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The Man Who Came Back
MARY DREWERY

Richard Wurmbrand

RICHARD WURMBRAND
The Man Who Came
Back
by
Mary Drewery

HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON     SYDNEY      AUCKLAND      TORONTO

Copyright © 1974 by Mary Drewery. First printed 1974. ISBN o 340
1776g 1. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without per-
mission in writing from the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that
it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise
circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover^
other than that in which this is published and without a similar condition including
tfns condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Printed in Great Britain
for Hodder and Stoughton Limited, St. PauVs House, Warwick Lane LONDON
EC 4P 4AH by Cox & Wyman Ltd., London, Reading and Fakenham

Contents

Chapter	Page	
Map	6	
Prologue	9	
I   The Carpenter's Reward	12	
2   The Gathering Storm	23	
3   Fascist Terror	32	
4   The Pastor	44	
5   The Church goes Underground	54	
6   Kidnapped	61	
7   Joy of the Cross	69	
8   In Solitary Confinement	74	
9   Room Four	81	
io   An Unexpected Reprieve	90	
11   Back to Prison	98	
12   On the Brink	105	
13   Not Peace, but a Sword	117	
Further Reading	126	

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Prologue
Winter is a bitter season in Bucharest. The crivat, a frost-
hard wind from the north-east, blows down across the plains
from Siberia bringing gnawing cold to Rumania's capital.
The streets are mantled in snow; the string of lakes round
the city's northern perimeter gleam dully like pewter under
their coating of ice.
That Sunday in 1948, however, had a feel in the air of
coming spring. The wind had eased a little. The sun shone,
gilding the snow on the branches of the trees till it slid in a
wet spray on to the pavement beneath. It was February
29th - Leap Year Day. An extra day. A once-in-four-year
bonus. So it was fitting that it was a Sunday and that one
could give thanks to God for twenty-four additional hours to
spend in His service.
There were no people about. Even had church-going not
been discouraged under the Communist régime, the streets
would still have been quiet at that hour for the man was
early.
- 'I'll see you in half an hour or so,' he had told his wife as
he left home. 'I've a number of things to see to before
church. I've a wedding this afternoon.'
So the man strode purposefully over the hard-packed
snow, long legs moving with the easy confidence of one who
enjoys his work, deep-set eyes alive to the promise of the
day.
Trie car came up so fast behind him that he did not hear
its approach. Only as it pulled up alongside with a squeal of
brakes and a spray of churned up snow did he notice that it

flO	RICHARD WURMBRAND
was a Ford — a big Ford, black and sinister. The doors
opened and two men sprang out, seizing the man from either
side and twisting his arms up behind him till he was forced
to double up with the pain. He was thrust roughly into the
rear seat of the Ford and his kidnappers piled in with him. A
third man had moved round to the front and, when the
victim at last managed to straighten up, he found himself
looking down the barrel of a revolver levelled at him over
the back of the seat. A fourth man was at the wheel, the
engine still ticking over.
The car slid into gear, gathered speed and drew away.
Only the skid-marks made by the tyres and a patch of
churned-up snow indicated that anything had disturbed the
sabbath peace of that winter morning.
Inside the car, no-one spoke.
The man struggled to collect his thoughts. Now that the
first shock of the attack was over, his keen brain sought to
assess his situation. Strangely, he felt no fear. He had been
expecting this arrest and his mind was prepared to meet it.
The Police had imprisoned him before, so he knew what to
expect, what questions they would ask.
But what of Sabina, his wife? What of his little son,
Mihai? Would they guess what had become of him? He
drove personal thoughts out of his mind and sought to con-
centrate on preparing himself for the coming ordeal.
The car sped along the wide boulevards. There was more
traffic as they approached the city centre. Through the car
window, the man glimpsed a plaque on a wall giving the
name of the street: Calea Rahovei. That, he knew, was
where the Communist Secret Police had their headquarters
and, as if in confirmation, the .car slowed down, turned in
through large steel gates and stopped. The gates clanged
shut.
'Out!' said one of the kidnappers, and the man was
bundled unceremoniously from the car and into a bare office.
An official was seated behind a desk. He motioned to the

PROLOGUE	II
kidnappers who began, swiftly and expertly, to empty their
victim's pockets. Wallet, identity papers, money, pen» keys,
handkerchief. All were placed on the desk.
'Take off your tie,' said the official.
The prisoner did so, and laid it beside his possessions on
the desk.
*    *Now your shoe-laces.'
The man removed those, too, and laid them beside his tie.
The official, flicking through the wallet and papers, finally
looked up. The prisoner returned his glance calmly. The
official Rooked away.
'From now on,' he barked, 'you are no longer Wurmbrand.
Your name is Vasile Georgescu. Remember that! Vasile
Georgescu.'
He made a motion of dismissal.
A little later, from the plank bed that provided his only
seating accommodation, Richard Wurmbrand examined the
tiny, bare, concrete cell in which he was confined. The only
illumination came from a small, barred window so high up
in the wall that he could not reach it to see out. If the thin
sunshine still brought a promise of spring to Bucharest on its
wide plain between the mountains and the sea, he would
have no means of telling, for the grimy panes acted more as a
blind than a window.
Wryly, he contemplated the new name he had been given:
Vasile Georgescu. It was as if, in England, he had been
called 'John Smith'. The Communists were determined that
he should lose his identity under a common name. Even his
guards were not to know how famous was the man they were
watching, in case they were questioned outside. Pastor Rich-
ard Wurmbrand, like so many other Christians and Jews and
intellectuals in Communist-occupied Rumania, was to dis-
appear without trace.

CHAPTER   I
The Carpenter's Reward
Rumania is one of the group of countries that are known
collectively as 'The Balkans'. To a generation that grew up
between the two World Wars, its name is synonymous with
musical comedy and the Orient Express. To the younger
generation, more acquainted with rock musicals than musi-
cal comedy, with jet travel rather than railways, Rumania is
unfamiliar territory. It is not a part of Europe much studied
in the geography syllabus of western schools, except as being
rich in oil and having the Danube delta on its coast, yet those
two factors have been the cause of much of Rumania's
troubled history. The Danube has provided access for in-
vaders and, in today's world, oil means power.
The hundred and fifty miles of coastline where the
Danube empties itself into the Black Sea through a myriad
of sluggish, meandering channels, makes up less than one
twelfth of Rumania's long frontier. To the north and east
lies the U.S.S.R., to the West, Hungary and Yugoslavia. To
the south, separated from Rumania along most of the border
by the waters of the River Danube, lies Bulgaria.
The country has seen a constant movement of settlers and
invaders along the Danube waterway. Dacians discovered
the country's rich valleys and fertile plains a thousand years
before Christ. Greek traders built cities along the Black Sea
coast. The Emperor Trajan made the country a province of
the Roman Empire. Goths and Huns and Tartars invaded it.
Germans settled in it. Hungary annexed part of it. Turkey
swallowed the country whole into its vast Ottoman Empire
and kept it suppressed for four hundred years. Little wonder,
12

THE  CARPENTER'S  REWARD	13
then, that it became a country with a mixed population con-
taining a number of minority groups: Hungarians, Germans,
gypsies, Jews and many others.
Richard Wurmbrand belonged to two of these groups. He
himself is a native-born Rumanian but his family, as the
name suggests, was of German extraction from the German-
speaking province of Bukovina. Indeed, the family always
spoke German at home. Moreover, they were Jewish. Into
this family Richard was born in Bucharest on 24th March,
1909-
He grew up in a country at war. When the Congress of
Berlin gave Rumania its independence in 1878, it also gave
the country a German princeling as its king. He was still on
the throne when World War I broke out so Rumania,
naturally, was on the side of Germany. However, in 1916 old
King Carol died and his successor, Ferdinand, whose wife
(Queen Marie) was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria,
switched the country's allegiance to the Allies. Immediately,
an army of Germans, Bulgarians and Turks invaded Ruma-
nia and occupied three-quarters of the country, including
the capital itself.
It was a dreadful time of starvation and epidemics. To
crown the suffering of the Wurmbrand family, Richard's
father died in the 1918 epidemic of Spanish flu. His mother
was left to provide food and clothing for Richard and his
three older brothers. There was never enough to eat; only
second-hand clothes to wear — but there were books in the
house, many books, for Richard's father, a dentist, had been
a man of taste and culture. Although Richard's education in
war-torn Bucharest was scanty, such was his love of reading
that by the time he was ten he had read every book he could
find, even the sceptical writings of Voltaire. Young and im-
pressionable, with no father to discuss and argue the ideas he
was absorbing, by the time he was fourteen he was a con-
vinced atheist. He was not just indifferent to religion; he
considered it positively harmful to the human mind. As he

14	RICHARD WURMBRAND
read more and more atheistic, revolutionary books, he grew
into a young man with revolutionary ideas, ready to suffer
and to fight for these pro-Communist ideas and ideals.
Yet when God has a great work to be done, He can use the
most unlikely tools. Saul of Tarsus was among those who
stoned Stephen, the first Christian martyr, yet as St. Paul
men revere him as one of the first and greatest missionaries, a
man whose writings have helped to turn the world upside
down. Matthew was a hated tax-collector yet he became a
disciple of Jesus and in the first Gospel he has left a tender
and moving record of Our Lord's brief ministry. So it was
not mere chance that the young atheist, Wurmbrand, found
himself continually being drawn into synagogues and
churches, always seeking a God he was convinced did not
exist — but he found little there that was an inspiration for
him.
The synagogue services were all in Hebrew which he did
not understand and the rabbis seemed always too busy to
notice the young enquirer in their congregation. There was
equally little comfort to be found in the Christian churches
he visited. The ritual was complicated, the sermons dull, and
the Roman Catholic Church at that time conducted its ser-
vices in Latin which he could not follow. Yet churches held
a strange and inexplicable fascination for him.
Perhaps this stemmed from an incident which occurred
when he was eight years old and which he has never for-
gotten. His father had, briefly, moved his family and prac-
tice to Istanbul in the vain hope that conditions might be
better there than in Rumania. On the way home from school
with a small Christian friend, Richard and the other boy
stopped at the Catholic Church.
ïïang on a minute,' said the friend. 'I have to give a mes-
sage to the priest from my father.'
He disappeared. It was the first time little Richard had
ever been inside a church. It seemed very strange. There was
a sweet and unfamiliar smell that he would later come to

THE CARPENTER'S  REWARD	15
know as incense. The holy pictures on the walls and the
Stations of the Gross were interesting but no more, for the
child had never heard the name 'Christ' in his life. He won-
dered who the old man with the beard was who came out
through a side door with his friend. Presently, the old man
came over to Richard and patted him on the head.
'Well, little fellow, and what can I do for you?' he
asked.
"Nothing,' stammered Richard, overcome.
The old priest smiled. 'But I am a disciple of One who has
told me always to do good to other people, so I must do
something for you.'
Timidly, Richard ventured that he would like a drink of
water and the priest brought it to him. He never forgot the
incident and perhaps, subconsciously, hoped as the years
went by that the Catholic Church would some day again
fulfil his now greater needs. He would enter a church and see
people kneeling before a statue of the Virgin Mary, saying
their prayer 'Hail, Mary, full of grace'. He would think to
himself, 'Perhaps if I kneel by them and listen and say the
same words, something will happen.' But nothing did
happen for Wurmbrand; the image of the Virgin remained
stone.
He found even less to attract him in the Greek Orthodox
Church to which eighty per cent of the population of
Rumania belonged. He could not reconcile their expressed
hatred of his own kind with their professed Christianity. "Was
not the Jesus they worshipped a Jew? Was not His Mother a
Jewess? Yet a Greek Orthodox priest set his dogs on Wurm-
brand because he, too, was a Jew.
It was said of Rumania that 'Foreigners and Jews run the
country because the Rumanians are too lazy to run it for
themselves'. In the thirties, the country was rich and pros-
perous and a man with little scruple could soon make his
fortune. Richard Wurmbrand entered the race for material
success. Ambitious, intelligent and with a formidable energy,

l6	RICHARD WURMBRAND
he soon outstripped his more complacent Gentile com-
patriots and by the time he was twenty-five, he was already
comfortably off as a stockholder. Honesty was not neces-
sarily for him the best policy so he found it easy to dismiss
'sharp practice' as 'clever dealing'.
He was a handsome young man, tall and broad-shoul-
dered, with a high forehead and deep-set, very blue eyes. He
was never short of a girl friend to escort round the night-
clubs and cabarets of Bucharest. The capital had earned its
title 'Paris of the Balkans' as much for its gay night-life as for
its elegant boulevards and parks. In the sensuous and dec-
adent atmosphere of pre-war Bucharest, Richard set out to
gratify his every appetite. Drink, dancing, food, sex — he
tried them all but still felt a nagging discontent. Nothing
tasted as delightful as it promised to do.
One summer evening, he was leaning over the balcony of
his home feeling sour and angry. His mother had been urging
him to marry and settle down. She had found him a suitable
match in a young Jewish girl of substance, an heiress with a
dowry of a million lei and an interest in her family's business.
He was tempted by the dowry and the inheritance but the
girl herself held no attraction for him. As he leaned over the
balcony, he saw his uncle approaching, accompanied by a
pretty, dark, petite girl he had not met before.
'If I could have a girl like her/ he thought, 'I wouldn't
care about the million lei*
The girl was Sabina Oster, a young Rumanian from Gzer-
nowitz. She was on vacation from her chemistry studies in
Paris and she did not return to Paris after that first meeting
with Richard; instead, she found employment in Bucharest.
The young couple went out together every evening. They
had much in common: they were both Jews who had put
aside their religion, they both loved the gay night-life of the
capital. They were madly in love and married on October
23rd, 1935. As a concession to their respective parents, par-
ticularly to Sabina's who were strictly Orthodox Jews, they

THE  CARPENTER'S  REWARD	17
were married in the synagogue with all the traditional re-
ligious ceremony. As is customary at Jewish weddings, a
wineglass was smashed on the floor to remind them of Jeru-
salem trodden under the feet of the Gentiles but this meant
nothing either to Richard or Sabina. Although the rabbi
who married them knew that Richard was a convinced, even
militant atheist, he made no attempt on this most solemn
occasion to talk to the young people about God.
Not that it would have had much effect at the time. Rich-
ard and Sabina were a completely worldly couple, flinging
themselves frenetically into a round of gay parties and
dances. They had no desire for a family; a baby would inter-
fere with their pleasure.
The bubble burst after less than a year of marriage. Rich-
ard began to be troubled by a persistent cough so went to see
his doctor. He returned to Sabina with the news that he had
tuberculosis, perhaps originating in the privations of his
childhood years; but certainly triggered off by the rackety life
he was now leading. Even in the 'thirties, tuberculosis was a
dreaded disease and for some time it seemed likely that
Richard would die. He was very frightened. There was no
logical reason why he should be so for his atheistic reasoning
told him that there was nothing after death, that his body
would just revert to the minerals of which it was com-
pounded. Yet every instinct warned him that there must be
something more. After all, what was the point of anything in
this life if there were nothing to follow — but what would it
be? Would there really be a Judgment to face? The fear of
what might lie ahead terrified him.
He was sent to a sanatorium high up in the Carpathians.
It was a beautiful place, with great views across the valleys
to forest-clad mountains beyond, but even in such lovely
surroundings, Richard could not find rest. He was an atheist,
but atheism did not give him peace in his heart. In his -
dçspair and anxiety, he found himself struggling to pray.
It was a strange prayer.

l8	RICHARD WURMBRAND
'God,' he challenged the unknown. 1 know you do not
exist. But if perchance you do exist (which I deny), it is for
you to reveal yourself to me. It is not my duty to seek you.'
As he prayed this reluctant prayer, Richard began to
think about the past, about the girls he had seduced, the
mother he had grieved, the wife he now seemed to have
failed. Tears came easily in his weak state but they brought
some relief, and when Sabina came to see him on one of her
fortnightly visits, she found him quieter, less resentful of his
illness.
He told her about a book he had been reading to while
away the long hours in bed. It was about the Brothers Ratis-
bonne who had founded an Order with the purpose of con-
verting Jews to Christ. It seemed incredible to Richard that
anyone should think the matter important enough to bother.
Then it was borne in upon him with something of a shock
that he himself must be one of the Jews the Order was pray-
ing for, even though they did not know him by name. It was
a humbling thought. If strangers could consider his life so
important, had he been right or fair to throw it away by
riotous living? He tried to explain this to Sabina but she was
impatient with his arguments.
'What are you worrying about?' she demanded. 'There's
nothing wrong in what we do. We are young. Youth is to be
enjoyed.'
But Richard was beginning to question the manner of the
enjoyment.
After some months in the sanatorium, the doctors felt he
was sufficiently recovered to leave. It was the spring of 1937
and Richard decided to go to a village in the mountains to
convalesce. Rumania has twelve thousand villages and he
could have chosen any one of them, but God directed him to
Noua. Unbeknown to Richard, the carpenter of that par-
ticular village, an old man called Christian Wolfkes, had for
some years been praying like this :
TDear God, I have one very great wish which I beseech

THE CARPENTER'S  REWARD	ig
you to grant me. I long to bring a Jew to Christ before I die,
for Jesus himself was from the Jewish people. But I am poor
and old and sick. I cannot go out looking for a Jew myself
and there are no Jews in our village. Please, God, bring a Jew_
here to our village and I will do my best to bring him to
Christ.'
In Richard Wurmbrand, the old man saw the answer to
his prayer.
'He gave him a Bible to read. The printed word, irrespec-
tive of its content, had always fascinated Richard so he read
the carpenter's Bible. As a Jew, however non-practising, he
was already in some measure acquainted with the Old Tes-
tament so he left that aside. But the New Testament was
virgin territory for him. Day after day, he lay on the sofa in
the cottage reading about Jesus. He was fascinated by the
man, by his direct approach, his undeviating honesty, his
devastating logic in argument. He was impressed that this
man, Jesus, could show love even to sinners. He read on,
stirred more than he cared to admit by the story of Jesus's
selfless life of service. But to what end? Christ had been
crucified and he offered no easier fate to those who sought to
follow his principles.
'You'll never have me for a disciple,' Richard said stub-
bornly. {I want money, travel, pleasure. This illness is
suffering enough. Yours is the way of the cross, and even if it
is the way of truth as well, I won't follow it.'
Richard hesitates to tell what followed in case he should
be thought to be exaggerating. He saw no vision of Christ
but, he says, he was vividly aware of his presence and it
seemed as if a voice spoke clearly to him: T)o not fear the
cross! You will find it the greatest of joys.'
"When he went back to his reading of the New Testament,
every passage his eye alighted on seemed to be telling him
how sinful was his own life. Christ's outlook was so pure;
Richard's so tainted. His nature was so selfless; Richard's
had been greedy for experience. All Richard's certainties

20	RICHARD WURMBRAND
began to crumble. He found he needed the friendship of this
man Jesus if he was to salvage anything from the wreck of
his life. This man? Surely he must be God after all; there
could be no other explanation of the wisdom and truth of
what he read.
'I was like the man in the ancient Chinese story,' Richard
was to write many years later, drudging exhausted under the
sun, who came on a great oak and rested in its shade. "What a
happy chance I found you!" he said. But the oak replied, "It
is no chance. I have been waiting for you for 400 years."
Christ had waited all my life for me. Now we met*
Richard's conversion to Christianity was a terrible blow to
his wife. Though she had latterly shown scant observance of
the Jewish religion, she was steeped from childhood in the
history of the persecution of her people by Christians. Like
the children of other Orthodox Jewish families, she had
been forbidden to mention Christ's name in speech. When
she passed a church as a child, she was ordered to turn away
her head. She could still remember having her hair pulled by
bigger girls at school because she was 'a dirty little Jewess*.
The Nazis in Germany were set on a course of persecution
of Jews ; and already in Rumania the Fascist organisation of
Greenshirts, Christian in name if not in fact, had begun their
ghastly pogroms. Jewish students were thrown out of the
windows at the University. Other Jews were impaled on
meat hooks in the market and labelled *Kosher Meat'. Now
her husband was to join the enemies and persecutors of her
race. When she heard that Richard was to be baptised into
the Christian faith, she contemplated suicide.
Richard was patient with her. He talked to her of Christ
He took her, frightened but also a little curious, to see the
inside of a church. He showed her the pictures of Jesus and
His mother and pointed out that they were Jews. He opened
the Prayer Book and showed her that the Commandments
printed there for Christians to obey were the same that she
had learned from the Book of Moses. He showed her the

THE  CARPENTER  S   REWARD	21
Psalms and she realised that they were the same Psalms of
David that she had heard read in the synagogue as a child.
Richard showed her the Old Testament prophecies that
foretold Christ's coming. Surely she could see that Chris-
tianity was simply the Jewish faith opened to all the nations
of the earth. Still she was not convinced ; and anyway, she
did not want to spend Sundays in church. She hated the idea
of giving up the gay life she enjoyed so much.
Richard tried another approach.
'All right,' he conceded one Sunday evening when she
protested at his attending service. 'If you want to see a film,
we'll both see a film — because I love you.'
They went into the city centre and Richard went from
theatre to theatre, studying the posters and stills outside.
'We'll go to this one,' he decided at last. Sabina was sur-
prised; it was a very suggestive film. Two hours later when
they emerged from the cinema she was even more surprised
to hear him say: 'You go off home now. I think I'll stay up in
town and pick up a girl.'
''What did you say F Sabina was outraged.
'But you wanted me to come to the theatre tonight,' Rich-
ard replied quietly. 'You saw what happened in the film.
Why should I not do the same? Every man becomes what he
looks at, and if you want me to watch films like that night
after night, can you blame me if I turn into a bad husband?
On the other hand, if you want me to be a good husband, let
me go to church — and come with me sometimes.'
Sabina had to concede that he was right about the
film — but she still hankered after the gay parties Richard
wanted to put behind them. One evening, to her delight, he
did agree to accept an invitation. When they arrived at the
friend's apartment, many of the guests were already very
drunk. The air was thick with cigarette smoke. One or two
couples were petting in corners. Even to Sabina, the party
seemed pretty awful. 'Let's go home,' she whispered after a
very short time. 'If we slip away now, no-one will notice.'

