In 2002, it appeared in the Cluj publishing house Dacia the first edition of the book Suffering is not given to brothers. Testimony of Lucretia Yurzh about the anti-communist resistance in the Apuseni Mountains (1948-1958).

The book became an editorial product of the transcription of 16 hours of conversations, which at that time two young graduates of the Faculty of History from Cluj-Napoca had with the main character. A former component of the so-called Shushman or Theodore Susman which operated in the Apuseni mountains immediately after the forced abdication of King Mihai and until the complete destruction of the combatants either through several deaths or through continuous, stubborn, ruthless repression by the Security Forces.

At the time of the appearance of the first edition of the book, Lucretia Yurzh was not well known. She already appeared in public space, gave interviews, talked about her struggle and suffering with dignity and without pathos, without unnecessary and disproportionate self-praise. Because it was not easy and not possible for anyone to be the only woman in the group for four years to suspect, and then gain confidence that her husband, named Mihai Jurzh, was killed by members of the Security Service, to undergo an investigation, sometimes brutal, by its employees, visit several prisons, endure countless sufferings and deprivations. Some are just diabolical.

Lucretsia Yurzh served ten years in prison. Released in 1964. She started life all over again. During her release, she was told, like many other victims of communist repression, not to tell anything about what she had experienced. For Lucretia Yurzh, it was difficult, incredibly difficult not only to occupy a new niche. How do you explain to your new colleagues why you didn’t have a job until 1964 without telling them why? How to get used to the new world. How to adapt to normality itself, far from normality, if it was subject to freedom, narrowness and convention? How to move from gentleman’s world while a companions? However, Lucretia Yurzh was a little lucky, she managed to remarry Grigorije Kostescu, who turned out to be a good person. He too, like Lucretsia Yurzh, was sick with tuberculosis. Grigorie Costescu may even have been saved from death by his marriage to Lucretia. They both worked a lot, and so they managed to buy a small apartment in the Cluj district Grigorescu Lead a quasi-normal life.

Before the December revolution of 1989, few people knew who Lucretia Costescu, formerly Jurzh, really was. Although security mostly left her alone (of course she still got offer to be her collaborator, informer, she accepted it, in the sense that it was done to her, but, to her credit, she did not accept it), the former political prisoner knew that it was by no means good to be known to her for too long-term world state. Lucretia Yurzh did not have a higher education, but possessed a brilliant intellect and intuition. Listen like in years resistancebroadcasts of radio stations hostile (the activity is prohibited due to the Decree issued by Nicolae Ceausescu since 1971), he understood that for communist historiography the resistance in the mountains is what is called a taboo subject.

Everything happened after the revolution. The anti-communist resistance in Apuseni, carried out in 1948-1958, functioned as a counterargument to the claim that Romanians reconciled relatively easily with those from Red flag. Then Lucretsia Yurzh took her role as a confessor very seriously, and the peak was her confession from the pages of the book published, as I said, in 2002 by the publishing house Dacia.

22 years after the first edition, the authors of the book, historians Kornel Jurdzu and Kosmin Budeanka, specialize in what is called oral historyrepublished the testimony of Lucretia Yurzh in the publishing house of Iasi Polisher. This is a revised and updated edition, compiled according to clear scientific rules, which are carefully followed. After one preface thanks to the historian Doro Radosav, the director of the Institute of Oral History of the “Babes-Boyjai” University of Cluj, we can read a large chapter written by the signatories of the book. Kornel Jurdzu and Cosmin Budeanka reproduce here with the luxury of details both the context, and the actions, and the meaning of the actions, and the movements, and the regrouping within Susman’s group. But also the missions and actions of the main character of the book.

The center of greatest interest of the volume is the testimony of Lucretia Yurzh, transcribed with characteristic phoneticisms. Endowed with exemplary common sense, Lucretsia Yurzh carefully notes that the group’s goal was not sit on the sidelines, kill people.Yes, everyone had guns, even her, but they were used purely for self-defense. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro