Destinies - Chapter IV The Prisons
From Destine by Alexandrina (Adina) Chițu
“We Who Were Imprisoned with You”
You were not there with us in the cells
To know what a life of darkness means,
Beneath the claws of beasts with insatiable mouths.
You do not know what man becomes when he begins to howl,
His ankles crushed by shackles.
You did not weep hot tears into your palms,
Pierced by the knife of betrayal.
Beneath a starless sky, on the road toward the grave,
You did not carry the burden of sacred suffering
For the glory and well-being of the country.
When all the gates are broken open
And the dead begin to howl,
When towers and walls crumble into ruins,
You will not know what resurrection from death means,
For you were not there with us in the cells.
—Radu Gyr, “You Were Not There with Us in the Cells”
I was little, about five years old, when our father sat down on a small chair in the middle of the house, took my brother Cornel and me onto his lap, and whispered something into our ears. I was curious to know what he was telling us, but I could hear only so, so, so. I asked Cornel, and he said the same thing had happened to him. We did not know that Father was leaving for prison. It was in the summer of 1948.
There was a heavy atmosphere in the house; it was filled with sadness and revolt. My mother and my older brothers knew what was happening. One of Father’s former friends, who hunted partisans with his shotgun and had been among the first to join the Communist Party when the regime changed, had denounced him. It was a time when people collaborated with the new regime and denounced those who opposed it, and there were many such people. My father had once been a member of the Legionary Movement. Times had changed, the government had changed, and now the persecution had begun. Denouncers were numerous, and many people had become skilled at this new occupation.
Our father was taken away from the heart of his family, placed in prisons where beatings and humiliation were the principal methods used to force prisoners to say everything they knew.
We were young children and were accustomed to Father’s departures for work, when he would sometimes be away for several days. I used to ask Mother:
— But when is Father coming home? It seemed that he had already been away for far too long.
Mother reassured us:
— Don’t worry. He’ll come home. He just has a longer trip this time.
When he returned the following summer, my father took me in his arms and kissed the top of my head. I did not see the tears in his eyes. He brought me a cloth doll, stuffed with straw, with eyes, a nose, and a mouth drawn on its face. It was my first and only doll. My brothers, my mother, and Nana were crying. I was the only one who was happy, holding the strange little doll tightly against my chest.
Our father never spoke to us about his dramatic experiences in prison. Much later, after the Revolution of 1989, I read articles and books from which I came to understand how terrible it had been.
I also realized why he had never told us anything: he was forbidden to speak. It was a “state secret.”
Afterward, I searched diligently for books and magazines about this subject and about its effect on the human soul. These were not common criminals—thieves, rapists, or murderers—but political prisoners, the flower of Romania’s intellectual elite: Grigore Gafencu, Mircea Vulcănescu, Petre Țuțea, Constantin Noica, Radu Gyr, Dumitru Stăniloae, Nicolae Steinhardt, Fathers Galeriu and Anania, Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa, Arsenie Boca, and many others. Some of them, such as Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, and Eugène Ionesco, chose exile, where they distinguished themselves brilliantly. The wings of the others were broken, and some of them even died in prison.
Beginning in 1948, the Communist regime, which had been installed almost by force, launched a persecution of the Legionaries and of those who were denounced as having sympathized with the Legionary Movement. The prisons were filled with them.
The torturers were given a lot of work to do. Through savage beatings and unimaginable cruelty, they tortured those unfortunate enough to enter the Communist prisons. Starvation was another form of torture. Some prisoners could not endure it; others ate the soles of their shoes, as my father did.
Prisoners were beaten on the soles of their feet until their feet became so swollen that they could no longer use their shoes. The shoes then had to be cut away. Boiling eggs were placed beneath their armpits to force them to give statements about themselves and others. They were punished by being left for days in dark, damp isolation cells.
After enduring all this, you signed a declaration admitting that, yes, you had been a Legionary, and you remained imprisoned until the end of your life. Sentences of twenty or forty years were given—sentences that you would almost certainly not live long enough to complete. Or you were released if you could prove that you had not been registered as a member and you had not actively participated in the Movement.
The Communists invented “administrative internment.” This meant that people were imprisoned for “investigation,” which meant every form of torture imagined by the diseased minds of those employed to perform such acts—and who carried them out with dedication and diligence.
Many young people, high-school and university students, prominent intellectuals, and priests ended their lives in the prisons of Văcărești, Jilava, Aiud, Gherla, Sighet, Pitești, Târgu Ocna, and elsewhere.
