Red Agony of Gulag

By Ioan Teodorescu

In March 1944, I was sent back to the regiment where I had done my training, with the rank of cadet adjutant, and was assigned to the pioneer company of the regiment, as commander of the Brandt 60 mm gun platoon. Its usual mission was to supervise and guard the pioneers during mining operations, and his special mission was to guard the regimental command post. The company commander was Capt. Paduraru.

I continued training instruction with the group, the regiment being reorganized to be sent to the front again. At that time, the Soviet armies had reached the Nistru river, occupying a part of northern Moldavia and Bessarabia. We were camped in Smârdan commune, a few kilometers from Calafat. From this second period of internship at the regiment, I remember several events that I will try to narrate in the following pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ioan Teodorescu
• Release date: May 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9786060719069

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Ioan Teodorescu

RED AGONY OD GULAG

Memoirs of a Romanian Officer from The Second Warld War

Copyright

Red Agony of Gulag / Ioan Teodorescu

ISBN eBook ePub: 978-606-071-906-9

All responsibility for the contents of this book belongs to the author.

Copyright 2023, Ioan Teodorescu.

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Content

Copyright

FOREWORD

CHAPTER I

RECRUTING, MILITARY SCHOOL, DISPATCHING  TO THE 31st INFANTRY REGIMENT IN CALAFAT

CHAPTER II

DEPARTURE TO THE BATTLEFRONT AND TAKING PART TO THE WAR

CHAPTER III

TIME IN CAPTIVITY

CHAPTER IV

TROȚKOI CONCENTRATION CAMP AND ODESSA

CHAPTER V

MÂNĂSTÂRCA CONCENTRATION CAMP - ORANKI  REGION GORKI - NIJNII NOVGOROD

CHAPTER VI

USCIOARA CONCENTRATION CAMP.  MARITKAIA REPUBLIC HAVING THE CAPITAL CITY – IOSCAROLA

CHAPTER VII

MARANSKI CONCENTRATION CAMP – UKRAINE

CHAPTER VIII

KRASNIGORSKI CONCENTRATION CAMP – MOSCOW

CHAPTER IX

GORKI CONCENTRATION CAMP – NIJNI NOVGOROD

CHAPTER X

MÂNĂSTÂRCA – ORANKI CONCENTRATION CAMP

CHAPTER XI

PRISON NO.1 FROM GORKI – HIJNI NOVGOROD

CHAPTER XII

PERESILCA. KIROV TRANSIT PRISON

CHAPTER XIII

PERESILCA VORKUTA. ALLOCATION PRISON.

CHAPTER XIV

CONCENTRATION CAMP NO.6 OF COAL MINE IN VORKUTA REGION

CHAPTER XV

THE SMALL CONCENTRANTION CAMP FROM KOZHVA

CHAPTER XVI

THE BIG CONCENTRATION CAMP FROM KOZHVA

CHAPTER XVII

IZVESCOVO CONCENTRATION CAMP. VORKUTA CEMENT FACTORY

CHAPTER XVIII

DNEPROPETROVSK CONCENTRATION CAMP – UKRAINE

CHAPTER XIX

KIEV CONCENTRATION CAMP – CAPITAL OF UKRAINE

CHAPTER XX

THE SIGHET REGIMENT HEADQUARTERS TURNED INTO A CAMP FOR THE ROMANIAN SOLDIERS

CHAPTER XXI

GHENCEA CONCENTRATION CAMP FROM BUCHAREST

PROVISIONAL PROOF

PHOTOS

Tribute to my comrades, fallen for liberty and country

FOREWORD

Many, really many years ago - be it half of a century - a train set splits through the mists of the autumnal equinox the endless Russian taiga, carrying in one of its wagons a load of a rather high degree of danger human beings.

At least that's how it seemed from the conditions in which the transport was executed.

