Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • Free Essays • My Term Papers • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Political Science god underground god underground The book I read for my Political Science class was In God’s Underground, by Richard Wurmbrand. The first half of his life ended on February 29, 1948. His kidnappers belonged to the communist secret police. He had been arrested during the war by the Fascists who ruled in Hitler’s day, and again when the Communists took over. His whole philosophy had been materialistic until then, but his heart could not be satisfied with it. He believed in theory that man is only matter, and that when he dies, he decomposes into salt and minerals. Although he reads the Bible for its literary interest, his mind closed at the point where he felt God’s foes were right. As he read on tears filled his eyes. He could not help comparing Christ’s life with his. In 1940 relations between Rumania and Britain were severed, and the English clergy had to leave. Since there was none else, he had to try and carry on the Church work. He studied and taught himself to preach, and was ordained as Lutheran pastor. As the war progressed, many from the Christian minorities-Adventists, Baptists, Pentecostals- were massacred or driven into concentration camps with the Jews. He was arrested, tried , beaten and imprisoned. On the day of his conversion he had prayed, “God I am an atheist. Now let me go to Russia to work as a missionary among the atheists”. After the war he worked for the Western church mission. As he brought soldiers on his side they published the Gospel in Russian. Later in his prison cell, soft music could be heard down the hall, then it became distorted and he heard a woman’s voice screaming and sobbing. It was his wife. There were sounds a of a whip hitting flesh. This guard Dulgheru told Richard “do you know I can order your execution, tonight, as a revolutionary?” Then with that he struck Richard across the face. Each night that passed he rarely went without dancing. He made up songs and sang them softly to himself and danced to his own music. The guards became used to it. After nearly three years of solitary confinement, he was close to death. They carried him from the underground cells to yard of the ministry of the interior, he finally saw the stars and moon again. A sheet was wrapped around his head before the guards lifted him out of the ambulance. He often felt like he was already dead. Prisoners crossed themseves as they passed the foot of his bed. The room where he lay, scored of men died, and their places were taken by others in the thirty months he lay here. At Easter, a friend of his brought something wrapped in a twist of paper for a Valeriu Gafencu , a former prison guard. He opened it and it was two lumps of sugar. Even though it was sugar this was a real treat. Terrible violence was punctuated by sessions of more refined cruelty, under medical supervision to ensure that prisoners did not die. A wave of madness swept the prison. Tuberculoses patients were stripped, laid on stone floors and drenched with buckets of freezing water. Pig’s swill was thrown on the ground before men who had been starved for days. During this time a group of six men from the lead mines were brought to a special cell at a place called Tirgul Ocna. They were joined by other prisoners, some of them priests. The men from the mines spoke freely of their secret religious and political activities. One of them was bruised and bloodied carried into a room called room four. Reeducation was claiming new victims every day. The feeling grew unless something would be done or they all will be “converted” or killed. Christians debated on what they should do. If there was a riot, should they join in? Or was it time to turn the other cheek? Several of the prisoners argued against the fight. With his health getting worse, a doctor named Dr. Aldea said he should have a pnumonothorax. It could be done in few minutes and consisted of jabbing a hollow needle into him which allowed air to cushion his lung. He went through it without a lot of pain and it helped him breathe. There had been a lot of suicides in the prison. Some of them were famous men, like a great pre-war figure in Romania. The brutalistic re-education caused unrest in many prisons and rumors spread across the country A friend of his Aristar died in February and they had to dig through deep snow and break ground ice to bury him in the prison yard, alongside Abbot Iscu, Gafencu Bacur and scores of others that he had known. Room Four had been like an altar on which men were transformed and transfigured for their faiths. He was glad to still be alive. One man, Vasile Donaca, accepted from him a piece of string to hold up his trousers. String was a precious thin here. Donaca like a lot of men would do anything for a cigarette. The guards were the only source of tobacco, even though it was against the rules to pass it on they smoked a lot. One evening a prisoner jumped up and yelled, “stop it” “stop it”. There was a silence. He turned and ran to his bunk, where he flung himself down. His name was Josif. This guy was imprisoned for trying to reach Germany. He watched as the guy settled among the men. For a few months after Stalins death, monthly parcels from home were permitted. On the postcards they gave them he wrote asking for food, cigarettes and “Dr. Filons old clothes”. Even though he didn’t smoke he asked for a full order to give to the men. Though his tuberculosis was bad, his teeth were plaugeing him with pain. As with every prisoner, teeth had decayed from lack of food and treatment. His next months parcel included 100 grams of streptamyacin. He then gave the more serious men the medicine. As Josif was disfigured in his face from the torture, Richard told him of how Helen Keller, although blind, deaf, and dumb, became on of Americas great personalities. He was fascinated on how he described how she taught herself to become a pianist, aided by only a piece of sounding wood in her mouth. Josif’s eyes lit up after the story. So he gave him more self-esteem. The prison administrators soon got over their fright at Stalin’s death. There had been serious troubles in the slave camps of Siberia, and they were determined to show no weakness. Old restrictions were revived, and new ones created. The window were closed and painted over, despite the doctors protests, and they could open them only an inch at night when the guards were not looking. In the summer the heat was very rough. One blow for the faithfull was the fate of Pentach Lupu, known as “the shepherd saint” from Oltenia. While tending his flock for many years before, he had seen the figure of an old man. The old man introduced himself as God, declaring that more churches must be built and money given for the poor. He was later arrested by the communists. The Orthodox Priests were saddened. He spent all of his time with his friend Boris in his death room. Later