What else can you call a regime of torture and psychological destruction of a human being but criminal?
Was Communism ever put on trial, as Nazism was at Nuremberg?
No.
The past has an important role in discovering our own identity. We need to know who we are, with both the good and the bad. I learned this from a book with the evocative title “Mă dor strămoșii” (My Ancestors Hurt Within Me), by Patrice van Eersel and Catherine Maillard.
Yes, we should feel the pain of our ancestors, so that we may discover who we are and understand that we are not merely passengers upon this earth.
Our father was detained under two different regimes: first under the bourgeois-landowning regime, during the reign of King Carol II in 1938, when he had three children; and then under the “people’s democratic” regime in 1948, when he had five children.
I was greatly surprised when the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, at our request, gave me four files. Only then did I discover that my father had been imprisoned twice.
In the 1938 file, my father appears on a list of eighteen participants in a demonstration at Moreni. The file shows that all eighteen were arrested and sent before the Military Tribunal in Brașov. After one month in preventive detention, a proper trial was held and our father was released.
Ten years later, following another denunciation, he was arrested again and investigated. He was beaten and subjected to the entire arsenal available to the Securitate at that time, in an attempt to make him confess that he had been a Legionary and denounce others.
He was imprisoned for one year without a trial and without a sentence. For the following thirty-three years, until his death, he was pursued through written reports and monitored by informants.
I found interesting information about Father Arsenie Boca in a book called Ava Arsenie in the Mirror of the World. He was arrested and imprisoned many times. He was also watched and harassed until 1989, the year he died.
The Communists’ repressive apparatus was enormous and ignorant—but what did that matter? Its employees had to justify their generous salaries by torturing, mistreating, and following innocent people who had become the objects of their work.
A feeling of revolt and helplessness seizes you, and you feel like screaming. But now it is far too late. We are left with these memories, which we feel compelled to recount—to cry out—so that such deeds and injustices will never happen again. Dreams?!
I wanted to know what had happened in the prisons and what our father had endured. That is why I searched for sources that could help me understand.
With great determination, I found and read Return to Christ, the book written by Ianolide, which I had learned about through the newspaper Certitudinea, where several passages from the book had been reproduced. I could not find the book in any bookstore, so I found it on the Internet and ordered it.
I also found valuable articles in Memoria magazine. I watched Lucia Hossu-Longin’s television series Memorial of Suffering and read The Saints of the Prisons and From Dungeons into the Synaxaria. From all these sources, I understood that a true genocide had taken place against former Legionaries.
And after all of these came Law No. 217/2015, issued at the request of the Elie Wiesel Institute and described by Ioan Roșca as anti-Legionary, but also unconstitutional, opposed to justice, and anti-Romanian. Although apparently dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust, the law’s principal effect, in his view, was to prevent the condemnation of those responsible for the Communist genocide.
I used to wonder why we were so rarely shown images from the Communist prisons or told what happened inside them. Only Marin Preda, in his book The Most Beloved of Earthlings, succeeded in portraying several horrifying aspects of that brutal terror and its effects upon innocent people.
Mere membership in the Legionary Movement is not a crime, and sympathy for a former Legionary is even less so. I loved my father. Is that an offense against the law? I have read—and even liked—Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. According to this law, should I therefore be punished? I have read Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Vasile Voiculescu, and Petre Țuțea. According to this absurd law, should I suffer consequences for that as well?
Even more dramatically, this law condemns and punishes “extreme nationalism.” I did not even know such a thing existed. I am a nationalist—nothing more. How does that make me an extremist? Does this expression seem exaggerated and irrational? How can a nationalist ideology be placed at the pillar of infamy? Is the Romanian nation expected to disappear into a European or global mass?
And is this supposed to be a good thing, dear children who wish to become Europeans without continuing to be Romanians?
There is also a constant effort to criticize the Romanian Orthodox Church, the only remaining stronghold for preserving the Christian faith and our national identity. In their churches, Romanians seek meaning and refuge.
We are told that Romania should attach itself to the empires that appear to be rising and victorious and that such alliances would benefit us. But history has shown how damaging this submissive attitude was toward Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union. Why should we now grovel miserably before the American empire, our new temporary master?
The idea of voluntary work, although discredited by the Communists, was not in itself a bad idea. It taught people respect for work, honesty, and honor—values cultivated in the Legionaries’ youth work camps.
Should we condemn the Legionaries’ consistently anti-Communist position, for which they paid so dearly through sacrifice and humiliation?