22	RICHARD WURMBRAND
'Why leave?' protested Richard. 'We've only just come.'
So they stayed on at the party where the drinking became
more rowdy, the petting more open. Sabina hated it. 'Can't
we leave now,' she begged Richard again at midnight.
'It's far too early,' he replied airily. 'The night is young
yet.'
Time and again she implored him to leave and time and
again he refused. Only when he saw that she was utterly
sickened by the whole sordid occasion did he agree to take
her home. They came out of the smoke-laden atmosphere
into the cold clean air of early morning.
*Richard!' Sabina exclaimed. 'I'm going straight to your
pastor's house to ask him to baptise me as a Christian. It will
be like taking a bath after all that filth.'
Richard laughed. You've waited so long,' he said. 'Surely
you can now wait until the morning. Let the poor pastor
have his sleep.'

CHAPTER  2
The Gathering Storm
In order to appreciate the problems that the Wurmbrands
had now to face as Christian Jews, it is necessary to under-
stand the political situation of the time.
Europe, between the two World Wars, saw the spread of
Totalitarianism — that is, rule by one party only with no
opposition. This totalitarianism took two different and vio-
lently opposed forms.
At the extreme Tieft' was Communism, based on the writ-
ings of Karl Marx. This advocated the overthrow of all
existing forms of government. It allowed no private enter-
prise, no personal freedom. Communism in its present form
spread from Russia across national barriers. It kept, and still
keeps, a ruthless hold on its subjects in every way, including
their minds. Skilful propaganda controls their thinking,
secret police their actions. Religion, with its emphasis on
individual responsibility, is denounced as superstition. The
State has replaced God.
Totalitarianism of the extreme *Right' was called Fascism.
This came into being in the chaos following the violent up-
heaval of World War I. European countries became impov-
erished by the war, traditions of centuries were upset, life
was insecure. In such conditions, Communism began to
spread rapidly. The middle classes, however, were apprehen-
sive of its onward march. They were afraid of losing their
national identity and were bewildered by the loss of their
money as their country's finances collapsed, so they looked
for strong leaders. Thus the stage was set for the rise of
Mussolini in Italy, of Hitler in Germany, of Codreanu in
23

24	RICHARD WURMBRAND
Rumania, and many others. All introduced 'Fascist' régimes
under different names, all offering a strong one-party
government, intensely nationalistic in feeling. Great stress
was laid on keeping the nation 'pure' and to this end attacks
were made on minority groups — in particular, in Germany
and Rumania, on Jews who were blamed for all these coun-
tries' financial troubles. The attacks served also to divert
attention from the loss of individual freedom under a
dictatorship.
In Rumania, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, claiming to have
been inspired by the Archangel, founded his 'Legion of St.
Michael', with the declared aim of cleansing the country of
all Jews. This organisation developed into the Iron Guard,
often known as 'Greenshirts' from the colour of the military-
style uniform they wore. These were the men who had so
cruelly attacked Jews in the pogroms.
It was some time, however, before Richard and Sabina
came into conflict with either Communism or Fascism. The
hostility they met at the beginning of their Christian life
came from their own people, the Jews.
When Christ spoke to him in the carpenter's house and
said T)o not fear the cross; you will find it the greatest of
joys', Richard little realised how soon he would be expected
to take* up that cross in following his Lord. He and Sabina
had no desire to quarrel with anyone; all they wanted was
rest from the life that had gone before, particularly after a
little son, Mihai, was born to them in January 1939.
Richard was to write some years later: 'A calm life ...
raises new storms; one's religion is attacked, one must defend
it, and so, without having wished it, one is at war again. We
have actively to put into practice faith and love, and only
God knows why, as sons of peace, we do not bring peace, but
a sword.'
It was dreadful for the Wurmbrands to be called 'traitors'
by their former Jewish friends because they had become
Christian; but the hostility they now met among their own

THE  GATHERING  STORM	25
kind was only a challenge to a man of Richard's tempera-
ment.
Burning with zeal to show the truth of Christ, Richard
sought out the rabbi who had conducted his wedding ser-
vice. He was met with bland indifference. Other rabbis he
argued with reproached him for abandoning 'the faith of his
fathers*. Richard could not persuade them that faith was
something you could not inherit from your fathers but was a
matter of personal conviction ; each man must have his own
living experience of God. The rabbis he met were too
firmly entrenched in their rigid thinking to be open to per-
suasion so Richard turned his attention to Jews who were
not rabbis.
With a clarity that was not blinded by centuries of anti-
Semitic prejudice, Richard could recognise how immense is
the potential of the Jewish race. It was no accident of history
that God chose them as His people, that He sent His son into
the world as a Jew. Even without accepting Christ, the Jews
have been a brilliant race, producing men of the highest
intellectual calibre — great scientists like Einstein, great
painters like Chagall, composers, musicians, writers. If only
the intellectual passion, the brilliant intelligence of the
Jewish people could be harnessed for Christ, with what an
unequalled beauty could the Church be invested ! It could be
on fire with love for mankind; it could transform the world!
Now, at the beginning of his own Christian life, Richard felt
that God had called him to bring Jews to Christ. He did not
know how he would carry out the work but he had faith that
the way would be shown to him.
It was not easy, however, for the new convert to find the
Church that was founded by Jesus. Various Christian de-
nominations in Rumania at that time seemed still to be
rooted in mediaeval ideas about Jews and were as anti-Semi-
tic (that is, 'Jew-hating') as the Fascist administration they
supported. Richard found the Christian scene a tragic one.
Was this in the spirit of Jesus who said 'I was sent to the lost

26	RICHARD WURMBRAND
sheep of the house of Israel'? Men had made of Christianity
such a complicated thing, full of sectarian differences and
formal ritual. Surely there was need for the simplicity of the
early Church? The message of the Gospels seemed so clear
to him: God is love. If Christianity could truly be demon-
strated to be love —of God, of one's neighbour, of one's
enemies — then even the Jews must become converted to it,
for they were thirsty for love in a world that persecuted their
race so cruelly.
Richard found a job as Secretary to the Anglican Mission
to Jews in Bucharest. This was a missionary church and
centre set up by the Church of England for the purpose of
converting some of Rumania's thousands of Jews to Chris-
tianity. Rev. George Stevens was the pastor.
In his enthusiasm to do his best for the Mission, it was not
easy for Richard always to avoid his old ways. When an
insurance company brought a claim against the Mission, it
seemed quite easy for Richard to slip into his former ways
and offer a bribe to the Insurance Agent to drop the claim.
. He boasted of this to the Mission head.
'But are we really liable?' asked Mr. Stevens.
'Of course,' Richard replied.
'Then you were wrong to offer the bribe; we should pay
what we owe.'
It took Richard some little time to accept that there could
be no double standards for a Christian. But he was happy at
the Mission, delighted that a door had opened for him on to
the work he felt called to do.
The very first soul he won for the Lord was Clarutza, a
Jewish girl of sixteen. Although she would consider herself a
convert of Richard's, it was in fact she who completed his
conversion. Just as he was finding it difficult to renounce
completely some of his former business methods, equally he
still could not easily shake off the desire to make a lot of
money without any effort. Although his conscience told him
that buying lottery tickets was not in the Christian tradition,

THE  GATHERING  STORM	27
none the less he bought one, for the prize was a very large
sum of money. Did Glarutza guess?
"Brother,' she asked him. 'Have you taken a ticket in the
lottery?'
'Of course not,' Richard lied readily, though the ticket
was in his pocket as he spoke.
It is easy to tell a lie; less easy to live with one. The know-
ledge of his deception kept nagging at his conscience until he
could bear it no longer and he had to confess. He told the
story at the Mission on the following Sunday, in front of the
whole congregation. There was a brief pause then, one after
another, Christian Jews stood up and openly confessed to
falsehoods, frauds and thefts they had kept hidden in their
hearts. It was an occasion of great blessing for all who were
present.
Richard was. not yet ordained a pastor but he did his best
to be a missionary in his own country. He felt he just had to
tell everybody he met about the wonderful Good News of
Jesus. He would buttonhole Jewish people on trains, in the
street and on park benches to talk to them about Christ. He
also distributed leaflets and literature about the Christian
faith. Strangely enough, there was a need for such literature
to be distributed even among Christians, for the Orthodox
Church did not allow its members to read the Gospels for
themselves.
One Sunday morning in the summer of 1939, Richard and
Clarutza went to Sinaia, the beautiful mountain resort some
sixty miles north of Bucharest where the King had his
summer residence. They set up their stall of Gospels and
pamphlets outside the church.
Richard's face was unmistakably Jewish; so was Cla-
rutza's. In those uneasy days, all things evil were attributed
to the Jewish race. A suspicious policeman, convinced that
the two Jews in charge of the stall could be up to no good,
approached Richard and asked him his name.
'Wurmbrand,' replied Richard, which took the policeman

28	RICHARD WURMBRAND
aback. It was a German name, not Jewish. None the less, the
policeman persisted and asked to see their identity cards.
These; of course, revealed that Richard and Glarutza were
indeed of Jewish origin. 'JEW was stamped across every
Jewish identity card, even if its holder was a Christian. The
policeman was outraged. How did they, as Jews, dare to sell
Christian literature? They were desecrating something holy!
He promptly arrested them and marched them off to the
police station. But it was Sunday morning and most of the
police were off duty. The prisoners were left in charge of a
young constable to await the arrival of the police inspector
who would determine what action to take about their
heinous crime!
Suddenly the telephone rang, asking for immediate help
at the scene of an accident. The constable hurried off, leav-
ing the 'prisoners' alone in the police station. Richard and
Clarutza waited; the whole situation was so farcical, they
were intrigued to see how it would end. At last the Police
Inspector arrived, unaware that the man and girl in the
waiting room were the 'criminals' he was to interrogate.
'Good morning, Inspector,' said Richard, seizing the ini-
tiative. 'My name is Wurmbrand. This young lady and I
want to sell religious literature in your town. Do we need
your permission?'
It did not occur to the Inspector to check whether or not
they were Jewish nor, indeed, whether they had already sold
their literature.
'Have you a permit from the Ministry of Culture?' he
asked.
'Oh dear, no. Should we have had one?' Richard was all
innocence.
'Then I'm afraid I can't give you permission to sell your
literature here.'
'Ah well,' sighed Richard. 'It looks as if we shall have to
go home again. Good morning, Inspector!'
'Good morning.'

THE  GATHERING   STORM	29
Without waiting for any more questions to be asked, Rich-
ard and Glarutza hurried from the police station, stopped
the first taxi they saw and left the town. Richard's quick wit
and sharp intelligence when faced with a crisis were often to
stand him in good stead when in later years he, had to face
prison interrogation.
In September of 1939, war broke out between Germany on
one side and Britain and France on the other. King Carol II
was nominally on the side of the Allies who had guaranteed
Rumania's neutrality. However, Germany was a nearer
neighbour and in March of that year he had considered it
prudent to make an economic treaty whereby Rumania's
vast resources, especially her oil, were placed at the disposal
of Germany. The king's policy of keeping a foot in both
camps was eventually to lead to his own downfall and that of
his country.
Throughout the spring and summer of 1940, Rumania
vacillated between allegiance to Germany or to the Allies.
Russia was threatening Rumania's northern border, claim-
ing the province of Bessarabia. As the Allied fortunes in
Europe ebbed, Rumania began to look more and more
towards Germany for support against Russia.
It was a fearful time for the Jews. They were terrified of a
take-over by Russia for the Communists had always been
anti-Semitic in their policy. Equally, they feared the
influence of Hitler's Germany — a country bent on the exter-
mination of their race. At home, the Iron Guard openly
flaunted their power.
The Guard had been temporarily disbanded in 1938 when
their founder, Codreanu, had been arrested and executed.
Many of his organisation had fled to Germany where they
drilled and trained, becoming more Nazi even than the Nazis
themselves. Now, in the summer of 1940, following an am-
nesty from the king, the Iron Guard re-emerged under a new
leader, Horia Sima. The exiles returned from Ger-
many — lean, fit and hard, and dedicated in their hatred.

30	RICHARD WURMBRAND
They swaggered openly through the streets, while Jews
throughout Rumania trembled. Those who could afford it,
fled the country. Those who were poor remained and
suffered, or committed suicide. Goods and houses were
seized, investments appropriated. It is difficult for people in
democratic countries such as Britain or America to appreci-
ate the scope of the terror unleashed by the Fascists on the
Jews.
By August 1940 it appeared to the Rumanian Government
that the Allies were defeated. The British Army had re-
treated through Dunkirk; Paris had fallen; Norway, Den-
mark and the Low Countries were all overrun. It was time
to ally the country openly with Germany.
Naturally, such English people as remained in Bucharest
felt it advisable to leave, including the head of the Anglican
Mission where Richard worked. Since there was no minister
to carry on the work of the church, Richard offered to take
on the work himself. He studied and was in due course or-
dained as a pastor.
From now on, he was in constant danger. He was an
obvious target for the Iron Guard. In his home and in his
church, Richard offered Jews sanctuary from persecution. It
did not matter that he himself was a Christian Jew and that
his mission was to convert other Jews to Christianity. He was
of Jewish blood and that sufficed. Jews were anathema not
only to the Iron Guard but also, to its shame, to the Ortho-
dox Church. At that time, the Church supported the Fascists
in their campaign of terror. Murder walked the streets of
Bucharest and of every other big city.
One Sunday from his pulpit Richard saw a group of Iron
Guard in their recognisable green shirts file into the back of
his church. He could see that they were armed, although the
congregation, facing towards the pulpit, were unaware of
their presence. Richard determined that if this were to be his
last sermon, it should be a good one. He was speaking about
the hands of Jesus, how they had healed the sick and cradled

THE   GATHERING   STORM	31
children; how they had stretched out in blessing; how they
had touched lepers and had been nailed to the Gross.
'But you !' he suddenly thundered. 'What have you done
with your hands?'
The congregation looked at him in amazement; their
hands held only their prayer-books !
*Do you call yourselves Christians?' continued Richard in
passionate accusation. *You, who kill and beat and torture
innocent people? Cleanse your hands, you sinners !'
For some reason, the Greenshirts did not break up the
service. Though they glowered with rage and stood with
their guns drawn, they allowed Richard to finish his sermon,
and say the prayer and benediction. The congregation filed
out — nastily as they saw the reason for Richard's outburst.
As the last person left, Richard stepped down from the
pulpit and moved quickly behind a curtain. He could hear
running footsteps and shouts of 'Where's Wurmbrand? After
him!'
But he was prepared for just such an eventuality. Behind
the curtain was a secret door leading through a series of
corridors out into a side street. Once through the door and
with it safely locked behind him, Richard fled.

CHAPTER 3
Fascist Terror
Sometimes in the midst of gaiety on a day of warm
sunshine, one will suddenly shiver. It is almost as if some
Spirit of Times to Come moves past and one feels the cold
draught of his trailing garments. Some premonition of this
sort had happened to Richard in the early days of his court-
ship. One evening, he had said a strange and unexpected
thing to Sabina : 'You will suffer a lot if you marry me.' The
reality of that suffering, the reality of Jesus's words 'If any
man will come after me, let him .. .take up his cross' began
now to reveal itself to the young couple. They were in con-
stant danger.
One day a member of the Iron Guard was found dead in.a
street of Bucharest. No-one knew what had happened but
members of the Jewish community knew only too well that
they would be blamed and that reprisals would be taken
against them. A day or so later, Richard was sitting at home
when two young men of Jewish appearance asked to see him.
They said they had something on their conscience they
wished to confess.
'Go ahead,' said Richard.
They told him that they had been responsible for the
murder. Richard was dismayed.
'How could you commit a crime like that?'
'He was a Fascist,' they said. 'He deserved to die.'
This reply made Richard angry. 'Then why have you
come to me?' he demanded. T can understand your asking
my advice if you were ashamed of the crime you have com-
mitted, but you seem to glory in it. What you have done is a
32

FASCIST TERROR	33
crime. Even if a man is a Fascist, he should still be treated as
a human being. Did you not think that he could have a
mother or a wife? If he is our enemy, we must repay his
hatred with love. We must not kill him.'
And he sent the young men on their way.
That was not the end of the story. Some months later,
when the Iron Guard had been overthrown, one of the same
two young men came again to see Richard.
'I must tell you how you escaped certain death,' he said.
He went on to describe how he was in fact a Communist
who had been arrested by the Iron Guard while distributing
propaganda leaflets. He was tortured and, in order to escape
further ordeal, agreed to act as an agent provocateur for the
Iron Guard. The idea was that he and the other young man
(who was a member of the Iron Guard) would pretend to be
Jews. They would visit any place where they might find
Jews gathered together and would start pro-Communist dis-
cussions, at the same time criticising and insulting the Fas-
cists. Anyone who agreed with their opinions would later be
arrested by the Iron Guard and beaten up. With this plan in
mind, knowing that Richard was the leader of a Christian
Mission to Jews, they had called at his home and confessed
to a murder they had not committed.
'We never thought we should hear a Jew say that Green-
shirts should be loved!' the young man said.
Richard's truly Christian approach had saved his life.
The Government permit for the Anglican Mission had
become invalid when the Iron Guard came to power; it was
necessary to apply for a new one. But how could Richard, a
Jew, dare even to enter a Government Office to apply for
such a permit when the declared policy of the Government
was anti-Semitic? There was still one Englishman remaining
in Bucharest who worked at the Mission, a young man called
Roger Allison. He and Richard decided to visit an Inspector
of the Ministry of Cults in his home. This Inspector was in
fact an Orthodox priest who was also a member of the Iron

34	RICHARD WURMBRAND
Guard. When Richard introduced himself, the priest was
most affable. Wurmbrand is a German name, and Germans
at that time were treated with deference in Rumania. Im-
agine the Inspector's surprise when Richard disclosed that
he was a Christian Jew seeking a permit for his Christian
Mission to Jews!
'We don't want any exceptions to be made in our case,'
said Richard. 'We don't expect to be treated differently from
other Jews just because we are Christian. All we ask is the
right to worship.'
The Inspector /priest burst out laughing. It seemed to him
a great joke that a Jew should have been baptised. 'Of
course, it is only your skin that is baptised,' he said. 'You
could not possibly become a real Christian.'
'How right you are,' agreed Richard. 'It is difficult enough
for anyone to be truly Christlike and it is doubly difficult for
us Jews who are so new to the task. But we are trying in our
community. We do beg you to give us a chance to try to
improve.'
The Inspector continued for a long time to mock and
insult Richard and the Mission but Richard continued to
answer humbly, admitted that he and his fellows fell far
short of the ideal standard of Christians but insisted that
they sincerely believed and, if only given the opportunity to
worship, would seek to do better. Suddenly the priest
changed his tone. 'I have been deliberately testing you,' he
said, 'and I have discovered that you are worthier of bearing
the name of Christian than I am. You shall have your
permit.'
The Wurmbrands' was not a luxurious home. Indeed, it
was only an apartment on the northern outskirts of Bu-
charest where the rents were low. The other apartments in
the block were occupied by members of the anti-Semitic
Orthodox Church so the Wurmbrands were viewed with
suspicion, though tolerated because they were Christian.
Round the courtyard were pasted big posters of Codreanu,

FASCIST TERROR	35
the founder of the Legion of St. Michael. He had been à
thug and a Jew-baiter but now he was being almost can-
onised. The apartment block was not a friendly place for
Richard and Sabina to live.
That was at the beginning.
But Richard always had a wonderful gift for finding the
right word for the person he was seeking to win. He was once
described, derogatorily, as (a great actor' but he took this-as a
compliment. 'I cannot see how it is possible to be a good
missionary,' he said, 'unless one has a certain artistic flair,
and a knack of playing different rôles.'
Using this gift, Richard set to work to win over his hostile
neighbours. One man snarled at him : You Jews have never
done a damned thing that's any good.' Richard was standing
by the parlour door at the time, watching the man's wife
sewing. He replied, 'That's a fine sewing-machine. What
make is it? A Singer! Hold on — wasn't that invented by a
Jew? Really, you know, if you think Jews are so useless,
you'd better get rid of that sewing-machine!' No wonder the
neighbour began to laugh. Gradually Richard wore down
the unfriendliness of the other residents of the block. He
could be charming, he could be direct, he could command or
he could cajole. And, as his wife Sabina has said, 'his blue
eyes could look into your soul'.
So their neighbours did not betray them when their house
was used as a refuge for the homeless and the persecuted.
Every day, Christians and Jews in trouble of some kind,
gypsies, beggars, anyone in need would come to their door.
No-one was ever turned away. Mihai has written how even if
Sabina had to 'slice the bread a little thinner, or stretch the
soup with water', none the less there was always a place at
the table for the hungry stranger.
She had become a radiant Christian. Richard was the dy-
namic crusader against cruelty and oppression. She gave no
less effective Christian witness in her gentle acts of love. A
friend said of her: 'It seemed as if no-one in Rumania got

36	RICHARD WURMBRAND
married or had a baby or encountered trouble but they came
to Sabina for advice.'
In September of 1940, King Carol was forced to abdicate.
For a brief period, the ordinary people of Rumania hoped
that sanity would be restored to their country. Carol had
been an autocrat; and in endeavouring to placate both Ger-
many and the Allies, he had succeeded in pleasing nobody
and had lost his country's trust. Now King Carol's son,
Michael, succeeded to the throne. The country had hopes of
a 'New Age' under the new young ruler but he was very
young and the real power lay with the Prime Minister, Ion
Antonescu, who had to continue to use the Iron Guard to
keep control. Conscription was introduced. Meat and petrol
were rationed. More than seventy per cent of Rumania's
output had to go to Germany. The Rumanian cow was being
well and truly milked. Far from witnessing the dawn of a new
age, Rumanians were seeing the sunset of freedom.
After a time, the Prime Minister tried to dispense with the
services of the Iron Guard but that was easier wished than
done. A vicious power struggle developed. There was
fighting in the streets of Bucharest between rival factions,
bloody massacres as Fascists and their opponents killed each
other off. At this time, Richard and Sabina even helped the
families of Iron Guard who were suffering in Antonescu's
purge. One family, in great distress, were about to commit
suicide when Richard came to their rescue. He was criti-
cised for extending his help to anti-Semites but he insisted
that it was Christ's command that we should love our
enemies.
'We must not be selective in our good deeds,' Richard has
written. 'The enemy we have conquered must also have.our
help. But any help given to an enemy when he is in power is
wrong, because it makes us his accomplices.'
Eventually, Antonescu broke the power of the Iron Guard
by calling on Hitler for assistance, but it was at the cost of
the last pretence of neutrality. Rumania now entered the

