Florin Constantin Pavlovici is a Romanian writer and memoirist. Pavlovici was born at Concești, Botoșani County, to school teachers Hareta and Dionisie Pavlovici. He studied journalism at the University of Bucharest, Philosophy department, and graduated in 1958. Arrested on 2 February 1959 and accused of conspiracy against the communist social order, he was sentenced by the Bucharest Military Court to five years of incarceration. He initially served his sentence at Jilava and Gherla prisons, then at labor camps in the Great Brăila Island and the Danube Delta. He was released on the 31 January 1964. Pavlovici is the author of two books: Basics of Torture, which is a memoir of his time spent in detention, and Fear and Watch, about the difficulties of integrating back into Romanian communist society after his release, being constantly harassed by the secret police. Both his books were well received by the critics. Published in 2001, Basics of Torture received the Literary Special Debut Award of the Writers' Union of Romania, was referenced in the Romanian Literature Dictionary, published by the Romanian Academy, and in the works and essays of several other notable historians and critics. It is considered a representative landmark in the Romanian literature inspired by communist political repression.
The Basics of Torture
As in most memoirs of political detention, the book follows the classic structure of arrest, interrogation under torture, show trial, sentencing, temporary prison, and the final destination of a prison or labor camp. In 1959, a friend and former university colleague, Dumitru Filip, receives critiques during a Workers Youth Union meeting. In response, he hands over to the secret police a number of letters, written by those who criticized him and not only, some years old, in which they spoke about the communist abuse during collectivization, the lying ongoing propaganda and intellectual quality of the communist officials. In this age, this was a very compromising material. Pavlovici is arrested and taken to the Intern Ministry for cross-examination. He is brutally beaten during the investigation, and after a show trial held on 5 June 1959, he receives a 5-year sentence under the charge of "conspiracy against the communist social order". The first destination is Salcia labor camp, where he arrives at the beginning of September 1959. Here, the prisoners had to raise a dam that was supposed to protect the Great Brǎila Island – where massive swamp drains were performed in order to make the terrain tillable – from floodings caused by the Danube. The dam was started from both Salcia and Stoeneşti labor camp and the workers were supposed to met in the middle. In Spring 1962, Pavlovici is moved to Strâmba labor camp, and from here – because of the camp being flooded – in the Danube Delta, on the Chilia branch at the sea shore. Here, they were kept on two barges, and their task was similar to the one at Salcia, to raise a dam that would protect land from floods. Later the same year, he is moved to Grindu working site, a satellite of Periprava labor camp, where prisoners spent the winter transporting wood from the Letea Forest. In summer of 1963, there is a triage of former typhoid fever sufferings and Pavlovici falsely reports he had the disease before incarceration, counting on the fact that the camp officials were not able to check this out, due to lack of proper medical equipment. This group was later moved to Gherla prison, where Pavlovici would spend the remaining prison time, until his liberation, on 31 January 1964. Through his memoirs, Pavlovici makes hard use of dark humor in presenting the atrocities of labor camps. When building the Great Island dam, detainees had to excavate and transport 3.2 m3 of ground per day, sometimes from hundred of meters away. This quota was hard to met even for a well-fed, healthy person that was actually willing to do it. For a starving, untrained, poorly dressed prisoner, in the coldness of winter, it was an impossible task. In November and December 1959, approximately 60 people died each month at Salcia. Heat, cold, beatings, hunger, diseases, exhaustion and humiliation were constant, and these conditions give the presented events an eerie and absurd feeling. Everything seams unnatural, but instead of highlighting this in a tragic manner, Pavlovici uses dark comedy. As such, at night, the inmates can tell the time based on how full the bucket is. During winter, when quotes cannot be attained, they are beaten by the guards with sticks over the bottom. The beating is humiliating, but bearable. What hurts more is waiting in line, in front of the punishment hut, in the cold of winter, after a full days work. So, on their return to the labor camp, the prisoners hurry up to catch front row. The guard dogs show more human characteristics then the guards themselves, they bark, but never bite a man that lies on the ground, whereas the officers show no such restraints. Many of the inmates are intellectuals, teachers, priests, doctors. To help pass the time when working was not possible, many held conferences in the cells, sharing their teachings while some were listening sitting on the bucket. The imagination is put to the test when playing cell games: as food was scarce, inmates were describing in vivid details the best meal that they could ever dream off, a game somewhat inaccessible to the dismayed simple peasants. As for medical care, it was not always the doctors that provided it. One day, being to sick for work, Pavlovici refuses to leave the prisoner barracks. Assistance does not arrive from the camp hospital, but from a camp guard.