Let`s imagine a passenger carriage where the cabins were replaced by iron cages, provided with steel posts, barbed wire railings and bars resembling the ones at Sing-Sing and with places for handcuffs and leg chains, briefly, a real `wheel prison`. This `merchandise` taken from ORANKI, the queen bee concentration camp of the Romanian officers, and from MÎNĂSTÎRCA, a branch of the previous one, was sent over Volges towards the heart of the muddy forests of the Marițka Republik, to USCIOARA, the famous concentration camp for punishment, also called DEVIL`S MOUTH. `The merchandise` consisted of a handful of Romanian officers, from colonels to sub lieutenants, active and reserves, whom the flair of the administration had selected from the mass of prisoners, according to the criterion of participation in the conflicts that had shaken the two concentration camps in the hot summer of the year 46. Indeed, that summer, an appreciable minority of the Romanian officers, shaking off the languor, apathy and fear that had become like second nature to this world of captivity, had succeeded, in an absolute premiere for the U.S.S.R., to give to the administration, through complete mass protests and hunger strike, a fitting response to all the arbitrary acts exercised over us for years, through terror, starvation, cold, exhausting work, imprisonment, beatings, and blackmail of all kinds. The finality of these oppressions was only one: to dislocate us from our substantial center, to turn us from people into tools, more precisely, into pathogens of the red plague with which our country was on the point of being infested.

The Soviet counterattack to our actions was - as we all expected - very harsh: isolation, imprisonment, abuse, artificial feeding of hunger strikers and, finally, the dispatch of our group of instigators in transport conditions as for the most violent criminals of common law, to the far east of the ominous kingdom.

By doing so, the Soviets jumped in at a deep end. Not only did they not succeed in extinguishing the outbreak of the rebellion - which would erupt in February '48, with the general hunger strike of the entire concentration camp, through which the repatriation of all Romanian prisoners was obtained - but it set fire over all concentration camps where it would pass this crowd which, through determined, sometimes desperate actions, imposed on the local authorities the recognition of our right to dignity and respect, and even on their part renouncing at the obligation of forced labor for Romanian officers. Even more so, because any example is contagious, and ours has inspired other nations from the concentration camps - for example Hungarians from `Usciora` - similar protest actions and hunger strike.

So, the Soviets did not achieve much by putting us into a separate group and sending us to the east. Instead, for us, this measure, taken against us, could not have been more beneficial. In the first place, being a homogeneous and determined handful of men, we succeeded in escaping from the slavery of labor, which, scattered through the heterogeneous and unequal mass of the ORANKI, we had not succeeded before. And this was not insignificant. That meant the willingness to read, to cultivate yourself, and to recover the lost time. But that was not all.

Over time, in the endless pilgrimages, but especially in the constant confrontations with the local power, the `group` gradually formed its own moral stature, a certain dress code, an unwritten code of honor, but respected by everyone. If we also add a certain religious experience, intimate and discreet, common to everyone, as well as a cultural whirl to learn and train ourselves, a strong impulse to redeem time and to use it on a spiritual horizon set so high that the mess of everyday existence can no longer be seen from it; if we remember a certain halo of love and respect that enveloped our relationships, of those who had passed together through so many attempts and borderline situations, it will be possible to understand how we, the `group`, despite all the adversities, we managed to make our lives not only bearable, but even wonderful.

We have known together, sometimes, real moments of grace that transfigured the ugliness of the world around us and brought down into our souls that particular light and that specific peace that, perhaps, only the first Christians would have felt together in the space of the catacombs.

The author of these lines can testify, and his testimony is true, that in no human society has he breathed an air of such moral purity as in this group of outcasts, that nowhere has he felt more at peace with himself, closer to the truth, more protected, more useful to others and more valued as in this community of Christian love. The memory of these special moments in captivity, moments of luminescence and warmth, marked him throughout his life, so that, in the dark and oppressive moments, to the point of suffocation, of the so-called `free life` in the so-called `country of our own`, the thought to those moments was accompanied by the nostalgia of a lost paradise. It seems contradictory, but it is the gospel truth.

In this spiritual environment, the one who writes this preface met the book's author, reserve sublieutenant Ioan Teodorescu (Nelu). He was among the youngest among us and at that time he had only been a prisoner for two years (he had fallen into the enemies` hands after August 23, 1944). Impetuous nature, with little measure, always sidestepping, with a frankness of character that made him say only what he thought and everything he thought, with these damaging qualities he would be the permanent and honored guest of prisons and isolation cells, and between `breaks`, in charge of supplying them with modest but effective aids in food, collected with great discretion from all and intended for those locked with latch. How risky this providing was made at night, under the noses of the gunners in the miradors, only he knew. But he was never caught, and neither were the other two or three young men with whom he shared his mission.