How does this accord with freedom of expression and freedom of speech? Law No. 217/2015 would forbid us from speaking freely.
My father was not a Legionary according to the distorted image created by the informers’ reports. He was an honest and selfless man, a good parent and husband. Now this law will prevent me from describing him as he truly was, especially because I respect our Constitution, which gives me the freedom to express myself.
One day in March 2015, I received a phone call from the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives informing me that I had been scheduled to examine my father’s file on March 26.
I was filled with impatience and emotion. Together with my brother Ionel, I went to the reading room, where we were given four files. We began reading them. I wrote certain details in a notebook, and we continued reading until four o’clock in the afternoon.
What surprised me was that pages were missing and the numbering would then begin again. What secrets could those files possibly have contained?
In a document entitled “The Legionary Problem,” I found a statement given by Constantinescu Alexandru, a former political prisoner from Aiud Prison. He listed the names, occupations, and addresses of those who had belonged to his organization. Among them was my father:
“Gheorghiu Aurel—driver—Gura Ocniței commune, Schela Mare, Dâmbovița County; an ‘old Legionary,’ since 1938.” It stated that his “Legionary activity consisted of meetings, contributions, and financial assistance.”
The statement continued: “His Legionary activity is also known to Câtej Ion, a driver, and to Bologan Ion, a worker, sentenced to three years in Gherla Penitentiary.”
I have reproduced this passage so that one may understand how a statement was obtained under the pressure of interrogation and torture and how prisoners were forced to denounce others.
1. Brașov—1938
In File No. 68,101, volume No. 17,337, I found a list containing the names of eighteen people arrested in Moreni; among them was my father. The document stated that they had been caught distributing manifestos, had collected financial contributions, and had held various positions within the Legionary organization.
The list was sent by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Brașov Military Tribunal to the Prahova Police Inspectorate.
King Carol II, angry because Corneliu Zelea Codreanu did not wish to surrender the Legionary organizations to him, began their persecution. Codreanu was already imprisoned.
I found the manifesto in the file. It stated:
“To All Romanians,
The murder of Captain Codreanu is being planned. His Royal Majesty has given instructions that it should take place during the King’s visit to London.
November 11, 1938
The Legionary Movement”
The manifesto therefore revealed a murder that would indeed take place during the night of Saint Andrew, November 29–30, 1938, in the forest at Tâncăbești.
The ten Legionaries—including Corneliu Zelea Codreanu—who were being held in Râmnicu Sărat Prison were strangled and then shot in the back to create the appearance that they had attempted to escape.
They were then taken to Văcărești Prison. There, the zealous police chief ordered a pit to be dug in the prison yard. The ten bodies were placed in it, sulfuric acid was poured over them, and they were covered with earth.
But I must return to the file.
The eighteen Legionaries on the list were taken into custody under arrest warrants. My father’s warrant was No. 41,492. Everything was stated to have been done in the name of the law and of His Majesty, King Carol II.
Also in the file, I discovered a handwritten list containing fifteen names—the same people who appeared on the original list of eighteen. Three people had escaped along the way: perhaps they had been saved, perhaps they had no connection with the action in question, or perhaps… The Brașov Penitentiary confirmed that it had received the prisoners.
The file also contains a statement given by Gheorghiu Aurel—my father—who was thirty-six years old. In it, he stated that during July he had met Victor Sgândăr on the football field. Sgândăr had asked him to collect contributions from the other members.
Then, in August, they met at Stavropoleos Church and later in the forest with ten other men to collect contributions. My father also reported hearing a false rumor that Zelea Codreanu had escaped from prison. He had also heard that Legionary manifestos were distributed on November 18.
Therefore, he stated that he had heard about these things but had not participated in the demonstration held in Moreni that day.
The military prosecutor prepared a report concerning the fifteen people under arrest, establishing the following facts:
I. Propaganda materials had been concealed.
II. Contributions had been collected over a period of four months: 2,563 lei by Atofanei V. and 230 lei by Gheorghiu Aurel.
III. They had received and distributed clandestine manifestos in Moreni during the night of November 18–19.
IV. On October 2, they had participated in the clandestine gathering near Stavropoleos Church.
V. On October 12, they had participated in the gathering in the Teiș Forest.
My father’s name does not appear in the final three accusations listed above.
Under the law, each of the accused was charged according to a particular ordinance or according to the Law for the Defense of State Order. My father was charged under the latter.
