At the time the experiment at the canal came to an end, unmaskings at Gherla
prison, on the banks of the Somes River in northern Romania, reached an
intensity that perhaps surpassed even the most difficult moments at Pitesti.
In contrast with what was tried in the prisons already mentioned, the system
at Gherla was designed to push the technique to its utmost possibilities,
extending it to categories of prisoners other than the students.
For this purpose, a sizable group of re-educated students was sent by the
Ministry to Gherla as a sort of avant-garde charged with laying the groundwork
by gathering information about the atmosphere and outlook among the prisoners
there. When others capable of work at Pitesti were sent to the canal, Turcanu
was sent to Gherla, accompanied by his immediate entourage who were most
devoted to him and also the most adept at use of the bludgeon. They prepared
the way for the larger contingents that were sent later.
Special measures were taken by the political administration of the prison in
advance of Turcanu's arrival. The entire fourth floor was evacuated for use in
unmaskings, and placed at Turcanu's disposal. All the students from Pitesti
were to be incarcerated in the cells on this floor, the top one of the main
prison building.
Gherla prison was second in importance only to Aiud. Originally a
reformatory for minor delinquents, it was adapted to other uses as the conflict
between the Romanian populace and their Communist masters developed. It was
then equipped with special workshops in which the condemned, without regard to
length of sentence or state of health, were subjected to working conditions
much worse than at the canal.
The hundreds of students transferred to Gherla were all left on the fourth
floor in their cells for quite some time, completely isolated from the rest of
the inmates. Then their screening began anew, under the direct supervision of
the Securitate Lieutenant Avadanei, the new political appointee in charge of
re-education. The students were then re-grouped and sent into workshops, with
specific missions to accomplish.
Contact between the new prisoners and the old was established then without
any difficulty. None of the older prisoners could even guess that those newly
arrived were living in a different world and governed by laws other than human
ones. Their reception was as natural as could be, with much warmth, even with
joy and relief, for the placing of a student corps in their midst was a pleasant
surprise and considered by the workers as probably a mistake on the part of the
Communists!
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Soon, however, a very few of the new arrivals tried to warn their destined
victims, for despite their inculcated terror, a small grain of humanity,
encysted in their souls, could not continue dormant under the warmth of their
reception by the older prisoners at Gherla. Among the hundreds of students
there were several who mustered courage to caution one or more of the older men
to beware of them. Great as was the risk they took, equally great was the
inability of those being warned to comprehend what they were being told. It
seemed to them incredible -- surely these warnings must be prompted by the
Communists, who for a long time had been conducting a campaign of defamation
against the students as a class. If a student spoke evil of his colleagues, how
could the individual being warned verify the statements except by asking another
student, whom he had known on the outside as a dedicated anti-Communist? And
the contingents of students sent to Gherla pretended to be still staunchly
anti-Communist in order to gain the confidence of the older prisoners and learn
from them everything that might be useful to the administration.
The mad attempt by a few of the students to warn of what was to come was
made in vain. None of the workers would believe the monstrosities with which
the students were charged. For one thing, there was not much real opportunity
for extended conversation to elucidate the warnings, and there was always the
risk of being overheard and reported -- a danger that maintained the
conditioned reflex of fear in the students. Although a few had the courage to
talk to workers in the prison shops, it did not enter their minds to discuss
among themselves the possibility of a general change of the state of mind
induced by their re-education at Pitesti. They dared not trust one another! So
there was no concerted effort made to warn the workers -- only a few scattered
gestures by isolated individuals here and there. But this did not prevent
Turcanu from learning about what was going on.
Among the students who arrived in the first lot was one named Rodas,
originally from Ploesti. When he first went to work, he met former friends in
the underground, men in whom he had complete faith. Taking advantage of a
moment of freedom from surveillance, he related to one of them the entire drama
of Pitesti in simple words, trying to make it clear to him as quickly as
possible, as he knew he did not have much time. His friend listened
attentively, but could hardly believe what he heard. So he tried to verify the
story by asking another student whom he trusted. Actually, he hoped to get a
repudiation of a story that seemed perfectly incredible. And, as he had
expected, the student put his mind at ease, saying, "Rodas is an informer
for the Securitate, and what he said is part of an infamous plan set up by the
Communists to compromise the students!" The worker went to bed reassured;
a heavy burden was lifted from his heart; and the next day he told his friends
to beware of Rodas. The informer immediately reported to Turcanu, for so far as
he was concerned, from his heart, too, was lifted a burden, for he, as it
turned out, was Rodas's surveillant -- a pure coincidence!
