The word re-education, had, for me, such a sinister meaning, that I did not succeed in explaining it to myself. What does that mean, re-educating myself? And what should I re-educate in me more precisely? To change my way of life, give up my mentality, renounce my faith, my view of the world and life, renounce my dream, my fight? What part of me should I relinquish? My faith in God and my love for Him? Should I replace His Gospel with proletarian ideology, love for my neighbor with hatred and the class war, the truth with lies, honesty with hypocrisy, harmony with terror, mercy with violence? Should I chase God away from my soul and install the party in His stead? Should I hate and “rat” on my family and friends, should I live in a state of terror, fear, distrust, suspicion, insecurity? In conclusion, should I give myself up, and replace all of myself with satan’s reign, to bow down and obey him, idolizing the party, as the newly formed god, to adopt the religion of communism – the religion of the evil one.
The ones who could give concrete information and could shed light on this satanic play are gone : Turcanu, executed by his masters, and Bogdanovici, killed by Turcanu. Because of this, the inceptions of the re-education remain totally unknown.
What has been heard and what is known though? In the summer or autumn of 1948, in the prison we found out that Bogdanovici had met with a “speaker”, 21as Popa Tanu (who shared the cell with me) and some other people stated. But this “speaker” wasn’t solicited by Bogdanovici, he was sent by the party office in Suceava and of course, approved by the ones in Bucharest. A speaker for Bogdanovici’s father more exactly, who was the prefect of Botosani in those times. It was rumored that this “speaker” talked only to the father and the son, with no other witnesses being present at their meetings. After their talk the re-education at Suceava came into being. In communism nothing is done at random, so the actions of
21 Communist agents, shadow figuresthis “speaker” were planned long before they were put into practice, directed and organized down to the smallest details.
Also the rumor was that Bogdanovici’s father begged his son to renounce his political views and do everything to save himself physically.
From the ones who helped Bogdanovici (his intimate ones) we found out that, in the time prior to his arrest, he always fought with his father and mother because of politics, many times his mother would have to intervene between him and his father to stop the argument. There is the question though : Why did Bogdanovici get such a big sentence, if he accepted to be the leader and the one who would start the re-education? In the selfdenouncements22of Pitesti and from the ones who suffered there I found out that he wasn’t the one who initiated the re-educations at Suceava though, because, according to his thinking, the re education had to be a willful and consensual act, and in no way, an act of constraint and violence. If he had been in accord with violence, he would have been re habilitated and not killed. I ask my readers to forgive my attention either and this helped. I saw Bogdanovici while he was escorted from the 4th hospital room where the statements were done, to a ground floor cell; I was being escorted at the same time, from the 3rd basement room and taken towards the 4th hospital room, to the 1st floor. So, we met on the stairs, half way between ground floor and 1st floor. When we came face to face, we were both holding on to the balustrade one meter thick. I wasn’t aided by the guard, but he couldn’t walk without the guards’ aid; because of this fact, when we came near each other, we had to make way for each other, because we were both holding on to the balustrade. The guard leaned Bogdanovici against the wall, sustaining him so he wouldn’t fall down, to make way for me to pass along the balustrade. The guards were behind us and when we got close to each other we could look in each other’s eyes.
22 Re-education techniqueanticipation, but what I have to say now is closely related with the inception of the reeducation at Suceava and so Bogdanovici’s case as well. I may be, and I say maybe, the only student who met Bogdanovici before he died – Turcanu wasn’t paying
The guards didn’t intervene, that’s how terrified they were because of what they were seeing. Bogdanovici still trusted me. In that time I was not yet fallen from The Divine Grace, I wasn’t yet crumbled and that’s why communication between us two was possible. His enormous head, with his eyes sunk deep into his eyesockets – this was the only thing left alive in him – scared you; you could read the suffering which he caused to the thousands of our comrades in his eyes.
That look, of a dead man with his eyes still alive, haunted me until now when I write these pages and will continue to haunt me until the time of my death. That moment when our eyes met, in a dying voice, but clear enough, Bogdanovici whispered to me : “Brother! This is how mistakes are paid!”.
