18/ FEBRUARY/ 1950

 

Gheorghe Plop is on the last steps of the spiral staircase down at the basement. He is among the first in the row of inmates going down the stairs to the showers. To his right he can feel a towel fluttering. One of the inmates had jumped down the stairwell from the top floor. He died instantly. It was Gheorghe Vătășoiu.

 

 

The inmates run down the stairs, naked to the waist, towels around their necks. The guards are watching them. Shower breaks during 'reeducation' in Pitești are rare.

 

 

A group of inmates is taken from Room 4 to the basement, to the showers. The torture is in full swing. It is only a matter of time until the next man will succumb to the beatings. Death is forbidden for political prisoners, they have to be alive in order to confess everything. Death may be the only escape for inmates and those still at large.