However, our `group` had a `changeable` geometry over time. At certain turns of the journey that coincided with those of destiny, through the works of the administration, some of us were torn from their gravitational field and thrown into who knows what orbits of the concentration galaxy, even beyond the polar circle. As, also from other concentration camps with Romanians, `undesirable` elements came to join the ranks `the group`, most of the time correctly placing themselves on its spiritual coordinates.

Therefore, following a hunger strike declared in the MARSANSKI concentration camp, the administration - in search of scapegoats - wanted to extract from our group, and thus qualified as `instigators`, the instigators of that strike, i.e. the `instigators of instigators`. This category also included Nelu Teodorescu, together with 14 other selected people, all on hunger strike, beaten wildly with gun beds in the truck in which they had been loaded by the beast guard who was going to accompany them to an unknown direction. So it happened that our destinies were separated for several years, until we found ourselves in '50-'51 in the liberation camp at Bragadiru. In the meantime, fate had promised to prepare a special experience for Nelu Teodorescu. A mocking trial, typical of the Stalinist era, will bring him a five-year sentence for `violation of camp order`, thereby abusing his status as a prisoner, protected by international law, to throw him into the derogatory of `owned by common law`. Stripped of his officer's uniform and dressed in the seclusion-stained coat, he will travel for two years a long and winding way of the cross, in which every moment is suffering and at every step a mortal danger lurks.

Alone, without any support from anyone, utterly disarmed, often ill, feeble, and frail, worn out with work and giddy with hunger, he will step lucidly and cautiously around that black hole through which hell communicates with earth, deftly sneaking through the anthill of the zone of bestialized humanity placed on murders - sometimes gratuitous, robberies, rapes, and all the more abominable, the common law crime of the U.S.S.R. In this world ruled by no law, but only by the terror of bandit chiefs (from Blatnoi organization) in partnership with the guards, and in which the chances of our storyteller's survival were practically insignificant, he, however, like the heroes of fairy tales and epic stories, he will pass through all trials, answer all the labyrinthine tests, and, remaining faithful to himself and the Heavenly Powers to the end, he will come out at the end of this initiatory journey free and victorious. Because `God's power - in which he believed fiercely and invoked Him without interruption - shows itself, as the Apostle says, only in the weakness of people`.

It is the great initiatory lesson that Ioan Teodorescu leaves to the future through this book.

Read it, it's written in an unprofessional way, but honest and true. That's right, sometimes it's soaked in gall and blood, sometimes in fire. But how else could the story of our prisoner could have been written?

Bucharest, March 9, 1995

—Radu Mărculescu

CHAPTER I

RECRUTING, MILITARY SCHOOL, DISPATCHING

TO THE 31st INFANTRY REGIMENT IN CALAFAT

It was 1942, a few days before November 1st, when I had to go to the unit to carry out my military service. In the North Railway Station in Bucharest, the platforms were overcrowded. Several passenger trains were pulled to the platforms and loaded beyond normal limits. At each of these, one or two wagons had signs stating that they could only be used by German army personnel, Romanians being forbidden to board on them. The train that was supposed to take me to Ploiești had a single wagon, guarded at each entrance by a German soldier, with a cord hanging around his neck, like a necklace, with an oval tablet indicating belonging to the guard of the wagon. In the compartments of this wagon, about 15-20 German officers and soldiers sat comfortably. The other wagons were overloaded, the compartments, the corridors and even the boarding stairs. The stairs leading to the roof of the wagons were also occupied by people of all ages, who were going to go up to the roof after the train left the station. Thus, I walked the platform from one end to the other, without being able to put a single foot on the ladder of any wagon. On the way back, near the German wagon, I was called from a wagon by a colleague who had the same destination as I had, offering me to put my suitcases on the window and help me climb all the way there, supported by the other young people from the compartment. They had managed to occupy the seats directly from the parking ramp, before the lining was brought to the platform. Of course, the offer was welcome, because missing this train would have delayed my departure by many hours, at that time there were great restrictions on the circulation of trains. My youth immediately decided to accept it. Besides, I had no choice. I picked up the suitcases, which were got by those in the compartment, then I easily jumped and grabbed the window frame, which was let down. Pulled by those comrades inside, I had succeeded in getting half into the compartment, when a crack signaled to me that, owing to the weight, the glass of the frame which served as my support had broken, falling with a thud into the recess in the wall of the wagon.