Our eyes couldn’t turn away from one another, but the guards pushed us in one voice : “Come on!”.
After 2 days Bogdanovici died, sadistically killed by Turcanu, Popa, Martinas and Livinschi. And I do not believe there was a man more tortured than he was in Pitesti. I am not trying to defend him, God forbid! But I am asking myself : who suffered as bad as
Bogdanovici? Who collected as much suffering as he did, in his eyes? What I felt and saw with my own eyes leads me to believe that Bogdanovici wasn’t an informer or a murderer. He was not capable to kill. In his mind there was no room for violence. Bogdanovici was the superior of the University in Iasi, of the Faculties of Law, Literature and Philosophy, Science (Mathematics, Physics and Geography). The Medical, Pharmacy and Polytechnics were separated, and the superior of the entire legionary students group was Neculai Simionescu, Law student. He was from Soroca, Basarabia, and in the hiding of 1940-1941, he was only 12 years old. From the summer of 1941, until the spring of 1944, he lived in Soroca. He did not denounce Turcanu, as some told, without knowing the truth, but Stefan Caciuc, Turcanu’s high school as well as class mate at Campulung Moldovenesc, and later, Turcanu’s colleague at the Faculty of Law in Iasi.
Turcanu was part of the F.D.C.23 only in 1940-1941 and, since January 1941, he left the Legionary Movement. In 1940 he was only 14 years old.
Turcanu knew about the activities of the legionnaires since back in high school in Campulung Moldovenesc up until 1944.
23 The Christian Democrat ForumAfter that he graduated the high school and signed up for the Faculty of Law in Iasi. He was married and did not attend classes - you were only needed to be present at the exams.
So, in Iasi, Bogdanovici did not talk with Turcanu at all, but Stefan Caciuc did.
They first met in 1946, at some exams, and Caciuc asked Turcanu why he doesn’t attend the classes. Turcanu answered that he is married and has other things to do. Caciuc asked him again, what is his political view and if he still maintains a relationship with the legionnaires24, at which he replied clearly that he doesn’t want to have any more to do with the legionnaires and they don’t concern him any longer. “What you do is your concern, I am a communist! I am a friend of Emil Bodnaras’ brothers and they support me and help me with my diplomacy career. So this is the last time when I ever talk or meet with you”. Caciuc didn’t mention though if Turcanu told him or not that he already began his legionary activity inside C.S.L. Iasi.
24 A.k.a. “Christians”
From these discussions with Turcanu though it can be seen that he became a communist (maybe even before 1944), due to his involvement with the Bodnaras brothers. A thing remains clear : at the time Caciuc had the discussion with Turcanu, Turcanu held the promise of a political career. Caciuc goes on to say that Turcanu told him that in the autumn of 1948, when he was arrested, he had already been trained by Anna Pauker (a Foreign Minister then), who wanted to send him as an Ambassador in Yugoslavia. Turcanu’s arrest was due to Stefan Caciuc’s unforgivable mistakes, who talked during interrogation, without being coerced or even asked, about his prior discussions with Turcanu, and for this reason Turcanu was arrested and sentenced to 7 years in prison25.
Caciuc said that he denounced Turcanu because he envied him, because he had a weakness for the girl Turcanu was married to.
The eye witnesses who were there when the two had an argument after Turcanu’s trial at Suceava relate that Caciuc told Turcanu 7 years will seem like a day and to be content that he wasn’t sentenced to 10.
That is why Turcanu appeared at Suceava only in late autumn, when the interrogations were at an end.
25 Maybe that’s how Turcanu motivated his anger towards the legionaries
Once Turcanu was arrested, the communists thought they could use him as a tool against the legionnaires in the horrible scenarios of Pitesti and Gherla.
Bogdanovici’s speaker26 event took place before Turcanu’s arrest. And so it seems that the communist delegates from Bucharest, who coordinated and verified the interrogations and statements in Suceava prison, stumbling upon Caciuc’s statement concerning Turcanu, notified the party. And, following this notification, the party ordered prefect Bogdanovici from Bucharest to have a talk with his son, for their operation to be carried out on two fronts. - One, conducted by Bogdanovici’s son - who despite all the torture he was submitted to didn’t talk at all (he had the responsibility of an entire University on his shoulders); in the times of the interrogations I was confronted with Bogdanovici as well and I saw with my own eyes on his face and body the savage tortures he was submitted to.