In conclusion, it was ordered that the accused be brought before the court of the Fifth Army Corps, since no further judicial investigation was considered necessary. All those being held in preventive detention were scheduled to be tried on December 2, 1938.
An order was issued referring them for trial before the Military Tribunal of the Fifth Army Corps. Each case was analyzed separately, the guilt of each person was established, and each defendant was assigned a court-appointed attorney and permitted to call witnesses, if any.
On December 21, 1938, a public hearing was held in the trial of the fifteen defendants. The official record noted my father’s statement of loyalty to the country and the King and his request not to be subjected to any further searches of his home, since two searches had already been conducted and nothing incriminating had been found. He wished to be left in peace.
My father’s declaration was: “I do not admit that I paid membership dues. I admitted it during the investigation because I was tortured.”
The final sentences were handed down after the indictment was read and the defendants were questioned. Some were acquitted of all criminal liability—including my father, who had collected contributions to assist the families of those in prison, not to continue the activities of the organizations that had been dismantled.
Others received a sentence of one month in prison—the equivalent of the month they had already spent in preventive detention, from November 21, 1938, until the day of the trial.
Therefore, according to the judgment, my father was acquitted of all criminal liability.
After reading and rereading all the materials in the file, I gained a clear picture of a thorough and proper judicial proceeding. The documents referred to laws, ordinances, and specific paragraphs so that everything would be as clear and just as possible.
What I understood from these documents was that, at that time, the justice system played an important role. Its representatives carried out their responsibilities carefully so as not to violate a person’s rights. They sought to establish what had happened, whether the person was guilty, and exactly what offense had been committed, so that no punishment would be imposed unjustly.
Those people appeared to have received sound legal training. They were careful about the cases before them and attentive to the people they were judging, and they fulfilled their responsibilities with professionalism.
I cannot say the same about the Communist justice system, which discredited the very ideas of truth and justice. There were no proper trials, only unimaginable torture, beatings, starvation, isolation cells, and death—a world of hell designed to destroy a human being both physically and psychologically.
How did those imprisoned under the Communist regime manage to resist?
We can easily find the answer in Return to Christ, the title of Ioan Ianolide’s book. They resisted through their return to Christ and through their encounter with Jesus, just as Radu Gyr wrote in his poem, “Jesus in the Cell.”
In the file, I also found a request written by my father. In it, he assured the authorities of his loyalty to the country and the King and asked that he no longer be searched or investigated. Nothing incriminating had been found in his possession, and he wanted to be left in peace.
And that is exactly what happened during the years that followed. He was no longer watched.
2. Gherla—1948
After the change of regime, a “well-meaning friend” of my father—who had been among the first to join the Communist Party after August 23—denounced him.
In 1948, my father had traveled through the Communist prison system: Ploiești, Văcărești, Jilava, and Gherla. He endured one year of beatings without a trial and without a sentence. He was merely a “political internee”—neither tried nor convicted.
But what did that matter? They wanted to destroy a man who had known only how to work, raise his children, and be honest and decent.
Why do You allow such injustices to happen, Lord?
This is my outcry of revolt and helplessness in the face of a terrible injustice. It is what compelled me to write and to express the pain within me. It is a story that my children, their children, and everyone else must know, so that such things may never happen again!
How could they take my father away from his five children and his wife, who did not work outside the home, and keep him imprisoned for an entire year merely for “investigation”? They beat him to force him to reveal the names of others and to admit that he had been a Legionary and had engaged in counterrevolutionary activity against the state, when all he had ever done was work to support his family.
How could you, a criminal state, leave a family with five children without any means of support?
The only person who could help the family was my eldest brother, Florian, who earned an apprentice’s wage at the factories in Târgoviște. One apprentice’s wage had to support six people!
At that time, my mother’s family came to her aid. Ionel and Măricica were taken to Brăila. Maricica was placed with a dressmaker so that she could learn a trade, while Ionel was hired by Nea Babei, my mother’s brother, at the Brăila Shipyard. He attended high-school classes in the evening.
Nana, my grandmother’s sister, came to Schela Mare to help my mother and remain with us whenever my mother traveled to the prisons. My mother would beg our father to tell his torturers whatever they wanted to hear, simply so that he could return home to his children, because life without him was terribly difficult for her.
The Legionaries did not abandon us. They placed food vouchers and money between the boards of our fence, and they hired a lawyer for our father—even though there was no trial—hoping the lawyer could persuade him not to surrender his dignity and principles.
