ANTI-COMMUNIST RESISTANCE
– FAGARAS – SOUTHERN SLOPES
(I)
Apart from the stalinist drive to destroy the independent peasantry, the peasants were subjected to special persecution not only because they exerted charity, or were suspected of being capable of charity towards the partisans, but also merely because they held religious beliefs (hence, “subversive” with respect to the newly installed communist system). On March 10, 1949, the armed forces of the MIA (Ministry of the Internal Affairs), including heavy artillery troops, descended upon the village of Fundul Racaciunii, in Moldavia: they demolished the church; tortured the village schoolmaster Anton Benchea in front of his wife and children until his body was mangled and then slain; the women who had fled the woods with their children were run down and arrested, together with their husbands (after a week of beatings they were released, bleeding and disfigured). On March 15, the same procedure was applied to the village of Faraoani, in Moldavia. Secret police troops killed Ioan Farcas, the village cantor, by throwing him from the height of the bell tower. They seized four priests, Ion Butnaru, Anton Damec, Petre Dinca and Anton Olaru, together with their congregation, beat them up, bound them in heavy iron chains and threw them into the deep winter snow to freeze there. Only one, 80 years-old Anton Ciceu, was not chained and thrown into the snow to freeze but was let loose and told to go home, only to be shot to death in the back with machine-guns as soon as he started walking. Victorious in this battle, the MIA troops then arrested from the remaining villagers enough to fill the trucks they had driven up in, and took them to political imprisonment in Bacau. The direct methods resorted by this “government of workers and peasants” were arrest, killing, beating and torture. Nicolae Ceausescu and Constantin Doncea led a team among whose members were Dorobantu, Badea, Bizin, Moraru, all of whom were promoted to the rank of officers in MIA. They had absolute power and were past putting on a show of legality over their brutality and absolute inhumanity. They murdered Gheorghe Mihai, attorney-at-law, and Tica Popescu, a school teacher, during “questionings”, right in the office of the Chief of the Tribunal of Pitesti. Frequently, secret police officers provoked the citizens to respond to mistreatment, so as to be “justified” in beating up and murdering their victims. Incidents of this type happened in Leicesti, Badesti, Stalpeni, in Muscel County, and in Cumpana and Costesti in Arges County. Under those circumstances, many peasants fled to the mountains. On the southern slopes of the Fagaras Mountains, General Gheorghe Arsenescu was organizing a group of partisans, aided by Petre and Toma Arnautoiu. General Arsenescu led the partisans until 1952, when he went into hiding. He lived in hiding until 1960, when he was captured and killed.
PARTISAN STRUGGLE ON THE SOUTHER SLOPES OF THE FAGARAS MOUNTAINS, GENERAL ARSENESCU AND THE ARNAUTOIU BROTHERS
(II)
Under those circumstances, many peasants fled to the mountains. On the southern slopes of the Fagaras Mountains, General Gheorghe Arsenescu was organizing a group of partisans, aided by Petre and Toma Arnautoiu. General Arsenescu led the partisans until 1952, when he went into hiding.
He lived in hiding until 1960, when he was captured and killed. The brothers Arnautoiu, whose father and mother were slain by the regime’s henchmen in prison, and whose sister had also been thrown in prison, led the armed resistance in the Fagaras mountains for ten years, dwelling among bare rocks at non-habitable altitudes. One of the centers of armed resistance against communism was the triangle Salatruc-Arefu-Rudeni, where natural subterranean grottoes in the woodland made it easy for the partisans to escape and to receive support from sympathizers. However in the end they were betrayed by the smoke that rose from the fires that kept them from freezing to death in winter, and in 1951 the Suici region was surrounded by 30 truckloads of troops and by artillery units. In command were Tericeanu, Ilie Badica, Alexandru Draghici, Stanculescu, State and Ion Dinca. After battling for three years against those well-equipped troops, the partisans were destroyed. Among the members of that group were: Silisteanu and his wife, two peasants who had merely fled persecution, Father Haralambie Dinescu, slain in 1952; Dorobantu, the school teacher of Carpinis, shot in the head by the secret policeman who married his daughter; Gheorghe Dumitrescu, a school teacher of Rudeni, thrown into the extermination prison of Aiud and released to die at home when he had a few days to live, in 1965; Alexandru Dumitrescu, a school teacher of Suici; Father Rudeanu, a priest who had been a school teacher in Ramnicu-Valcea and who died as a result of the beatings he received during interrogations. Father Nicolae Donescu of Suici was killed by the MIA units because he had christened the child born to Silisteanu in the woods. Professor Stefanescu, suspected of being capable of sympathizing with the partizans, was found shot to death in the street.