26 Communist agents, shadow figures
- The second one was Turcanu’s crimes.
Using Bogdanovici junior they wanted to destroy the young legionnaires unit, students and high school pupils, in this way testing every soul to see who stood firm and who was doubting, the doubting ones being recruited into the initial phase of the reeducation process, coordinated from the shadow by the party office in
Suceava. Bogdanovici was only the victim and tool whom the communists used to put their plan into practice, that is to destroy the young legionnaire unit, sowing distrust, suspicion and doubt among them.
Generally this plan did work; the young, being naïve, not knowing the communist way of thinking, believed in the communist’s lures, becoming victims easy to maneuver. I do not know the exact date when Bogdanovici arrived in Pitesti; what is certain though is that this happened before December 10th 1949, the date in which 90% of the legionnaire and non legionnaire students nationwide were brought to the Pitesti prison.
When the re-education at Pitesti started, Bogdanovici wasn’t killed quickly, as was the case with other student legionnaires, but according with the communist torture practices, he was tortured until the winter of 1951(the same happened with Patrascanu too). The one who denounced him was Popa Alexandru
(“Tanu”), his colleague and friend from Soroca. Turcanu kept Bogdanovici alive at Nicolski’s and the Russian’s orders, because they wanted him to declare everything he knew about the activities of the young legionnaires along the country, as well as those in Basarabia.
After Turcanu was arrested due to Caciuc’s statement, the complex plan elaborated by Moscow and the occult for the destruction of the young legionnaires was put in practice to the smallest details by Turcanu.
Originally, he should have been sentenced to 2, 3 years. And still, he was sentenced to 7 years of correctional prison; sentenced to 7 years instead of 2 for a reason, because according to their plan Turcanu had to be used all those years.
I have to mention a few more things concerning Turcanu. In 1946, when that discussion with Caciuc took place, Turcanu was a communist, he was part of the political bureau in Iasi. Some suspected that, having connections with the Bodnaras brothers, they ordered him to maintain a relationship with the legionnaires also, in order to keep them under scrutiny eyes. Anyway, Turcanu was arrested because of the terrible mistake Caciuc made.
After the legionnaires who had long sentences left from Suceava to Pitesti, the ones who remained at Suceava noticed that Turcanu was absent from the prison for a while. The suspicion was that he had been taken to Bucharest or even Moscow where he signed the plan which contained the future self-denouncements at Pitesti and Gherla.
So Bogdanovici wasn’t the first culprit in this complex start. Bogdanovici, when the re-education started, thought he was playing a game of politics – at his father’s wish – to save himself and his comrades. We can clearly see he did not know bolshevism, although he was a basarabean. He ended up being murdered by Turcanu, at the Russian agents’ orders.
Once Turcanu was arrested, Bogdanovici’s actions took another turn. The communists didn’t so much need re education, as they needed to get out of the young legionnaires the rest of information, which they didn’t declare in the prior interrogations and, even more than that, everything concerning the reaction to communism from within the country.
Another purpose was the destruction of this young population using tortures and then using it in diverse schemes. And Turcanu, just like other communists, didn’t fully grasp or know the shrewdness of this satanic plan. He was fully convinced that if he will be successful in his mission and if he will fulfill it to the letter, the communists will take him out of the prison and will give him an even better place in society, better than he had before even, probably, directly within the Central Committee; thus, his illusion of a political ascension. Turcanu didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand that every evil can only result in greater evils. That’s why, after they used him how they pleased, his masters with whom he had been working until then, suddenly vanished, leaving him in the hands of other masters who would transfer him and his collaborators from Gherla to Jilava prison.