The next day, Turcanu entered a cell on the fourth floor and ordered all the
students to face the wall. Then he called out, ordering somebody in the
corridor to come in. When the students were ordered to turn around, they saw
standing beside Turcanu a person with a sack over his head so they could not
recognize him. And when in the silent cell Turcanu jerked the sack off, they
still could not recognize the man, for before them stood a figure with a
grotesquely disfigured head, his entire face one swollen bluish wound. Large
globs of blood covered his features, stringing downward over his clothes. The
man was visibly shaking on his feet, hardly able to stand upright. His whole
body trembled as though siezed with chills. A corpselike pallor spread over the
faces of all the students as they fearfully gazed, trying in vain to identify
the victim and imagine a reason for such disfiguration.
"Rodas squealed," said Turcanu, and then everyone understood.
"I have ears everywhere," continued the monster. "A word to the
wise ... to all who eventually may be tempted to talk. This is the first case;
the next one will not be brought before you to see, for he will not live ...
Just so you all may know." This scene was repeated in almost all the cells
on the floor. After such a spectacle, could anyone contemplate warning the
workers again?
I observed several times during my years in prison that witnessing the
suffering and torture of another often has a stronger psychological effect than
one's own suffering. Prolonged physical torture eventually produces a sort of
analgesia, which if it does not deaden the pain of blows, at least diminishes
its intensity. But invariably, when you see someone else being tortured, the
image produced in your mind becomes fantastically exaggerated and has a truly
polarizing effect on the consciousness. This phenomenon was so useful to the
Communists that they gave it a name, "witnessing-the-spectacle," and
used it systematically in investigations in general, and particularly in
unmaskings at Pitesti. The individual who "witnessed the spectacle"
was seized by such fear that his very intestines froze within him.
The effect, then, that Rodas's appearance had on the students at Gherla can
be guessed. Thereafter all the students were ostentatious in manifesting a
provocative anti-Communist attitude in order to obtain information for dossiers
on their future victims. In the evening they would dutifully prepare their
reports for the committee, where cross-checks were made.
The appearance of the students who were taken to the workshops was most
deplorable. The terror, hunger, and the regimen of isolation to which they had
been subjected for months on the fourth floor had turned them into living
phantoms. Many workers, out of love or charity, shared their own poor rations
with them hoping to help. The student accepted food, for hunger is invincible;
but once his hunger was appeased, terror took its place. And he would report in
the evening that he had accepted Legionary help from the so-and-so bandit!!
Little by little, day after day, the dossiers were being built up, with
emphasis on information leading to identifying workers who had the most
influence in the prison. Unmaskings were resumed, Room 99 on the fourth floor
being retained for this purpose. It faced northeast, away from the town, its
windows looking down on the inner courtyard of the prison, and was considered
most suitable as no one from outside could hear the screams and blows. It had
two doors but was not contiguous to any other cell. Not far away, however,
still in the inner wing and on the same floor, were three smaller cells, 96, 97
and 98, which were kept for use in case of unusual resistance, as was another
small cell, 101, in the front wing. In these small cells veritable orgies of
torture took place.
The activities on the fourth floor at Gherla could not be completely
concealed from the other inmates of the prison, especially those whose cells
were on the floors immediately below. They noticed first of all that while on
the other floors members of the staff and prisoners passed frequently along the
railed balconies outside the cells looking on the inner court, there was no
movement on the balcony of the fourth floor. Some of the prisoners wondered
about this and guessed that something unusual must be happening up there. Then
one day they witnessed a remarkable scene. Suddenly, at one end of the
fourth-floor balcony, the door of a corner cell (Room 99) was flung open and
out darted a figure, his face covered with blood, who dashed along the balcony
and down the stairway pell-mell, yelling at the top of his voice that he was
being murdered by his cellmates. In hot pursuit came the O. D. C. C. boys out
of Room 99, who caught him as he headed for the administration office, and
dragged him, screaming and struggling, back up the stairs. Then all disappeared
into Room 99.
The bleeding victim was a young student, Bubi Roman from Timisoara
Polytechnical School, who had been one of the most dedicated of
anti-Communists. To quiet the talk among the workers in the shops, the O. D. C.