PARTISAN STRUGGLE ON THE SOUTHER SLOPES OF THE FAGARAS MOUNTAINS, GENERAL ARSENESCU AND THE ARNAUTOIU BROTHERS
(III)
Another center of partisan activity was Campulung-Muscel. In June 1952 three members of that group were killed in battle at Furnicosi, including the group’s leader, Constantin D. Stanescu of Tiganesti-Topoloveni (his father was arrested and perished in prison, while his sister, Marioara Ionescu- Lungu, and another girl, Sabina Ionescu, were arrested and sent to the prison of Miercurea-Ciuc). […] Other innocent people of Tiganesti-Topoloveni arrested and persecuted at that time were: Father Gheorghe Tomescu, who died in 1961; his son, who was a student; Flenches of Calinesti, believed to have been killed in prison; Ionel Valimareanu, a theologian; Gheorghe Furtunescu, and others. Hundred of secret policemen, disguised and carrying concealed machine guns, filled the villages and the shepherd huts in the mountains; sometimes they pretended to be loggers. For years, until 1958, the mountains were not safe either for their inhabitants or for travellers or tourists.
Naturally, the puppet communist regime blamed the terrorism of its henchmen on the partisans. While the mountain villages were filled with government terrorists they were being emptied of their real inhabitants, who were arrested and had to confess under torture of “crimes” they had even not heard of, and for which they received five to ten years forced labor terms. A typical reason for which people were arrested, beaten up and received heavy sentences was giving a slice of cheese or a handful of mountain berries to some starving individual (who might have been a partisan). Among those martyred on the southern slopes of the Fagaras mountains were: Petre and Toma Arnautoiu, put to death; Eracle Sorescu, a shepherd, put to death; Father Constantinescu of Corbisori, put to death (his wife-imprisoned); Marinescu, a peasant, killed in battle; Nastase, a schoolmaster, put to death (his wife-imprisoned); Laurentia and Iancu Arnautoiu (an old couple whose sons had been put to death) died in prison; Mucenic and Justin Comanescu, died in prison; Father Mihai Enescu, died in prison; Alexandru Sabu, a peasant of Negoiesti-Arges, who perished at the Danube-Black Sea extermination camp in 1952; Major Nicolae Visoiu, perished in prison; Father Andreescu, shot by secret policemen; Jibleanu, a peasant, died in a single-handed battle against a whole company of MIA troops; Serban, a villager of Capul Piscului, died in battle; Constantin Stanescu, died in battle; other victims, including Bicheru, Carstea, Dragomirescu, Maria Plop, Mecu, peasants; Burtea, Marinescu, school teachers; Gusetoiu and Mihai Gheorghiu of Bogati; Captain Cojocaru; Iosifaru, a high school instructor; Father Popescu and his wife; Purnichescu, husband and wife (husband died in battle); The Greculescu brothers, two of whom were killed in prison, while the third was released when he was nearly finished and died soon after (that was a ‘classical’ method used by the regime); Aurel Seitan, engineer; Dr. Sermet, a physician; Ulea; Marin, a school teacher who managed to hide in a double-bottom barrel for 5 years and was finally murdered in 1957 at Calinesti. Arsenescu was captured in 1960 together with the old peasant who sheltered him. The old peasant committed suicide in prison. So did his jailer, the chief of police of Campulung, for fears of reprisals for lack of vigilance.
PARTISAN STRUGGLE ON THE NORTHERN SLOPES OF FAGARAS MOUNTAINS, THE GROUP OF GAVRILA (I)
The great government offensive and the bitter winter cold had isolated the partisans completely in the bare rocky Fagaras Mountains and cut them off from any life-sustaining sources. Some of them trusted a certain Marin of Brasov, who claimed to have connections and to be able to arrange for them to be smuggled out of country, to Turkey. Gavrila, the head of the partisan group, allowed those who vished to leave, to do so. He personally thought that the arrangement was atrap, and he continued fighting with those who remained. He died in battle, together with his closest friends in 1954 (of whom the names of Parascau and Marcel Cornea are known). Those who trusted Marin fell into the trap and were arrested. Of that lot, Dr. Nicolae Burlacu, Borza of Vistea, Ion Moldovan of Lisa, Dr. Ion Munteanu of Lisa, Iov Popa, a schoolteacher, Virgil Nan of Arpas were sentenced to death but were not executed at that time; two years later their sentence was changed to life in prison. Ilie Serafim, a student, was put to death at Sibiu in 1953. His mother was arrested and was heard of in the extermination political prisons of Jilava, Mislea and Miercurea Ciuc. Thousands were arrested in Fagaras in 1953 and 1954. Among the regime’s victims were children and girls under 18. Half of the population of the villages Breaza and Lisa were arrested. Among the people destroyed at that time was Professor Borza of Fagaras, whose wife had lost both legs in 1945 when the Soviets were deporting her to forced labor in the coal mines of Donets, and she jumped from the train to escape. Her husband was taken away and she was abandoned in the house, incapable of moving. Other victims in that lot were Mother Gordona, arrested together with eight young girls, for having given food to starving mountaineers, and Mother Serafina and her husband, whose son Ilisie had been killed in prison at Jilava.
PARTISAN STRUGGLE ON THE NORTHERN SLOPES OF FAGARAS MOUNTAINS, AND THE GROUP OF MEHEDINTI
(II)
Sometimes the bodies of those killed in the cellars of the regime’s secret police were thrown in the street in front of department stores, for the intimidation of the people. Their shoes had no laces (measure of preventing suicide), and their heavily tortured heads were covered with newspapers. One official version was that they were thieves and had been shot while trying to rob the store. Passers-by were not allowed to stop and examine or identify them. Still, in 1956, an old woman was able to recognize in Bucharest the mangled body of a student arrested in fagaras in 1954. The arrests continued until 1958, when the fighters led by Arnautoiu brothers were captured and exterminated.
THE GROUP OF THE MEHEDINTI MOUNTAINS
It is possible that the partisan group of the Mehedinti Mountains in Oltenia should have had ties with the partisans of Col. Utza, of Commander Petre Domasneanu, and of Spiru Blanaru. The partisans of Mehedinti fought after those three partisans groups of the Banat were destroyed. Among those killed by the secret police troops in Mehedinti were two brothers Bocarnea, both college students, Gheorghe Eftimie, a high school student, and Trocan, This group of fighters is remarkable by the number of young students among its members. In connection with this partisan group scores of people were arrested and sent to extermination camps, especially college students and some officers of the army (e.g., Captain Gheorghe Brancusi). Other individuals who ended up thrown into the common graves of the MIA at that time were General Dumitru Carlaont, General Iancu Carlaont, Colonel Grigorescu and Colonel Stefan Halalau. The military mentality is to obey orders unquestioingly, but even in the ranks of the military, humanity and patriotism were in some individuals stronger.
FREEDOM FIGHTERS: TRAIAN MARINESCU’S LONELY RESISTANCE
There were also instances of single-handed resistance against communist totalitarianism. Traian Marinescu of Izvoarele, near Targoviste, protested openly in November 1946, when the government agents were falsifying the election results by dumping into the voting urns prepared packets with the votes of nonexisting voters. Traian Marinescu threw the urn with the forged votes publicly into fire. Since the act had been public, it became imposssible to include Izvoarele into the fictitious poll statistics the regime was publishing; the results of the general elections of 1946 were published ommitting the village of Izvoarele. Traian Marinescu fled to the woods. He resisted there until he was captured in his village three years later, in 1949. After a heroic single-handed combat against MIA troops, he was wounded and captured. He was carried bleeding to to the secret police cells, whence he was taken one night back to Izvoarele and and shot in the back. Three years later a cross appeared on the spot where police murdered him, erected by unknown hands.
PARTISAN STRUGGLE IN WESTERN CARPATHIANS
The mountaineers of the Western Carpathians were prompt to rise against the henchmen of the Soviet-installed puppet regime. Their response was such that even the MIA troops, heavily armed as in times of war, were afraid to mistreat the civilians in their usual manner in the area between Turda and the Western Mountains peaks, between Campeni and the peaks, on the valleys of the Aries and Iara, around Lupsa, Posaga and Fagetul Ierii. Secret policemen managed to infiltrate the partisan groups of Dabija and Diamandi, who were active there, using the misplaced trust of enthusiastic young men who wished to join the partisans. After the partisan groups of Uta and Blanaru had been liquidated, the army units of Sibiu and Cluj, joined by troops sent from Bucharest, effected massive arrests of villagers and shepherds in the area of Cheile Turzii and Aries. The entire countryside was laid waste by that military action against the civilian population. A frequent procedure of the MIA was to kill the villagers and the shepherds and to let them rot by the wayside. Among the rural inhabitants shot to death in this manner were Ilea of Valea Ierii and his son. Grigore Ilea, another peasant related with them was arrested, tortured and sent to the extermination camp of the Danube- Black Sea Canal. Villagers from Albac, Buru, Cacova, Certege, Galda, Intregalda, Lunca, Lungesti, Lupsa, Mogos, Ocolis, Posoga, Rameti, Rosia Montana, Runc, Salciua, Telna, Valisoara, Baia de Aries were arrested and carried to the prisons of Turda, Alba-Iulia, Cluj and Sibiu.
Yet for one day, one village in the Western Mountains was free after 1944. C.Diamandi, who had managed to escape from the secret police and led a partisan group in Muntele Baisoara, descended one day to Baisoara and arrested the communist police and administrative apparatus. For one day he held Baisoara; for one day that town was free. Within 24 hours heavy artillery units surrounded the town and the battle began. The artillery units had gathered the women who lived in the area and were driving them and their children before the front line. Diamandi’s group fled to the mountains, unwilling to shoot into that barrier of women and children. The regime’s troops arrested over 500 people.
Still the poor mountaineers of the Western Mountains could not be easily brought into line. As late as 1952, an unknown shepherd was shot to death by MIA troops on the Somes Valley. Having spent all his bullets fighting alone against the army units, he was standing motionless, leaning on a fir tree, his useless gun beside him, gazing steadily at the mountain peaks that had been the realm of his forefathers and at the advancing soldiers who were to be his killers.
PARTISAN STRUGGLE IN THE VRANCEA MOUNTAINS: THE GROUP OF IONEL AND GHEORGHE PARAGINA
The year 1949 was a peak year of resistance against the red totalitarianism. It was as if the entire country had risen to avenge the slain freedom fighters Utza (colonel and former president of the Lugoj local branch of the National Peasant Party, who later died in combat fighting for freedom in the mountains), Blanaru, Domasneanu and their followers. An important center of patriotic fight was the Vrancea region, where scores of citizens were slain and 5000 peasants were arrested.
The partisans of Vrancea were divided into two groups, that of the “seniors”, aged over 40, and that of the “juniors”. They were led by the brothers Ionel and Gheorghe Paragina. They were well hidden in underground trenches in the wooded mountains, and were captured only by treason of Ion Mazilu who joined them in 1949 (it is believed now that he was a secret agent from the very beginning, whose task was to infiltrate the partisans). The only partisans from that area who had escaped were Ionel Paragina and Gheorghe Balan, for whose capture the MIA brought to Vrancea several batallions. They trapped the two partisans into a mill after a manhunt that lasted for six days. Ionel Paragina was shot and was let to bleed to death on his way to prison. Gheorghe Balan escaped miraculously.
The annihilation of the two commandos led by the Paragina brothers did not extinguish the love of freedom in the hearts of the inhabitants of Vrancea. In 1951, entire villages arose in peasant revolt: Neruja, Nistoresti, Paulesti, Barsesti, Lepsa, Tulnici, Vizantea, Valea Sarii, Vrancioaia, Andreiasu, Negrilesti, Costesti Suseni, as far as Dumitresti on the river Ramnicu Sarat, and Straoani and Movilita, on the river Zabrautz. The peasants set fire to the offices of the Communist Party and to police stations.
One of the leaders in that revolt was Gheorghe Balan, the former partisan of Ionel Paragina group. Government troops captured and destroyed them. Colonel Lupsa, considered the leader of the peasant revolt, was sentenced to death and executed. The MIA troops concentrated in Vrancea engaged in a bloodthirsty witch-hunt, lasting for two years. Gheorghe Balan was captured and spent one year in a cell in heavy iron chains, after which he was executed.
PARTISAN STRUGGLE IN MARAMURES
The inhabitants of Maramures were not easy to subdue and bring in line under the red flag. Gavrila Strifunda of Borsa is said to be the initiator of the armed resistance, at Vadul Izei in 1945, in which several thousands persons participated. He was arrested in August 1949 and was never seen again. The mock elections of 1946 marked the escalation of government intimidation activities in Maramures. Vasile Dunca, a sheperd, and a villager named Parascau reacted and were slain by Sergeant Coza of Sapanta. Serban Vasile- Simion, a forester who has never fought but had given away food to famished persons, was arrested, and killed in prison at Gherla, 1961, leaving his five children to starve. Many others were arrested.
Even the schoolchildren participated in Romania’s desperate struggle: in 1949, the fifth and sixth-graders of Ieud and Dragomiresti whose parents and grown-up relatives had been arrested, dropped out of school and tried to build support among the population. Colonel Cseller Lajos of the secret police of Baia Mare conducted the reprisals against the schoolchildren personally. Having found out their whereabouts, he surrounded them. His troops killed Vasile-Lica Popsa, whose brother Ion-Mihai escaped to the woods, and arrested hundreds of children and peasants. The body of Vasile- Lica Popsa was dragged through the streets of Sighet and the citizens were compelled to come out with their children and watch. Cseller’s aide Eleckes, who supervised the torture of those arrested, requested political refugee status abroad, bringing with him the dossiers of those he had interrogated. Thus it became known that there was another group of former army officers fighting in Maramures, led by Colonel Blidaru, killed in combat in 1955; the Lieutenat Ion Folea and Fodoreanu, also members of that group, had been arrested. The arrests in Maramures extended over the years, carrying thousands of victims to the extermination camps.
Golea Traian, [“Romania beyond the limits of endurance”, Romanian Historical Studies, 1988]