he had died, died thinking of a sexual sin in his youth, even though he did not suffer alone. The communists worked deliberately to corrode morality. It seemed unlikely from the talk in prison, and a handful of Christian prisoners tried to find out by asking for a truthful answer to a question. “Have you always obeyed the basic rule of the Christian church, remaining chaste in word, thought and deed before marriage, and faithful there after”, was this question. Of the 300 prisoners, all Christians, two men answered yes. One was a father and one was a fifteen year old boy. Not too good I suppose. Then they talk of women. The prisoners chains were struck off in the Stone courtyard, and were led with blows along dark passages with dirt.. And they were thrown in small groups, into cells along the gallery. With this roughness the guards squeezed even more into this people into the already crowded spaces. Richard then made a friend with a hodja named Nassim, who in 1945 represented the congress of cults. They even shared a bunk. Richard explained about his hero Pipa, who killed 30 something inn-keepers and how his wife as a girl seen his hunting look. Prisoners came and went, but a new one named General Calescu, who was head of Military Justice. When this dude wasn’t talking of women, he talked of food. He invented fantasies of food, like sex. Richard’s Tuberculoses was getting worse while in a wet chill of Craiova and his journeys with the chain gang. He then arrived at Gherla, a new prison. He was put in the hospital like cell. He then was at a place called Jilava where he saw the first execution since being there of two brothers. On a Friday, a large congregation waited for the service to begin but the priest never showed. They looked and found him on the floor, his eyes closed and with a look of bliss on his face, as he died that morning. In 1956 he was let out. His wife came forward and he says” her fine boned face was thinner but her hair still black, I thought she was mor beautiful than ever”. She then asked him to kiss her. Even in a clean soft bed he could not sleep. He had to go to his sons room to see “if he’s really there’. It was about two weeks before he was able to sleep regularly. Now that he was free, he had longed in his heart for quietness and rest. But he knew Communism was working to destroy the Church. His home was confiscated on his wife’s arrest. So she would not divorce him and could not get work and lived in poverty. She had worn women’s stockings and lived on friends kindness. He then started his teachings. As he Started his lectures, the next day his audience had doubled. It seemed as the people were crowding the cathedral. Looking out into the silent crowd he remembered back in his church on the day the “Iron Guard Bullies” filed in with their guns. Even his revocation of his license as a pastor did not stop him. He then is taken in for interrogation at Bucharest Uranus Jail. A secret police major put the tag a counter-revolutionist on Richard. The officer ordered him beaten and kept in solitary confinement. There he stayed until his trial. His wife and son were there to hear the him be denounced. He waited in his cell for transport to the next prison. While waiting he preached to other about Christ and an officer came in to announce the ruling. Richard heard what he said and continued with his preaching, it was increased from twenty to twenty-five. A bunch of baton happy guards were hitting the prisoners along the passages. They had been drinking and at the sight of the priests there was a yelp of joy. Some 10,000 prisoners were packed like sardines in what is capable of holding 2000. The priests and pastors had taken their place among the thousands of political prisoners. There was some tough people in his cell, murderers and thieves who were prisoners because they killed a communist or something. While speaking quietly to a man in the corner these mean people surrounded him. “Shut up”, is what the leader said. Someone pushed him and then another man hit him in the face. Then with the warden asking who did this Richard said “I cannot tell” , “That I forgive my enemies” the warden said “You’re an idiot.” Another summit was in the works in 1959. On the day of the conference, the guards did open the doors and call out four men. They were asked weird riddles like what has three colors, hangs on trees, and sing tara-boom-cha-cha. He had seen numerous new prisoners but he then shocked to see his old friend professor Popp. He looks ill and he moved like an old man. In March of 1962, the guards burst out into the cells yelling “All priests outside”. The others gathered their few belongings and filed dutifully into the corridors. But Richard did not stir. The whole cell was being divided into class groups. When asked by a guard of what he was he said “pastor”. So then he was placed in a cell with shepherds. With this he escaped segregation for a few weeks. As the prison was sectioned off into classes, a series of lectures began. They seemed absurd. A young officer would explain that an eclipse of the sun was about to occur, but there was no cause for alarm. This man explained the workings of a solar eclipse to a yawning audience. These lasted for hours. A A loudspeaker on the wall kept saying It continued all night. Soon they were conscious of the words. Eventually men who had been converted were asked to teach and lecture in the turn of others. In 1963 he was very ill again. He was moved to a hospital cell again. He was there one week when everyone was order up. They stood while an hour long play was done. Towards the end of part eight he listens to the sound of In June of 1964 all prisoners were gathered in the main hall. The commandment entered with his officers, and they prepared for a new stage in the struggle. Major Alexandrescu announced that under the agreements of terms of the amnesty granted by the government, political prisoners of every category were to be freed. Richard could not believe it. Looking around he saw a blank look on everyone’s face. The summer of that first year saw thousands of prisoners released. He seen his turn for release came. He was of the last groups of a hundred or so gathered in the halls, the last prisoners of Gherla. He walked out of prison in another man’s clothes. Cars roared past and he started his journey home. His wife fainted as he called home to a neighbors house. He took a train to Bucharest, when as the train went to the station he saw many men and women and children at the depot, as they greeted him. That night his wife told him that she had been given the news of him being dead years ago. She always refused to believe it. He then decided to leave his country, and to the west He mentions of the Constitution of the United States at Washington D.C. “ and stepping back, so that the angle of light changes, the face of George Washington appears, carved into the text. Bibliography: Word Count: 2545
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