31 - At the Interior Ministry

Summary

We arrived at the Interior Ministry after four o’clock. We were taken in through the entrance opposite Hotel Excelsior, where the Information Bureau is now. The clerks at the gate signed the papers, and the secret service agents, who belonged to the presidency of the Council of Ministers, left. Titel Petrescu and I were invited to have a seat on the chairs against the wall of the courtyard and wait. To our left and right they put two agents who prevented passersby from talking to us.

“I think they’re going to let us go home,” Titel Petrescu said.

“I don't think so, Mr. President,” I said. As evidence, I told him the business with the ghost government dictated by Burdea, in which Titel Petrescu was minister of foreign affairs.

“But that's ridiculous, I never admitted to that. I said I don't know you or Mr. Popp. In fact, they only showed me your statements, not Popp’s, which proves that he didn't admit it either. I knew from barrister Rădulescu (administrative director at Reşita Company and member of the Social Democratic Party) that Mr. Popp was gravely ill and I ask myself if he is still alive. Then, even if he had admitted it (Popp didn't admit anything, because, being gravely ill, they couldn't beat him), the statements of the accused, unconfirmed by witnesses and material evidence, have no weight in court. It is a cheap affair, tied together with weak string. Such stupidity could only come from the mind of Burdea, who is a complete idiot.”

“What worries me very much, Mr. President, is the fact that the secret service submits a daily report on these investigations to the prime minister and others in the government and party, and Groza, who knows that the second meal was held at his request, has not intervened.”

“This is very sad, and raises suspicions. God, oh God, what is happening to us? I took part in the second International Congress of the Socialist Party in Paris, when we sang the International, dedicated to human rights and freedom, for the first time. And now look what is happening to us. I think there are almost 100,000 people in prison.