After the arrest from the Securitate, where I was beaten in so many ways that it’s hard to believe, I found out that if you don’t react or concentrate on the beatings you receive, you get over them a lot easier. I used to think about something else than the fact that I was being hit. For instance, I saw how the blood blenched out of me on the wall when they knocked me and I wondered: “Is that my blood?” But I soon received another knock and the confirmation that it was indeed my blood. But I went further: “Yes, it’s my blood. Yes. It will last some more.” But it was almost as if I didn’t feel the knock anymore… Almost. I don’t know… But I had this belief that I will get over it easier.
No matter how terrifying the Piteşti phenomenon was, they couldn’t get everything out of us. There were certain things... It was already routine for us to only declare what we had heard before, what had already been declared by others. We simply reconfirmed things, but we didn’t give out any new names – as much as we could, because some of us couldn’t resist; they had too many pieces of evidence and they confronted us. Sometimes they would confront each other: “Which one of you lied?” They had to beat each other up and in the end they would find out who had lied or had refused to give away information.
But we were so hungry that we preferred to eat the soup, as bad as it was, as plain soup, and not with the faeces in it. And we ate the faeces before lunch came... We cleaned them up from the kettle, because they would end up in our stomachs either way. I can’t say that it became a habit, but it happened often. So we didn’t have the loathing anymore for the faeces... Sometimes, if you wouldn’t give in while they were beating you, they would say: “Give him something to eat...” We knew what that meant. “Who used the kettle for necessities? You got out of eating them. Give them to this other one.” And they made you eat them. It happened even more frequently with urine, but it was interesting that the faeces didn’t harm you, while urine did. If you drank urine you either got diarrhoea, or... But, in any way, it ruined your stomach.
Am constatat că dacă nu te gândeşti la bătaie, o traversezi cu mai multă uşurinţă.
Emil Sebeşan
photo: Arhiva Centrului de Studii în Istorie Contemporană
photo: Arhiva Centrului de Studii în Istorie Contemporană
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Emil Sebeşan s-a născut în Simeria, judeţul Hunedoara, la 15 martie 1926. A făcut parte din organizaţia de tineret a Partidului Naţional Ţărănesc de la 19 ani şi s-a împotrivit regimului comunist din primele zile ale instaurării sale. A fost arestat de 38 de ori, ultima oară pe 18 martie 1949. A primit o condamnare de 5 ani pentru activitate anticomunistă şi a fost deţinut în închisorile Timişoara, Piteşti, Gherla, Poarta Albă, Peninsula. A fost una dintre victimele „fenomenului Piteşti”, fiind torturat în închisoarea Piteşti între decembrie 1949-februarie 1950. A fost eliberat la 16 martie 1954. Datorită presiunilor Securităţii, şi-a terminat studiile universitare abia în 1989, înainte de a ieşi la pensie.
