arrest of a group of over 25 Macedonians in the Mihai-Viteazul village and in
Baschioi, as well as for the arrest of several Turks from around Constanta. He
would introduce himself as a Legionary and a doctor, being neither one nor the
other. For services rendered, he was allowed to "escape" around 1954,
then was sent through villages in northern Dobrogea to perform more services
for his masters by posing as a fugitive. Even though he had been sentenced to
15 years in prison, he was permanently liberated in 1956 when his case was
reheard, while he was "escaped. "
The great plague of denunciations by the re-educated was to cause havoc in
the large so-called "penitentiaries of execution" to which were sent
condemned political prisoners to serve out the sentences handed down by the Securitate
after the flagrantly staged shows called "trials. "