FASCIST TERROR	37
war actively on the side of Germany and the country itself
was occupied by German troops.
The hounding of Jews increased in intensity and per-
secution bit deep into the Wurmbrand household.
All Sabina's family were deported from their home near
the frontier town of Czernowitz — her parents, her brother
and three sisters, along with many relatives and friends. It
was winter; many of the people collapsed in the snow; others
starved to death; numbers were shot. Sabina never heard
from any of her family again.
She and Richard risked punishment by giving sanctuary
in their home to Jews hunted by the Nazis. More than this^
Richard spoke out fearlessly against the system that could
encourage such terror. He preached with power and people
listened. He would stand up in any church that would invite
him to preach, no matter what its denomination, speaking of
the love of Christ, bringing courage and hope to frightened
people. He preached in bars, in brothels, in prisons; and
when the Nazis and their puppets forbade him to speak, he
arranged secret meetings in people's homes and continued
his defiant teaching there. He became a rallying point for
resistance to the régime. Many times attempts were made
to arrest him during meetings but always warning was re-
ceived in time and the group was able to disperse quickly
and unnoticed.
On June 28th, 1941, eleven thousand Jews were butch-
ered in one day in the town of Jassy in north-east Rumania.
Seven young Christian Jewish girls managed to survive,
along with a Norwegian missionary, Sister Olga. When
Richard learned of this he determined to rescue these girls
before another massacre overtook them. But how? Jews were
forbidden to travel, yet if the girls remained in Jassy their
death was certain. Richard devised an ingenious plan. He
arranged with a friend in the Police whom he knew to be a
sincere Christian to have the girls arrested and brought to
Bucharest as prisoners. Richard and Sabina met the train,

38	RICHARD WURMBRAND
took over the prisoners from the Christian policeman who
was escorting them and sheltered them in their home until
their escape to safety could be arranged.
Antonescu's new régime brought further problems for
the Christian Jews of the Mission. Once again, the permit to
worship, extracted so recently and so unexpectedly from the
Iron Guard, became invalid. Moreover, when Rumania
officially entered the war on Germany's side, diplomatic re-
lations were broken off with Britain and the Anglican
Mission to the Jews was dissolved. The Assembly Hall was
closed and the Wurmbrands were evicted from their flat.
The little congregation of about one hundred converted Jews
were now without a home. Fortunately the Rumanian
branch of the Swedish Mission to Israel was prepared to
accommodate Richard and his flock. This was a Lutheran
missionary body similar to the Anglican Mission. However,
Richard would once again have to obtain a permit to hold
meetings.
This time he approached Mr. Sandu, a cabinet minister in
the new government and head of the Ministry of Ecclesi-
astical Affairs. Once again, thanks to his German name,
Richard was granted an interview. He attempted the same
honest approach that had won him his permit on the pre-
vious occasion. This time, however, he had no success. The
Minister attempted to refer him to another department
and when Richard said he had already tried them refused his
application altogether.
'The Germans are in our country,' he said. *We cannot
give permits of this kind to Jews.'
'At that moment,' Richard wrote of this incident, 'God
had taken from me all my powers of reasoning, so that I
completely forgot that I was a Jew, without any rights, in an
anti-Semitic atmosphere, in the office of a minister of state.
All he had to do would be to ring his bell, and I should have
been arrested and should have vanished without a trace.'
When the Minister refused the permit, Richard said to

FASCIST TERROR	39
him : 'All right, Minister. I withdraw my application but we
shall continue to meet and to worship at our own risk. But
before I leave, I want to remind you of something. The day
will come when we shall no longer be ministers of state,
clergymen or anything else; we shall all stand naked and
trembling before the Throne of God to answer for our deeds.
Consider carefully what you may have to answer for when
you deny Christians the right to assemble peaceably in order
to worship Jesus.'
Richard stopped speaking, dismayed at his own boldness,
and waited for the outraged anger, for the arrest he felt must
be inevitable. But the Minister did not. fly into a rage. In-
stead, to Richard's amazement, he rose from his chair and
asked humbly: 'What can I do to be saved, wretched sinner
that I am?'
Richard was touched with awe. It could only be the power
of God working through him that had wrought such a
change.
So, once again, he had a permit for his Church to as-
semble. It did not last long. Soon afterwards, Richard and
Sabina and several others were arrested on a charge of hold-
ing 'illegal religious meetings'. By the time they were re-
leased from prison, they found their permit had been
cancelled and the cabinet minister who had granted it had
been dismissed.
The lack of a permit did not deter them. If the Church
could not meet in public, they would worship together in
secret, meeting in various homes, each time risking long
terms of imprisonment should they be discovered. They de-
veloped all manner of ingenious techniques to keep their
assemblies from being raided. Only on one occasion were
they surprised and even that situation was saved by some
quick thinking. The Police had made the mistake of not
surrounding the whole block of flats where the meeting was
being held. When they knocked on the door, the owner of
the apartment took a long time opening up. Then he delayed

40	RICHARD WURMBRAND
the police in the entrance. What did they want? Gould they
identify themselves? And so on. When the police finally
made their way into the flat and began their search, they
could find no-one there except the members of the family;
all the worshippers had escaped through the back windows
for the apartment was on the ground floor!
However, Richard's work was so varied and outstanding,
his reputation so widespread, it was inevitable that sooner or
later the authorities would manage to trap him. If the name
'Wurmbrand' could become synonymous with 'comfort' to
Rumania's oppressed, equally it had come to represent 'op-
position' to those in authority.
About eleven o'clock one night, Richard was making notes
for a sermon when Sabina hurried into the room.
'The police have surrounded the house,' she warned
him.
Richard just had time to hide his notes — in themselves
enough proof of 'guilt' in the eyes of the police — when those
same police pushed their way into the room and declared
that he was under arrest. Richard went with them promptly
and without protest; he did not want them to search the
next room! That was stacked to the ceiling with crates of
food which were to be distributed next day among several
hundred Protestant Christian women who were interned in
the women's prison. The Wurmbrands had taken on the job
of distributing such relief on behalf of various oppressed
groups whose leaders lacked the courage to do such danger-
ous work for themselves. Giving aid to prisoners was a
serious offence. If the police had found the food, there would
have been all manner of awkward questions to face: where
had the money come from to buy the food? For whom was it
intended? Did they not know it was economic sabotage to
hoard food?
Fortunately, Richard was granted his release after only
fourteen days' imprisonment on that occasion, thanks to the
intervention of the Swedish Ambassador. Although the Am-

FASCIST  TERROR	41
bassador had a responsibility for the Swedish Mission itself,
he was really breaking diplomatic rules in interceding for a
Rumanian citizen. But the Ambassador had considerable
influence in high places. Sweden was à neutral country and
through its embassy in Bucharest, Prime Minister Antonescu
could keep in touch with Moscow. After all, Germany might
lose the war! So once again Richard was free to carry on his
work.
As the war increased in violence, Richard found other
outlets for his passionate Christianity. He provided help for
gypsies who, along with Jews and Protestants, were subject
to oppression. Where Jewish children had been herded into
ghettoes, he organised the rescue of as many as he could and
tried to reunite them with parents or relatives. He and his
brethren planned escape routes across the border from
Hungary for Jews who had managed to escape the Nazi ex-
termination camps. All this was carried out under the noses
of the occupying Germans. Richard had a special edition of
St. John's Gospel printed and distributed among the
German soldiers.
Rumanian troops were fighting alongside the Germans in
the attack on Stalingrad and-many Russian prisoners-of-war
were brought to Rumania. Whenever Richard met any of
them, he would take the opportunity to speak to them of
Christ. Richard spoke fluent Russian — his father's family
came from the province of Bukovina which had changed
hands several times between Russia and Rumania — and in
meeting Russian soldiers he felt he had a God-given oppor-
tunity and a God-given mission.
His very first encounter with a Russian prisoner of war
moved him to tears.
'He told me he was an engineer,' Richard wrote after-
wards. 'I asked if he believed in God. If he had said "No", I
would not have minded it much. It is the right of every man
to believe or disbelieve. But when I asked him if he believed
in God, he lifted towards me eyes without understanding

42	RICHARD  WURMBRAND „
and said : "I have no such military order to believe. If I have
an order I will believe." '
Bucharest was under constant attack from the air by the
Russian airforce. As soon as the sirens sounded, Richard
would hurry to the nearest air-raid shelter and take the op-
portunity of preaching the Word of God, thus reaching
Rumanians as well as Jews.
The very first air-raid took place on one of the many oc-
casions when Richard was under arrest. He was, in fact, ac-
tually in the middle of being tried, along with six other
brethren. When the 'Alert' was sounded, the prisoners were
bundled into the nearest air-raid shelter by an armed guard
and there they were joined by the judge, the lawyers, the
court officials and members of the public. The drone of
heavy bombers, the whine and crump of falling bombs was
terrifying. The shelter shook with the violence of the explo-
sions and dust showered down. Everyone was frightened;
somebody screamed. Then, above the moans of terror and
the crash of bombs, Richard's voice rang out clearly and
calmly: 'Let us all kneel and I will say a prayer.' They all
knelt: judge, lawyers, armed guard and public. Richard
prayed and everyone crossed themselves and said 'Amen*.
Then, without any interruption, Richard went on to preach
to an attentive audience about the need always to be pre-
pared to meet one's God.
The 'All Clear' sounded.
Immediately, the guard seized Richard and the other pris-
oners by the collar and marched them back to the
courtroom. The trial was resumed and the judge who, only a
short while before, had been on his knees before Richard
now sentenced him to a term of imprisonment!
In the years between 1941 and 1944, Richard was gaoled
several times by the Fascists and the Nazis before they
themselves were overthrown and themselves became the
hunted. He endured interrogations and beatings on
many occassions but they never broke his spirit. Indeed,

FASCIST TERROR	43
these years under Fascist oppression were turned to
advantage.
'They taught us,' Richard wrote, 'that physical beatings
could be endured, that the human spirit with God's help can
survive horrible tortures. They taught us the technique of
secret Christian work.'
He was to need all this preparation for the far worse
ordeal that was soon to come. The tide of war was turning
against Germany. Richard was about to face the Commu-
nists.

CHAPTER 4
The Pastor
By the spring of 1944, the Russian army had rolled back
the combined German and Rumanian forces and had
reached the frontier. Rumania had been long enough under
Fascists of one kind or another to recognise that salvation
did not lie that way. An anti-Fascist Communist 'People's
Party' had been formed the previous year, led by Gheorghe
Gheorgiu-Dej. On August 23rd this party toppled the An-
tonescu régime in a swift, armed coup. King Michael an-
nounced his support for the Allies and declared war on
Germany. Now Bucharest was bombed by the Germans in-
stead of the Russians !
Rumania had suffered so much under Fascism that when
the Russian army invaded the country, they were in the be-
ginning welcomed as friends. When the first columns entered
Bucharest on August 31st, 1944, Richard and Sabina went
out on a tram to meet them. This did not mean that they
welcomed Communism to Rumania ; rather, they welcomed
the opportunity of reaching with the Good News of Christ
representatives of a people brain-washed into atheism.
There was, of course, an official 'welcome' for the Rus-
sians: a rather nervous group of Rumanian Communists
carrying red flags, quavering the Internationale, practising
phrases of welcome in Russian and preparing to hand over
the traditional Rumanian gift of welcome to the
stranger — a loaf of bread, a handful of salt. Richard and
Sabina were not part of the official party. Their presence on
this momentous occasion was the result of one of Richard's
impulsive decisions and they had brought Bibles in Russian
44

THE PASTOR	45
as gifts. But when the first huge Soviet tank came to a halt at
the city boundary neither the official nor the unofficial gifts
were welcomed.
'Bread, salt and Bibles!' growled the Russian sergeant. 'All
we want is a drink. Where can we get some vodka?'
The Wurmbrands realised they would have to use a more
subtle approach.
The following day Richard was out with Mihai when they
saw their first Russian couple — a captain and a woman ser-
geant. They were having difficulty over their shopping for
they knew no Rumanian and the shopkeeper no Russian.
Richard offered to interpret and helped them over their pur-
chases. Although to Rumanians the Bucharest shops seemed
depleted of goods after the prodigal luxury they had form-
erly displayed, to the Russians they seemed rich beyond
belief. The woman wanted to buy some clothes and asked
Richard if he could recommend a good store. He seized the
opportunity for missionary work.
'I don't know much about ladies' clothes,' he said. 'Why
don't you come to our house for lunch when you have
finished your shopping and meet my wife. She will take you
out this afternoon and show you the best dress shops.'
The couple were delighted and wrote down Richard's
address, promising to be there within the hour. Little Mihai,
however, was disappointed. Although only five, he took his
father's duties as pastor very seriously.
'Father,' he demanded as the Russian pair departed. 'Why
didn't you talk to them about God?'
*Do you remember, Mihai, when you planted that apricot
stone?' his father replied. *You kept digging it up to see if
it had started to grow? Nothing happened, did it? Some
things need patience. A kind invitation is a seed. It will
grow.'
Mihai had a child's alert observation. He had clearly ab-
sorbed what his mother and father had said in his presence
about the Russian sergeant the day before. Now as they

46	RICHARD  WURMBRAND
walked home to the flat, he saw Russian soldiers coming out
of wine shops with their arms full of looted bottles. Even to a
child it was apparent that Russian soldiers liked to drink.
Did his father think the Russian captain and the lady would
also like to drink, he asked. So when the guests arrived, they
had a glass of Mihai's wine and then sat down to their
meal.
'First, we always say a grace to God in this house,' said
Richard. He said the grace in Russian.
The guests put down their knives and forks. Would he say
the words again? What did they mean? The girl recalled
that her grandfather had had some 'holy books' but she had
not read them because at school they were taught that re-
ligion was invented by the bourgeoisie to oppress the
people.
Sabina never did take the woman sergeant shopping. In-
stead, all four of them spent the whole afternoon talking
about Jesus. But it was not always easy; there was so little
common ground between them.
Richard told them the parable of the man who had a
hundred sheep and lost one and went in search of it The
Russians did not understand. 'How was it that he had a hun-
dred sheep?' they asked. 'Why did he not send them to the
collective farm?'
When Richard spoke of Jesus as king, the Russian reaction
was 'Kings are bad men who tyrannise the people; this Jesus
must have been a tyrant.'
When Richard told them the parable of the workers in the
vineyard, they nodded their heads in approval. 'Those
workers did well to rebel against the owner of the vineyard.
It should have belonged to the collective.'
Richard very soon realised that to preach the Gospel to
Russians after so many years of Communism, it was neces-
sary to use different imagery from that in the New Tes-
tament. He would have to translate the Gospel into Marxist
terms to make it comprehensible. It was something at times

THE  PASTOR	47
he despaired of achieving but eventually the Holy Spirit
showed him the way.
Later he was able to publish pamphlets dealing with the
relationship between Christianity and Marxism. He tried to
make these books attractive to Communists by using their
terms. For example, there were captions under the illus-
trations such as 'Jesus the Working Proletarian', 'Jesus driv-
ing the Capitalists out of the Temple'. Sometimes he and his
colleagues published works which appeared at first sight to
be pro-Communist. They had to do this in order to get the
books past the censor. They would have such titles as 'Re-
ligion is the Opium of the People' and the first few pages
would quote the sayings of Marx and Lenin. The censor,
seeing this, would pass the book and, equally, Communists
would begin to read it when it was given to them. Only by
the time they had reached, say, page ten would they discover
that the book was now all about Jesus — but by that time the
Christian who had pressed it into their hands would be six
streets away.
Even little Mihai played his part in the work of the
Church, handing out Christian literature to the Communist
troops. Russians love children and would often lift the little
boy on to their knees and give him sweets. They would
accept leaflets from a child where they might have been
angry with an adult.
He was an intelligent child and listened to the talk of the
grown-ups who flocked through the house. Already in his
short life he had experienced more of tension and drama
than many people ten times his age. Despite the pressing
demands on his time, Richard always made time for his son,
to teach him and tell him stories. Mihai accepted these
stories at their face value — with some unexpected conse-
quences.
One story that impressed him greatly was about a rich
woman who, when asked for food by a beggar, gave him
some mouldy cheese that she was going to throw away. The

48	RICHARD WURMBRAND
beggar did not care whether the cheese was mouldy or not;
he was starving. So he was happy. The rich woman felt that
she had done a good deed for the beggar, so she felt happy
too. But that night she dreamed a dream. She was in heaven
and there were tables spread with good things. Saints she
recognised were sitting at the tables enjoying the food. She
made to sit down with them herself but an angel directed her
to a small table set apart on which was the piece of mouldy
cheese she had given the beggar.
'This is your place,' said the angel. 'What you give, you
get.'
Richard pointed out that this story illustrated what St
John meant when he said that a man who had two coats
should give one 'to him that hath none'.
It so happened that after many years of 'making do',
Richard had just been able to afford to buy himself a new
suit.
'You have two suits,' said Mihai when the story was over.
•Now you must give one away!'
*Which shall I give?' asked Richard.
The one you want to wear in heaven,' said Mihai. 'Old
Mr. Ionescu must have your new one; then he can throw
away that smelly old jacket he always wears.'
What could Richard do in the face of a child's direct
logic? He had to make do with his old suit even longer.
The Wurmbrands had been utterly opposed to everything
that Nazism stood for. They had seen and heard of dreadful
crimes against humanity committed by German troops.
Equally they had been opposed to Rumanian Fascists.
Sabina in particular, having suffered the loss of her entire
family, had particular reason to hate them. But now the
Russians had arrived, these two groups were themselves de-
feated and in danger. Most of the German soldiers still in
Rumania were victims of war, starving and terrified. Rich-
ard and Sabina could not deny them help, even though the
penalty for concealing Germans was death. People used to

THE  PASTOR	49
say: You are taking foolish risks for the sake of murderers'
but Richard would not agree. How many Rumanians, he
asked, would have had the courage to refuse to become Nazis
if Hitler had ruled in Rumania? Indeed, how many
Rumanians had supported the Iron Guard? And had there
not existed even in Germany many brave souls who had
helped Jews to escape? 'We must not hate a whole nation
because of its leaders,' he said. 'And God is always on the
side of the persecuted.' Love, the outpouring of a heart that
hates the sin but loves the sinner has always been the motive
power of Richard Wurmbrand's ministry.
Consequently, the Wurmbrand home became a refuge for
German soldiers on the run, just as, a few months previously,
it had sheltered Jews hunted by those same Germans. If God
made no distinction and allowed His rain to fall alike on the
just and the unjust, who was Richard to choose which per-
secuted people were most deserving of his help?
One German officer they were hiding asked Sabina : 'Why
do you, a Jewess, do this for me? When the German army
recaptures Bucharest, you will not find me helping you.'
Sabina replied: 'My family were killed by people like you,
but Jesus commands us to love our enemies. You yourself
admit to murdering Jews. I cannot absolve you of that sin;
only Jesus can do that. I will protect you if I can from the
police but I cannot protect you from the wrath of God.'
One day a group of Blitzmädchen, girls serving in the
German army, appealed to the Wurmbrands for sanctuary.
They were terrified of being deported to Russia. Someone
informed on them and soon Richard found the house sur-
rounded by police.
Richard produced his identity card, issued under the Fas-
cist régime. It had 'JEW' over-stamped on it in large capital
letters.
'Half our family have been murdered by the Nazis,' said
Richard. T)o you think we would be likely to shelter
German girls?'