C. put into circulation the story that Roman suffered from paranoia, and that
his mental condition had deteriorated until his delusions of persecution had become
violent insanity. To make this fiction more plausible, for several days
thereafter they ostentatiously conducted Roman daily to the infirmary, where
Dr. Barbosu gave him hypodermic injections that were falsely described as
powerful sedatives.
After this incident, the surveillance over the fourth floor was intensified.
The door of Room 99 was never under any circumstances left unlocked; no one
being subjected to unmaskings was left unguarded for even a moment; and
supplemental beatings were administered for even the slightest gesture that
could be interpreted as an attempt "to sabotage the unmaskings."
The director of Gherla prison at this time was a Securitate captain named
Gheorghiu, whose unique characteristic was cynicism. And he had a temper that
would flare up, for instance, if a newly arrived prisoner admitted he was
condemned for only five or ten years; but he was very happy when a prisoner
admitted a 25-year sentence! "This," he used to say, "is Gherla
University. When you graduate (but I do not believe you ever will) you will be
true men. Until then, I am your master."
The political officer was Lieutenant Avadanei, a Moldavian from the Botosani
region, and, some say, a former elementary school teacher. Extremely evil, he
felt some kind of fiendish satisfaction in trampling upon the bodies of
prisoners until they fainted. At Gherla there was plenty of proof that
bestiality, when unleashed, and nurtured by fear, becomes a sort of necessity,
an insatiable appetite that can never be satisfied, and grows in direct
proportion to its exercise.
At Gherla, one beat another only for the pleasure of it, no longer to
destroy a belief or supplant it with another, or extort secrets, or disfigure
the soul. One beat senselessly. Workers and students, young and old, educated
and the illiterate, were all tortured the same, even when they had nothing more
to say, could not confess any more than they already had, could not be any
further degraded.
During the war, Captain Magirescu was sent to the Russian front whence he returned
without one of his legs. Arrested and condemned in 1948 at Iasi for
anti-Communist activity, he was sent to Gherla, where he worked in the
workshop. Then he was put in room 99 for unmasking. In the end, they beat him
over the scar of his half-leg with broomsticks until his mouth opened -- as did
his wound.
Others at Gherla in room 99 while undergoing unmasking were forced to move
their bowels into the mess-pans in which they normally received their soup.
They were then forced, during continued beating, to eat their own feces from
the dish.
The peasant Ball from the Hunedoara region was kept for several nights
hanging by his armpits, having a stone-loaded knapsack on his back, his feet
hanging two inches above the floor so he could not rest his weight. And because
it seemed to his tormentors that his burden was too light, they also would
climb on his back. And his was not the only case!
Prisoners were forced to "polish" the "samot" (a
kind of rubbery material covering the floors) even though this was an
impossibility; they scrubbed at this ridiculous task hours on end with a dry
cloth, while at the same time carrying piggyback two, three or more committee
members. When exhausted, their throats choked with the dry dust, they
collapsed, they were not allowed to lie there and rest, but were given more
beatings.
Another interesting custom was that of requiring inmates to crawl under a
wooden bed from one end to the other, using only their elbows to propel them
through, the body held perfectly straight, without any help from the knees. As
they came to each end they were met by committee members with clubs to indicate
when to turn around. For hours, morning or afternoon, this sport was enjoyed by
the re-educators whenever they felt the urge. Only prisoners lucky enough to
faint in the process were left in peace.
At other times, they were ordered to crawl part way under the bed, then
suddenly stand up straight through the bed-boards, throwing everything into
disarray, messing up the handful of clothing remaining to them after years of
detention, and then ordered by the use of clubs, to remake the beds in half a
minute with the headrest just as high as before.
It was at Gherla also that prisoners were forced to "run the
gauntlet" between two rows of re-educators armed with broomsticks -- not
just once, but back and forth again and again, slowly. At this prison the use
of lavatories was at times absolutely forbidden, with consequences that can be
imagined.
But sadistic torture was not the only kind indulged in at Gherla: there was
also humorous torture, accompanied by jokes! One victim, considered the greater
bandit, was obliged to stand on the shoulders of a lesser bandit, and from
there launch himself into the air, simulating an airplane at landing. This was
repeated until he landed perfectly flat, or broke his ribs.
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1) |
The reader must remember the peculiar situation in Romania where
university students, being a select and intellectually superior group with a
reputation for integrity, patriotism and love of God, were highly respected.
See pages
above. (Tr. ) |