Ioan Marin

"I was allowed to receive packages from home. I was given permission to send a postcard and to receive a 5-kg package. My mom - God bless her! -, knowing that I was in Jilava and how things were, came to see me at prison. We weren't allowed to receive visits. She brought me this vest. She was not allowed to get too close to the prison. They fired at her with rifles; she pretended not to hear anything. She arrived at the gate of the Jilava prison and asked about me. "If he sent this letter and he is here, is he healthy, does he live? That's all I want to know." They told her: "Lady, didn't you hear us shooting?" She replied: "I can't really hear much because I'm deaf". She gave this coat to a cop, who then gave it to me. God bless him for passing it on to me! It was made of white leather. I put it on, directly on the skin, and then wore my long sleeve shirt on top, you couldn't notice anything. I only took it off when I got out of jail; had any of the inmates seen me, they could have turned me in."

I gave all my money away for food because I thought I wouldn't have where to buy food from or the money in Yugoslavia. I wanted to have enough food supply for those 400 kilometers I would have to walk. A citizen saw us there. He was a snitch, as there used to be at the border. We got closer; we were very close, could already see into Yugoslavia. We miscalculated; we had come very close to the border. I said: "We've prepared, let's go, it's getting dark." We got into a hollow. Between Timişoara and Jimbolia there's this little corner. We wanted to cross the border there because it was less secured, since everybody was afraid of this little corner, which is the narrowest. And I said: "Here's the weakest guard!". And I got down into a pit, to wait there until it was dark. "Let's eat, get ready and when it gets dark, we'll go". One of the citizens from the store went and reported us to the militia and the border patrol. They surrounded us. The police was there first. We were hidden there. First, someone appeared on the coast. I realized something was wrong. I said: "If he ran away, he might have blown the whistle on us and we might get caught." Because of our clothes. We were wearing city school uniforms, while people in the village, in Ciuchici, had other clothing. There was also the difference of the food we had gotten... So I said: "Pack up, let's get out of here!" We hadn't started packing yet when the policeman appeared. He pulled the trigger, an automatic firearm, and told us: "Come on! Get out!" He stripped us naked and got us out of the pit. Bare-naked, we were taken to the local police station in Chiuchici.

I stayed in Jilava, where I was put under quarantine for 21 days, so 3 weeks. They put me in a cell; there were about 50 men in a tiny cell. There was only a little window, this size, it was this small. 30, 40, 50 blokes in that cell that was about 5 m long and 2 m or 2 m and a half wide. They just locked us up in there. One hour passed, then two hours and a half, let's say, and we were left without air. There wasn't any oxygen left. The elderly fell to the floor. They could no longer stand up, they started sitting down, being left short of breath. I was right next to the window, this is how it happened. One of the guys said: "Hey guys, does anybody have a match?" One would sometimes hide things under the clothes, in gloves... For example, I used to hide a sewing needle in the heel here, where the flesh is thicker, just here, in the heel - because they were performing strip searches. We had to strip naked and were searched everywhere, even in the ass. I'm using bad language, but this is the naked truth. I would stick the sewing needle in the heel, thrust it in the flesh. One of us said: "Hey guys, does anybody have a match?" And somebody did. "Strike it!", but the match didn't light up due to lack of oxygen. When I saw elderly men falling on the floor, we started pounding the doors - me and some other younger guys, who were standing near the window. When they finally opened the door, we all fell to the flour, I'm telling you. We all just hit the ground. When that fresh air came in and we could all finally breathe, we all fell down, I don't know what happened. The cell had two doors. One was thick and made of wood; the other one was made of iron and had bars. They left the wooden door open and closed the iron one.