A crystalline boy's voice calls out smartly: `Seven years of bad luck.`

After so many years, even today I recall these words and tremble. At that moment I didn't give them any importance, considering them as a joke, just like in the Austrian film, the comedy `Seven years of bad luck` with Teo Lingen and Hans Moser, which had been on the posters of cinemas in Bucharest and in the country. I don't remember the action very well, but the theme of the movie was that after breaking a mirror, seven years of bad luck followed, with more and funnier events.

The incident made my life doomed for 7 years, not in a funny way, but a tragic one. Prisoner of war in the U.S.S.R., August 22, 1944 - July 4, 1951, of which, from December 20, 1950, 6 months in the Ghencea concentration camp in Bucharest.

Breaking the window was immediately noticed, and in a short time the master of the train turned up to make the necessary enquiries. I instantaneously admitted, passing him the ID I had. Since I didn't have enough money with me, I asked him to draw up the documents, so that after I get home I will pay the given fine. My parents paid the amount, after a few days, at the Ploiești South Station cashier, thus closing this droll incident. Or...?

At the time of my recruiting, I was a student at the Academy of Higher Commercial and Industrial Studies in Bucharest. I had graduated my second year, being at the same time a temporary employee at the Ministry of Finance in Calea Victoriei, at the Personnel Department, a position that gave me the opportunity to support myself during my student years. On November 1, 1942, I went in civilian clothes, to the 8th Dorobanti Buzău Regiment, where I had been assigned. Here, we were given equipment and our documents were prepared to be sent to the Reserve Officers' School in Ploiesti. We were barracked for a few days, until the equipment and sending documents were completed. The few nights spent in the regimental dormitories will remain unforgettable, as the possibility of five minutes of sleep during the night was out of the question due to the millions of bedbugs that these dormitories were equipped with. Those who were tired and managed to sleep woke up in the morning almost passed out. Most of us sat vigil in the aisles. They equipped us with soldiers' military uniforms recovered from the wounded. The clothes were soiled and bloodstained. Thus, the army and, respectively, the country got their sons who were to become reserve officers. After fitting out we were sent to the Infantry Reserve Officers School. It was on the first days of November 1942. One evening, together with two other comrades, I left Buzău station by train to Ploiesti. It was raining cats and dogs. I arrived at Ploiești South Railway Station close to midnight. The rain followed us. It was also raining in Ploiești, just like when leaving Buzău. At that time, my family lived in the opposite part of the city from the South Station, near the Church `Saint Basil`. There being no means of transport, we set out on foot under the whipping gusts of rain, which managed to wash the mud off our uniforms and partially dissolve the bloodstains.

When we got home, my mother, worried that we wouldn't catch a cold, took us into the kitchen, lit the fire, brought us water to wash in a washbasin, as we didn't have a bathroom, then, my father rubbed our bodies with alcohol, served us each a hot tea, after which we went to bed in my room. During the night my mother continued to wash our uniforms, dried them, and ironed them and in the morning, around 10 o'clock, we left for the Reserve Officers' School where we introduced ourselves. The greeting was normal, we handed over the uniforms and all the equipment received from the regiment, being equipped by the school with acceptable equipment. We were assigned to company I led by Capt. Cucu Emil, the nephew of the school commander. A man of integrity, fair, just, special qualities for a man and commander, who contributed fully to our military training together with the platoon commanders, all, with few exceptions, elite officers of the Romanian Army. The training was done under the supervision of a group of German officers and non-commissioned officers, a fact not accepted by most of the students, however, as soldiers, we had to obey the orders and the actual conditions existing at that time in our country. I did the military training in the fields around Ploiești, especially around Bot Copse. In the summer of 1943, I carried out the maneuvers in Homorâciu commune, Prahova County, a commune located approximately halfway between Vălenii de Munte and Măneciu-Ungureni. The maneuver lasted for about three months, the students being quartered with the inhabitants of the village. We were out of the barracks.

This whole period, around three months, through the manner the program was created, it felt like a welcome combination of perfecting military training, rest, and relaxation. It left a beautiful memory in my soul because the population received us very well, and our youth manifested itself in bursting, enjoying the splendid nature that surrounded us.