To prevent us children from suffering, my mother had joined the Communist Party as early as 1947, demonstrating unimaginable determination and strength. Indeed, in later years, all of us benefited from that decision. It became the protective shield we mentioned in our autobiographical statements.
My father’s file concerning “The Legionary Problem” covers not only the years 1948–1949, when he was imprisoned, but also the surveillance that continued without interruption for thirty-three years.
Our father was detained from July 2, 1948, until July 6, 1949, as shown by the documents in the file. According to Document No. 752 of July 2, 1948, the Moreni Mobile Security Bureau “had the honor of forwarding” Gheorghiu Aurel, who was requested “under the orders stated above,” as though my father had been an object or a parcel.
I can only speculate about what had happened. Following a denunciation, the regional security inspector probably ordered my father’s arrest. The Gura Ocniței Security Bureau then arrested him and sent him to Ploiești.
The file also contains a form entitled “Personal Record of the Detainee,” listing his personal information and the names of his brothers, children, and wife. Under “Occupation,” it states: driver.
Another notation reads:
“In 1937, he joined the Legionary Movement.”
There is also a statement written by my father:
“In 1938, I was imprisoned for one month and was not convicted. In 1940, I joined again and remained a member until the rebellion in January 1941. I deny what Bologan says—that I proposed we should act as a group and that he should report everything he knew.”
I ask myself: Was this Bologan the “well-meaning friend” who denounced my father as a former Legionary?
My father’s statement appears in two copies: one handwritten and the other typewritten.
The file also contains an Investigation Record. To the right is a photograph of Father, just as I remembered him: dressed in a leather jacket, with a high forehead and a warm, gentle expression.
The record contains the following:
I. IDENTIFYING INFORMATION
In addition to the usual biographical information, all five children are listed:
Florian, nineteen years old—a lathe operator
Elena, fifteen years old
Ionel, fourteen years old
Cornel, seven years old
Alexandrina, five years old
His brothers and sisters are also listed, along with his property—which was recorded as “none.”
II. BACKGROUND
This is where the lies begin:
“In 1937, he joined the Legionary Movement, where he remained active until the Legionary Rebellion. In 1938, he was sentenced to one month in prison for illegal activity.”
But the Brașov file clearly shows that he had merely been held in preventive detention and had been acquitted of all criminal liability.
How superficial, careless, and malicious were those who prepared these records of bitter memory—reading one thing and writing another!
I try not to be surprised anymore, and I try not to feel outraged.
III. RESULTS OF THE SEARCHES
Negative.
IV. INFORMATION RESULTING FROM HIS OWN STATEMENTS
(What kind of expression was that?!)
He denied having any knowledge of a Legionary organization.
V. INFORMATION RESULTING FROM THE STATEMENTS OF OTHERS
None of the organization’s members indicated that they had maintained any connection with him.
VI. CONFRONTATIONS
None took place.
VII. PERSONAL ASSESSMENT
He was sincere in his statements, appeared to have no connection with Legionary elements, and seemed loyal to the present regime.
VIII. CONCLUSIONS
In fact, he was not guilty of any subversive activity.
IX. RECOMMENDATION
That he be released.
This Investigation Record is undated and appears to have been the document that led to his release on July 6, 1949.
Next appear a Statement and a Commitment, dictated to my father, in which he wrote that in the future he would not place himself in the service of the enemies of the working class; would not incite anyone against “our leaders”; would not spread false or alarming news; would not join any subversive organization; and would do nothing against the Security of the People.
Those were the things they feared.
At the end, he wrote:
“I will stand in solidarity with the working people and will work for the progress of the Romanian People’s Republic.”
Then came his signature, given “of my own free will and without being compelled by anyone.” That was the customary closing formula.
The Statement and Commitment are dated May 28, 1949.
In the Commitment, our father stated that he would establish his residence in the commune of Gura Ocniței, at the Sovrom-Petrol Company, Dâmbovița County, and that he would report to the Militia every two weeks.
The County Service of the Security of the People then sent a notice to the Gura Ocniței Security Bureau instructing them to maintain strict surveillance over Gheorghiu Aurel, a former political internee.
After his release on June 3 of that year, he established his residence at the Sovrom-Petrol Company in Gura Ocniței. Because of his return to that locality, the notice requested that he be placed under surveillance.
A subsequent report stated that the Gura Ocniței Security Bureau had monitored his activities and had determined that he was behaving properly and wanted nothing more to do with the Legionary Movement.
It also stated that he had been drawn into the Movement by individuals who had benefited from it, while he had remained merely an ordinary member. In the end, those individuals had been convicted and had served their sentences, while our father “is very poor and works honestly.”
And that was all—nine pages following an entire year of suffering.
No trial and no sentence. Only imprisonment and extremely painful “investigations,” with as much suffering as a person could endure—suffering about which he was forbidden to speak because it was a “state secret.”
In 1944, the Ministry of Internal Affairs had issued Order No. 23,987, which called for the arrest of Legionaries and their sympathizers.
In Ava Arsenie in the Mirror of the World, Teofil Bradea wrote:
“I do not know how many were Legionaries by conviction and how many were made into ‘former Legionaries’ by the Communists.”
I believe that my father was among those people. He was then watched for thirty-three years.
I remember placing my head in my mother’s lap when she was sad and crying. I would ask her:
“Why are you crying, mother?”
“Oh, nothing. I just miss your father.”
That was how it was. The “security organs” carried out their profession by tormenting people, and they were paid to do it. To them, my father was only a number—not a human being for whom a life of freedom meant everything.
3. The Surveillance
Informative surveillance began in 1952. A certain informant named Cînta reported on April 4, 1952, that Gheorghiu Aurel had told him, among other things, that the children at Tușnad were Korean children supported by the labor of Romanian workers, while Romanian children received only rationed sugar and bread. He also said that my father earned a salary of 350 lei, from which he had to support six people. He was unable to manage on that income.
At the end of the report, the following notation appears:
“Another informant will be assigned to Gheorghiu Aurel’s circle and directed toward him, since he is known to have engaged in Legionary activity both in the past and under the people’s democratic regime.”
Following this informative report, my father was summoned to give another detailed autobiography, three pages long. At the end, he wrote:
“In the past, I engaged in Legionary activity. I joined in October 1937. In October 1940, I joined again because the Legionary Party had been dissolved in 1938. I did not participate in the Rebellion, because I was at work. In 1948, I was arrested by the Security authorities for fourteen months for investigation.”
On July 29, 1955, another informative report appears, written by the informant Lăcătușu Ioan. He described a conversation he had with Gheorghiu Aurel, a driver who had come to the warehouse to collect some materials.
When the informant asked him what was new, my father supposedly replied:
“We are all waiting for the conference on July 16, when the Communists will be defeated. Now they are finished—the devils! We are not the only ones waiting; the entire world is waiting. We should not despair. Everything will be all right. The conference will be victorious.”
“How will they be defeated?” the informant allegedly asked him.
“Either the Russians will give in, or the others will. Something must happen, and something must come out of the meeting of the two sides,” my father supposedly replied.
I do not know why, but I doubt that this conversation, as reported by the informant Lăcătușu Ioan, ever took place. Father was not so naive as to believe that a conference could change the world order.
Everything had already been settled and sold at Yalta. The world had been divided, and the Americans and the British had handed us over to the Communists.
This alleged opinion of Father’s angered the investigators, who ordered:
“The individual will continue to be monitored by the informant, who will attempt to engage the person in further discussions.”
Under “Measures,” they wrote:
“A copy of the informative report will be forwarded to B4 for further action.”
On April 2, 1959, Father—probably after being summoned to the Securitate—submitted another autobiography, this time with a supplement. By then, he was working as a mechanic at IRA 14 Brăila and lived at 25 Primăverii Street.
He wrote:
“Before August 23, I was a member of the Legionary Party from December 1, 1940, until January 2, 1941. When the rebellion began, I did not participate. I proved this during the investigation through witnesses and by showing that I had been present at work.
“In 1948, from July 1 until December, I was detained by the Ploiești Security authorities while my case was investigated. I was neither tried nor convicted, because no guilt was found concerning my brief activity in that party.”
He then wrote about my mother, who had joined the Social Democratic Party in 1946. That party later merged with the Romanian Workers’ Party. In 1949, she was investigated by the Ploiești Regional Commission and accepted as a card-carrying member of the Romanian Workers’ Party.
Father then listed his five children and their ages, as well as the people who had been associated with him: Dascălu Ion, Atofanei Vasile, Dușoiu Iosif, Zgândără Ion, and Constantinescu Alexandru.
These were people who had been active in the organization and who had probably also written statements about our father. Or perhaps he had been questioned about them and was required to acknowledge that he knew them.
Next appears a standardized form entitled “Operational Measures Taken Concerning the Individual,” dated April 6, 1962. It shows that our father’s thirty-two-page file had been officially registered for continued surveillance.
