Richard Wurmbrand - Prisons

Prisons

Wurmbrand, who passed through the penal facilities of Craiova, Gherla, the Danube – Black Sea Canal, Văcăreşti, Malmaison, Cluj, and ultimately Jilava, spent three years in solitary confinement. This confinement was in a cell twelve feet underground, with no lights or windows. There was no sound because even the guards wore felt on the soles of their shoes. He later recounted that he maintained his sanity by sleeping during the day, staying awake at night, and exercising his mind and soul by composing and then delivering a sermon each night. Due to his extraordinary memory, he was able to recall more than 350 of those, a selection of which he included in his book “With God in Solitary Confinement,” which was first published in 1969. During part of this time, he communicated with other inmates by tapping out Morse code on the wall. In this way he continued to "be sunlight" to fellow inmates rather than dwell on the lack of physical light.

At the beginning of his first imprisonment, he recalls being in deep remorse as thoughts of past sins and duties undone were remembered. Unlike the discipline that helped him through later days of imprisonment, he later wrote that God came to him and fellow prisoners in a vision not unlike that which Stephen experienced:

We didn't see that we were in prison. We were surrounded by angels; we were with God. We no longer believed about God and Christ and angels because Bible verses said it. We didn't remember Bible verses anymore. We remembered about God because we experienced it. With great humility we can say with the apostles, "What we have seen with our eyes, what we have heard with our ears, what we have touched with our own fingers, this we tell to you."

Wurmbrand was released from his first imprisonment in 1956, after eight and a half years. Although he was warned not to preach, he resumed his work in the underground church. He was arrested again in 1959 and sentenced to 25 years. During his imprisonment, he was beaten and tortured. Psychological torture included incessant broadcasting of phrases denouncing Christianity and praising Communism. His body bore the scars of physical torture for the rest of his life. For example, he later recounted having the soles of his feet beaten until the flesh was torn off, then the next day beaten again to the bone. This prolific writer said there were not words to describe that pain. However, Wurmbrand considered worse than torture the coerced denunciations of parents by their own children.

During his first imprisonment, Wurmbrand’s supporters were unable to get information about him; later they found out that a false name had been used in the prison records so that no one could trace his whereabouts. Secret police visited Sabina and posed as released fellow prisoners. They claimed to have attended Richard's funeral in prison. During his second imprisonment, his wife Sabina was given official news of Richard’s death, which she did not believe. Sabina herself had been arrested in 1950 and spent three years in penal labour on the canal. Sabina's autobiographical account of this time is titled The Pastor's Wife. Their only son, Mihai, by then a young adult, was expelled from college-level studies at three institutions because his father was a political prisoner; an attempt to obtain permission to emigrate to Norway to avoid compulsory service in the Communist army was unsuccessful.

Eventually, Wurmbrand was a recipient of an amnesty in 1964. Concerned with the possibility that Wurmbrand would be forced to undergo further imprisonment, the Norwegian Mission to the Jews and the Hebrew Christian Alliance negotiated with Communist authorities for his release from Romania for $10,000 (though the going rate for political prisoners was $1900.) He was convinced by underground church leaders to leave and become a voice for the persecuted church. He devoted the rest of his life to this effort, despite warnings and death threats.

He was a good friend of Costache Ioanid, a well known Romanian Christian poet.