Towards the end of the instruction period, approximately in August 1943, the school received the visit of Marshal Antonescu. One morning I learned that all the school officers had been summoned to headquarters. After about an hour they returned, ordering all the cadets to return to the barracks, clean their uniforms, boots, weapons, change their patched equipment, etc., so that the battalion would be ready for inspection in no more than an hour. However, we were not told who was going to do the inspection. After finishing the preparations, we were gathered on the set, inspected individually, fixing what we had missed, then we were lined up and taken to the pasturage from the entrance towards Ploiești of the Homorâciu commune.

A part of the pasturage was bordered by the Măneciu-Ungureni-Ploiesti railway, crossed by a country road that connected the Măneciu-Ungureni-Ploiesti road and the pasturage. The natural setting was charming. On one side the wooded hills, and on the other side the railway and some peasant houses. The pasturage was covered with large grass that served as food for the animals. The arrival time of those who would do the inspection was announced. The bugler began to blow the signal. Everyone's eyes turned to the road that crossed the railroad. A convoy of black cars was approaching. The first car passed immediately followed by the second. At that moment, to everyone's amazement, the Măneciu-Ungureni-Ploiești car appeared from around the curve, at high speed.

The second car had not had time to descend the embankment of the railway, when the motor vehicle, with its siren on, barely passed at a meter behind it. A fraction of a second saved the life of Marshal Antonescu, who was in it. The entire battalion was stunned by what could have happened before our eyes. The school commandant and officers were completely lost.

However, the moment has passed and the strict orders have been given. Marshal Antonescu got out of the car. He was very calm, as if nothing had happened. The school commandant went up to him and gave him the report, after which the battalion was inspected. It was the first and the last time I saw Marshal Antonescu so close. A man of medium height, with a sharp look, in a marshal's uniform, walked in front of us.

Indeed, he had a red face, and hence he was nicknamed `the red dog`. We stood at ease and the marshal summoned all the school officers. He conferred with them for about half an hour, then the battalion gave the honor, and to our shouts of hurray, the convoy of cars turned back, crossing the railway again through the place where the whole political and military situation of the country might have changed if the marshal's car had collided with the motor vehicle. A happy fraction of a second for Marshal Antonescu, who could have ended his military and political career under its wheels.

During that autumn, we were sent for a period of about a month to the regiments where we were dispatched. None of us were sent back to the regiment where we were recruited.

The school in Ploiesti dispatched its students to the regiments in Oltenia and western Muntenia. I was sent with the rank of student sergeant to the 31st Calafat Infantry Regiment, Dolj County, which belonged to the II division based in Craiova.

I was assigned as a platoon commander to the rifle company, commanded by Capt. Mosoianu, thus contributing to the military training of the group that was to complete the regiment, which, at that time, was on the eastern front. After finishing this internship, we were all recalled to school to continue military training in the second year. The regime of the military schools of active officers was applied to us.

In March 1944, I was sent back to the regiment where I had done my training, with the rank of cadet adjutant, and was assigned to the pioneer company of the regiment, as commander of the Brandt 60 mm gun platoon. Its usual mission was to supervise and guard the pioneers during mining operations, and his special mission was to guard the regimental command post. The company commander was Capt. Paduraru.

I continued training instruction with the group, the regiment being reorganized to be sent to the front again. At that time, the Soviet armies had reached the Nistru river, occupying a part of northern Moldavia and Bessarabia. We were camped in Smârdan commune, a few kilometers from Calafat. From this second period of internship at the regiment, I remember several events that I will try to narrate in the following pages.

An emotional memory. During the time we were stationed in the Smârdan commune, I was accommodated with a peasant family, in a very clean room, full of fabrics and carpets from the region. There was something magical, fairy-tale feeling, inside this room. All objects were handmade by the owner of the house. Here, I saw for the very first time how is prepared and baked the bread in a special oven outside the house. Whoever has eaten such bread will never be able to forget the taste.

Since there was no one to wash my linen, I was recommended a young woman, about 20 years old, married, whose husband was away on the front with the rank of sergeant. When she was introduced to me I was amazed by her beauty and purity of soul. She told me that she lived with her mother, who was seriously ill. She did not set any conditions for the services I requested.

We could never talk in the room where I had lived because she only came to tidy up and clean after I left. I can confess that I fell in love with this human being. My 22 years of age clouded the judgment and morals in which I was raised.

