(Note: The links to the Romanian Video archive are available below or through the Romanian menu).

Petre Ţuţea was interviewed on his deathbed by Lucia-Hossu Longin, a well-known TV  journalist who made a long series of documentaries for Romanian National Television (RoTV), Memorialul Durerii ("The Memorial of Suffering"). This series is about communist repression in general,  with an emphasis on the gulag system of prisons and camps in Romania (before it was dismantled in 1965). Now available on DVD,  it features numerous images, places, documents and interviews with suspected torturers and former inmates. Many died of old age shortly after the films were made, and many suspects were never even prosecuted.

At that time Ţuţea was well-known to the Romanian audience, due to a few lively, brilliant interviews  and a documentary featuring a "virtual" encounter (through the TV medium) with  his famous close friend, Emil Cioran (see the video archive in the Romanian section for clips from that film). Here, Ţuţea has obvious difficulty speaking. Many have criticized Ms. Longin for this interview, but if she hadn't worked so hard to reach both former inmates and torturers, we would not be able to see the persons behind the unspeakable horror of communist repression, the  unrepentant perpetrators and their victims' deep physical and psychological scars. The whole series and especially this particular episode, about the infamous Piteşti torture experiment, is quite shocking and not recommended for minors (more details on the horrors of the prison in Piteşti here and here).

As usual, Ţuţea is quite paradoxical, a good example of what was callled his "socratic" irony (i.e. understated) manner of indirect teaching. (Note: neighbors and other acquaintances called him "Professor" although he never held an academic position). He refuses to recognize anything happened, precisely because it did (the implication is true!).  The strange reference to "suicide" also brings into discussion the relation between truth, value and sacrifice, and what is being said although at some level it remains unsaid. This may be considered Petre Ţuţea's testament, in  fact a painful moral exhortation addressed to the Romanian people.

- What do you think about this truth, of what happened inside [communist] prisons, should it be revealed?

- No, madam. NO! [I care] for the honor of the Romanian people.

- But do you think the torturers represented the Romanian people?

- These things happened within, and reflect [negatively] upon the brilliance of the Romanian people. I don't want to humiliate my people with such complaints.

- However, Professor, we must write the history of the past three, four decades...

- Write it in an abstract manner. I will not participate, on account of our national pride.

- But your own life is there, those years, part of your life happened there...

- How can I acknowledge, madam, that they slapped me? How is that possible?! [By default] I'd commit suicide if I made such a statement!

- Professor, if you were 18 right now, what would you do if you were young again, how would you think and plan out your life again?

- Just the way it was.

- You would not correct [or change] anything?

- Not a thing.

- There are so many young people today, after the [1989] revolution, who are completely disoriented. What advice would you give them?

- Do not, ever again, torture [and humiliate] your fellow human beings. It is a great shame and dishonor.

- Do you believe in the future of this nation?

- I do believe! Well, that's why I suffered [everything]. Look, if you take me right now, and put me against the wall [to be executed] on behalf of the Romanian people, I will shout, "EXCELSIOR!"