There, isolated each one in a different cell, in order to prevent them talking with each other, they were forced to write what methods they used, for how long they had to torture each young man until his breaking point, what was the behavior of the legion’s superiors and what methods they applied to the ones who did not break. Until the time these reports were done, in 2 years of work, new masters came instead of the old ones. Once the new masters were installed, these masters arranged their trials, using their own statements. So when they were expecting to be released from prison, decorated and given high ranking positions within the party, their masters, instead of congratulating them, freeing them, they paid them in full, accusing them that together with those abroad they wanted to compromise and denigrate the party. But the “bandits” didn’t succeed in fooling the party, which because of its vigilance discovered the plot in due time, punishing those who bear the guilt.
It was then rumored that Turcanu’s henchmen wanted to lynch him, but the guards intervened to stop it. It was very well staged! They were isolated and kept in isolation until the trial, in the biggest secrecy; then sentenced to death and executed by fire squad.
Some readers will ask themselves how do we know all this if we weren’t there. The answer is simple : a secret stays a secret as long as it is known by only one person; when it becomes known by two persons, it’s not a secret anymore. I will come back with details when we will talk about Turcanu and his henchmen, concerning the Pitesti and Gherla prisons. Playing with satan is very dangerous, because the ones who serve him, from collaborators they become victims. Satan doesn’t have any scruples, nor does he keep his word, no morals, no feelings, but only one very outlined goal : transforming his collaborators in victims increasingly easier to maneuver as time goes by. So, in order to tell who the authors of the re-education were and how the re-education at Suceava started, I first need to say that the ones who willingly accepted it were also the ones who formed Turcanu’s chief-of-staff at Pitesti and Gherla, doing the self-denouncements. The same ones who believed that the Legionary Movement is a business in which they could reach their upstart goals. I personally met all these people and I came to one conclusion : these young men, either they did not have the time to complete their education because the state banned them completely as legionnaires, either they were dishonest from the very start. If inside the Church there were “Christians” who compromised it, thinking in their insolence that they could cheat God, then why be surprised if in all the other human organizations, indifferent of their nature and goals, there were traitors, deserters, cowards and opportunists? But “a nation doesn’t exist and live on through the fearful, cowards, deserters and traitors, but through its martyrs, heroes and warriors” (Vasile Parvan), and a human organization doesn’t live through those who put themselves in satan’s service, but through all of those honest people who are in its ranks. The Romanians have a saying : “All the forests have dry wood in them”. The same case with the so-called “legionnaires” they were blind tools who, for their own selfish interests, entered a game which proved fatal to them. I stated and am convinced that, even before the arrests planned by the communists began - in March 1948 everything that has occurred inside the prisons, the reeducation at Suceava and the self-denouncements at Pitesti and Gherla, were imposed, conducted, controlled by the Moscow occult and the international one, stopping at nothing in order for the Legionary Movement to be wiped out of the face of the Earth.
To the ones that adhered to the Prisoners with Communist Convictions Organization (P.C.C.O.), they had preferential conditions – a bowl of lentil more, taken from other people’s meal – they promised that they will be released from prison and that the party will make them high ranking activists. The naivety, the lack of judgement, the childish credulity!
Here are some names of legionnaires who willfully adhered to this organization and who had a major role in the self-denouncements of Pitesti and Gherla. Besides Bogdanovici, the author of the re-education and the one who initiated it at Suceava (Turcanu did not play a part here, this was proven at Pitesti), there were Popa Alexandru a.k.a. Tanu, Martinus, Livinschi, Cantemir, Virgil Bordeianu and a few students from Iasi and Bucovina. All the serious students and pupils with big sentences didn’t take part in this circus at Suceava.
The idea came about among the legionnaire and non legionnaire students that only Turcanu and Bogdanovici were guilty because they accepted to be the leaders of this re-education and the self-denouncements. They did not know though - for the communists it didn’t matter, their plans don’t rely on persons. No! The plan had to be fulfilled, no matter the person used.
So, allow me, after so many years of prison and after all we have witnessed with our eyes and ears to state in all certainty that Bogdanovici and Turcanu weren’t the ones who initiated and fulfilled this re-education and the self-denouncements. No, the fact was well known that in the communist regimes not even a bird can fly through the air without the party knowing about it. So the plan once completed, its tools could have been anyone, not only Bogdanovici and Turcanu, but any other name : Ionescu, Popescu, Dunareanu, etc. The persons who could carry out the plan to fulfillment could be found on every street. Traitors, cowards and opportunists you can find anytime, on any street.
