“They used to lurk and hide in these woods. Some of them were good people; many of them were not. Don’t seek the stories of the ones who were not.”
— old man on the side of the road when asked about the legionnaires.
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Blajin #1
The Forgotten Legionnaires Of The Almăj Valley
Translated from Romanian by Edmond.
Location: a remote village from the Almăj Valley, Caraș-Severin county, South-West Romania.
Recorded on: July 19, 2023.
Published on: August 29, 2023.
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From Wikipedia:
The Iron Guard (Romanian: Garda de Fier) was a Romanian militant revolutionary fascist movement and political party founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael (Legiunea Arhanghelul Mihail) or the Legionary Movement (Mișcarea Legionară). It was strongly anti-democratic, anti-capitalistic, anti-communist, and anti-Semitic. It differed from the other European right-wing movements of the period due to its spiritual basis, as the Iron Guard was deeply imbued with Romanian Orthodox Christian mysticism.
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Note: the beginning of the conversation is missing due to a recording error.
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M
He was with someone else. His name was [redacted]. The one who was married to [redacted]. He lived in the house of [redacted]. He had gone to prison. And they [the legionnaires] used to travel; hide in the forests. But some people said… now, the opinions differ on this… but some people said that they also did good things. They also did good things.
Costin
That’s what I also heard. Some people were on their side, so to speak. They supported them.
M
They supported them, yes.
Costin
The supported the movement [the legionary movement].
M
Yes, yes, yes…
Costin
They were legionnaires?
M
Yes. That’s what I know. Anyway, they [the legionnaires from the Almăj Valley] were against communism… but the people… there were also people who supported them, and some people protected them… some were also beaten; evidently they didn’t say anything, they lied for them, they sometimes hid them [from the authorities], but in [village name redacted]… God what was his name? I don’t remember. I know him, I know his family… and when they [the legionnaires] caught him, they hurt him – they hurt him badly. They tied him up. And they put him on… like on a bush, they cut this bush that had many branches, and they tied him up on this and descended. Somewhere high [on the peak of a hill in the forest], they caught him, in our forest. The forests were blind back then, it was dark in the forest. And they caught him somewhere high in the forest. They descended him on this bush.
Costin
Pulled by horses?
M
Yes, yes, yes. That’s what I heard from my grandparents.
Costin
I heard this too. They had this habit [method of punishment]… these tortures, as a way to scare people.
M
Yes, yes, yes. They were also, how can I tell you… there were also some men who were partisans.
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A partisan, in this context, is a member of a guerilla group who fights for a cause, usually operating within enemy lines.
Note from Costin:
I’ve noticed that many Romanians, especially those from rural areas, use the terms “legionnaire” and “partisan” interchangeably.
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M
Partisans, or God knows what they actually were, but they were evildoers. Very bad people. There was someone from [nearby village name redacted]; that man wandered [in the Almăj Valley]; and there was one… he ran away, army deserter; he ran, they said that he wore military clothes; he used to wander with him. At the cottages [in isolated, heavily forested areas], the elders said… they were going to the cottages with their rifles and just gave out orders: cut me this lamb, this cow, make me this food. They took the girls and raped them. And the parents couldn’t do anything.
Costin
They were from this area [the Almăj Valley]?
M
Yes, they were from [village name redacted].
Costin
And the people… I mean, people knew who they were?
M
People knew but they were afraid. There were very afraid of them. They did many bad things. They went, for example… they went to my grandparents; they had a cottage somewhere near [village name redacted] when you cross a valley toward us, it is called [location name redacted]. They made [that place] very nice, very nice. And they [the legionnaires] came and gave orders: make us food, cut the lamb, and so on. And they took my father’s sister with them in the cottage, they [the girl’s family] outside. You know what happened. But they were afraid. Then they went to the other ones [the other families]… they went to everybody, to whomever they wanted, they just went to them. In the house of [name redacted], there once lived my grandfather; he shot them, with the grandfather of [name redacted].
Costin
Yes.
M
They [the legionnaires] went with that one, the one who probably protected them [like a bodyguard], the one who deserted from the army. And they went and sat down there, but they also did bad things to their daughters. They hid the girls, they put them in the tower of the church; the hid them there out of fear. They sat, pretended to drink, and they let them drink freely, and at one point… old [nickname redacted], because that was his nickname, he went and changed his rifle; so he got close, because he [the legionnaire inside the house] let his… how the benches were back then, because back then people sat on those types of wooden benches… those… you probably know…
Costin
Yes.
M
And they sat near the bed and the rifle was near the window. And the old man went quietly and changed the rifle. He took the rifle. He [the legionnaire] sat with his back toward the window and it was changed with one that was empty. His [the legionnaire’s] was loaded [initially] but now it was changed, empty.
Costin
Aha.