50	RICHARD WURMBRAND
The police officer apologised and withdrew. 'The whole
thing is obviously a mistake,' he said.
At the same time as they were providing sanctuary for
hunted Germans, the Wurmbrands were also entertaining
Russian troops and talking to them of Christ. There was a
constant danger that the two would meet but, under God's
providence, this never happened.
The Red soldiers were always stealing. One day two
young men in uniform knocked on the Wurmbrands' door.
TDo you want to buy an umbrella?' they asked, offering
three to choose from which Richard guessed were stolen.
'We are Christians in this house,' Richard replied. 'We
don't buy; but we have something to give.'
He invited them in and Sabina brought them some milk to
drink. One of the young men stared at her.
'Why, it was you who gave me the Bible,' he said.
'And you were the sergeant on the first tank into Bu-
charest,' cried Sabina in recognition.
The sergeant told them his name was Ivan. He still had
the Bible in his locker at the barracks.
'I've read it,' he said, 'and, you know, it settled a question
that was puzzling me. We have a Jew in our battalion. One
of the older men, when he was drunk, used to rail at the Jew
and say "You killed Christ". We all thought the chap was
crazy. We'd all of us, not just the Jew, been killing people all
the way from Stalingrad to Bucharest. We couldn't think
why he should remember someone called Christ more than
any of the others. But your Bible explained what the man
was going on about.'
It seemed such a tragedy that anyone could reach Ivan's
age without even having heard the name of Jesus. Later, he
brought the Jew to the Wurmbrand home and Richard
spent hours talking to them about the Bible, explaining
everything from Genesis to Revelation. In due course, both
young men became Christians. They visited the Wurm-
brands frequently and thoroughly enjoyed being in a home

THE  PASTOR	51
instead of barracks. When the battalion was posted, Ivan
brought a farewell present — a shining new electric fire.
Richard and Sabina exchanged glances. They guessed that,
like the umbrellas, it had been stolen — in gratitude for
being shown the way of Christ! They sent the fire to a needy
family who had been released from Auschwitz concentration
camp. They felt Ivan would have approved.
Richard was appointed pastor first of the Swedish and
afterwards of the Norwegian Mission to Israel in Bucharest.
The Mission also had a Norwegian pastor named Solheim.
Both men were asked to serve as representatives on the
newly-formed World Council of Churches. One of their
duties was to administer the relief funds sent from the west
to aid famine-stricken Rumania. First Germany and now
Russia had stripped and pillaged her resources. With
wholesale conscription of all able-bodied men into the army,
there had been left only the old or the maimed to till the
land, and the agriculture had been sadly neglected.
Richard and Pastor Solheim distributed among the needy
such clothes, money and food as they were able to obtain.
They also turned the Mission into a canteen where they
were able to give up to 200 people a day some little food to
keep them from starving. They looked around for larger ac-
commodation in order to extend their work. They succeeded
in renting an enormous place from a once-wealthy Jewish
doctor; one room was big enough for a ballroom. Richard
and Sabina took a few rooms for their own use; the 'ball-
room' (which could accommodate 200 people) became a
church and the rest of the rooms were used by the Mission.
The place was always filled with strange guests of differing
nationalities and persuasions. Once again, no stranger was
turned from the door and it was not unusual for thirty visi-
tors to be sleeping there — in the hall, on the floor, some-
times even in the bath.
During 1945, after the war in Europe had ended, the
Wurmbrand family grew overnight from one to seven ! Rich-

52	RICHARD WURMBRAND
ard and Sabina decided to foster six Jewish children released
from concentration camps. There were thousands of little
orphans like these, whose parents had been sent to the gas-
chambers. The children were thin, haunted-looking and in
rags but they soon began to laugh again in that loving house-
hold. Mihai was delighted. You told me I couldn't have any
brothers or sisters,' he said accusingly to his parents. *Now I
have three of each.'
Rumania had hoped that once the war was over and the
last Germans had been driven from the country, the Rus-
sians too would leave but this did not happen. Instead, the
Communists imposed on Rumania a puppet Prime Minister
called Groza. Young King Michael was powerless to oppose
the growing Communist strength. One by one, the various
Cabinet posts and Government positions were taken over by
men loyal to Moscow. When the Communists were in com-
plete control of the government, a Congress was convened of
all Christian bodies. It was held in the Parliament building.
Four thousand priests, pastors and ministers of all denomi-
nations attended. Such was their fear of Communism, they
elected Joseph Stalin as honorary president of the Congress!
One after another, the delegates rose to their feet and de-
clared it as their opinion that Christianity and Communism
were fundamentally the same thing and could therefore
work together. The proceedings were being broadcast and it
seemed to the Wurmbrands who were at the Congress rep-
resenting their Mission that to allow such statements to go
out over the air was like spitting in the very face of Jesus.
•Richard,' urged Sabina. 'Stand up and wash away this
shame from the face of Christ.'
'If I do,' he replied, 'you will lose your husband.'
'I don't want a husband who is a coward.'
It was wonderful that they were in complete accord on a
matter that they knew was bound to have far-reaching
consequences.
Richard sent up his card to the chairman with a request

THE PASTOR	53
to speak. The Communists were delighted at the prospect of
a representative of the World Council of Churches making
propaganda for them. Richard rose from his seat and made
his way down the aisle to the platform. Every eye followed
him and as he stepped up to the microphone a hush fell upon
the hall. The atmosphere was tense with expectancy.
Richard began to speak. 'When the children of God
meet,' he said, 'the angels also gather there to hear men
praise the wisdom of God.'
They were all assembled in the liall, he continued, as rep-
resentatives of their various churches and, as such, it was
their duty to glorify God the Creator and Christ the Saviour,
who died on the Cross. It was no part of their Christian duty
to praise earthly powers that come and go, to align them-
selves with a system that denied the very existence of God.
The intensity of the listening in the hall could almost be
felt. The platform party grew restless for the speeches from
the Congress were being broadcast throughout Rumania.
Suddenly the Minister of Cults, Burducea, jumped to his
feet.
*Your right to speak is withdrawn!' he shouted.
Richard ignored him and went on. The audience began to
applaud; Richard was saying all the things they had wanted
to say but dare not.
'Cut that microphone,' bellowed Burducea, but his voice
was drowned in the hubbub. The audience rose to their feet
and clapped as Richard continued his defiant address. Fin-
ally someone cut the cable of the microphone and his voice
could no longer be heard —but the audience had heard
enough.
'Pastorul! PastoruU' they chanted rhythmically as he
made his way back to his seat. 'The Pastor! The Pastor!'
From that day on, Richard was no longer a pastor in
Rumania; he had become The Past or — shepherd of a very
large and bewildered flock.

CHAPTER   5
The Church goes Underground
Despite Richard's courageous action at the Congress,
many of the Church leaders yielded to Communism in the
days that followed. One bishop had the hammer and sickle
embroidered on his robes and asked his priests not to address
him as 'Your Grace' any longer, but as 'Comrade Bishop'.
Some priests became officers in the Secret Police. One high-
ranking member of the Rumanian Lutheran Chruch began
to teach that God had given three revelations: one through
Moses, one through Jesus and the third through Stalin. The
tragedy was that many of these Church leaders who col-
laborated with the Communists denounced those faithful
pastors who refused.
Thus was founded the Underground Church in Rumania,
a sort of secret society of the faithful whose aim was to evan-
gelise, to preach the Gospel and, wherever possible, to win
children for Christ.
In his capacity as pastor of the Swedish and Norwegian
Missions and as a representative of the World Council of
Churches in Rumania, Richard had the perfect cover for
underground work. His official jobs gave him standing with
the authorities but his main work now took two forms. One
was to continue his help and ministry to the enslaved people
of Rumania. The other was by secret means to bring the
Good News of Christ to the million Russian soldiers who
made up the army of occupation.
The Underground Church had to use all manner of in-
genious methods to approach the Russians. Fortunately,
they discovered that there were, just occasionally, Russian
54

THE CHURCH GOES UNDERGROUND       55
soldiers who were already secret Christians and these helped
the work in many ways.
The Russian troops were eager for watches. They were
evidently unable to buy them at home so that in Rumania
they would acquire all they could lay their hands on, often
by stealing. The jewellers' shops were soon empty and if a
Rumanian whose watch had been stolen wanted to replace
it, he had to go to the Russian barracks and buy one there.
There were plenty available — sometimes Russian soldiers
walked around the streets wearing several watches on each
arm!
The members of the Underground Church spent a lot of
time 'buying watches' — though their real purpose in visiting
the barracks was, of course, to talk of Christ and to distribute
pamphlets.
The first time Richard went was the day of the Feast of St.
Peter and St. Paul. He spent a lot of time looking at watches
the soldiers had for sale, until he had gathered quite a crowd
round him. Then he casually asked: 'Is anyone here called
Peter or Paul?'
One or two were.
'Do you know what day it is today?'
Thus he began to tell them about the two great saints.
One of the soldiers, an older man, interrupted him.
'You haven't come here to buy a watch,' he said. Tou
have come to speak of the faith. Pease tell us more, but do
be careful.'
The man arranged that he would stand with his hand on
Richard's shoulder. Every time he squeezed it, that would be
a signal of danger and Richard would quickly start asking
the price of watches again. When the pressure was released,
he would carry on with his stories of Christ whom Peter and
Paul had so lovingly served. This visit was repeated on other
occasions and many of the Russian soldiers became Chris-
tians.
Some brave members of the Underground Church en-

56	RICHARD  WURMBRAND
rolled in the Secret Police in order to perform 'counter-
espionage' on the Church's behalf. Some Christian doctors
joined the Communist party for the sole purpose of gaining
access to the prisons, in order to bring assistance and news to
prisoners. Others deliberately took jobs in Government
offices where they could be forewarned, perhaps, of Commu-
nist plans. By such means did the Underground Church sur-
vive but often these brave people had to endure the scorn
and reproach of other Christians who thought they had gone
over to the 'enemy' and abandoned their Christian faith.
All the Wurmbrand family were involved in the work of
evangelism. Sabina discovered a talent for preaching and she
began to hold street corner meetings, drawing large crowds.
Indeed, on one occasion when speaking on the steps of the
University, she was mistaken for the notorious Ana Pauker,
the Rumanian Communist schoolteacher who had joined
the Red Army and had executed her own husband for 'devi-
ation' from Communist principles. No-one could understand
why on this occasion at the University Comrade Pauker was
urging her audience to repent of their sins!
Inevitably, it was only a matter of time before the King
was deposed. He was the one political obstacle that remained
between the Communists and complete control of Ruma-
nia. On December 30th, 1947, Groza presented him with an
Instrument of Abdication and told him to sign it. The King
refused. His palace was surrounded by Communist troops
and once again he was told to sign. He was told he was an
'unsettling influence' and warned that if he did not abdi-
cate he would be responsible for bringing bloodshed and
civil war to his country. The King signed and the People's
Republic of Rumania came into existence on that very
day.
Mihai, who was almost nine, was very concerned when he
heard what 'abdication' meant and realised that the hand-
some young King whose picture had disappeared from the
wall of his classroom was actually going to be turned out of

THE CHURCH GOES UNDERGROUND       57
his palace. He knew that his father had had an audience
with the King only shortly before.
'Why can't the King come and live with us?' Mihai de-
manded. He assumed that even Kings would automatically
turn to The Pastor when in need.
'We have no room,' said Sabina. 'Our house is already
full.''
'He could share my bed,' offered Mihai. 'It's a big one.'
'I don't think it would be big enough,' replied Richard.
*You see, the Queen Mother would have to come too, and all
the Court. They would need sixty cars at least to get here.
We couldn't ask the King without his courtiers.'
They could laugh over Mihai's innocent solution to the
King's problems but it was laughter that was very near to
tears. A fresh time of terror had begun. All opposition to
Communism was being crushed without mercy. Hundreds
and thousands of innocent people were 'liquidated' or
thrown into prison for the sole crime of holding independent
opinions. People became afraid to speak to each other in case
they dropped an indiscreet word and were informed upon.
Informers are at once the bane and the backbone of any
Communist society. They were to be found all through the
country from the highest offices of Government even down
to the youngest classes in the schools. Even Mihai, young
though he was, felt the tension of having to be careful what
he said to his teachers or to the other children in his
form.
He was sad, too, for his six 'brothers and sisters' had left.
After the war was over, Russia had annexed the provinces of
Bessarabia and Bukovina as part of the price Rumania had
to pay for supporting Germany in the war. It was decided to
re-populate these two provinces with refugees. Many
orphans, like the Wurmbrands' foster-children, survivors
from concentration camps, were being taken there. Richard
and Sabina dreaded the thought of this happening to the
children they had grown to love as if they were their own.

58	RICHARD  WURMBRAND
They hated the idea of their being brought up as Commu-
nists, indoctrinated with atheism.
An opportunity arose of sending the children to Palestine
where the new State of Israel was coming into being. Here
was a chance of a better life than in Bessarabia. It was an
agonising decision ; it was almost like parting with Mihai.
The children left aboard the Turkish steamer Bulbul,
along with many other Jews bound for Palestine. Weeks
passed but no news came of their arrival. Ships and planes of
many nations joined in searching the Black Sea and the
Eastern Mediterranean but no trace of the vessel was ever
found. It was assumed that it had hit a wartime mine and
gone down with all aboard. The ship never reached Israel
and none of the passengers was heard of again.
Richard and Sabina were distraught with grief, though
they tried to console themselves that the children had
perhaps escaped a more Ungering fate, for terrible things
were being done in Rumania.
The Swedish and Norwegian Missions being active, were
a prime target for the Communists. Organised gangs would
attempt to shout Richard down when he went into the
pulpit to speak, for he refused steadfastly to preach the Party
Une. Sometimes the hecklers would cause disturbances and
fighting would break out in the church. On occasion, the
opposition was so violent that Richard could only preach
with a solid phalanx of his congregation guarding the
pulpit.
Yet amongst all the violence and the terror, Richard and
Sabina seemed to move unscathed. They had their work,
their home, their friends, their little son. Richard had been
imprisoned under the Fascist régime and beaten on more
than one occasion but this was nothing compared with the
sufferings some people endured. His work was difficult and
dangerous but so far he personally was unharmed. How
could he exhort others to bear their cross with forbearance
when he himself carried so small a burden? This thought

THE CHURCH GOES UNDERGROUND      59
allowed him no peace. On many nights, he and Sabina
prayed that they, too, might bear their cross for Christ.
Richard knew it was inevitable, particularly after his
defiant speech at the Congress of Cults, that sooner or later
he would be arrested. Even so, when the day came, he must
have felt some inner turmoil beneath his outward calm. Yet
the Secret Police were nonplussed by his firm handling of the
situation. He would not go quietly with them, he said, unless
the family was first allowed to pray and sing a hymn. He
even suggested the Police sit down and listen!
All who were in the house knelt together in the room
where the Police were waiting. What were Richard's
thoughts then? Lord, is this the time of my testing? Is this
where the cross begins? They sang a hymn, and Richard
prayed and read one of the Psalms; then he went out quietly
with his captors.
Two weeks went by. Three. That was as long as he had
ever been detained under the Fascists. Four weeks. Five.
Sabina was beside herself with anxiety. She approached
everyone she could think of to help obtain Richard's release.
At last, reluctantly, she once again approached the most
powerful of their friends, the Swedish Ambassador to Ruma-
nia. Once again he took the unusual and undiplomatic step
of interceding on behalf of a Rumanian national. After six
weeks in prison Richard was released, but he guessed that
this had only been a rehearsal for the ordeal that was to
follow.
Friends urged him to leave the country. It was still pos*
sible, if difficult, to get away. It was tempting. Richard and
Sabina talked about it over and over again. Richard was
worried for his family. Was it fair to ask them to suffer? And
could he not do more for the Underground Church if he
went to the West? What purpose would it serve if he were in
prison? The Mission would have to close. Pastor Solheim
would not be allowed to stay on his own ; he was a foreigner.
And Richard might be put away for years. What good would

-   6O	RICHARD  WURMBRAND
it do to stay? And supposing Sabina were imprisoned as well?
What would happen to Mihai?
One evening, when they had almost come to a decision to
try to buy an exit visa, the words of Jesus came to them with
great urgency: 'Whosoever will save his life shall lose it,
and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.'
A day or two later, they were both at a secret meeting, in a
private house. Some fifty or so were gathered in prayer. Sud-
denly a woman spoke out loud: 'One of you is thinking of
leaving us but I say to you: "Remember that the good shep-
herd did not desert his flock. He stayed to the last." ' She had
no knowledge that Richard and Sabina had been discussing
flight but they knew Who had put the words into her mouth.
They were to stay.
One Sunday morning in February of 1948, Richard left
the house early promising to meet Sabina later at church. He
never arrived. He just vanished from the streets. v

CHAPTER  6
Kidnapped
Richard was in prison.
When the cell door closed on him that Leap Year Day of
1948, he knew that he faced questioning, torture, perhaps
years of imprisonment, even death. Yet he was not afraid.
It would be wrong to say that he was not anxious. The
very thing had happened that he had feared when he had
discussed with Sabina whether or not they should leave
Rumania. Whatever must she be feeling now? When she
found he was not at church, would she guess what had hap-
pened? Would she be told where he was being detained?
Would she be able to visit him? And what of Mihai? He was
only just nine — such a little boy to be deprived of his father.
Had they after all been fair to him staying behind in Ruma-
nia when they had known surely that one day, like today,
Richard would be arrested?
It would be equally wrong to say that he was not appre-
hensive. There was so much information inside his head that
the Communists would like to know: names of workers, ad-
dresses of meeting places, secrets of the Underground
Church. His enemies would stop at nothing to extract this
information from him. Gould he trust himself not to break
down under stress and betray his friends?
Richard knew, without being told, that this was not going
to be a mere six-week imprisonment. He had prepared him-
self for prison and torture as an athlete trains for a race. He
had studied the lives of great Christian saints who had
suffered for their faith and he had planned how he could
adapt their experiences to his own.
61

62	RICHARD WURMBRAND
Now the testing time had come.
He sat down on the plank bed and thought. February
29th. Leap Year Day. It had been a day of such bright prom-
ise when he had set out from home — was it so short a time
ago? Then he remembered something. In the Bible, the
words T)on't be afraid!' occur 366 times. Not merely 365
times, once for each day of the year, but 366 times which
would allow for Leap Year Day as well. And today was Leap
Year Day. It was a coincidence that immediately cheered
him.
Moreover, if God had made it so clear that he wanted
Richard to stay in Rumania, then surely He would give him
the strength to carry out whatever task it was He still wanted
Richard to do.
Therefore, he would not be afraid.
There was nothing in the cell to help him pass the time, no
books, no writing paper. The window was too high up in the
wall to see out. There was nothing to do but think.
He thought about how he would cope with his interroga-
tion when it came. They would be sure to make much of
the fact that he was a pastor. Priests were always told : 'As a
Christian you must tell us the whole truth about everything.'
Yet what purpose would it serve if he betrayed his friends?
It would not buy his own freedom, of that he was certain. He
would be found guilty whatever he said. He decided that, if
God would give him the strength to do it, he would try to
leave his interrogators more confused by the end of an in-
terrogation than they were at the beginning.
If there were an interrogation — that was the point. The
Communists had their own methods ; sometimes they would
not ask any questions for a week. There was nothing to do.
He just sat on his plank bed or paced up and down the
narrow cell. He slept as much as the cold and his thin
blanket would allow. Then one night at about ten o'clock,
the cell door opened and he was told he was wanted for
questioning. The guard made him wear dark goggles so that

KIDNAPPED	63
he could not see where he was going; it is unnerving to be led
along unfamiliar corridors in the dark. Eventually he was
pushed down onto a chair and the goggles were removed.
Richard blinked and turned his head, dazzled by a bright
lamp directed straight into his eyes. The rest of the room
was in shadow.
'Ah, Vasile Georgescu.' A voice from the shadows ad-
dressed Richard by the new name he had been given on his
arrest. You will find paper and pen on that desk. Take your
chair over there and write down about your life. We've
brought you here to confess to us.'
Such a vague request. A confession. A confession of
what?
Richard made up his mind that he did not care what he
said about himself, provided he did not incriminate any of
his friends and fellow-workers in the Underground Church.
He wrote about his life as a boy and a young man. Then, in
case the 'confession' might be read by Party leaders, he de-
scribed how for many years he had been an atheist like
themselves and what a sinful life he had led. That would
surely attract their attention and make them read on ! Then,
at great length, he described the events and thinking that had
brought him to a belief in God. He must have been writing
for an hour or more before he was told he had done enough
for that night and was led back blindfold to his cell.
He had expected that his 'confession' would be followed
by questioning on the following day but he was to learn over
the years that the communists did not work like that. They
were artists in interrogation, using every psychological
device to break down their victim's resistance. It was like a
refined game of cat and mouse. They used not to tell a pris-
oner anything. He did not know why he was in prison or
when he was to be tried. If he confessed, was he confessing to
the right crime? What did they want to know? There would
be long delays between interviews so that the prisoner
became nervous, starting every time he heard footsteps in

64	RICHARD  WURMBRAND
the corridor outside his cell. Were they coming for him now?
The prisoner would be in a constant state of tension and
uncertainty. There were other tricks to strain his nerves. He
would be told the date of his trial, and then it would be
postponed at the last minute, just when he had nerved him-
self to endure the strain of it. He would hear the screams of
prisoners, the sound of a firing-squad, and would not know
whether it was real or whether it was a tape-recording. Then
there would be silence. And time — unending, uninterrupted
time. Time to think, time to worry, time to panic.
So once again it was several days before Richard had his
second interview — in a basement room this time, just to
make it more difficult and confusing to reach blindfolded.
There was no ill-treatment — just questioning, going
through his statement line by line and asking him to give
further details. But at intervals his interrogator would shoot
a question at Richard that had nothing to do with his state-
ment hoping to catch him off his guard. He could never be
sure when one of these questions was coming and had to
watch carefully everything he said in case he should let slip
an indiscreet word.
Richard's next inquisitor read from a typed list of ques-
tions. 'Write down the names of everyone you know.'
That was going to need care. There were friends Richard
wanted to shield, but if he did not put down enough names,
his questioners would know his list was false. He thought for
a moment, then started by writing down all the names of
people openly and legitimately associated with him : Sabina
and Mißai, Pastor Solheim at the Mission, the church
officials, the caretaker and so on. He went on to write down
the names of as many Communist members of parliament as
he could remember, of known informers and the like. Any
names that were safe, provided he could keep on writing.
This type of questioning went on for months, all part of a
wearing down process before moving on to the next stage of
interrogation. Often, after a period of weeks, Richard would

KIDNAPPED	65
find they were asking the same questions all over again and
he would rack his brains to remember how he had answered
the first set of questions; otherwise he would face yet further
inquisition because the answers were different.
He was encouraged when the prison barber whispered to
him that Sabina was well and carrying on Richard's work. It
gave him a wonderful surge of thankfulness for he had been
desperately anxious lest Sabina also should have been ar-
rested and Mihai left to starve or to rely on the charity of
neighbours. It gave him strength to know they were safe.
Richard could not know how frantic was Sabina's search
for news of him. When he first disappeared, she had con-
vinced herself that he had met someone in need and had
maybe gone to their house and become so involved in their
problem that he had forgotten the time. Then she had
phoned or visited all the hospitals. No, no-one following
Richard's description had been brought into the casualty
ward. With a sense of foreboding, she tried the prisons. The
officials looked down their lists. 'Wurmbrand? There is no-
one of that name here.' She went from one department to
another in the Ministry of the Interior. People opened filing
cabinets. Looked through official-looking folders. 'Wurm-
brand? No-one of that name in our records.'
It was rumoured that Richard had been taken to Moscow.
Sabina could not, would not believe that this was true. Every
evening she laid his place at the table. Surely he would come
tonight; he had never been held for more than a few weeks
before.
In despair she appealed to the Swedish Ambassador again.
Perhaps he could at least find out something definite. He
tried. It was eventually to lose him his post as Ambassador,
but he tried. He went to the very highest level and asked
Rumania's Foreign Minister, Ana Pauker. She had her
answer ready: 'Our information is that Pastor Wurmbrand
has absconded with the money entrusted to him for relief
work. He is not in the country.'