I was burning like fire, but I never tried to use lie or force to fulfill my desire. This human being constantly radiated respect and nobility around her. In order to gain her trust, I brought a doctor to see her mother, I procured her medicines from Craiova, I gave her various gifts that tempt any woman and I honorably paid for the services rendered. Although I could see the same fire in her eyes as mine, neither of us could push the things. The memory of her husband was constantly present between us. She didn't know anything about him for several months, and I still don't know today if he returned to his family. Her name was Elena.

The time I stayed in the Smârdan commune was very short. My attempt to get close to her was noticed by the neighbors and from here the whole village found out, especially the women were gossiping and spreading all sorts of rumors, all of which had no grain of truth. The day of departure came. We were ordered to leave the cantonments in the Smârdan commune and return to the regiment headquarters in Calafat, from where, in a few days, we were to leave for the front. It was spring; the gardens of the householders were full of blooming lilacs. On the morning of the departure, when I assembled the platoon with all the equipment in its supply, I saw how the ammunition carts and horses were decorated with bunches of lilac under which they were almost invisible. The bouquets and decoration had been made by Lenuța.

Hidden behind a tree in the yard of the household, she looked at us with tears in her eyes, wiping them with the handkerchief she wore almost permanently. This human being remained for the rest of my life in my soul as an example of honesty, kindness, and above all evenhandedness towards her husband and marriage.

Our company gathered in the middle of the village, where we were to receive the blessing of priest Cericeanu. An hour before the meeting, he had come to me and, in a delicate way, had asked me if anything had happened between me and Lenuța that would compromise her, because the whole village is talking that my relations with her were not exactly correct. Only then did I realize the serious moral damage I had caused to this innocent human being, my attitude towards her allowing people to draw wrong conclusions. She was waiting for her husband and constantly talked about him. But what if he had returned and heard the village gossip? When I realized this, my whole body was seized with a strong tremor. The priest read the turmoil in my soul on my face, he put his hand above my head, and I, with tears in my eyes, said to him:

`Father, this woman is exactly as she was a minute before my arrival to this village.`

I described her as she was, emphasizing all her qualities, except the womanhood part, which I had never known. And if this thing was possible, it was not because of me but thanks to her exceptional moral qualities. I did everything to have her, except using the force, but she gave me a huge example of pride and dignity, changing my desire into respect.

After the religious ceremony and blessing, attended by the whole village, women, children, young and old people, the priest turned to me and putting the cross in my hand said:

`The entire village is convinced that something bad happened between you and Lenuța. Leana's husband must return. You go to the front, God help you, tell the truth!`

Close to me it was a large group of villagers.

The same emotion came over me as an hour before, when the priest asked me the above question. I raised the cross to my lips, kissed Christ's feet and swore that between me and Leana there were only connections like between brother and sister. She honors the village and the village must respect her. She did nothing wrong, neither towards her, nor towards her husband, nor towards the village community. I ended with the words, `So help me God!`

I was no longer aware of what was happening around me. I was awakened from this state by a mumble of joy coming from the chests of dozens of people who hqd witnessed the scene. The women, with tears in their eyes, went towards Lenuța, who was sitting by a tree a little further away, isolated from the others, respectfully bringing her into their center. My soul felt a great relief before the truth spoken under oath on the cross, the same which, in the years of darkness that followed, was my guide and support. Only because of faith in her and what she represents was it possible to reproduce the front lines today.

After leaving the Smârdan commune, the company returned to its bedroom in the regiment's premises. All officers, non-commissioned officers and the band were barracked, not allowed to leave the unit. However, both active duty officers who had families in Calafat and reserve officers secretly left the regiment at night. One of the nights, we were woken up from our sleep by the bugler, desperately ringing the alarm. At this signal, being the highest in rank in the company, I gave the alarm and ordered immediate equipping.

In the meantime, I sent the company courier to the officer on duty to ask him what had happened. I was informed that a group of Soviet prisoners of war, numbering about 4,000, lodged in the camp near Poiana commune, a few kilometers from the regiment, escaped, disarmed the guard and is heading towards the regiment, already arriving near the maintenance and regimental stores. He also informed me that the concentration camp guard officers were barricaded in a building, where they were defending themselves, requesting the immediate intervention of the regiment, before the prisoners could get hold of the arms and ammunition in its stores. Meanwhile, the regimental guard, panicking, began firing. In this situation, we lined up the company and started at a running pace towards the port, where the ammunition wagons that were going to accompany us to the front were parked.

