Memorial of pain
Caught between the walls of Sighet prison I remembered my father, his war medals and most of all, his talent in sketching someone’s face, making him recognizable from just a few lines.
My dad had graduated The Art Academy but also the Military High School. Hence when the war began, he was enrolled and marched towards the Russian plains, reaching the Don during that terrible winter in ’42 when the German Army begun losing the war. The cold, the hunger and the diseases killed the Romanian Army. The horse meat was long finished. I image our men digging in the dirt for a piece of food. They finally surrendered and my father was sent to a war camp. When Russians persuade them to forming the infamous Tudor Vladimirescu division, my dad chose to accepted rather than end his days in jail. The division reached the Tatra Mountains then the Romanians were sent back home. He died at 64 and buried with him a small piece of history as I was too young and too hurried to listen to his stories.
Stepping along the latticed corridors, I gently push the cell doors. I pass the bed in which Iuliu Maniu passed away and suddenly I feel guilty. From one room to the other, I search all floors but the rage and impotence still cry within me and I realize nothing is ever going to be the same. Too many war camps and too many histories write by winners. Again the winners had write the history. All that was left to me was to gaze the place where God was locked up 64 years ago.
Memorial of pain
Caught between the walls of Sighet prison I remembered my father, his war medals and most of all, his talent in sketching someone’s face, making him recognizable from just a few lines.
My dad had graduated The Art Academy but also the Military High School. Hence when the war began, he was enrolled and marched towards the Russian plains, reaching the Don during that terrible winter in ’42 when the German Army begun losing the war. The cold, the hunger and the diseases killed the Romanian Army. The horse meat was long finished. I image our men digging in the dirt for a piece of food. They finally surrendered and my father was sent to a war camp. When Russians persuade them to forming the infamous Tudor Vladimirescu division, my dad chose to accepted rather than end his days in jail. The division reached the Tatra Mountains then the Romanians were sent back home. He died at 64 and buried with him a small piece of history as I was too young and too hurried to listen to his stories.
Stepping along the latticed corridors, I gently push the cell doors. I pass the bed in which Iuliu Maniu passed away and suddenly I feel guilty. From one room to the other, I search all floors but the rage and impotence still cry within me and I realize nothing is ever going to be the same. Too many war camps and too many histories write by winners. Again the winners had write the history. All that was left to me was to gaze the place where God was locked up 64 years ago.