66	RICHARD  WURMBRAND
It was many, many months before Sabina had any news,
and then only after wasting enormous sums of money in
bribes. One day a man came to the Mission saying he had
met Richard.
'I'm a warder/ he said. T)on't ask me which prison, but I
take him his food. He said you'd pay me well for a bit of
news.'
'How much do you want?'
The sum he named was exorbitant. If Sabina paid, she
would have practically nothing left. She turned to Pastor
Solheim. 'What shall I do?'
The pastor was doubtful. The man reeked of tuica, the
fiery plum brandy of Rumania. How much could such a man
be relied on? Solheim fetched a bar of chocolate from the
relief stores.
'Give this to Pastor Wurmbrand,' he said, 'and bring back
a message in his handwriting on the wrapper. Then we will
pay you what you ask.'
A few days later the man was back. He took off his cap
and carefully extracted a piece of paper from the lining. It
carried a single line of writing but in Richard's un-
mistakable hand : 'Dearest wife. I thank you for your sweet-
ness. I am well. Richard.'
That was all — twelve words on the wrapper of a
chocolate bar — but they were more precious and beautiful
to Sabina than the greatest love poem ever written.
She needed news if only to sustain her for she was
suffering greatly. It took all her Christian faith to rely on
Christ's promise: 'Be not anxious for the morrow.'
Men from the Living Space Office came to look over the
house. 'You have too much accommodation,' they said. 'And
a ten-year-old boy does not need a room to himself.'
So Mihai had to move into one room widi his mother
while the rest of the house was taken over by a captain in the
Security Police. Private property had been confiscated by the
State so Sabina had now to pay her rent to the government

KIDNAPPED	67
instead of to the doctor. It was hard to find the rent. She
had no income of her own, her small savings had long since
been exhausted on bribes, and she could not get work be-
cause she was the wife of a political prisoner.
'But it has been denied by the highest authorities in the
land that my husband is in prison ! '
'That is nothing to do with us. You cannot have a job
anyway because you have no ration card.'
Sabina trailed round to the department that issued ration
cards.
*No ration card for you,' she was told. 'You have no job.
We only issue ration cards to workers.'
*But how am I to live? I have a little son.'
'That's your worry.'
So Sabina had to earn money where she could, and jobs
that could be done without a work card were very poorly
paid — there were so many people after them. Miraculously,
each day her needs were met. There was never anything
over, there was not always enough, but there was something.
*Be not anxious for the morrow.'
It was as well Richard knew nothing of this ; he was strug-
gling with a dreadful decision. He had made up his mind
that if he was tortured, he would take his own life rather
than betray others. The problem was how to do it. The
guards checked the prisoners and their cells regularly for any
possible means of suicide — slivers of glass, nails, a razor
blade, a length of string. One day a solution to his problem
suggested itself to Richard. He had hardly slept at all for a
week so when the doctor came on his rounds Richard asked
him for sleeping pills. He was so dazed with lack of sleep, he
said, that he was becoming confused and could not remem-
ber the correct answers to the questions put to him in his
now daily interrogation. The doctor prescribed one sleeping
tablet each night and the guard would look into his mouth to
make sure he had taken it. But Richard managed to conceal
the pill under his tongue. By the end of a month, he had

68	RICHARD  WURMBRAND
thirty pills'hidden in a small slit in the seam of the palliasse
on the other bed in his cell.
Thirty pills would surely be enough to end his life if he
were in danger of breaking down. The thought of the little
hoard in the mattress gave him strength when he faced his
interrogators, but it made him depressed when he was
alone.
It was summer. He could hear sometimes in his cell faint
sounds from the world outside — the clang of a tramcar, a
girl's voice singing. Once he heard a woman's voice calling
to her children. 'Emil! Silviu! Gome here!' and his heart
ached for Sabina and Mihai. Once a feathery seed drifted in
through the cracked window pane and settled on the floor.
He remembered Mihai's apricot seed, and the Russian
couple in the shop, and the luncheon party with the bottle of
wine. He had told Mihai : 'An invitation is a kind of seed. It
will grow.'
What was God doing? If He had put it into Richard's
heart to sow seeds of love for Christ, why was He allowing
him to end his life before he had finished sowing? An answer
to this reproach came promptly. The following morning, a
guard came into the cell and picked up the palliasse with the
hoarded pills.
'We want this for another prisoner,' he said.
Richard's first reaction was anger that all his careful de-
ception to obtain the pills had been wasted ; then he laughed
and felt calmer than he had done for weeks.
If God so clearly did not want his suicide, then He would
assuredly give Richard strength to face what lay ahead.

CHAPTER  7
Joy of the Cross
Colonel Dulgheru, grand inquisitor of the Secret Police,
sat behind his desk. His hands, small and delicate as a
woman's, drummed lightly on the papers in front of him.
'You've been playing with us, Georgescu,' he said, indi-
cating the sheets covered with Richard's handwriting. 'We
have been patient with you long enough. Now we want
results.'
He began to question Richard about a Red Army man
caught smuggling Bibles into Russia. It was a new line of
interrogation. Up to now all the questions had been about
Richard's contacts with the West, about his work as a pastor,
nothing about his mission to the Russians. The captured
soldier was, in fact, a man Richard had himself baptised.
Perhaps a tiny hesitation on Richard's part made Dulgheru
suspect that at last he was on to something important.  .
That night, both plank beds were taken out of Richard's
cell and he was given only a hard upright chair on which to
rest. Every few minutes he heard the metallic click of the
shutter to the peephole in his door and knew that he was
being watched. If he dozed off for a moment balanced on the
chair, the guard would come in and kick him awake. The
process was repeated night after night for several weeks until
he lost all sense of time. Once his confused brain thought he
heard Sabina screaming in the next cell. Was it really she, or
was it a nightmare? Tn his exhaustion, he could not dis-
tinguish dream from reality. Dulgheru would come to the
cell in the middle of the night and continue his question-
ing there but on no occasion, despite the mental torture,
69

70	RICHARD  WURMBRAND
could the colonel extract answers that were of any use to
him.
T)on't you realise,' he screamed one night in exasperation,
*that I have the power to have you executed, now, this very
night?'
Richard still had the strength to say to him : 'Colonel, let
us try an experiment. I know you can have me shot as you
say, but put your hand on my heart. If you can feel it flutter-
ing, you will know that what I have said is all lies and there
is no God. I shall be afraid of dying. But if my heart is
beating calmly, you will know that I am not afraid. That is
because I know there is a God, that there is an eternal life. I
know that if you have me shot, I shall go straight to my
Lord.'
Dulgheru struck Richard across the face.
'All right,' he shouted. You've asked for it. Tomorrow
you'll meet Comrade Brinzaru.'
Major Brinzaru was the prototype torturer of the spy
film — large, brutal, with hairy arms like a gorilla and ugly
yellow teeth. He showed Richard the tools of his
trade — clubs, coshes, whips. He picked up a rubber trun-
cheon and tested it lovingly, as a man might try a favourite
golf club. He showed Richard the trade mark: 'Made in
U.S.A.'
Your American friends give us the tools,' he grinned. 'We
do the job.'
Then he locked Richard up in his cell again to think over
what he had seen. Strangely, Richard never had the beating
from Brinzaru. That night as he was resting on his hard
chair, the spy-hole in the door flicked open and Brinzaru
called through the opening: 'Still there, Georgescu? What's
your Jesus doing tonight?'
*He's praying for you,' said Richard.
Richard's first physical torture took place on the following
day. He was made to stand with his arms raised above his
head, finger-tips touching the cold plaster of the wall.

JOY OF  THE GROSS	JI
'Just keep him like that,' Brinzaru said to the guard..
Richard stood in that position for hours, till his arms and
legs were numb. When he collapsed to the floor in a faint, he
was revived with a sip of water and made to stand facing the
wall again. Guard relieved guard, day after day, night after
night, and still Richard stood, arms above his head, facing
the wall. His legs were swollen, his arms were like leaden
weights. The pain was excruciating. The wall seemed to
loom over him.
That way lay madness.
He decided to concentrate on walls that were mentioned
in the Bible. He thought of the verse in Isaiah which said
that Israel's wrongdoing had put a wall between God and his
people. That verse saddened him. The Christian Church had
not been vigilant. It had allowed Communism to grow and
spread.
He remembered the phrase: 'With my Lord, I leap over
the wall.' That verse gave him hope. God would sustain
him.
He thought about the walls of Jericho coming down,
about the walls of Jerusalem rising up. He murmured to
himself over and over again a verse from the Song of Sol-
omon: 'My beloved is like a roe or a young hart; behold, he
standeth behind our wall.' He tried to picture Jesus standing
behind him, holding him up, supporting his arms as Moses'
arms were supported on the mountain top until the Israelites
had won the victory. As long as he could concentrate his
mind on something, Richard could bear the pain.
From time to time, Major Dulgheru looked in on him to
see whether he was prepared to 'co-operate' and say how the
Bibles were being smuggled into Russia. When he had no
success, Dulgheru decided to change the treatment.
'Put your shoes on. Walk!' ordered the guard.
Richard fumbled to force his swollen feet into his shoes
but they would no longer fit. 'Come on. Hurry. Keep going
round. Walk!'

72	RICHARD WURMBRAND
Four paces down the cell. A wall. Turn. Two paces across
the cell. A wall. Turn. Four pages up the cell. A wall. Turn.
Two paces across the cell. A wall. Turn. Round and round
and round.
'Halt! TunTabout! Walk. Keep walking!*
Round and round and round.
Four paces up the cell. A wall. Turn. Two paces across the
cell. A wall. Turn. Four paces down the cell. A wall. Turn.
Two paces across the cell. A wall. Turn. Round and round
and round.
^    'Faster!'
Hour after hour. Day after day. Night after night. Round
and round and round. If he stumbled and fell, the guards
dragged him to his feet and clubbed him till he started again.
Round and round and round. His feet bled, his legs sagged.
He clung to the walls while the guards screamed at him. He
crawled on all fours. Round and round and round.
At last, through the agony and the exhaustion, Richard
forced himself to pray for the guards. And after that it
seemed that the cell was moving round him, not he round
the cell.
There were other tortures. Richard was trussed like a
chicken for the oven and hung upside down while the soles
of his feet were beaten; he was whipped; he was branded
with red hot irons; other things were done to him which are
too unspeakable to record. All the time he was urged to talk,
to co-operate, to confess.
After weeks of this treatment, Richard gave in. He
would sign any confession they wanted about himself. He
admitted to adultery, to homosexuality, to theft of the
church bells (his church had no bells but what did that
matter?). He admitted to spying and treachery. What
harm could such confessions do to him? God knew he was
innocent.
He was asked for the names of his accomplices. He wrote a
long list, with addresses. At least it would gain him a night's

JOY OF  THE GROSS	73
rest, without interruption. Brinzaru was delighted. The list
might earn him promotion.
A few days later, Richard was flogged again. Brinzaru had
checked the list. All the people on it were either already
dead or safely out of Rumania !
During all his years in prison, Richard never once be-
trayed anyone. By fixing his mind on Christ, he found that
even the most ghastly treatment could be borne. If anything,
it seemed to bring him nearer to Christ. When he was
flogged, Richard would remember that Jesus was flogged
and would rejoice to share His pain. When he was mocked,
he realised that the mockery Jesus endured could well have
been far worse than His crucifixion.
Richard had prayed for a chance to bear a cross for Christ
and his petition had most surely been granted. It is not easy
to understand how such agony could become bearable but
Richard was now discovering the truth of the promise Christ
had spoken to him eleven years before in that village in the
Carpathians :
'Do not fear the Cross! You will find it the greatest of
joys!'

CHAPTER  8
In Solitary Confinement
It was October 1948 and the beginning of winter. Already
there would be snow in the mountains. In the Calea Ra-
hovei, the prisoners shivered. Their frugal diet and tattered
clothing gave them nothing to withstand the cold.
The door of Richard's cell opened and the guard brought
in a plate of goulash — piled high, hot and savoury and
steaming. With it were four whole slices of bread. There was
more food than Richard normally had in a week. Tears of
joy trickled down his cheeks as he picked up his spoon; but
before he could eat even one mouthful the guard opened the
door again.
'No time for food now. Bring your things. You're moving
to a new prison.'
It was yet another refinement of torture.
Richard's new prison was underneath the Ministry of the
Interior which is a handsome building much admired
by tourists visiting Bucharest. They would be appalled
if they knew what lay beneath their feet. Mihai must have
walked hundreds of times across the square outside
the Ministry, unaware that his father was thirty feet below
him.
Richard's new cell was three paces by three. Being under-
ground, the only air came through a tube in the ceiling. A
naked electric light bulb burned day and night. There was
no window, no furniture except for the familiar plank bed
and straw pallet. There was not even the usual bucket in the
corner. He would have to ask the guard when he wanted to
use the latrines.
74

IN   SOLITARY CONFINEMENT	75
That was another carefully calculated horror inflicted on
prisoners. The guard would be too busy and the prisoner had
to wait. Or he would deliberately not hear the prisoner when
he begged and implored to be taken from his cell for relief. It
was a pain to contain oneself, an agony and a humiliation to
soil oneself. Some prisoners went without their scanty food
and drink rather than suffer this particular torment.
Richard's biggest trial was the silence.
No sounds from the outside world filtered down to his
tomb-like cell. There was not even the familiar clatter of
boots in the corridor, the clanging of cell doors that he had
known in his other prison. Here the guards wore soft shoes.
The cell doors moved smoothly on well-oiled hinges. No-one
spoke to a prisoner. His meals —bread and watery
soup — were placed silently on the floor. Instructions were
given by gesture. The prisoner's only chance of conversation
was when he was interrogated.
Richard had never been the sort of priest who devoted
hours to meditation. He was a man of action. He preached
with urgency. He loved people, overwhelming their doubts
about Christ by the sheer enthusiasm of his own faith. Now
he would have no props to that faith, no admiring con-
gregation, no dramatic conversions, no underground mission
to stimulate him with its dangers. He had no-one but God.
How real was his Christianity now?
As the months went by in that silent, underground cell, he
had many bad moments. Most of these were when his mind
dwelt on what could happen to Sabina and Mihai. Had she
been persuaded to divorce him? Was she in prison? One day
his control snapped and he beat wildly on the cell door
shouting: 'What have you done with my son? What have
you done with my son?' He screamed the words over and
over again until the guards rushed in and held him down on
the bed and gave him an injection that silenced him into
blessed unconsciousness. There were times when the cell was
thronged with all the people he had ever injured in his life,

j6	RICHARD WURMBRAND
provoking memories of sins he had hoped were done with for
ever.
But these were the bad times. God showed him how to
find a strength within himself.
He worked out a routine. It was possible to distinguish
between day and night by the visits of the warders with food.
As soon as he was sure he would not be disturbed any more
for several hours, he began a time of prayer.
He went over his day, thanking God that he was still alive,
expressing his gratitude for any small detail that might have
distinguished that day from any other day. He reviewed his
life, his work, his marriage, pouring out his gratitude for the
many blessings he had received, confessing everything he
could now recognise as a fault. Few men can have examined
their souls more searchingly.
Then he would preach a sermon as if to his congregation,
beginning 'Dear Brethren' and ending with 'Amen', just as
he would have done in his church. They were not always
good sermons. He had no paper to make notes, no books to
enrich his mind. He had to struggle to remember his Bible.
Sometimes he got the verses wrong or the books mixed up.
Other times he could not remember anything at all from the
Bible but he struggled to finish his sermon, no matter how
bad it was.
Among the most precious moments of his nightly pro-
gramme were the times when he sent out thoughts to Sabina
and listened in his heart for her reply. They really did com-
municate in this way. Sabina has herself recorded how she
would lie in bed and know that Richard was thinking of her
and would send her thoughts winging back to him with the
message 'I love you'.
Sometimes Richard would pretend he was Colonel Dul-
gheru and would try to understand why he was as he was,
what pressures he had to withstand, what his fears were. He,
too, was a prisoner — of the system that now held Rumania
in its grip. That way Richard would find it easier to pray for

IN   SOLITARY CONFINEMENT	77
him. Then he would try to look at himself as he imagined
Colonel Dulgheru would look at him. That also helped. It
even enabled him to pray for his torturers.
His thoughts turned to dancing, how in many countries it
was used as a form of worship. He recalled how David
'danced before the Lord'. He remembered a word of Jesus:
*Blessed are you when men come to hate you, when they
exclude you from their company and reproach you and cast
out your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice
in that day and leap for joy.' The first part of that verse was
true of him, even to the 'casting out of his name'. Did any-
one in this place know he was Richard Wurmbrand
and not Vasile Georgescu? If the first half of the verse
could be so appropriate, he would make the other half right
also.
So Richard danced — as much as anyone could dance in
a cell three paces square — leaping about the room like a
madman. The first time he did it, the guard really did think
he had gone mad. It was one of the guard's duties to watch
for signs that a prisoner's mind was beginning to crack under
the strain of imprisonment, for if he went to pieces a prisoner
would be of no more use for questioning. So the guard
rushed off to his canteen and came back with a hunk of
bread and some cheese and sugar, and broke the rule of
silence as he tried to soothe this strange, laughing, capering
figure. Richard ate the food gratefully, and remembered that
the complete verse in St. Luke's Gospel that had prompted
his dancing ran : 'Rejoice in that day and leap for joy — for
behold, your reward is great'.
It was a very large hunk of bread, far more than he
usually had in a whole week !
Thereafter Richard tried to dance some part of every day.
He did not receive any more cheese or sugar or bread but
the activity cheered him and helped to keep his body
less «n-healthy. The guards soon became used to his queer
antics.

78	RICHARD WURMBRAND
So the months passed and Richard disciplined himself to
cope with the boredom and the silence. It was no longer
boring or silent for him. God was very close.
During the daytime Richard used to play himself at chess,
using chessmen made of crumbs of bread pounded together
with scrapings of distemper off the wall. Thus he could play
black bread versus not-so-black bread. Eventually he found
someone to share his game.
One night he heard faint tapping on the wall beside his
bed. There was someone in the next cell. He returned the
tapping. Gradually, he and his fellow-prisoner worked out a
laborious code of tapping so that they could communicate
with each other. The man told him he had been a radio
engineer before he was arrested. Over the weeks that fol-
lowed he taught Richard the Morse code. By this means they
played chess together and eventually were able to converse
quite fluently. The tapping went on from cell to cell
throughout the prison. New prisoners came. Incredible
though it seems, the Morse code enabled Richard to preach
the gospel through the wall, to hear confessions and to turn
people to Christ!
One morning when his then neighbour had reminded him
that the day was Good Friday, Richard searched around in
the lavatory for something sharp and found a nail. He
scratched the name 'JESUS' on the wall of his cell. So small
a sign might bring comfort to some wretched prisoner who
came after him. Needless to say, the word was discovered
and as punishment Richard was put in the 'career'. This was
a sort of upright coffin spiked on the inside with nails. It was
all right provided its occupant kept perfectly still but, should
he sway or sag — as was inevitable after several hours — the
nails lacerated his body. Some prisoners had to endure the
career for a week but Richard was only confined for two
days. The prison doctor had warned the authorities that his
health was in a dangerously low condition. He was ema-
ciated and scarred and coughing constantly. His tuberculosis

IN   SOLITARY CONFINEMENT	79
had returned and he really needed drugs and good food,
fresh air and skilled nursing.
One day when the prisoners' latrines were blocked, he was
taken to those used by the guards. There was a mirror over
the washbasin and he saw himself for the first time for two
years. Long confinement without any daylight had made
him like a plant kept too long in the dark. His hair was thin
and lank, his face pallid, the skin drawn tight over the cheek-
bones. His always deepset eyes were sunk even deeper in
their sockets. He looked an old man, yet he was still only
forty ... forty-one ... forty-two? How long had he been in
this place where there was no time? Would anyone recognise
him now as the handsome Pastor Wurmbrand?
One of his interrogators was a young lieutenant called
Grecu. He pushed over a pen and paper and ordered Rich-
ard to write down the names of all the people who had com-
municated with him in prison.
'We know you are tapping out messages to each other.
Write down what these messages say and who says them.'
He went out of the room.
It was two years since Richard had held a pen in his hand.
He could hardly form the letters on the paper.
'I am a disciple of Christ,' he wrote, "Who has taught us to
love our enemies. I pray daily for all Communists, that they
may be converted and become my brothers. I cannot reveal
to you what other prisoners have said. That is between them
and God.'
Richard put down the pen and waited. Grecu returned,
picked up the paper and read what had been written. He was
silent for some time, then he turned a troubled face to Rich-
ard.
'Why do you say you love me? he. asked.
They had many discussions after that, under the guise of
'interrogation', but the information Grecu was seeking was
the sort Richard was only too glad to give him — the mes-
sage of God's love and mercy. Two weeks later, Lieutenant

8O	RICHARD WURMBRAND
Grecu in his Security Officer's uniform came to Richard in
his patched prison rags and began to talk about his own sins
against God and his fellow men.
Thereafter, for a short time, the burden of the prisoners
was lightened in a number of tiny ways. Grecu still had to
give lip service to the Communist party and it was danger-
ous and difficult to do anything for prisoners without its
being noticed. But to a prisoner, even a kind glance is like
water in a thirsty land.
It did not last long. One day Grecu disappeared. For all
Richard knew, he could well now himself be in a cell be-
neath the Ministry of the Interior.

