I had a special book at the end of last year.

A book that bears the imprint of friendship is capable of creating a dialogue that will be translated into a volume at the right time. It was offered to us in the last days of 2023 by the publishing house “Humanitas” – inconvenient and careless, including for the publication of some diaries and memoirs that contributed to distancing from shameful historical prejudices.

Elsa Anka-Berbus (1927-2021), a survivor, becomes an unexpected literary heroine posthumously thanks to her persistent partner Miorica Bachiu-Goth. Apart from the offensive rhetoric with which memoirs generally delight us, Seen face of the month: Conversations with Elsa Anka-Berbus reveals a simple soul that, through its disclosure, presents the most beautiful plea against victimization and revanchism, without abandoning the search for justice as the clarity of personal dignity. The character of Elsa did not have an enemy in sight, as in the war front, she did not have the popularity of heroes, but she succumbed to a much more cunning enemy, who encouraged her to sell her conscience. Perhaps that is why a soul like his is certain that, although Good does not dwell in places free from danger, and that to remain on his side we are forced to make difficult choices, we are never alone.

People like Elsa Anka-Berbus, like her father and fiance – imprisoned for their loyalty to the country’s vision of Iuliu Maniu and Iona Michalake – are not just a pretext for blaming the present, as the opportunists of our world believe. Until 1964, hundreds of thousands of honest people “resisted” in prison! So what does resistance mean? Go out exclusively with posters on the street for a demonstration? Can resistance to tyranny be “institutionalized” just so it can be talked about? However, the resistance of a common man to such a dragon testifies to the inner strength that allowed the descendants to know extreme feelings, otherwise difficult to recognize, but which only the threat of death can evoke in the human heart. That is why a stupid refrain like “there was no opposition in Romania under communism” becomes even more shameful after reading such a book.

I had the honor of knowing Elsa Anka-Berbus. Each time he politely and modestly slipped past the secret of his pain. After a tragic experience with the fragility of life, for this heroic soul – she waited seventeen years for her imprisoned fiancé so that she could start a family and give birth to her two beautiful daughters – Anka and Michaela – it became natural. to see something else in the threat of death, which meanwhile disrupted his existence and deprived him of his loved ones. His inward outlook, his taste for a life inspired by faith in God, his humility, the choices he made, showed their clear connection to something other than what ends in the death of the body. The volume helps us recover concepts that have meanwhile become obsolete, even distasteful, in the wake of oppressive communist demagoguery and security nationalism – always in fashion. Thus, we are inspired to reconsider the meaning of such terms as “patriotism”, “faith”, “state language and flag”, “decency”, “family” (“between harmony and cooperation”, “benevolence and kindness”), freedom” (paid in blood), “courage”, “sacrifice”, “love”, “devotion”, “forgiveness”… All of them together are the arsenal of human rights – strategies of small and large – to go beyond the boundaries of the era, not discounting humanity.

We also continue with ostentatious ease to put forward the opinion that everything was motley in interwar Romania, that Romanians are scum, scumbags, etc. Undoubtedly, the period between the wars highlighted many horrors – the drive towards extremism and dictatorship, the discrediting of freedom of speech, racist ideologies – which spiritually defiled many compatriots by joining the political religion of the state. But there were enough people with character who did not bow down to the shameful approvals of that time, be it royal, legionary, Antonesian dictatorship. So that we do not remember the horrors of forty years of communism.

Accents of patriotic heroism or manifestations of an elementary sense of justice, which we often share rather vaguely, are not enough to glorify certain figures of character. The experience of the last thirty years shows us that young people, when told of a misunderstood or assumed past, not only abhor and ignore it, but go in the exact opposite direction to its morality. This confusion, typical of intergenerational misunderstandings, is by no means a vestige of clarity, nor does it advance our duty to historical truth. Beyond memory, exemplary moralizings, without any drama of wisdom, the life of the most tested person is limited to emotions, ceremonial and tragic celebrations, which are hunted only by officials of empty rhetoric.

What then is the moral of the fable? There is nothing out of date in the conversations of Elsa Anka-Berbus, the protagonist of the drama of Romania, devastated by the suffering caused by communism of the last century. from Seen face of the moon we understand that it is up to us what we look for to find out what characters we choose to be! We also learn how to ask ourselves important questions and recognize that vitality can be real even if we don’t do “memorable” things because of influence or power. But in order to always have access to inner freedom, we need moral evaluations and separation from what inhibits us in the pursuit of our own soul.

Miorica Bachiu-Goth’s book seems to me to be a true redemption, a rare and unusual case of collective redemption. _Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro