Romania's Communist Prisons

Orthodox and Catholic priests and bishops suffered extreme tortures in the Romanian Communist prisons. This is not for the faint of heart. In the words of Father Vasile Patrascu (January 1, 1922, Bârlad – † September 23, 2006, Bucharest):

I dedicated all my suffering to God…!

I was born in January of 1922 in the town of Bârlad, to a family of Romanian people who had been Orthodox Christians for generations. I completed my middle and high school studies in Bârlad, and then I went on to the Academy of High Economic Studies in Bucharest.

I was arrested on May 16, 1948 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, then I was given an additional 10 years of hard labor for “subversive organizing” as I fell, along with all political detainees, under the stipulations of Law # 209, due to “plotting against the security of the state.”


I passed through the following jails of the “Bolshevik heaven”: the Interior Ministry–twice, Jilava Prison–five times, Uranus, Piteşti, Gherla, Aiud–three times, Alba-Iulia, Galaţi–many times, Focşani, Ploieşti–twice, Codlea, Iaşi, Periprava, Bârlad–many times.

At the Interior Ministry, I underwent 70-80 hour long investigations, without eating, sleeping, or resting. From there, our first group of detainees was sent to Piteşti in March-April of 1949. In Piteşti, we had to go through Nicolski’s filter, Nicolski being Moscow’s authorized representative for Romania. He was seconded by General Dulgheru (Dulbergher), the national head investigator, by the political officer from Piteşti, Marina Iţicovici, and others from their team.

During the course of the investigations, I was taken into Dulgheru’s office three times. He told me, “So, you don’t want to declare anything? No worries, we’re gonna make sure we’ll no longer give you academies in prison! You’ll spill everything in the mercury mines of the Ural Mountains!…” After us, more groups of detainees came from Iaşi, Suceava, Cluj, Timişoara, Craiova, Braşov, etc. A cell could fit at the most four people as there were only two beds in it. They put seven, even nine people in a cell of eight square meters in size. In the black holes, they crammed 20-30 detainees–like teeming worms in a wound…(Read entire article.)

More on Romania's Gulag, HERE. Share