CHAPTER  9
Room Four
Richard was in solitary confinement for nearly three years
before he was tried. Towards the end of that time, he was
very near death. The T.B. was markedly worse; now he
brought up blood whenever he coughed.
'We're not murderers like the Nazis,' Colonel Dulgheru
said to him. 'We want you to live — and suffer.'
Judging by their determination to keep him alive but still
hidden, the Communists must have set great store on Rich-
ard's importance to them. He was moved by night to the
prison hospital of Vacaresti, a converted monastery on the
outskirts of Bucharest. Even though he was so weak that he
had to be carried to the ambulance on a stretcher, it was
wonderful to see the moon and stars again.
Before being lifted into the hospital, his head was
wrapped in a sheet lest he be recognised. He was put in a
separate cell from the rest of the hospital inmates. No-one
was allowed to see him except the prison doctor and then
only with a guard present. Richard was too weak to leave his
bed. Often he tossed in delirium, but there were lucid
moments when he could look through the small window and
see the sky. No longer was he cocooned in the silence of his
underground cell. Here he could hear a bird singing. There
was joy, too, in that his guard was a secret Christian. There
was little the man dare do to ease Richard's lot — warders
had been sentenced to as much as twelve years merely for
giving an apple or a cigarette to a prisoner — but it was like
a blessing to Richard even to be able to hear the name of
Christ whispered in his ear.
81

82	RICHARD  WURMBRAND
His trial, if such it could be called, took place in one of the
rooms of the hospital. By the time he had stumbled along
corridors with a sheet over his head and a soaring tempera-
ture, he needed an injection before he could even sit upright
to listen to the proceedings. His judges were four men and
one woman.
'A lawyer has been nominated to defend you,' he was told
by the President of the court. 'He has waived your right to
call witnesses.'
The prosecutor gave a long catalogue of Richard's alleged
crimes: spy work through the World Council of Churches,
spreading imperialist ideology, infiltrating the Party ... The
accusations meant nothing to him. The room whirled. He
was slipping into unconsciousness again. Another injection
revived him. His defence lawyer was on his feet. They had
been given no opportunity to speak together but that did not
matter; there was nothing the lawyer could say. He was only
there to make a pretence of justice.
'Have you anything to say?' demanded the President.
'I love God,' murmured Richard as the room blurred
round him.
He was just conscious enough to hear his sentence, twenty
years' hard labour. Then he was hooded with the sheet and
dragged back to his bed. The trial had taken ten minutes.
Shortly afterwards, he was taken to the prison at Tirgul-
Ocna, a small town in the foothills of the Carpathians some
two hundred miles north of Bucharest. The train journey
took two days. There were some forty men and women in
the goods wagon with Richard, all of them sick with tu-
berculosis; all, like Richard, wearing fifty-pound chains
riveted round their ankles.
It was cheering to find that his new prison doctor was an
old family friend, Dr. Aldea — a prisoner like himself but
allowed to practise medicine among his fellows.
'I won't deceive you,' he said after examining Richard
thoroughly. You have about two weeks to live. Try to eat

ROOM   FOUR	83
what you can. The food here isn't good but it is better than
nothing.'
Richard was moved into a bed in Room 4. That in itself
was a sentence of death. Only the hopeless medical cases
went there. No-one had ever left Room 4 except to be put in
his grave.
For two weeks Richard hovered on the brink of death. He
coughed up blood and pus, his body ran with sores. Dr.
Aldea had no drugs to offer him; there was no nursing of any
kind. Slightly less sick prisoners attended to the needs of
those who could not help themselves, but they could do little
for Richard except give him sips of water when he choked
and turn him on his side when he groaned.
But after the two weeks had gone by, he was still clinging
to life.
Room 4 contained twelve beds. It was quiet but not silent.
When men know they are dying, they have no time to quar-
rel; they need their companions for comfort and assurance.
No warders disturbed the peaceful fellowship of Room 4
because there were no warders. None was prepared to run
the risk of being infected with T.B. All chores were done by
prisoners from the other wards.
Richard spent two years in Room 4, from 1951 to 1953,
not the two weeks Dr. Aldea had predicted. He saw scores of
men die, some quickly, some after lingering illness, but all of
them at peace. Some men who were brought in were 'intel-
lectuals' like himself, some were former Fascists, others were
Communists already the victims of their own party. There
were saints and sinners, landowners and peasants, priests and
criminals. Many were declared atheists, yet not one of them
died without feeling the need to make his peace with God. If
Richard had had no other evidence, if he had had no experi-
ence of his own to justify his faith, this fact alone would have
compelled him to believe that God exists.
Richard had been sentenced to twenty years' hard labour
but the first two years he spent at Tirgul-Ocna he was rarely

84	RICHARD WURMBRAND
strong enough even to leave his bed. After the years of soli-
tary confinement, it was wonderful to enjoy fellowship with
other men.
There was old Filipescu who would recite long passages of
Shakespeare. He had been a revolutionary since 1907.
'Pah!' he would say scornfully of the present Communist
administration. 'I suffered for Socialism before any of them
were born.'
But Socialism is not Communism, so Filipescu was in
prison.
There was Moisescu, a small, middle-aged Jew who had
been persecuted in the anti-Semitic days of the Iron Guard
and the German occupation. When the Iron Guard lost their
power and the Russian Army drove out the Germans, Mo-
isescu bought up all the stocks of green shirts he could lay
hands on, with a view to dyeing them blue and re-selling
them at a profit. That way he could make capital out of his
persecutors. But before he could finish all the dyeing, his
house was searched and the green shirts were found. Al-
though he was a Jew, he was accused of supporting the Fas-
cists ! So Moisescu was in prison.
The courage of the prisoners was heartening. Men who had
suffered all manner of tortures could still hope, could still
make wry jokes about their torturers.
Have you heard the one about Hell?' they would ask. 'A
Communist and a Capitalist both died and went to Hell.
When they got there they found there were two entrances.
One was marked "Communist Hell" ; the other was marked
"Capitalist Hell". They were both very afraid of suffering
hell-fire so they decided to sink their differences. They dis-
cussed at length which entrance to use. In the end the Com-
munist won the argument. ctYou come into my Hell," he
said. "It's bound to be better in there for it's always the same
under Communism: when there are matches, there's no
coal; when there is coal, there are no matches; when there
are both coal and matches, the furnace breaks down!" *

ROOM  FOUR	85
'Who were the first Communists?' asked a farmer named
Aristar.
*You tell us/ said the rest of the ward.
'Adam and Eve/ came the reply. 'And why? Because they
had no clothes, no house, they had to share the same
apple — and still thought they were in paradise!'
Jokes and stories helped the time to pass, took men's
minds off the pain of their illness. Richard, when he had the
strength, told dozens of stories. He told the parables of Jesus
which many of them had never heard. He gave the old
stories new settings to fit the prisoners' own conditions, bring-
ing wonder and hope into many an empty heart.
Prisoners from other wards sometimes came to Room 4
with small gifts to comfort the dying! At Easter a friend
brought a small twist of paper to a patient named Ga-
fencu.
'It's been smuggled in. Go on ! Open it!' he said.
Eleven pairs of eyes from the other beds watched while
Gafencu's fingers fumbled to open the screw of paper. There
were gasps of wonder. Inside the paper were two shining
white lumps of sugar. Such luxury had not been seen by any
of them for years. Gafencu carefully wrapped up the lumps
of sugar and put them by his bedside.
'Thank you,' he said to his friend, *but I shall not eat them
yet. Someone may be worse off than I am during the day.'
A few days later Richard's condition deteriorated and he
was again on the brink of death. The sugar passed from bed
to bed till it was in Richard's hands.
*Do take it/ Gafencu whispered across the ward 'as a gift
from me.'
Richard thanked him but he did not eat the sugar either.
Someone else's need might be greater. For two years the
sugar passed round Room 4, twice coming back to Richard,
but every man who received it saved it for someone worse off
than himself.
Each new batch of prisoners arriving at Tirgul-Ocna

86	RICHARD WURMBRAND
brought snippets of news from the outside world. To the
occupants of Room 4 it seemed that life inside their prison
was no worse than life outside in so-called freedom! But
their cheerful resignation was soon to come to an end.
For some time, rumours had spread through the prison of
a new and frightening form of 're-education' of pris-
oners — a polite word for beating-up and even viler treat-
ment. Some prisoners under threat of torture had agreed to
swear allegiance to the Communist party and were formed
into an organisation called the P.C.C. or 'Prisoners with
Communist Convictions'. The P.G.G. were put in charge of
the 're-education' programme. Terror gripped Tirgul-Ocna.
The P.C.C. went mad in their brutality and inhumanity.
The things they did to prisoners are too nauseating to record
— and they brought the required results. Prisoners who had
stood up to months of interrogation broke down under the
attentions of the P.C.C. and denounced wives, parents and
friends. Desperation led the prisoners to revolt. Even Rich-
ard approved the planned demonstration.
*Jesus was a fighter when the situation demanded it,' he
said. 'He was not always meek and mild like the figures in
religious paintings. He drove the merchants from the temple
with a whip.'
The demonstration was planned for May ist, 1952. On
this day, Labour Day, the birth of Communism was cele-
brated with a holiday. The inhabitants of the town of
Tirgul-Ocna always had a football match in the stadium
next to the prison. Soon after the game began, there was a
crash of broken glass as prisoners smashed their windows.
They hammered on metal mugs and plates, they shouted
'Help us! Help us!' 'We are bring tortured here!' *Your
fathers and sons and brothers are being murdered!' The
football match was abandoned and crowds gathered outside
the prison. However, no protest by weak and unarmed pris-
oners could last for long against guards lashing out with rifle
butts. The prison became quiet; the crowds dispersed. At

ROOM   FOUR	87
Tirgul-Ocna, the régime was stiffened but merci-
fully— perhaps because news of the demonstration spread
throughout the country — there were no reprisals.
Each new prisoner had some different story to tell of the
oppression and misery under which Rumania laboured. One
account that particularly shocked Room 4 was that given by
Abbot Iscu of his experiences in the slave camp on the
Danube-Black Sea Canal at Poarta Alba.
The Danube rises in the Black Forest in Germany and
flows for 1,740 miles before it reaches its outlet in the Black
Sea. For many miles it forms the boundary between Bulgaria
and Rumania but when it is only forty miles from the coast,
it turns north and then east, meandering for three hundred
miles across Rumania's Dobrudja plain. The river's delta
covers a thousand square miles of marshland, a vast wilder-
ness of reeds and dwarf trees, threaded by innumerable shal-
low waterways. There are few human settlements here. The
area is the haunt of wolves, wild boar and otters; of pelicans,
flamingos and egrets; of whooper swans and sacred ibis.
There is, accordingly, no major port at the mouth of the
Danube.
In 1949 a vast project was put in hand to cut a ship-canal
through to the Black Sea from the point where the river
swings northwards. Engineers warned that the river did not
carry a sufficient volume of water at this point to supply a
canal as well as the river's natural channel. The engineers
were shot for their advice, and the project began. It was to
be a great prestige project for Rumanian Communism.
200,000 political prisoners and criminals toiled to build the
Canal, working in winter in temperatures of minus 25°C
and during the summer in heat like an oven. Living in ram-
shackle barracks, behind barbed wire, the slave labourers
had to shovel earth into barrows under the blows of the guards.
Workers died every day from exhaustion and hunger.
Richard was horrified. It was worse than the slavery of the
Israelites under Pharaoh. He would have been even more

88	RICHARD WURMBRAND
horrified had he known that his own beloved Sabina was a
slave there. The Secret Police had come for her in the
middle of the night of August 22nd, 1950. Fortunately, she
had sent Mihai away from the heat of Bucharest to have a
holiday with some family friends in the north. When he re-
turned, she was gone. Six months later— it was January 6th,
Mihai's birthday — she had left Jilava where she was being
held and started on the weary journey by prison train to
Cernavoda on the Danube. From there the new batch of
slaves were marched to the Canal.
Sabina suffered dreadfully. Being tiny, she was a par-
ticular butt of the guards who would toss her into the icy
water for sport and then fish her out again to shiver in her
wet clothes for the rest of the day. She ate grass and snakes
and rats and dogs to keep herself alive. If Richard had
known of her suffering, he might have broken down com-
pletely; mercifully, he did not know.
There were changes in the Government during 1952. The
three leaders who had ruled Rumania since the Communist
takeover were 'purged', including the hated Ana Pauker. It
made no difference at Tirgul-Ocna. Prisoners came and
went, men suffered and died just the same. It was a bitter
winter and the half-starved prisoners coughed and shivered
beneath their thin blankets.
In February 1953 something wonderful happened.
A prisoner called Avram Radonovici was brought into
Room 4 to die. He was another 'intellectual', a former music
critic from Bucharest. He was desperately ill with T.B. and
because it had affected his spine, he was encased in plaster of
Paris from chest to thighs. The other prisoners watched in
amazement from their beds as he put his hand into the top of
the dirty plaster cast and extracted a small, tattered book.
A book! Richard had not seen one since 1948!
•Would you like to borrow it?' Avram asked. Richard re-
ceived it reverently; it was a copy of St. John's Gospel.
The book went from hand to hand round the ward.

ROOM   FOUR	89
Everybody read it, savoured it, discussed it, learned passages
by heart. To Richard the book was a special blessing for it
distressed him that he was beginning to forget so many pas-
sages of the Bible which had once been dear and familiar to
him. As he read again the beautiful words, he was reminded
how their truth was demonstrated every day of his im-
prisonment. 'The Comforter', as Jesus promised, was with
him all the time, calming his anxiety, enabling him to bear the
pain of his illness, giving him the strength not to surrender.
In March of 1953, Stalin died. When the news reached
Tirgul-Ocna prison, hopes ran high that conditions might
improve. An official high up in the prison department in-
spected their quarters and asked if they had any complaints.
Most of the prisoners feared it was a trick and kept silent but
Richard spoke what was in all their hearts to say:
'Can you not see that we are victims of injustice? Perhaps
in the Party's eyes we are guilty men but we were sentenced
to prison, not a long-drawn-out death sentence. Look at our
food, our lack of heating and medicine, look at the dirt and the
disease. Ask about the barbarities men have endured. In God's
name, do not wash your hands of us as Pilate did of Christ.'
Encouraged by Richard's outspokenness, some of the
others ventured to speak. The Inspector looked and listened
and went away to make his report. A week later, the prison
commandant was dismissed. After that, conditions at Tirgul-
Ocna improved. With better food, Richard became slightly
stronger and, for the first time in two years, was able to sit
out of bed and even begin to walk a little. Dr. Aldea brought
another doctor to see him and they examined him
thoroughly.
*We can't make you out,' said Dr. Aldea. Your lungs are
like a sieve, your spine is affected. You have had no drugs or
medical attention. You're no better than when I saw you
first two years ago — but you are certainly no worse. I think
we will move you back to the general ward.'
Richard was the first man ever to leave Room 4 alive.

CHAPTER   IO
An Unexpected Reprieve
In 1955, Rumania was admitted to the United Nations. It
horrified those in prison that, despite the U.N. Charter bind-
ing members to political and religious freedom, they were
still kept confined. At least, however, there were changes for
the better.
Gheorgiu-Dej was now dictator of Rumania. He admitted
that grave mistakes had been made by the previous admin-
istration and promised to put them right. One of the worst
mistakes had been the Danube-Black Sea Canal. It had cost
millions of lei and thousands of lives, yet after nearly four
years only five of its projected forty miles were completed.
The project was abandoned.
While the prison discussed this news, one of Richard's
friends took him on one side and told him that Sabina had
been at the Canal. He had not dared tell Richard until he
was strong enough to take the news and now, piecing
together scraps of information gleaned from new prisoners,
he was able to assure Richard that his wife was alive, though
in hospital.
Richard was shattered by the news. For the first time in
years, he was unable to pray. Sabina in that place! How
many years had she been away from home? Where was
Mihai? But there was no answer to these questions.
For a while under the new dictatorship, each prisoner was
allowed one monthly parcel. With what expectation they
were opened and the food and cigarettes shared round! The
prisoners were allowed to state their requirements on a post-
card — this, in itself, a wonderful concession for up to now
go

AN UNEXPECTED   REPRIEVE	gi
they had not been allowed to write home at all — but the
items they could ask for were limited. Richard's card was
setting a problem for his friends in Bucharest. He asked for
'Dr. Filon's old clothes'. Dr. Filon was a small man, Richard
was six feet two. How could the doctor's clothes possibly fit
him? But it must mean something. At last they found a
solution. The 'old clothes' were only an excuse to mention a
doctor, and Tirgul-Ocna was known to be a prison specially
for prisoners suffering from T.B. They knew that Richard
himself had had the disease. The cryptic message must mean
that he was asking for any drugs that could be spared. The
Americans had discovered streptomycin ten years before and
it was producing wonderful results among T.B. sufferers.
When it was first announced, the discovery had been dis-
missed as Western propaganda but now, ten years later, the
drug's value was acknowledged. Richard's friends sent him
100 grammes of streptomycin — which he; promptly gave to
the inmates of Room 4.
Where some prisoners rejoiced only in the receipt of their
parcels, Richard had the added joy of knowing that his
parcel would be blessed with the prayers of all his friends«
They would know now for certain that he was still alive, that
their prayers for his safety had been heard.
A letter — the first over all the long years of his impris-
onment— arrived for Richard from Sabina. It contained
three sentences, all she was allowed to write, but it filled him
with joy. 'She was well. She was still confined to Bucharest.
Mihai would be coming to see him soon.' Mihai coming to
see him! Richard had left him when he was nine. Now he
was sixteen!
He was separated from his son by the length of the room.
Only a small grating allowed him to see the thin lanky youth
who answered to the summons of 'Mihai Wurmbrand'. All
Mihai could see on the other side of the grating was a shaven
head, a gaunt, grey face with enormous eyes and a white
stubble on the chin. But the smile had the sweetness he re-

92	RICHARD  WURMBRAND
membered. The boy's words came with a rush, in case he was
interrupted by the guards: 'Mother's well. She couldn't
come. She says to tell you that even if you die in prison, you
must not be sad because we'll all meet in heaven.'
That told Richard much. He had worried in case Mihai
had lost his faith.
'Have you food at home?'
'Yes, our Father is very rich. Hë provides.'
The guards sniggered. They assumed Mihai meant his
mother had divorced Richard (as happened in many cases to
long-term prisoners) and had married again, but Richard
knew what Mihai meant.
But what could father and son do with a few minutes after
a separation of seven years? The last time they spoke
together, Mihai was a child ; now he was a young man. They
could not even reach out a hand to each other. Both were so
overcome with emotion that they could find no words to
say.
The new leniency did not last long. The old restrictions
were restored, new ones devised — even petty tyrannies like
closing up the windows in the wards and painting them over
so that the prisoners had no fresh air and could not see the
sky. Richard's illness flared up again. In June, he learned he
was to be transferred to another prison. Dr. Aldea was
worried.
^You're not fit to move but there's nothing I can do about
it. But if you receive any more streptomycin, don't give it
away!'
The prisoners who were being transferred had to lie on the
ground in the prison yard while the blacksmith chained their
ankles for the journey. One of the officers who knew Rich-
ard's stubborn courage stood over him and mocked :
'Surely you have something to say about being put in
irons?'
Richard replied from where he lay on the ground 'Yes,
lieutenant. I'd like to sing you a little song*, and he broke

AN UNEXPECTED  REPRIEVE	93
into the opening words of the Rumanian Republic's new
national anthem : 'Broken chains are left behind us ...' For-
tunately for Richard, the transport arrived before the officer
had recovered from his shock.
This time Richard went to Craiova prison in southern
Rumania. Like Japanese porters packing commuter trains at
rush hour, the guards pushed the new prisoners into cells
already crowded. Bunks rose in tiers, each bunk containing
at least two men. More men squatted half-naked on the floor
or leaned against the walls. It was like a scene out of hell.
Richard spent two months there. It was noisy, insanitary and
squalid and these conditions made the prisoners hostile to
any attempt Richard made to preach the gospel. But all pris-
oners long for the same thing: relief from boredom. So Rich-
ard turned his sermons into thrillers. The prisoners hung on
his words, though one of them said : 'Pastor, I've heard many
crime stories, but none like yours, which always end with the
criminal, the victim and the policeman all going to church
together.5 He could have told stories for twenty-four hours a
day and still he would not have satisfied the demand. He told
them the life stories of well-known gangsters and criminals
and showed how lack of love had turned them to evil ways;
he broke up long novels he had read many years before into
serials : Dostoievsky's Crime and Punishment, Tolstoy's Resur-
rection, Hamsun's Hunger. The last of these brought tears to
many eyes for the food in Craiova prison was the worst that
any of them had encountered — and most of them had had
years of experience of prison food.
One day, however, the guards brought^in a huge canister
of onion soup, another of stew with real meat in sizeable
pieces. There were mounds of carrots and creamy white po-
tatoes, two bread rolls for each prisoner, a basket of fresh
apples. What could it mean? Had the American Army taken
over Rumania? They savoured every mouthful. An hour
later, one of the prisoners called excitedly from the window:
'Women! Look—there are women!' The rest crowded to

94	RICHARD WURMBRAND
look out. 'Oh, dammit, they're leaving.' Down below by the
prison gate they could see the Commandant saying good-bye
to a party of well-dressed ladies. 'A delegation from the
West,' a guard told them later. 'They thought the prison diet
was excellent,' he added maliciously.
The next day, the prisoners were back on rotten tripe and
cabbage.
During the next few months, Richard moved round sev-
eral different prisons. The journeys followed the same grim
pattern: the closed, crowded railway trucks; the shackles
that rubbed sores on his ankles that took months to heal. He
spent a short time at Poarta-Alba where Sabina had worked
in the forced-labour camp. The Canal project had been
abandoned and the old barrack huts where the slave labour-
ers had been housed were now derelict. Even so, they made
Richard feel very close to Sabina.
At his next prison, Gherla, Richard was allowed a brief
visit from his wife. They were separated from each other by
the length of the room, shouting distance away from each
other. An officer and guards looked on. Sabina looked so
tiny. Her hair was still dark, though streaked with grey. Her
face was lined but smiling, and filled with a peace and
beauty Richard had never seen before.
'Are you all right at home?'
Yes, we are all well. Praise be to God.'
'You are not allowed to mention God? interrupted the
officer.
'Is my mother still alive?'
'Praise God, she is stilt alive.'
'You are not allowed to mention God here!'
Sabina asked : 'How are you?'
Tm in the prison hospital...'
lYou are not allowed to say where you are in prison.'
'About my trial — is there any hope of appeal?'
lYou are not allowed to discuss your trial.'
Everything they tried to say to each other was blocked in

AN  UNEXPECTED   REPRIEVE	95
this way. Eventually Richard said : 'Go home, Sabina dear.
They won't let us speak.'
His tuberculosis worsened. He was sent back to the prison
hospital at Vacaresti where he had spent the month immedi-
ately prior to his trial. Two officers who arrived to interro-
gate him asked him what he thought of Communism now.
'I really cannot say,' was his reply. 'I only know it from
the inside of prisons.'
From Vacaresti hospital tb Jilava prison — the worst of
any Richard experienced. The name means 'wet place' in
Rumanian and it was aptly named. The prison was largely
underground, a warren of corridors and ill-lit cells where
water dripped constantly from the roof and trickled down
the walls. There was no spark of community spirit at Jilava.
It was a transit jail where men often met old enemies who
had denounced them and who were now denounced them-
selves. Here Richard met a familiar figure, Colonel Dul-
gheru. He was no longer arch-inquisitor of the Secret Police
but a prisoner himself, and terrified lest any of his former
victims should recognise him.
On a June day in 1956, Richard's name was called.
'Interrogation at once. Move!'
He rose to his feet wearily. The thought of more bullying
questions was almost more than he could bear.
'Come on ! Come on ! They're waiting !'
But there was no interrogator waiting. Outside the cell
there was only an official who thrust a piece of paper into
Richard's hands. It was a court order stating that under an
amnesty his prison sentence had been suspended. He was
free! He could not grasp the significance of what it said.
'But I've only done eight of my twenty years ...'
'Get going.'
'But look at me. I'll be arrested by the first policeman
I meet.. .'
'We've no spare clothes here. Move !'
The gate clanged shut behind him.

