Meeting the survivors (II): a love story

I befriended several survivors of the Gulag while an University student… One of them was a writer and a poet living in our neighborhood. Another was a Greek-Catholic priest. The third one was only 17 years old when was thrown in prison.

They were coming from other worlds: they were born in pre-communist Romania and they have passed through Hell. I was eager to hear their stories but only the old writer shared his memories with me. The other two were somehow reluctant to talk at length about how it was there.

How it was there….I actually do not remember what my writer friend told me about how it was there. I remember he told me that beside creating poems what kept him sane and made him cling to life was the memory of his beloved wife who waited for his return from prison for 7 years.

In all this time she received no news from him. She was never allowed to visit. The authorities refused even to tell her whether he is dead or alive. But she did not give-up waiting for him despite the lies and the constant pressure of the police. She felt that he is alive. On the other hand, he was told that she wants to divorce him, that she has another man. He never believed, of course. He simply knew in his heart that she is waiting for him.

After 7 years when he was finally freed and they saw each other again, their joy was impossible to describe: we were happier than ever, happier than we had been at our wedding said my friend.

I think theirs is the most beautiful love story I ever heard…

Meeting the survivors (I)

Some 10 years ago together with some other fellow students from the University, I went to a meeting with many survivors of the prison from Gherla town.

A huge cross dedicated to those who died there as a result of the communist persecution was to be inaugurated during a Liturgy.

First we visited the prison´building (now serving as a normal jail). We saw the “punishment cells”, tiny places without windows where the prisoners were kept chained and isolated. I remember descending into the cellar to see those cells. Outside was a warm September day but inside was bitter cold. So cold that after 10-15 minutes I could not bear it any longer and went out.

One ex-inhabitant of that horrific space said: I was kept here for three days, chained by the wall. I wonder how could one last three days there without going mad. Or without simply dying out of cold and despair. Later I learned that others had to endure there for months….

The normal cells in which the condemned spent most of the time were placed in the main building and had at least windows… Nevertheless those inside were subjected to a regime of slow extermination with no heating during winters, constant hunger and lack of elementary medical care.

In the end we visited a field that served as mass grave for those exterminated. After dying, the prisoners were thrown in graves without crosses. No burial service. No priest. No burning candles for the soul of the dead. Like the carcass of an animal, the dead were thrown away….

Till now I talked only about the places. I want to tell you now about the people.

I saw ex-cell mates meeting again and old friends who lost track of one another reunited after decades. Stories were told, question were asked. Songs were sang and old poems recited. I remember: faces illuminated by joy and contorted by pain, tears, bursts of laughter, shaky hands…

At the time when the communists decided to arrest them, they were belonging to all walks of life: workers, peasants, students, intellectuals, priests, officers, ex-businessmen, ex-politicians…..

A critical remark was enough for a sentence to prison but some were arrested only because they belong to the “wrong” social group.

At the end of the day, I returned home carrying a book written by one of the survivors: a testimony of his suffering in the very prison which we just visited. Unfortunately the little book got lost during one of my many relocations.

End part I

Justice

“When justice does not succeed in being a form of memory, memory itself can be a form of justice”

Ana Blandiana (Romanian poet)

A Nürnberg of communism is absolutely necessary but has yet to come (link in English). The tormentors and the ideology that made possible the Gulag must be condemned.

Without this exorcism no real healing is possible, not only for Romania or any other ex-communist country, but also for the whole world .

How many ?

The population of Romania was around 16 millions in the 50s and 22 millions at the end of the communist era.

It is estimated that in 45 years of communist regime, around two millions Romanians (link in Romanian and French) have passed through the Gulag.

The number of those who died there it is unknown but certain is that the massacre was practiced on a large scale.

Probably more hundred of thousands were killed due to starvation, exposure, lack of medical care, work till exhaustion, beatings and torture.

Elisabeta Rizea

At my other blog, there is a short post on Elisabeta Rizea, a symbol of the anti-communist resistance.

Some never renounced to dream

 

You are not defeated when you bleed
Neither when your eyes are full of tears.
Real defeat is only renouncing to dream.

I have translated the above fragment from Romanian (not very well, I think). It is part of a poem written in prison, probably on a piece of soap since paper and pencil were forbidden to the prisoners. The author will be evoked in a future post.

These verses uplifted the spirit of many during their imprisonment.

“Renouncing to dream” means giving-up ideals, resigning, accepting to collaborate with the tormentors and sometimes even becoming a tormentor. Despite unspeakable suffering extended over long years, some never renounced to dream.

Gulag

The word GULAG defined by Free Dictionary:

1. A network of forced labor camps in the former Soviet Union.
2. A forced labor camp or prison, especially for political dissidents.
3. A place or situation of great suffering and hardship, likened to the atmosphere in a prison system or a forced labor camp.

This blog is dedicated to the memory of all who suffered and died in the Romanian Gulag.

Starting with 1945, communism was imposed brutally by the Soviet occupation in all East-Europe.

Gulags, networks of prisons and labor camps, appeared immediately after 1945 all over the occupied countries. Their role: the extermination or re-education of those who were perceived as potential threats to the new regime. Under different forms, the Gulags survived in East-Europe till 1989.

Lighting a candle for all who died

 

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it
(John 1:5)