The plan conceived by Moscow and the international occult concerning the young legionnaires in Romania’s prisons was thought, completed and carried out even to the smallest detail by the Russian agents in collaboration with Anna Pauker, Vasile Luca, Teohari Georgescu and with the chief of Security, general Nicolski, aided by the colonel Zeller.
Judging by the facts, I repeat that all that occurred inside the prisons, the reeducation at Suceava and the self-denouncements at Pitesti and Gherla was imposed, conducted and coordinated by the Russian agents. And the communist leadership in Romania agreed with this, being foreign to our kind. Teohari Georgescu (alias Burah Tescovici), colonel Zeller, colonel Sepeanu, as well as Ana Pauker, Vasile Luca and Dej with his collaborators. Some of us were convinced that Nicolski, Russia’s agent, had been working in secret with Russian agents. It is possible, because the communists planned, thought and organized their missions very well and thorough.
In fact, the communists’ slogan was : “All we need is planning, those who execute it we can find plenty; all we need is people, their sentence is sure; better to arrest 1000 innocents, than one guilty to escape”.
*
At the end of March 1949, a rumor was circulating through the Suceava prison that we will be transferred to another prison and we will be divided into categories depending on the professional training with no regard to our political affiliation. If anyone of us would have known how the secret plans were made in communism, they would have known why the communists divided us into these professional categories. Here is the list of the prisons with their professional repartition each :
- Aiud, the biggest prison in the country - intellectuals;
-Gherla, first class prison workers and peasants;
-Pitesti, second class prison - students;
-Targsor, a village west of Ploiesti - pupils in secondary schools;
-Mislea, a town near Ploiesti - women;
-Jilava – transit prison, reserved for special and secret purposes;
-Suceava, Galati, Ramnicu Sarat, Dej, Sighet, etc. well defined purposes, at the Security’s disposal.
A unique penitentiary was the barracks in the city of Fagaras, transformed into a prison for ex-officers and ex-policemen.
This repartition lasted until 1955, when the prisons started to filter the inmates in political categories. On 15th of April 1949 I was transferred from the Suceava prison to the one in Pitesti, along with the first lot of 80 legionnaires.
In the second half of April 1949, a lot formed of 80 high ranking legionnaire students, each of us sentenced to 10 years or more, were transferred from Suceava to Pitesti by a train. The Suceava prison didn’t have enough chains for everyone so they used one chain per 3 inmates, tied to our hands. At the train they untied us.
It was beautiful outside when we arrived at Pitesti. Back then the prison didn’t have vans for prisoner transport. The warden was expecting us at the train station in Pitesti with some 30 armed police guards. Because of the lack of chains they arranged us 6 by 6, depending on our height, and tied our hands with rope. Being secured by armed police guards, you couldn’t run.
I will never forget this course, because the Pitesti train station was in the center of its town and from the station to the prison were like 6-7 km27.
After we left the train station and got to the highway that leads to Curtea de Arges28, our column was as wide as the entire highway, and the cars had to stop and make room for us to pass. The passers by and those in cars looked at us stunned. They could see we weren’t soldiers, neither ordinary civilians, but apparitions, white as lime, sheared and dressed with all kinds of clothes, with our heads looking down and yoked like oxen on the field. We were clumsily moving forward on the street paved with riverbed gravel and behind us so much dust was lifting into the air that the ones behind us did not see each other anymore. The people didn’t understand what happened to us, because we were all young and about the same ages. But seeing the guards who escorted us they realized we are prisoners. I remember old women dressed in traditional Arges clothing, crossing themselves and shouting aloud : “Oh, God! What happened with these young men?” I was seeing women cry. In this manner we were welcomed by the population of the city of Pitesti, we, the first lot of legionnaire students brought from Suceava. Not one among the 80 students who came to Pitesti, agreed on re-education while at Suceava. Most of us had been sentenced to many years of forced labor and only 10 of us to hard labor.A few words about the history of this prison.