96	RICHARD WURMBRAND
Jilava is three miles from Bucharest. Richard shuffled
down the white dusty road in his broken shoes and tattered
prison garments. The air was full of the sounds and scents of
summer.
Dear God!1 he said out loüd. 'Help me not to rejoice more
because I am free than because You were with me in
prison!'
An old peasant and his wife came towards him. 'You come
from there?' they asked, eyeing his scarecrow appearance.
The man pulled out a leu, the smallest Rumanian coin, and
pressed it into Richard's hand.
A little farther, another woman stopped him. 'You come
from there?1 He nodded. They sat down on a wall together
in the sunshine and she asked if he had news of the priest of
her village, arrested some months before. She, too, pressed a
coin into his hand. 'For the tram fare,' she said.
People crowded round him at the tram stop. He was easy
to recognise as a released prisoner and all wanted to know if
he had seen their husband, their father, their brother, their
son. It seemed as if every family in Rumania had somebody
in prison. As the tram moved off from the terminus in the
direction of Bucharest, a policeman on a motor bike roared
up and yelled to the driver. Richard's heart almost stopped.
Surely they could not be coming to take him back ! But it was
only to report that a passenger had boarded the tram after
the doors were shut and was still clinging to the outside
step.
The woman next to Richard on the tram had a basket of
strawberries on her knee.
'Have you had any this year?' she asked.
*Not for eight years!'
She told him to eat his fill and he crammed his mouth
with the sweet fruit as the tram carried him into the familiar
streets of Bucharest.
When he opened the front door of his home, there were a
number of strange young people in the hall. They looked at

AN UNEXPECTED   REPRIEVE	97
him curiously. He was filthy and in rags, but Mihai recog-
nised him.
Tather!'
Sabina came and Richard's eyes blurred with tears as he
held her in his arms.
There was still not to be any peace. People had recognised
him on the way home and had been telephoning all over
Bucharest. The door-bell rang continually with visitors and
Richard had to stand in the hall in his patched prison
trousers tied up with string and accept the greetings of his
flock. Their Pastor had returned.
It was late that night before they were alone together.
Richard lay beside Sabina in the strangely clean bed. He
could not sleep. He went across to Mihai's room and looked
down at his sleeping son. So often in prison he had dreamed
he was at home, only to wakè to the emptiness of his cell. But
Mihai was there, and Sabina was there. And God was there.
He had come home.
T-D

CHAPTER   II
Back to Prison
Richard spent two weeks in hospital and then he returned
to the work of the Underground Church. The Mission was
still closed and he no longer had his job with the World
Council of Churches, so he and Sabina were very poor. But
at least they had a roof over their heads — quite literally so,
as they were now three people occupying the two small attic
rooms that had been allotted to Sabina and Mihai.
During Richard's imprisonment, Sabina had been unable
to obtain regular work and things would have gone hard for
her had it not been for their friends and for Mihai. The boy
had gone to work at the age of eleven for it was difficult to
find a school that would keep him. Whenever it was dis-
covered that he was the son of a political prisoner, he was
expelled. He managed to secure a job as assistant to the
piano tuner at the Opera House and with the small wage he
earned, he and Sabina had been able to survive. He had
continued his education at evening classes.
Richard could not rest. During his eight years in prison,
he had seen Communism at its most evil yet had seen how
the love of God could transmute that evil into a kind of
peace. 'Do not fear the Cross! You will find it the greatest of
joys!' He began to explain this to Sabina but found it did not
need explaining. She also had borne her cross in triumph
among the horrors of the slave camp and had come through
with a serenity that matched Richard's own. Now Richard
felt he must take that message of love to as many as would
hear it, and use that love to fight the evil of Communism.
He accepted an invitation to give a series of lectures at the
98

BACK TO  PRISON	99
University in the ancient town of Cluj. A zealous 'informer'
reported to the authorities that the lectures were to take
place and an official from the Ministry of Cults, a fanatical
Communist called Rugojanu, was sent to report what se-
dition Richard preached.
On the first evening, about fifty students and a few tutors
attended. Richard recognised Rugojanu at once as a spy.
The first lecture was to be on the theory of evolution.
'Was it not strange,' Richard began, 'that the new Ruma-
nia, so advanced and Socialist, rejected all capitalist ideas
except the one put forward by the English bourgeois,
Charles Darwin?'
It was a brilliant lecture. On the surface, everything Rich-
ard said was entirely in accordance with the Party line but
everyone in the audience, including Rugojanu, knew that
Richard was preaching the Good News of Jesus.
The following evening, the audience had doubled, and by
the end of the week, the lecture hall was packed with over
a thousand students and lecturers. The atmosphere was
charged with expectation, like the time of Richard's defiant
speech at the Congress of Cults when the Communists first
came to power.
'Remember that there is always hope,' he concluded. 'The
wheel of life keeps turning. It put me in prison; now I ani
free. I have been ill ; now I am better...'
'Sedition! Sedition!' shouted Rugojanu. 'The wheel will
not turn. Communism is here for ever!'
'But I didn't mention Communism,' said Richard. 'I
merely said the wheel of life keeps turning...'
*But you meant it. Don't think you've heard the last of
this. I'll see you never preach again.' He did not interrupt
any more that day for he could see the enthusiasm with
which Richard's words were received, but the next day at
the Conference of Pastors he attacked Richard again. He
worked himself into a passion of anger and rushed out crying
'Wurmbrand is finished! Wurmbrand is finished!'

IOO	RICHARD WURMBRAND
He flung out of the building in his rage. A car, swerving to
miss a dog in the road, skidded, mounted the pavement and
crushed Rugojanu against the wall. He died instantly.
Richard no longer had a licence to preach but that did not
stop him. He worked with a sense of urgency for he knew he
had not long. He held his services in attics and basements, in
open fields and once, even, in the home of a high-ranking
official in the Secret Police who was on holiday and whose
maid was a secret Christian. But there was always danger,
not least from former prison friends turned informers who
begged for help 'for old time's sake' in the desperate hope of
picking up information they could sell in exchange for
bread.
After the crushing of revolt in Hungary by the Russians in
1956 attacks on so-called 'superstition' in Rumania became
even more violent. Churches were closed and turned into
Communist clubs or cinemas or warehouses. Yet more minis-
ters and priests were rounded up and thrown into prison.
Richard prayed: 'Lord, if there are any in prison that I
can help, send me back there and I will bear it willingly.'
They came for him at one o'clock in the morning of Janu-
ary 15th, 1959.
This time both Sabina and Mihai were present at his
'trial'. It was a repeat of the secret proceedings that had been
held in Vacaresti prison hospital so many years before. Once
again the proceedings took ten minutes. Richard's suspended
sentence was restored and increased from twenty years to
twenty-five.
After a few days in Jilava prison just outside Bucharest
Richard was taken to Gherla in Transylvania where he and
Sabina had had that brief meeting three years before. The
prison was terribly overcrowded, 10,000 prisoners being
herded into accommodation intended for 2,000. Once
again, Richard had to share a bunk in one of the gloomy
barrack-like cells. Discipline was harsh. Prisoners were
flogged — twenty-five   lashes — for   the   slightest   offence.

BACK TO  PRISON	101
Everyone committed at least one 'offence' during his stay.
Richard and a high-ranking member of the Orthodox
Church were assigned, among other jobs, the unplea-
sant task of emptying the slops for the hundred men in their
cell.
There were not only priests and intellectuals there but
murderers, thieves and war criminals. They were bitter,
angry men and some of them saw a chance to work out their
frustrations by beating up Richard because he was a Jew. A
warder broke up one such scuffle but in the poor light could
not recognise who was involved.
'Who did this?' he demanded of Richard.
'I can't say. As a Christian, I love my enemies. I don't
denounce them.'
So Richard was flogged for insolence — but at least he
earned the respect of his fellow-prisoners, even though they
did not understand him.
They did not understand him, either, when he refused to
taunt an ex-soldier for executing Jews during the war.
'Can't you understand that that was twenty years ago?'
Richard begged. 'He has paid for his crime with years of
hunger and beatings in prison. He's grown up since then.
Would you call a man illiterate all his life because he
couldn't read at the age of three?'
Once again, as at Tirgul-Ocna, the prisoners kept up their
spirits with riddles and jokes.
'A man travelling on a train has a wife called Eve and they
live in a red house. What's his name?' asked Gaston, a Uni-
tarian pastor. 'Can't you guess it? His name is Charles.'
*But why? We can't work it out.'
'Easy! I've known him for years.'
Archimandrite Miron (who shared Richard's job of
'slopping out') told what he swore was a true story: A prison
commandant was inspecting a batch of new prisoners.
'What is your crime?' he asked one man.
Tve done nothing, sir, and I've got ten years.'

102	RICHARD WURMBRAND
'And what is your crime?' the commandant asked the next
prisoner.
:cNothing, sir, and I've got twenty years.'
:cLying swine!' shouted the commandant. *Nobody in the
People's Republic gets more than ten years for doing
nothing!'
Richard was shocked one day to meet again among a
group of new prisoners Professor Popp whom he had known
at Tirgul-Ocna. Popp was one of the prisoners there who
had displayed great goodness and a strong Christian faith.
They had both been released during the 1956 amnesty but
had not seen each other since. Now Professor Popp
looked old, ill and depressed. He told Richard the reason
why.
On his release from prison, he had gone mad for pleasure.
He felt that time had passed him by; he wanted to make up
for the lost years so he spent every penny he had on pleasure;
he drank too much; he left his wife for a much younger
woman. Inevitably, for he was basically a good man, he felt
remorse for his foolishness.
'I wanted to come and talk to you,' he told Richard 'but I
lived miles from Bucharest. So I went to a local pastor and
confessed everything to him. I told him that if it hadn't been
for Communism, I'd never have been in prison in the first
place so really Communism was to blame for my troubles.
The pastor listened — and denounced me.'
Popp had been sentenced to another twelve years for
speaking against Communism but he seemed as if he could
no longer cope with imprisonment. One day soon after this
conversation, his control snapped and he attacked the room
leader like a madman. He was dragged off to the prison
hospital where he died the following day.
Inevitably, after this tragedy, there was much discussion
of life after death, even among the hardened criminals. A
man called Florescu, a professional thief, declared :
'I believe in what I can see, taste and feel. We're all

BACK TO  PRISON	IO3
matter, like this wooden stool I'm sitting on. When you're
dead, that's it.'
Richard kicked the stool from under him and Florescu fell
backwards to the floor. He scrambled to his feet and went for
Richard. 'What's the idea?' he demanded.
*But you said you were matter, just like the stool,*
reasoned Richard. 'I didn't hear the stool complain !'
Everybody laughed — even Florescu — and Richard went
on to develop his point that man has a spirit that makes him
different from inanimate objects. Everyone hung on his
words. When a man is in prison, with little expectation of
release, the idea of survival after death brings a message of
hope.
Pastor Gaston alone seemed unable to derive any comfort
from Richard's words.
'What is on your mind?' Richard asked him. 'You are
fretting over something. Why don't you take your problem
to Jesus. He will give you comfort and strength.'
Gaston sighed. 'You make it sound as if He was here with
us, alive.'
'Certainly he's alive,' Richard replied. 'I'll prove it to
you.'
Gaston shook his head sadly. 'How you persist!' he said.
'You're worse than a Communist!'
Shortly afterwards, Gaston was moved to a different cell.
They did not see each other again for several months and
then in bitter circumstances. Richard had been flogged yet
again on some trivial pretext. He was flung into the isolation
cell afterwards and found Gaston there in a dreadful
state. His back was a mass of bloody wounds and he was
weak and feverish. But despite his suffering, he insisted
that he must confess a big sin to Richard — the sin that
had been preying on his mind for months. He, Gaston,
had been the pastor who had denounced Professor
Popp!
'I was weak,' he sobbed. 'I couldn't stand it when they

104	RICHARD WURMBRAND
threatened me. But when I saw him here ... and then when
he died ! Ï can never forgive myself !'
Richard tried to comfort him. He told him how all
Sabina's family had died in a pogrom but how, when she met
one of the men who carried out the slaughter, she forgave
him and helped him to become a Christian and how, there-
after, the man's whole life was changed.
'Popp would have forgiven you, too,' Richard assured
Gaston. 'Particularly if he had known the pressures being
applied to you.'
But here was yet another tragedy of the Communist
system that caused a man to turn against his brother in the
faith, one member of a family to inform against the rest. At
least prison only made brutes of some; it made saints of
others.
Apart from an occasional change of population, there was
no relief at Gherla from the monotonous round of hardship,
cruelty and degradation. Month succeeded month, year suc-
ceeded tedious year. Sometimes it seemed that time and life
itself were standing still, like the clock over the prison gates
that had been stopped ever since anyone could remember.

CHAPTER   12
On The Brink
In March 1962 a new Commandant came to the prison at
Gherla. One of his first actions was to segregate prisoners
according to their former occupations rather than having
them all mixed up together. Richard should have been
placed in the cell with priests and clergy but because he
insisted that he was a 'pastor' he was grouped with agricul-
tural workers — 'pastor' in Rumanian means 'shepherd*.
However, the error was soon discovered and, after the usual
beating, Richard was moved into a cell with a hundred other
clergy.
This should have been the most peaceful and united cell
in the whole prison but such was not the case. Just as at the
time of his conversion, Richard had found it difficult to find
a denomination that seemed to him truly Christian, so now
he found that even Christian priests who were prepared
to suffer nobly in prison for their faith could not agree
together. Instead of having one united act of worship that
would witness for Christ before the Communist guards, they
squabbled over different forms of the Mass, over whether
the Virgin Mary was 'Queen of Heaven' or merely 'Patron
of Hungary*, and such-like questions of dogma. There were
scarcely two men of different sects who would say together
the Family Prayer, 'Our Father*. It was a tragic situation.
Time and again, Richard insisted :
'What matters is respect for the Scriptures as the only rule,
and salvation by faith in Jesus. The names and forms don't
count.'
The Commandant's purpose was succeeding most no-
105

IO6	RICHARD WURMBRAND
tably. By shutting up all the priests and clergy together, not
only did he deprive the other prisoners of any form of
spiritual comfort, he was also leaving the different priests to
destroy each other. Thus began for Richard what was to be
the very worst period of his whole long imprisonment.
It began with a series of 'indoctrination' lectures, often
ridiculous in themselves but all part of a clever long-term
plan.
The ridiculous side was apparent in the very first lecture
which was given by an earnest young political officer. It con-
cerned the eclipse of the sun that would shortly be taking
place. He explained the nature of the solar system and an-
nounced that since it was the desire of the People's Republic
of Rumania to broaden the views of the people, the prisoners
were to be allowed to watch the eclipse from the court-
yard.
Up went someone's hand. 'Please, if it rains, can we have
the eclipse indoors?'
'No!' replied the lecturer seriously, and went on with his
discourse.
The long-term strategy of the lectures was very clever. As
the weeks went by, the subjects of the lectures changed
subtly. From general information, they turned to politics,
from politics to atheism. All the time there were included in
the lectures reminders of what the prisoners were missing in
the world outside: food, drink, entertainment, sex. It stirred
up feelings and desires long kept under control. Men became
restless and frustrated. At first, the audiences at the lectures
were encouraged to ask questions — an opportunity Richard
seized on every possible occasion. With his quick brain, he
could usually run rings round the lecturer and show up the
weakness of his argument. If he was too impertinent in his
comments, Richard would be slapped around the face — but
that seemed a small price to pay for witnessing to his beliefs.
But it was all very puzzling. When years of torture, insult
and starvation had not weakened his Christian beliefs, how

ON THE BRINK	IO7
could a few lectures make any difference? Richard had not
anticipated how sophisticated the Communists had become
in their methods of indoctrination.
Loud speakers had been installed all over the prison soon
after the new Commandant's arrival. Now, as the lectures
got under way, they crackled into life :
'Communism is good.
Communism is good.
Communism is good.'
It went on for hours and hours so that, even when the tape
had been switched off, the words 'Communism is good' con-
tinued to ring in everyone's ears. It was the beginning of a
technique of 'brain-washing' which Russian and Chinese
Communists have brought to perfection.
As the broadcasts continued, so the lectures con-
tinued — now with more emphasis on worldly things.
'So much pleasure waits for you outside,' the lecturer
would say. 'And you can enjoy it, if only you will be sensible.
Throw away the outworn ideas you have had for so long and
come over to our side.'
Prison food, hitherto so scanty as to keep men hopeless
and apathetic, was now slightly improved so that all aspects
of men's appetites revived and deprivation became the more
cruel to bear. Richard suspected also that the food was
drugged.
"You've only one life,' the lecturer said each day. 'It
passes so quickly. We want to help you to make the most of
it. Why waste it in prison? Why not throw in your lot with
us?'
In between the lectures, the tape-recorders continued
their insidious message: 'Communism is good! Communism
is good!'
Many prisoners gave way under the strain — good men
who had withstood as much as fifteen years of imprisonment

IO8	RICHARD WURMBRAND
and torture weakened under this persistent attack on their
senses.
'I have been a fool...' they would cry. 'I have been misled
by Capitalist and Christian lies ... Never again will I set
foot in a Church ... Let me embrace Communism and
live!'
Though many in the 'priests' room' did recant in this way,
the remainder became more closely-knit in loyalty to their
faith. Old divisions were set aside and the cell became ablaze
with renewed faith. They all knew that their stubbornness
would inevitably lead to further suffering but it seemed at
times, Richard said, as if there were angels all around
them.  v	'     •
One Sunday morning, all the occupants of the prison were
ordered into the. yard to watch an hour-long play. The
action mocked Christianity, and the Commandant and his
officers laughed and clapped. Every time this happened, the
prisoners were ordered to laugh and clap as well, and when
the play was over each prisoner in turn had to go to the front
of the audience and make comments on the play. It was not
just enough to say that he had enjoyed it; he had to give
reasons. One after another went up to the front and repeated
some slogan against religion. It was not worth another beat-
ing to be defiant. How much easier just to say what was
required and maybe not be noticed for a few hours.
This was the problem that faced Richard when his turn
came. He walked slowly to the front, conscious that every
eye was upon him. He was well-known at Gherla. His name
had become a by-word for courage throughout the prison
population of Rumania; and many of the priests in the yard
that morning had been at the Congress of Cults in 1945
when Richard had spoken so powerfully for his Lord and
Saviour. Would he praise Communism now?
'Go on, speak!' ordered the Commandant. If he could
only break the stubborn ones like Wurmbrand, the rest
would be easy.

ON THE BRINK	IO9
Richard thought for a moment. What should he say?
Then he remembered Sabina's words, all those years before:
;cWash this shame from the face of Christ!'
He began: 'It is Sunday morning. At home, our wives and
mothers and children are praying for us at church or in their
homes. We should have liked to have been praying for them
but, instead, we have had to watch this play.'
There was absolute silence in the prison yard. He con-
tinued:
'Many of you here have spoken against Jesus, but what
have you against Him? You speak of the proletariat, but
wasn't Jesus a carpenter? You denounce wealth, but didn't
Jesus drive the moneylenders with whips from the
Temple?'
There was much more in this vein, with quotations from
Communism's own authors backing up Richard's case for
Christ. The Commandant shifted uncomfortably in his chair
but did not interrupt. Moved by the intensity of the listen-
ing, Richard forgot that he was in prison. He was no longer
cautious in what he said but openly preached Christ, what
He had done for mankind, what He should mean to every
man present.
*What is more,' Richard concluded. 'Just as every school-
boy is examined at the year's end, just as every factory hand
has his work scrutinised by the overseer, just so will every life
be judged by God !'
He turned and pointed an accusing finger at the Com-
mandant. Vou will be judged too, Major,' he said.
The prisoners broke into cheers but Richard knew it was
only a tiny victory. He would have to, pay for it. The next
day he was told two things : that his wife was in prison and
that he was to be flogged that evening for his insolence at the
play.
All the time he was waiting for the flogging, Richard was
worrying about Sabina. Her health had not been good since
her ordeal at the Canal. Where would she be sent this time?

HO	RICHARD WURMBRAND
The hours dragged by. Someone in the next room was
beaten. Richard could hear the blows falling, and the screams
of pain, but nobody came for him that night... or the next
night... or the one after. For six days, he was warned each
morning to expect his punishment before nightfall so that he
spent six days in tense expectation of the ordeal to come. On
the sixth night he was flogged, brutally, then flung back into
his cell where the loudspeakers were blaring :
'Christianity is stupid.
Why not give it up?
Christianity is stupid.
Why not give it up?'
The beatings, the mocking, the brainwashing continued.
Some men gave way; others continued to hold fast. One day
Richard was taken out of the 'priests* cell' and thrust, alone
and handcuffed, into a white-tiled room. It was brilliantly lit
and terribly hot Loudspeakers kept up the insistent mes-
sage:
'Nobody believes in Christ now.
No-one goes to Church.
Give it up.
Give it up.
Nobody believes in Christ now...'
Hour followed hour. Sweat soaked his body and trickled into
his eyes. The white tiles glared in the electric light.
'Nobody believes in Christ now.
Give it up... Give it up... Give it up...'
He wanted to put his fingers in his ears to blot out the
insidious voice but he could not for his wrists were tied.