M
And then… when it happened… he [the legionnaire] realized; said “you changed my rifle, shoot if you intend to”. I reckon that he thought he might not shoot, I don’t know. But the old man did not shoot – the other one shot, the grandfather of [name redacted]. His nickname was [redacted]. When he shot him my grandfather moved quickly because the other guy outside came in to see what had happened, to protect him. My grandfather met him in the front of the staircase [which is next to the entrance of the house] and shot this other one. This is how my mother told the story, it was a long time ago, my mother was a girl; this happened a very long time ago…
Costin
And what happened to the dead?
M
The dead? They took them outside; outside in the street, you know. The mother of the one from [village name redacted] came, because my mother told me, they were kids. They took them outside and lay them somewhere on the grass, and, how they had those sheets, you know how it was back then, that type of cloth…
Costin
Yes.
M
They covered them with those. My mother said that they went outside – the kids – because they wanted to see, and the mother of the one from [village name redacted], with his sister, came, but they came with kerchiefs – they had red kerchiefs because they were afraid that perhaps they would do something bad to them also. And later the family took them, they took the bodies.
Costin
But the police didn’t do anything about the shooting?
M
I haven’t heard… No. No, no, no, my grandfather didn’t go to prison.
Costin
They were probably happy about it, the majority [the community].
M
Yes, of course. These guys did really bad things.
[a pause]
And there were others who deserted… from the war [World War 2]. There was one who was related [to my family]. He used to lurk around the cottages. Now, because they were related, they might have given him food; they might have gone into the forest and given him things, to this one who was related to us.
Costin
The deserters went to the cottages—
M
They used to lurk in the forests—
Costin
So that they would not be found?
M
Yes. So that they would not be found, you know. But they would also come out – at night, they would have their nights, when they would come out… they did so, and they would sometimes go to their relatives. Some of them were from the [nearby] villages… they knew each other [in these villages]; they would come, stay, run away, hide… they did what they could.
Costin
I wonder how many deserters ended up being legionnaires… I bet a lot of them.
M
I don’t know. There were many of them.
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Digression removed from the transcript.
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Costin
Many things have been written about the legionnaires, but somehow these stories, the stories from these remote villages have not been written down. The [legionary] movement was not deeply understood, not even back then. And today people don’t know that the legionnaires used to come to these areas and hide in these forests.
M
Many of them were in [village name redacted].
Costin
Really?
M
Yes. The father of [name redacted]. He was a man of great influence. I understood that he was a member of the legionnaires. He was secretly funding the legionnaires.
Costin
There were many people like that in the country.
M
Yes. You see, I don’t remember exactly, they had their own [political] party, they had on their houses, most of them, something inscribed.
Costin
The legionnaires?
M
Yes. They had some type of inscription.
Costin
Yes, they had their own signs.
M
I don’t remember. We were kids, we didn’t know what those signs were. We didn’t even care.
Costin
But they also had their own clothing, no? At some point they wore some type of uniform, something like that.
M
No, no. Here they didn’t wear their own clothes. Here they weren’t very organized.
Costin
But how was the relationship between the police and the legionnaires?
M
Well, what can I say, in general the relationship between the police and the people was not that friendly. Myself, I lived through the times that followed. They beat them and sometimes they even executed them… for example, they caught them poaching. They were hunting. Now, I think that they really were poaching because it was not the hunting season. They had hunting permits, but I don’t know exactly what happened, and they were in a group of 5 or 6, and they shot [animals]. But someone snitched on them. Sometimes they – the hunters – also snitched on each other. Someone snitched. And the brother of my father said that they beat him so hard – he even said to my father, I will die from this beating, and so it was. They beat him with a bag of sand. Buckets of water on him; beatings with the bag of sand, so that there would be no marks. Not many bruisers. He lived less than a year afterward. And he indeed died.
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Digression removed from the transcript.
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M
You know, I don’t know why, the people [from the Almăj Valley] didn’t have courage, because they too had guns. In those days they used to make their own guns, I don’t know how… clandestine weapons.
Costin
There probably were many cases… when people had fought back, but we don’t know about them.
M
Yes. Of course. Because they would have kept quiet.
Costin
I know form my research that there were also many legionnaires who had vanished, and nobody saw them again. In some places [throughout Romania] – this legionary movement, at least toward its end – they were harshly persecuted. They [the authorities] would catch them, and if they were in the forests like here [in a relatively isolated place like the Almăj Valley], they would shoot them and bury the bodies.
M
They executed them… and that’s that.
Costin
Even their boss – or whatever he was called – they executed him without a fair trial.
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Note from Costin:
The first leader of the legionary movement who I was referring to here, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, was found guilty, sentenced to 10 years of hard labor, and executed in secrecy months after the verdict.
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M
You see, this is life. Everything comes back [like karma]. The communists came and got rid of them; Ceaușescu was executed without the right to appeal; and…
Costin
But it is known how organized they really were [the legionnaires from the Almăj Valley]?
M
No, no, because here there weren’t that many. Here and there. Now, they probably communicated with the rest [from the other counties in Romania, the other legionary chapters].
Costin
When they came to steal, would they say who they were?