Arriving at our destination, I asked the non-commissioned officer in command of the troop guarding the train to allow the unsealing of a wagon to supply the company with munitions of war, as the Soviet prisoners had escaped. He refused to carry out the order, on the grounds that only the regimental commander could order it. Then I summoned him to surrender, surrounding the train with the company. And under these conditions he continued to oppose, ordering the soldiers on guard to fire on anyone approaching the wagons.

At one point, I had made up my mind to shoot him, but hesitated.

I tried a new strategy. I approached him trying to explain the danger we were in. As I approached him about a meter, shots were heard from the regiment. He began to falter and dropped the loaded submachine gun he had pointed at me.

Taking advantage of his hesitation, I rushed at him, snatching the machine-gun from his hand and disarming it. I ordered him to lie on the ground with his hands outstretched in front of him. I then summoned the band which, being left without a commander, executed the order to allow my soldiers to approach the train. I did not know in which wagon I could find the ammunition for the armament with which we were equipped. I opened several wagons and supplied the whole company with sufficient quantities of ammunition. I closed the wagons, put the guard back in the position, together with the non-commissioned officer who was yellow as bee wax.

I arranged the company for battle and marched down the street that led to the regiment, where no more gunfire could be heard. I thought the regiment had been taken. When I was about 200 meters from the regiment, being in the first ranks of the company, I saw lieutenant colonel Costinescu, the deputy commander of the regiment, coming towards us. When he arrived at my side, I gave him the report and told him what had happened. It was already dawn. He explained to me that it was only an alarm exercise, but due to the fact that the head of command forgot to communicate to the regiment and, implicitly, to the officer on duty, the alarm was given in all seriousness. If the alarm drill had been properly communicated to the officer on duty, he, on the call of the concentration camp commandant, should have communicated that the regiment was preparing, etc. Thus, the alarm would not have been given by the bugler and would not have resulted in the serious finding that all the units quartered in the regimental bedrooms, both officers and soldiers ran everywhere, some wearing only their shirts and coats, leaving equipment and weapons.

He gave me orders to take the company back to the harbour, put the ammunition back in the wagons, and return with the company to the regiment, which I did. I was neither congratulated nor admonished. I have heard that disciplinary action would have been taken against the commanding officer and officers who had left the regimental compound without approval.

CHAPTER II

DEPARTURE TO THE BATTLEFRONT AND TAKING PART TO THE WAR

One morning, a few days after the false alarm incident, we were told that the very afternoon we will embark for the departure and we have to prepare the squad.

While we were loading the weapons, small guns, etc. into the wagons, an old woman came to me, begging me to tell her where the 10th company was, where she had a boy she wanted to see. I showed her the place, telling her to hurry because in a few hours we were leaving, to which she replied: `No, boy, you are leaving the day after tomorrow`. And indeed, after two days we left. The big day arrived, the train conductor was waiting for the departure signal any moment; women, men, old people, young people, and children had said goodbye to those who went to the front, looking, with tears in their eyes, at their loved ones and whom they did not know if they would see again. We received the signal for departure, the train started moving, and we began to listen to the rattle of the wheels, which were spinning faster and faster, taking us into the great unknown. The ox-carts in which we were boarded had a layer of straw on the floor, which cushioned somewhat the hardness of the floors. I arrived in Bucharest, I also passed through Ploiești, but I didn't know where my parents were, because I hadn't received any news from them after the bombings in 1944. That's how I arrived in Georgeni, Ialomița county, a commune on the Danube river, where I was disembark People said that we had to cross into Dobrogea region to take up a position along the Black Sea.

I stayed for a very short time in Georgeni, after which the unit was put on the march to Brăila, where I slept in Brăilita. On this march we passed the German military airport. Here we were shown the charred skeleton of a huge, six-engined German military plane, which, loaded with seriously wounded and medics, crashed immediately after take-off, completely burning and leaving no survivors alive. Coming from the first line they lost their lives just when they thought they had escaped, even the way they looked, and maybe half human.

After this one-night stop, we set off the next morning. We did the march between Brăilita and Bolgrad in several stages; at first we marched by day, after which we decided to do the last stages at night. We were in range of Soviet aviation.

In Bolgrad, the squad was boarded in large, German buses, the materials were placed in the trucks, and thus we were transported to the