The decision to register the file was made by the Brăila District Service because, during 1940–1941, our father had been active as a member of the Legionary organization in the commune of Gura Ocniței. This information came from witness statements and from his own acknowledgment in his autobiography.
In 1962, they discovered File No. 68,101 in the “bourgeois archives,” concerning the investigation of eighteen individuals, including my father. Under the heading “Category of Hostile Activity,” the incriminating word “Legionary” appeared beside every name.
On October 29, 1965, two documents appear.
The first is a Decision issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs—Ploiești Regional Directorate, Section C—which contains a great lie: it states that in 1949 my father was released from Gherla Penitentiary after serving a sentence for counterrevolutionary activity.
The second document is an Extract Decision based on materials found in the archives of Service C.
Six matters were extracted from File No. 68,101:
1. A typewritten list of individuals who had participated in the demonstration at Moreni.
2. A personal record stating that a Legionary meeting had been held at Gheorghiu Aurel’s home on February 12, 1947.
3. A report prepared in 1938 by the Prahova Legion, stating that the “aforementioned individual” had collected money from members of the organization.
4. An informative report from 1947, prepared by the Bucharest Police Inspectorate, stating that a Legionary “nest” meeting had been held at the home of the driver Gheorghiu Aurel.
5. A list of members of the Legionary organization, including Gheorghiu Aurel, a driver employed by the Concordia Company.
6. A report prepared in 1938 by the Police Inspectorate concerning members of the Legionary Movement from the Concordia Company in Gura Ocniței who had been arrested, including the “aforementioned individual.”
But on October 14, 1967, a report written by Major Zburlea Gheorghe, a criminal investigator—who had probably examined the file more carefully—clearly stated:
“After studying Archive File No. 93,949 concerning Gheorghiu Aurel, I determined that it does not contain an investigation or conviction that could be the subject of a possible rehabilitation.”
This is very important to remember!
Two subsequent reports contain the same information, although they were verified on different dates.
On July 13, 1972, under No. 13,399, the Dâmbovița County Securitate Inspectorate sent a notice to the Records Office of the County Securitate Inspectorate identifying Gheorghiu Aurel.
It stated:
“This individual appears in our records. In 1940, he joined the Legionary organization. In 1949, he was released from Gherla Penitentiary, where he had served a sentence”—a lie!—“for counterrevolutionary activity.
“According to the statement of Constantinescu Alexandru, the individual in question was active in the Moreni Legionary organization until 1948. He is currently included in our general records.”
On one of the two copies, someone wrote:
“Recorded on the index cards.”
The other copy, dated July 20, 1972, requested:
“Identification measures, after which the material is to be returned to me.”
On July 22, 1972, a handwritten identification report was prepared by Lieutenant Tufă. Beneath it, another handwritten instruction dated July 31, 1972, reads:
“Comrade M. Urse, familiarize yourself with Gheorghiu and take measures to place him under informative surveillance. Study the material from 9C, then submit the necessary recommendations.”
It is signed by M. Dan.
On August 2, 1972, Major Urse V. prepared a report stating:
“Gheorghiu Aurel is a professional driver. He is currently retired and has no political affiliation. In the past, he was known as a member of the Legionary Movement.”
The report added:
“He worked as a driver in Gura Ocniței. He suffers from a neurological disorder—Parkinson’s disease.”
What made them so eager to discover everything about Father?
This was during the period when I, after being removed from my job following a denunciation by a Securitate officer, was struggling to leave Brăila and move to Bucharest.
Eventually, my departure was approved through the termination of my employment contract. I was helped by the general inspector of education, who was my brother Ionel’s former Romanian-language teacher.
Now the Securitate officers in Brăila wanted to learn as much as possible about my father. On May 4, 1973, they asked the Prahova County Securitate Inspectorate to send them an extract from the archived materials—File No. 109, pages 329–342—concerning Gheorghiu Aurel.
The information indicated that he had engaged in clandestine Legionary activity in the city of Moreni.
Another report from the same date stated that the person in question had been identified as a member of the Legionary organization and that he had been released from Gherla Penitentiary after serving his sentence.
The Prahova County Securitate Inspectorate sent two notices: one dated May 4, 1973, and another dated June 14, 1973. Through them, they attempted to clarify the facts using information that we already know.
I will not quote any more of this, because the confusion in the minds of those well-paid Securitate officers—who had placed so many lives in danger—makes me furious.