M
No. These ones did not have God in their souls.
Costin
Yes. And how did people know that they were legionnaires?
M
So, these were, well, there wasn’t any other—
Costin
It was known who they were.
M
It was known who they were, yes [that they were legionnaires and not something else].
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Digression removed from the transcript.
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M
They were afraid because then… like, how in those days there were big families… how they did to [name redacted]. He had 4 daughters… and they took them one at a time. As a father… of course he… you know… the daughters were also not married… of course you don’t want this to happen to your kids, but he couldn’t do anything about it. They would have died – all of them.
[a pause]
And then when the communists came [to power], they looked for them, even in the forests. They caught them. They would look for them everywhere. They went, they caught them…
Costin
Yes. The legionnaires would hide, but when the communists were in power they went after them. They hated them.
M
They came hard after them. They looked for them – the Securitate [Romania’s notorious secret police] would constantly look for them.
Costin
There was also… I mean, the [legionary] movement did not die then [in the 1940s], the movement continued up until the 80s I think… there were small, isolated groups.
M
I don’t know. Could be.
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Digression removed from the transcript.
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M
Yes, I forgot to tell you. They knew because one of them [a legionnaire] had told them: we’re going to come to you the next day… and they, the poor ones, were very afraid – they used to live near the church. They put a pole that reached the church tower and the girls climbed up and went into the tower, where the bell was. That’s where they hid.
Costin
Yes.
M
And there was something else… the people used to live in, or near, the forests in those days. And in the forests the cottages are not like here, a house next to another house. There, everybody lived in their cottages. If, for example, someone screamed, there weren’t any neighbors who could hear the screams. You couldn’t do much to protect yourself. It was atrocious.
[a pause]
Come to think of it, they – or some of them, a few – were active until the 70s, something like that, I think.
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Digression removed from this transcript.
Costin shifts the conversation to a story that he heard about from some of the locals.
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M
During the war [World War 2]… somewhere – ours [Romanian soldiers] were also bad, did bad things some of them. Vis-à-vis from [name redacted]… so there were two hills… [shows with her hands] on this one we [her relatives] had cottages, and on this other one… there was a legend… that somewhere, somewhere there was a depository, a basement, build into the ground, full of gold, jewels and stuff like that. Our elders told us that our soldiers [Romanian soldiers] went to Serbia [then Yugoslavia] and stole from churches. Because then, churches took… how can I tell you… it was something like… like a… I don’t know. They would give to churches money and things. And they told that our Romanians stole from those churches… they said that there were 7 from [village name redacted]. They stole and made a hole there. They dug, they made… and there was a lot of it. They swore that no one would go there unless they all went there. Probably they died… I don’t know what exactly happened to them, but one of them lived longer. And my grandfather said that there was someone from our village who knew, somehow; and he really did find things there. There were some clues – in that place there was a vine, probably they plated it there, because in the forest the vine doesn’t grow by itself… wild. And that guy went there and found things.
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Note from Costin:
According to another source from the village, 6 of these soldiers died under various circumstances (which are not known by the source) and the one who lived longer had poor health and was mostly bedridden after the war.
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Costin
But what did he find? Gold? Jewels?
M
Mostly jewels and gold objects. In the past, some things were paid for with gold.
[a pause]
But it is interesting, that after the revolution [when communism fell in Romania in 1989], people went there with devices [metal detectors]; they dug many trenches.
Costin
I know. I know many people who searched for gold with metal detectors there [in that area].
M
Yes, yes, yes. Now… well, in Ceaușescu’s time it was known, in many places, where things were hidden. And many people used to hide goods, because they would have been confiscated.
Costin
Yes. For example, many gypsies had their gold stashed away. This is a well-known fact.
M
Yes.
Costin
They always hid their gold.
M
Yes. Because they [the communists] took their gold – from many of them. But after the revolution, they [the treasure hunters] had [metal] detectors…
Costin
Oh yeah, I know a lot of them {laughs}.
[a pause]
Yeah, it’s very interesting – this [legionary] movement. And they certainly also hid many things that they stole, especially when they were cornered by the communists.
M
Of things hidden – they hid, everywhere. So… just stories that I know about from my parents, that they had galbeni.
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Note from Edmund:
Galben (plural: galbeni) means yellow in Romanian. In this context, galben means a gold coin that is usually old.
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I know because they used to tell me, this family has galbeni, that family has galbeni. They knew. After the revolution… maybe you know the [profession redacted] who was called [name redacted]…
Costin
Yeah. I’ve heard of him.
M
They [the communists] took the galbeni from his house, everybody knows about it. There were then… those stones, those flat stones. Underneath, he hid them but they knew about it and stole them.
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Digression removed from the transcript.
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Costin
But where did the gold come from? Was it inherited and hidden away?
M
Not inherited, from—
Costin
From older days, from an older age…
M
Of course. Yes.
Costin
And here, in these villages, it’s hard to keep a secret.
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To be continued.
