by Leonard Kirschen

With a foreword by Andrei Pippidi
Ed. Enciclopedica, Bucharest
2002. Paperback, 315 pages (Romanian version)
ISBN - 973-45-0398-7
Price: £5.00 + postage
Details at mail@ratiufamilyfoundation.com

The book is about human dignity and nobility. The author seldom stresses the many indignities and injustices he suffered but records the attitudes of others: the courage and natural forbearance of peasant prisoners, the pitiful turpitudes of the growing number of informers, and the good of some who, by definition, should have been his enemies. It is considered to be one of the best prison books amongst those published by victims of communism and also the least bitter.

Leonard Kirschen represented British national newspapers in Romania before the last war and from 1941 he worked in Turkey for the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, the Sunday Times and the Government of India Press Office.

His return to Romania got him into trouble with the Communist dominated Government. The new regime considered free, objective reportage a criminal anti-state activity. He was arrested, interrogated, tortured, tried nine months later and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.

The simplicity of his account only emphasizes the nightmare of brutality, terror and inhumanity which thousands endured. Crammed in foul underground dungeons, tormented by political informers and bullies, the political prisoners, people of every class and creed - generals and intellectuals, workers and peasants - struggled to survive.