ON THE BRINK	III
7 believe in God,' he shouted back at the loudspeakers. 7
won't give it up. / won't give it up. I believe!'
The cell became hotter as the heating was turned up.
'Nobody believes in Christ now.
Give it up... Give it up... Give it up...'
Richard began to say the Lord's Prayer. 'Our Father, who
art in Heaven ...' What came next? 'Our Father ... Our
Father ...' Surely there was more to it than that but he
could not remember the words. 'Jesus! Jesus!' he murmured.
Over and over again. 'Jesus ! Jesus ! '
He closed his eyes against the brightness and tried to turn
his thoughts inwards, away from the insistent message of
atheism. The Communists must be very afraid of God if they
were prepared to go to such lengths to defeat Him. That
thought comforted him and he became quieter, husbanding
his resources, for he did not know how many hours he would
have to endure this torture.
'Jesus lives,' he repeated to himself over and over again.
He lives. He lives.'
After a while he found his own thoughts were sounding
louder to him than the voices of the loudspeakers and he
knew that Jesus was with him in the cell, comforting and
sustaining him. He was even able to pray for the Com-
mandant who had decreed this treatment.
Tather, forgive them for they know not what they do.'
Jesus's words held a new depth of meaning. Could he blame
the Commandant for being ruthless if no-one had ever
shown him any other way of behaving? Richard lay on the
floor of the stifling, brilliantly-lit room and prayed for his
torturers.
The next morning, half-fainting from heat and lack of
sleep, he was led into another room and left alone. The room
was blessedly cool and fresh. There was a bed in one corner
with smooth, clean sheets; a change of clothes laid out on a

112	RICHARD WURMBRAND
chair; a table with flowers. Richard sat down on the chair
and wept. Comfort after so much suffering was just too
much to bear. When he had recovered his composure a little,
he noticed that there was a folded newspaper on the
table — the first he had seen since January 1959. It was now
July 1963!
The Commandant came in. What did Richard think of his
room, he asked. Was it not pleasant — an example of the
comfort he could enjoy under Communism if he would only
deny this foolish God of his, admit that it was all super-
stition. Richard pulled himself together with an effort. He
must not show weakness now. He picked up the newspaper
and pointed to the date.
'If there is no Christ,' he asked, liow is it that you date
your paper 1,963 years after the birth of someone who never
existed?'
He passed the next few weeks between the restful room
with the flowers and the white-tiled cell with the loud-
speakers and the blinding lights. On August 23rd, the day on
which Rumania celebrated the foundation of the People's
Republic, he was taken down to watch the television news
programme showing the celebrations and parades. He was
profoundly shaken by what he saw. There were bands and
processions, banners, crowds shouting 'August 23rd brings
us freedom!' Was this real — surely it was largely mass hys-
teria? When he was asked to give his opinion of the Freedom
Day Celebrations, he replied stubbornly:
'August 23rd freed our country from Fascism, but I was
free long before that. Jesus set me free from sin and
death.'
'Tell that nonsense to Yuri Gagarin,' laughed the Com-
mandant. 'He has been up in space and he saw no sign of
your God.'
'If an ant walked round the sole of my shoe,' Richard
retorted. 'It could say it saw no sign of Wurmbrand.'
More time in the punishment cell. 1963 moved into 1964.

ON THE BRINK	Il3
Early that year, Richard was visited by a delegation of high-
ranking officials led by. Negrea, the Deputy Minister for the
Interior. They had been studying Richard's case, they told
him, and although they did not agree with his views, they
respected his stubborn integrity. They felt the time had
come to settle differences. They would meet him half way.
They would forget what he had done against the State. After
all, they could use a man of his calibre...
Richard was wary. Was this a new trap? Why should an
important Minister come two hundred miles from Bucharest
to Gherla just to see him? Negrea was confiding: 'We made
a mistake, Mr. Wurmbrand, in attacking your World Coun-
cil of Churches. You are widely known abroad and we still
get enquiries about you. We're offering you the position of
Lutheran Bishop-Elect of Rumania. The present Bishop is
old; you would soon succeed him. All you have to do is co-
operate with us, point out how we are all working together
for peace and friendship. Just think what it would mean — a
high salary, your family around you, comfort, freedom to
preach ...'
It seemed a reasonable enough suggestion. After all, Rich-
ard thought, a lot of good could come out of such a compro-
mise. He asked for time to think it over.
Till Monday, then ...' Negrea shook hands courteously.
'I'll put your release papers through immediately.' He was
very confident.
Richard returned to his cell and prayed. He said later that
that weekend was for him his Gethsemane. Must he accept
another eleven years in prison when he could be with Sabina
and Mihai? Had he not suffered enough? But his heart
answered him :
'You know what "co-operate" means: inform on your
congregation, only preach what is acceptable to the
Party. Do you want to be "Richard Wurmbrand, Lutheran
Bishop of Rumania, by appointment of the Secret
Police"?3

114	RICHARD  WURMBRAND
He knew he must say 'No' and for the first time for days
felt tranquil in his soul.
He was kept on in the special block. The brainwashing
continued :
'Christianity is dead...
Christianity is dead . ..'
He was promised a visit from his family and sat all one
long day in a clean shirt waiting for them to come, not
knowing that there had been no visit arranged. He waited
and waited. Nobody came.
'They don't want to know you any more...' said the loud-
speakers. 'They don't want to know you any more ...' Rich-
ard wept with disappointment.
So the months slid by.
'Christianity is dead . ..
Christianity is dead . ..'
Almost, Richard began to believe the message of the
loudspeakers. Almost... but not quite. A tiny spark of faith
still flickered, despite fourteen years of imprisonment and
torture, despite the past two dreadful years of brain-wash-
ing.
In June, all the prisoners were gathered together in the
main hall of the prison. The Commandant addressed them.
There had been a general amnesty. All 'political' prisoners
were to be freed. It seemed unbelievable but it was true.
There had been a slight 'thaw' in the relationship between
the Communist countries and the West. Rumania's Prime
Minister, Gheorgiu-Dej, was making a gesture towards
greater liberality by releasing political prisoners.
Richard was one of the last hundred or so prisoners to be
discharged. They stood around in the shabby but clean suits
they had been given, waiting for their discharge papers.

ON THE BRINK	II5
"Brother Wurmbrand!' A voice hailed him. 'I'm so glad to
have found you. I've heared so much about you from your
son.'
The man introduced himself as coming from Sibiu. Rich-
ard turned to him eagerly.
'How is Mihai? What is he doing now?'
'He was well when I last saw him. We shared a cell
together.'
'Mihai — in prison?' Richard was appalled.
*You mean you didn't know? He'd been inside for nearly
six years.'
Nearly six years! That meant he must have been arrested
almost at the same time as Richard.
The Commandant came up at that moment. 'Well, Wur-
brand. What will you do now that you are free?'
T don't know.' For once, Richard was lost for words. 'I've
nowhere to go. I was told officially some time ago that my
wife had been arrested and -now I find my son is in prison
too. I don't know what I shall do.'
Richard had longed so much for this moment of release
and now that it had arrived, the taste had turned bitter in his
mouth. He walked out of Gherla prison into the bustle and
colour of the little Transylvanian town. He had nothing
except the second-hand suit he was wearing and a few lei in
his pocket. He spent the money on a bus ticket to Gluj where
he had given the defiant lectures at the University in 1957.
The friends he had hoped to find there had moved. It was
just one more disappointment heaped on top of the other.
He tramped around the town, making enquiries, and at last
found their new address. They were at home. What a
welcome they gave him! How they pressed him to
partake of cake and fruit, of all the best they had in their
house! But the cake and the fruit could not compensate
for the thought of the two empty attics that awaited him in
Bucharest.
Richard asked if he could use his friends' telephone and

Il6	RICHARD WURMBRAND
put through a call to his next-door neighbour in the capital.
The voice that answered was Sabina's !
Tt's Richard,' he said. 'They told me you were in
prison.'
There was confusion at the other end of the line, then
Mihai's voice. 'Hold on. Mother's fainted.' A pause, then
'She's all right now. It was the shock. We'd been told you
were dead.'
So Mihai was not in prison either. Giving Richard false
news of his wife and son, giving Sabina false news of her
husband, had been just two last turns of the screw. What sort
of sadists were these people that they could so relish spoiling
a man's joy at his release?>
There were crowds to welcome Richard when he arrived
at Bucharest station. The word had soon gone round and his
friends turned out with flowers to greet him. His head was
shaven, he was so emaciated he only weighed seven stone,
but the hollow eyes were as blue as ever. People packed into
their two attic rooms to talk to him, to shake him by the
hand.
The Pastor was back with his flock.

CHAPTER   13
Not Peace, But A Sword
Richard Wurmbrand spent several weeks in hospital after
his release from prison. Despite his weakness and his need to
build up his strength, people flocked to see him. He had
become a legend in his own lifetime.
Even when he was barely strong enough, he resumed his
work in the Underground Church, risking his liberty yet
again in order to conduct secret services and to preach the
Word of God to people long starved of spiritual food.
In vain the authorities tried to silence him. He was given a
licence to preach and allotted an 'official' church at Orsova
on the Yugoslavian border. The appointment was hedged
round with restrictions and he was required to report on the
people attending the services. He was instructed that his
congregation could number 35 and no more; if 36 should
ever attend, the church would be closed down. Richard re-
fused to take the appointment. He would not turn informer.
He knew that people were bound to flock to the church as
soon as it was known that he was preaching there and he
would not want to harm the little Christian community in
Orsova by being the reason for its church's closure.
Prime Minister Gheorgiu-Dej died and the easier times
following the amnesty came to an end. Restriction was piled
on restriction, making church worship more and more
difficult. Richard was in constant danger from the Secret
Police; informers were everywhere.
He could not rest. Rumania had recently opened its doors
to tourists from abroad and was visited also by delegations
from the West. They were given specially prepared tours
117

Il8	RICHARD WURMBRAND
and programmes and went back to their home countries
praising the great strides made by Rumania under the new
Republic, expressing delight at the 'freedom of worship'.
Little did they realise that the 'services' they attended had
congregations of atheistic Party members 'packing the
house'.
:tYou must go to the West,' Richard's friends urged him.
'Tell them the truth about our martyred Church. Be our
voice in the free world. That must be your work from now
on.'
It was not easy to 'go to the West'. It was not easy to leave
Rumania at all — but there were ways. The country was
short of foreign currency so it sold Jewish citizens for the
sum of £ 1,000 per head. Richard, Sabina and Mihai put
their names on the list. It took them a year to obtain permits
to leave. Richard's 'price' was inflated to £2,500 but friends
in the West loyally raised the money and at last they were
free — though not without menaces.
'If you speak against our régime,' Richard was told, 'we
can have you discredited, or kidnapped, or even killed.'
On December 6th, 1965 — the feast day in the Rumanian
Orthodox Calendar of St. Nicholas, patron saint of pris-
oners — they flew from Bucharest to Rome. Right up to the
moment of landing at Cimpino Airport, they still wondered
whether something would happen to prevent their escape,
whether the plane would turn back, whether they would be
prevented from disembarking. But there was no hitch. They
were indeed free.
Their visas were for Israel but the Jewish Welfare
Agency, discovering they were Christian Jews, were not
anxious to receive them. After frantic cabling and tele-
phoning, they obtained fresh visas for Norway where friends
of the Mission to Israel awaited them.
Everyone wanted to hear about their experiences. From
Norway, they went to Britain, to America. Richard was
called to testify before committees of the U.S. Senate and,

NOT PEACE, BUT A   SWORD	IIQ
later, of Congress. He made a moving plea for some, for any
action to be taken that would help the thousands still being
persecuted for their faith under Communism. 'One third of
the world is entitled to one third of your prayers, of your
concerns, of your gifts,' he said. He stripped off his shirt
before the assembly and showed the marks of torture on his
own body. At the same time as he urged prayers for Chris-*
tians in Communist countries, Richard also warned of the
danger of allowing Communism to spread.
'Don't think you only have a few Communists in your
country,' he urged. 'That is what we thought in Rumania
and look what happened. The free world is full not only of
small but fervent official Communist parties but also of
hidden Communists, waiting their opportunity to seize
power. They never give up?
He came to the West as a poor immigrant, possessing
nothing except a vision — a vision that had been born and
nurtured in prison cells, a vision of founding a Christian
Mission to the Communist World. For this purpose, he feels,
he was tested and tempered throughout fourteen years of
imprisonment and torture; for this purpose his friends were
enabled to buy his freedom.
Despite the threats that he was given before leaving Ruma*
nia, he felt compelled to write about his experiences. Tor-
tured for Christ has been translated into twenty-five
languages. He has made the world realise that the least a
Christian can expect under Communism is the loss of his job
or any chance of promotion; the worst is imprisonment, tor-
ture or even death, simply for the 'crime' of worshipping
God. The policy of the Communist state is to make every
citizen completely subservient to the system. Freedom of
conscience, freedom of worship are forbidden.
In 1967, Richard began to circulate a monthly news-
letter, The Voice of the Martyrs. Two thousand copies of
the first issue were distributed in the United States. Now the
newsletter is translated into thirty-three languages and is

120	RICHARD WURMBRAND
distributed in sixty-one countries. *Read and pass it on' is
printed in large letters on every copy, whether it be in Xhosa
or Afrikaans, in English or Chinese. CI cannot be silent until
all have heard and respond', Richard writes. And people do
respond, with their prayers, with their services, with their
money. The new Mission grows and expands just as the
missionary work of the early Church spread like wildfire
round the world.
Christian Missions to the Communist World have been
founded in forty-eight countries, from Iceland to India,
from Australia to Peru, from the Cayman Islands to Canada.
First and foremost, the Missions work to spread to Commu-
nist countries the Gospel, the Good News of Christ. They
want the message to reach not only the TJnderground'
Christians who are denied Bibles or other forms of Christian
literature, but also the millions of people, particularly chil-
dren, who are influenced by Communist doctrine only be-
cause they have never had a chance to hear anything else,
who have been brain-washed from birth, who have never
even heard the name of Christ.
The methods used by the Mission are varied and some-
times dangerous. Couriers smuggle literature under the very
noses of Communist Customs officials. The early Christians
risked their lives helping their imprisoned brethren; so do
Christians today. Sometimes leaflets are dropped from
planes. Balloons carrying a quarter of a million portions of
the Gospels were released on „one day when the prevailing
wind would carry them into North Korea. Hundreds of thou-
sands of Gospels are cast overboard in plastic bags where
ocean currents will take them to the shores of Red China,
Siberia, Albania, Cuba. Much goes astray, but enough gets
through to make the expense and effort and risk worth while.
Visitors to the free world from Communist countries —
athletes, dancers, musicians, tourists, diplomats — are pre-
sented with 'free gifts' of Christian literature. During the
Winter Olympic Games of 1968, a team from the Mission

NOT PEACE, BUT A   SWORD	121
went to Grenoble and distributed Gospels among competitors
from Communist countries. 'This is for old women,' objected
one of the Russians. The girl who handed him the literature
retorted 'Do / look like an old woman?' and that persuaded
the Russian to accept the proffered Gospel.
With the same dual role of encouragement and con-
version, broadcasts are relayed in fifty different languages
to countries under Communist influence. Money is smuggled
into Communist countries to enable secret Christians to buy
radios to receive these programmes or to finance the setting
up of secret printing presses to publish Bibles. Sometimes
the money goes to support the families of Christians im-
prisoned or executed for their faith, or to pay the extortion-
ate fines to which they are subjected.
The suffering of many of the underground Christians is
almost unbelievable. In China in 1968, three teachers were
publicly shot for teaching their class the Ten Com-
mandments instead of Maoism. Reports reach the free world
of the most cruel and sophisticated tortures being used to try
to break the reason and spirit of Christians — yet still they
maintain their faith and witness.
A Russian mother left with nine children to support after
her husband had been thrown into prison for his faith was
still able to write 'Glory be to the Lord that He has given us
also a little chip of His cross to bear.' Families such as these
need prayer support as well as food and clothing, so that
another important aim of the Mission is to encourage prayer
on behalf of the work — not only general prayer but praying
for Christian martyrs by name. To this end, individual cases
are described in the newsletters detailing the so-called
'crimes' of the persecuted Christians, together with their sen-
tences.
Richard Wurmbrand devotes all his energies to furthering
the work of the Missions. Through his books, articles, news-
letters and personal contacts, he organises protests on behalf
of   persecuted   Christians   through   Governments,   Par-

122	RICHARD WURMBRAND
liaments and Press. He exposes Communist infiltration into
free societies. In particular, he works among young people
in the free world who are vulnerable to the sinister and
subversive propaganda of Communist agitators. It is work
that calls for courage, but Richard has never lacked that
quality. 'My manner of life is continual attack against the
enemy,' he wrote, in April 1971, 'against openly manifested
Communism, and against wolves in sheepskins, Communist
tools disguised as pastors and priests ... Cowardice is cow-
ardice even if you call it common sense, caution, cir-
cumspection. My doctrine knows none of these, but only one
word: temerity.'
On October 22nd, 1967, a vast pro-Communist rally of
some 60,000 persons marched to the Pentagon in Wash-
ington. Richard hired a truck with an extending crane
(a cherry-picker') which lifted him above the heads of
the protesters and kept pace with them as they marched.
From this commanding position, he preached Christ to
the marchers through a loud-hailer, and described some
of the horrors Christians endured under Communism.
Afterwards, many of the marchers crowded round him to
hear more.
In March 1969, during a debate-before students at San
Fernando Valley College, U.SA., he had to struggle with his
pro-Communist opponent to get hold of the microphone. In
support of such action, he quotes John Wesley, that you are
a real preacher only if, under your influence, some are con-
verted and others get mad at you. Some people certainly
'get mad at' Richard Wurmbrand — but radical students
accept Christ after such meetings, so the effort is worth
while.
He is not without his critics. Much of this is because
people are too credulous, too easily taken in by high-level
assurances that there is freedom of worship under Commu-
nism. Richard knows otherwise, from experience. He is at
times bitter in his denunciation of the apathy and com-

NOT PEACE, BUT A  SWORD	123
placency of the Church in the 'free world'. If only the
Church in the West had the passion of the Underground
Church — how it would be on fire for God! What could it
not achieve!
Other critics attack the Mission's work of smuggling
Bibles into Communist countries as immoral. Richard
replies: 'We consider rather as immoral to leave souls with-
out the Word of God.' He justifies his methods by quoting
Paul's words in his first letter to the Corinthians, that he uses
'all means' to save men's souls.
But much of the criticism is due to the long arm of Com-
munism reaching out, as threatened, to discredit his work.
He has been accused variously of being a C.I.A. agent, a
member of the Russian Secret Police, a Jesuit agent, a Zion-
ist, an anti-Semite, a Fascist, a murderer, even that he has
never lived in Rumania and has never been tortured! None
of this deters him. He analyses and ridicules each new ac-
cusation in his newsletters as fearlessly as he faces each new
challenge on a public platform.
In March 1972 he was addressing an assembly of 4,000 in
Basle, Switzerland. The platform was invaded by some
seventy or so members of a Left-Wing youth organisation
who seized the microphones and began singing revolutionary
songs, with clenched fists raised in the Communist salute.
Richard's words were drowned by the noise. The singing
continued despite protests from the audience, so Richard
clapped his hand over the leader's mouth to silence him.
Pandemonium broke out. Richard was attacked. Even-
tually the police arrived and used tear gas to break up
the mêlée. The very violence of the attacks against Richard
is an indication of the truth and importance of his
message.
He is in constant danger of assassination or kidnapping
but that does not deter him. He was due to preach in
Munich early in 1970 but was advised not to go as a plot to
murder him had been discovered. Richard went to Munich

124	RICHARD WURMBRAND    """
notwithstanding. *You never know,' he said. "The one hired
as a killer might be converted.' In India in 1972, he received
a letter written in blood, threatening him with death if he
preached. He still went into the pulpit in New Delhi and
addressed a packed congregation. Whatever the threats, no
matter how wearying the journeys, he still travels constantly
all over the world — to Australasia, to Latin America, to
Africa, to Europe — preaching, holding public meetings and
debates, lobbying the most influential people in the countries
he visits to join in the struggle against Communism. The
very force of his personality sweeps aside any apathy and
indifference in the people he meets.
He did not want to take on another struggle when he
came out of prison. In his youth he had been dynamic, out-
going, eager to buttonhole the world with the message of
Christ. Fourteen years in prison had changed that. The
desire to convert men to Christ had not disappeared — that
was as great as ever — but now he had become a more medi-
tative man. So many years in solitary confinement had shown
him the beauty of quietness. In 1965, he would have loved
dearly to pass the remainder of his days peacefully with
Sabina, in study and meditation and prayer. But, as his sub-
sequent life has shown, it was not to be. Once again, he was
to ask why 'as sons of peace, we do not bring peace, but a
sword?' There is another story yet to be written of his life
since 1965. The stage is wider than before but drama and
danger are still as much part of the action.
As long as he has breath in his body, Richard will hate
Communism — but he will still love the Communists, just as
Jesus hated sin but loved the sinner. 'One must feed even
those who curse God,' he has written. *We must not be selec-
tive in our good deeds.'
Richard is in his middle sixties now. Despite his physical
suffering, his hair is only streaked with grey and his tall
figure walks erect, daring his enemies to do their worst. But
his eyes have aie tenderness and the glow of a man who has

NOT PEACE, BUT A  SWORD	125
descended into hell and, with Christ at his side, has come
back triumphant.
*A man really believes/ Richard once wrote, 'not what he
recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die
for.'
Such a man is Richard Wurmbrand.

Further Reading
Should readers wish to learn more details of the events
described, they are recommended to read the books listed
below. The author is sure they will be as much inspired and
challenged by them as she was herself.
Books by Richard Wurmbrand:
'Christ on the Jewish Road'
'If Prison Walls Could Speak'
'Sermons in Solitary Confinement'
'If that were Christ, would you give Him your blanket?'
'Tortured for Christ'
'The Soviet Saints'
'In God's Underground'
and by Sabina Wurmbrand:
'The Pastor's Wife'
and by Michael Wurmbrand:
'Christ or the Red Flag'

You will have read many true
stories of courage and faith, but
none greater than that of Richard
Wurmbrand who spent fourteen
years in Communist prisons.
Tortured, beaten, drugged, he
refused to deny his faith in God.
He came back, almost from the
dead, to tell the world of the
underground church which
worships in secret in many
Communist lands.
MARY DREWERY is the author of
ten other books, including nine for
young people.
Cover design/Vat Biro
UNITED KINGDOM	35p
AUSTRALIA (recommended) S 1.20
NEW ZEALAND	90c
CANADA	S1.25
ISBN O 340 17769 1