I did not know why I could not find employment. I had received firm promises in Bucharest from the Official Bulletin–State Archives, yet both my father and I remained under investigation.
On December 28, 1973, a report states:
“I contacted Gheorghiu Aurel at his residence in the ‘city’ of Gura Ocniței. The individual in question was administratively interned for eight months in Gherla Penitentiary, without a court decision, between 1948 and 1949.”
Now it is clear, is it not?!
The report continues:
“During the contact, it was established that Gheorghiu Aurel is reserved, has few personal relationships, and, being retired, spends most of his time attending to household matters.
“Concerning his health, the aforementioned individual suffers from a neurological disorder—Parkinson’s disease—which was also suffered by his parents and was inherited. His sister, Bucșeneanu Alexandrina, underwent brain surgery.
“The individual has two daughters living in Bucharest:
“One, Gheorghiu Alexandrina, thirty years old, works at the State Archives–Official Bulletin and is a member of the Romanian Communist Party.
“The other, Cătănescu Elena, is a homemaker with no political affiliation.
“No other matters were discovered.”
The report was signed by Lieutenant Florea L. and dated January 16, 1974, with the notation:
“Entered into the records.”
On September 29, 1977, a handwritten note appears:
“On the above date, I checked on Gheorghiu Aurel at his residence and established that he is retired and in poor health, suffering from a nervous condition. He spends most of his time at home and occasionally goes into town.”
On October 26, 1977, a Report Note was prepared for the Brăila County Inspectorate, Service I. Its official source was Scarlat Elvira of 68 Hipodrom Street, a neighbor.
She was questioned about Gheorghiu Aurel, a former Legionary, and the following information was obtained:
“He arrived in Brăila ten or twelve years ago from Moreni, where he had worked as a driver.
“He is married and has four children?! One of them, a son named Cornel, is a history teacher in the city of Brăila.
“He is retired, but in the evenings he works for the Parks Department. He is currently employed temporarily at the children’s park in the Hipodrom neighborhood.
“He is described as a quiet and very hardworking man. He remains physically capable and has no physical or psychological illnesses.
“I have never heard him express hostility toward the social or political order of our country under any circumstances.
“I do not know whether he has criminal connections or relationships.”
These were evidently answers to the investigator’s likely questions.
In the margin of this document, someone wrote:
“If necessary, take measures to recruit the source.”
At the bottom, another notation reads:
“Verify the political views of his son, the history teacher.”
The document was signed by Lieutenant Coman and another officer whose signature is illegible.
The final Report Note from the Brăila Securitate Service states:
“Following verifications conducted on February 11, 1981, under the cover of the Militia authorities, concerning Gheorghiu Aurel, it was established that he had been in Bucharest with his wife since December 20, 1980.
“The purpose of the trip was to care for his daughter, who is seriously ill.”
This referred to my sister Măricica.
“Each month, around the eighteenth, the aforementioned individual comes to Brăila to collect his pension. He is in good health and has no particular problems. No other relevant matters were discovered.”
The report is followed by the signature of a lieutenant whose name is illegible.
With this Report Note, the saga of Father’s surveillance came to an end.
He was “the Legionary” who had been active for eight months in an organization in 1938; who had collected contributions to help people in need; and who had held two “nest” meetings.
He had been investigated and released during the royal dictatorship. Later, he was investigated for an entire year without being convicted, including eight months of imprisonment at Gherla. Afterward, he was watched throughout his life, until 1981, the year my sister Măricica—his daughter—died.
I have chosen to recount in great detail, using the CNSAS files, the difficult experiences endured by my father. His only guilt was that he had joined the Legionary Party, which was hated both by King Carol II and by the Communist regime.
In our small Schela Mare, people wore neither black shirts nor weapons in shoulder straps. There was no antisemitism, because no Jewish people lived there.
It was the place where I spent the wonderful years of my childhood and where Father carried his cross as a former prisoner and a man under surveillance.
I preserved my most beautiful memories of that place, and I still miss it today.
I returned there three times, and each time it no longer seemed as it had during the beautiful years of my childhood. It was deserted, depopulated, and sad.
I remember how, during family gatherings, “the boys”—my brothers—would bring up Legionary politics and the fact that Father had apparently been unable to find a better political party to join.
My brother Cornel would ask him with irony mixed with admiration, while the rest of us laughed at the word he had invented—he was a master at such things:
“So, Father, what was it like being the leader of a ‘nest’?!”