27having to walk on foot
28 Court of Arges
The Pitesti prison can be found laterally, to the west, at a distance of almost 200 meters from the highway which ties Pitesti to Court of Arges. The wall which surrounds the prison is 5 meters tall. The prison can be found where “The River of the Lady” flows into “The River of the Fair”, both of them in turn flowing into the River Arges. The scenery is beautifully enchanting. Here, the plains of Arges continue into the sub-carpathian hills, which are cultured with fruit trees.
The prison was built by the order of Armand Calinescu, the devil’s servant, he bearing the sign of nature also, having only one eye. In this prison, Armand Calinescu, on the time when he was a prime-minister, planned to exterminate the legionnaire youths. He did not get to see this fulfilled, but satan carried his plan to fulfillment, honoring his wish. The spirit of evil reigned in those places where there were the purest and youngest members of the Legion, for they had to be sunk down into the swamp of desperation. Regarding the prison, it had been built in the shape of a “T”. The rooms were divided into cells with the size of 4/2 m and rooms the size of 10/6 m. On the tail of the T the upper floors had 2 rows of cells connected by thick post wire29, and in front of each cell lay a 1 meter corridor. On the ground floor and basement there were rooms 10/6 meters wide. The head of the T was comprised of 2 rows of cells with no net between them, a concrete corridor, where all could be done in the greatest secrecy. These cells were made especially for the isolation of the legionnaire youth’s superiors. On the 1st floor, on the right side of the T there was a big room, dubbed the 4th hospital room, because right next to this room there was a cell which functioned as a medical office. The 4th hospital room could accommodate almost 50 inmates on its overlapped beds.
29 Like a net
In the basement however, in the head of the “T”, there were the kitchen, the laundry room, the bathroom and severe punishment cells. There was a toilet at each end of a row of cells, and at the joining of the “T” with its “head”, at each floor, there was a punishment cell dubbed “the black cell”.
The prison had 2 staircases that the inmates were allowed to use – one at the jointing of the “T” with its “head”, and the other one in the “tail” of the “T”, for going out into the courtyard. The main door was at the 1st floor. On the main staircase prisoners weren’t allowed. Due to the prison’s architecture the security was 100 percent efficient and the secret was being kept a secret. You couldn’t escape from there. On the exterior wall which was 5 meters tall there was a soldier armed with a machinegun and a floodlight, at each 50 meters, in a pot peg. So, escape from this fortress was impossible. I need to mention that Armand Calinescu was from Arges and his estate was not far from the prison. Maybe this is the way he was keeping the young legionnaires under his demonic “wings”.
After the journey from the train station to the prison and all that occurred on the way, here we are in front of the prison, all tied up like bovines ready to be slaughtered. In front of the prison there was a plateau which we didn’t first see because you couldn’t see it from the street. Here, the guards allowed us to sit down on the grass and, to our joy, although we were weakened and tired, we could talk with each other. It had been the last time for some of us when we got to do that though. Being heartbroken I ask myself even after so much time has passed, how many of us entered and how many got out alive, and in what state most of all?! How many of all 80 went mad, how many killed, how many collapsed and how many were used as instruments of torture against the others?!
After the registry clerk checked our files, we were distributed by 4’s in each cell on the forced labor and hard labor section.
Cell 18This cell, like the 59, 15 and 121 before it, left undying marks in my mind and heart.
If those cells and cell 18 from Pitesti wouldn’t have been what they were, my thinking and knowledge wouldn’t have been like they are now either. Then I ask myself, were they bad or good for me, these cells?
Clearly, they were good, a favor which God bestowed on me, to show me the way which leads to Him.
In cell 18 I was distributed along with my comrade Iosub Mihai.
This word, “comrade”, when used in prison, for communists it meant “legionnaire activity”. This word cost many lives, brought severe arrests, trials, sentences and spotting, with the use of informers, those who didn’t relinquish their belief in the Legionnaire Movement.
When I walked in, I found 2 young men from Bucharest, both of them not affiliated to politics : Petrovanu Miron and Negrescu Fag30. These two were sentenced t