September 25, 2023 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1948, Richard Wurmbrand publicly stated Communism and Christianity were incompatible. As a result, he was imprisoned and tortured by the Communist régime of Romania. After serving a total of fourteen years, he and his wife Sabina—who had also been imprisoned— were ransomed for $10,000 and immigrated to America. Richard Wurmbrand founded the international organization Voice of the Martyrs and spoke throughout the United States. What you are about to hear is one of those talks.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Richard Wormbrand was
a Romanian Jew who described himself as an atheist and
a Marxist. He stole to get food as a child,
became a very successful self made businessman, married Sabina Auster,
also a Jew, and lived a life of self indulgence.
Worn down by destructive behaviors, he contracted tuberculosis. While in recovery,
(00:34):
Richard began reading the Bible, and shortly after, in nineteen
thirty eight, he and Sabina converted to Christianity. Richard became
a Lutheran minister and began work to expand the church
in Romania. In nineteen forty eight, worm Brand publicly stated
Communism and Christianity were incompatible. As a result, he was
imprisoned and tortured by the Communist regime of Romania. After
(00:57):
serving a total of fourteen years, he and his wife, Sabine,
who had also been imprisoned, were ransomed for ten thousand
dollars and immigrated to America. Warm Brand wrote more than
eighteen books, the most widely known being Tortured for Christ,
which was also made into a motion picture. He founded
the international organization Voice of the Martyrs, which continues to
(01:17):
aid Christians around the world who were persecuted for their faith.
We'd like to thank the Voice of Martyrs for the
story you were about to hear from Richard Warmbran while
he lived in the United States.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
The greatest crime which Communists commit is not the murder
of bodies. The Communists have killed sixty million men in
the Soviet Union alone. They've killed another sixty million in
(01:50):
Red China. They've killed one million in Little Cambodia. They've
killed one medion in Communist Ethiopia. But there exists something
worse than killing the bodies of men. It is the
(02:10):
rape of souls, the violence exercised against the minds of man.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I speak Russian fluently.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I remember my encounter with the first Russian lieutenant. I
asked him do you believe in God? I expected from
him that he will answer yes or no. God has
given to mankind the possibility of choice, and we can
(02:46):
say yes or no, not only to our fellow men,
we can say it even to God. But when I
asked him do you believe in God? Lifted towards me
eyes without any understanding, and said, we have no order
(03:10):
to believe if we will have an order we will believe.
Tears ran down my cheek. I had met a man
who has lost the most precious jewel which God has
given to men, to be a personality on your own,
(03:33):
which can say yes or no to faith or to
any other thing. He had become a robot, a robot,
a machine. He expected orders from Stalin, and afterwards from
Christiov and from Bridgnev, and in China from au the tongue,
(03:53):
what to believe and what to disbelieve. That is what
the communists do to the minds, to the souls of men.
Now we started the secret missionary work among the Soviet soldiers.
We preached to them the gospel. We distributed to them
(04:16):
Christian literature. And then I went to prison. My wife
continued the work. She also has been caught. Everyone is
caught one. And now we were in prison, and they
were very bad physical tortures. I will not describe them
(04:37):
to you. First of all, because there are children here
and very young girls and boys, So I will not
describe to you the physical tortures. But at a certain
moment they started the brainwashing. The brain washing consisted in
this that from five in the morning until ten in
(05:01):
the evening, seventeen hours a day. You had to sit
on a form on which there was no place to lean.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
You were not.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Allowed to rest a little bit your head on your hand.
To close your eyes was considered a crime. You were
under continual surveyance. You were not allowed to move. If
it eached you, you could not scratch yourself. If it eached,
you had to say to the warden, please, would you
(05:35):
allow me to scratch myself? And usually his answer would
be no. Can you imagine what a torture it is
when it reaches and you are not allowed to scratch yourself?
Just try for a try, Sit in a comfortable chair,
(05:59):
put a watch for you, and say half an hour,
I will keep my hands behind my back. Whatever happened,
it will begin to each Don't scratch yourself. You will
see you will not be able to think about anything
in the world anymore than just about the itching.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
You are not allowed to scratch yourself.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
If your nose then and you wished to wipe your nose,
you could not do it. First of all, we had
no handkerchief. We wiped our nose like this well, But
you had to have the permission of the world to
wipe your nose.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
And you could not move.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Seventeen hours a day. You had to sit, and you
had to hurt. You had to hear it uninterruptedly. Communism
is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good.
Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism
(07:06):
is good. Are your born already? I have said it
half a minute. They said it during hours, days, weeks, months, yees.
We had to hear uninterruptedly. Communism is good. Communism is good.
(07:26):
Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Christianity
is dead. Christianity is dead. Christianity is dead. Christianity is dead.
Give up, give up, give up, give up, give up,
give up. And when at ten o'clock in the night
we were allowed to go to bed, in our nightmares,
(07:50):
we continue to hear Christianity is dead. Christianity is dead.
Christianity is dead. Give up, give up, give up. This
was the worst torture to which Christians were submitted in
communist countries. Happily, Christ is God and knows everything beforehand,
(08:19):
and he has prepared a remedy against brainwashing. It is
art worship. When we were in these prison cells, the
continually hearing this devilish voice. At a certain moment, I
(08:44):
had not seen my wife almost thirteen years. I did
not know if she is alive. She had been announced
officially that I've hanged myself in prison, and the men
who post as former prisoners said, we have been released.
(09:05):
We have attended his burial. Yes, hangd himself in prison.
That is what you knew. And I knew nothing about her.
I didn't know anymore if I have children or if
I don't have them. At a certain moment, the communists
were very nice and gave us postcards. Here, Everyone write
(09:26):
to your family that on that day they may come
and bring you some parcels with food and clothing and
so on. We were very happy everyone wrote.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And you're listening to Richard Wormbrand's story story he told
for his country that adopted him after fourteen years in
a Communist prison. When we continue, more of this remarkable
testimony here on our American stories, and we returned to
(10:10):
our American story. So far, we've heard about the horrific
treatment Richard Warmbrand experienced from his Romanian Communist guards. Let's
pick up where we last left off, with Richard talking
about the promise made to all the prisoners that their
family members would be coming to visit them.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
On that day.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
They cut out air, as they shaved, as they arranged
us somehow so that we should look nicer for this
meeting with our mothers or wives. And we waited the
whole day until late in the night nobody came. And
the next day is the brainwashing. Nobody loves you anymore.
(10:55):
Nobody loves you anymore. Nobody loves you anymore, loves you anymore.
Your wife have forsaken you, your children have become communists.
We did not know that they have never sent these postcards.
Everything has been a deceit. But in the half dark
of the cell, hearing continually nobody loves you anymore, Nobody
(11:19):
loves you anymore, nobody loves you anymore, we believed it
that we're alone. The whole outer world has forgotten. Nurse
and al those who have passed through prisons, through communist prisons,
have kept a hunger after love for me. Now it
(11:42):
is not enough to know that brethren and sisters in
Christ love me. They have to tell me that they
love me, and they have to hug me and to
embrace me, and to make me very sure. Because during
years we have heard nobody loves you anymore. Nobody loves
you anymore. And that made us to repeat in the
(12:05):
same written in which they said Christianity is dead. Christianity
is dead. Christianity is dead. We repeat it in soft voice.
Christ also has been there. Christ also has been there.
Christ also has been there. Christ also has been there.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Jesus has given us a remedy against brainwashing. It is
heart washing, he has said.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Blessed are the puri in art because they will see
not the gray walls of the prison cell. They will
not see the heaven baths. They will not see the
chains at their hands and at their feet. They will
not see the rubber trencheons and the implements of tortures
of the communists. They will not see the torture ers.
(12:58):
Blessed are the pure in heart, because they will see
God and looking at Him, you forget the art god circumstances,
and we could resist brainwashing. Afterwards, I was released from
communist prisons. I came to America. Now I have not
(13:21):
come to tell you what you would like to hear.
I've come to tell you what is my message from God.
I have come to tell you also what you will
not like at all. I came to America, a nation
which is terribly brainwashed.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
America is terribly brain worsed.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And basically it is the same technique with the devil
uses under the communists. Their exists a conspiracy in America
not to allow you to think. And American is not
allowed to think as we were not allowed to think.
Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. So
(14:05):
Americans are not allowed to think. The first thing, when
I'm an American, he breaks from sleep, has not rapped
his eyes yet. He switches on the television and the radio,
and it begins to ra Tam Tam tam, Tata tampampamter
Tam tam tam.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
The Brave washer tells you a few things.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
When you're drive in the car, it's absolutely forbidden to
think you've entered the car.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
You've switched on the radio.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Tarra pum pum pump tra pampum pam tra pampampamp until
you arrive to your job, in your office, in your
factory where you work. Tara pump pum pump tra pamp
pum pump tra pam pampam.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
The wife is in the kitchen, she's not allowed to.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Think Tara pampum pump tra pamp pum pum ta pampam vamp.
And we fall a sleep near this television set under
the starrup pumpum pump tra pampampamp. And it continues in
our nightmares too. There exists this continual noise in which
(15:16):
we are brainwashed. Here with our consent and under communism
without our consent. The souls are ripped, our minds are
submitted to the violence of communism. You will never imagine
(15:41):
Americans can't realize the freedom which they have. Not only
you have the freedom to vote. You have the freedom
to speak, to write, to think. You have the freedom
to choose what to eat. You have the freedom how
(16:02):
to close yourself. You have the freedom whom too marry.
We don't have this freedom. My boy had a girlfriend
and she was called to the secret police and was
told we have seen that you are dated by Michael
Vermbrandt is a counter revolutionist, so you will not be
(16:22):
dated by him anymore. We found for you another boy, Steve.
You will not kiss Michael. You will kiss Steve. The
secret police decides who my girl will kiss. But you
have the freedom to go and to wash yourself and
to take a bath. I have not washed myself three
(16:44):
years when I was in prison. And you have the
great freedom to go to the toilet. If you would
know what if freedom this is, and what a terrible
torture it was in prison.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Did not take you.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
That's what I heard during the night, female prisoners screaming,
begging the wardens, take me to the toilet, Take me
to the toilet. And he said, wait until tomorrow morning,
and for nothing in the world they would take you.
And one insisted Surganov. They beat him to death because
(17:26):
he wished to go to the toilet. Four hundred and
seventy five have been killed only in this one psychiatric asylum.
We were very hungry in prison. We had times when
we had one slice of bread a week. A week
(17:48):
we had soup of dirty potato, piels, cabbage with unworked intestines.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
We were terribly hungry.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
We were doped with drugs which would destroy our minds.
And because of this we forgot more and more. We
forgot our whole theology. If he forgot the Bible, I
forgot also is our Father? Now the Communists have also
published an Our Father. They teach their youth to pray
(18:21):
and now may God forgive me. But they have to
quote from you to you what prayers they teach their youth.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And you've been listening to Richard Wurmbrand's story for America
after fourteen years in a Communist prison, and just as
Solzhenitsyn had done when he came to America and gave
his infamous speech at Harvard, he was tough on communism,
but he was also tough on consumerism and how that
itself could be a surrender to the world of the
(18:51):
advertising market and away from individuality. When he said that,
he was forced to repeat, nobody loves you anymore, Nobody
loves you any more? Or what a dirty, ugly trick
the Communists played on these people they imprisoned. It just
doesn't get lower than faking the end of love of
your family and then of course following up with the
(19:13):
end of love and the death of God himself. When
we come back more of Richard Warmbrand's story his testimony
here on our American Stories, and we continue with our
(19:39):
American Stories. We last heard Richard Wormbrand discuss how the
brainwashing of the communists in Romania and by the way,
throughout the Eastern Bloc, China and anywhere else the Communists did.
Their dirty work was so effective, but the Communists weren't finished.
Here again is Richard Warmbrand.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
No.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
The companies have also published an Our Father, they teach
their youth to pray and now, may God forgive me.
But I have to quote from you to you what
prayers they teach their youth. Our Father, Cursed be your name,
(20:22):
May your kingdom be destroyed. May you will not be
done anywhere, not even in health. Give us this day
our daily bread, which you have stolen from us, And
forgive us our trespasses as we forgive yours, And don't
(20:43):
lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evils
of capitalism. But seeing that we are poor in spirit
and weak and uncapable to help anybody, down with you
for all eternity.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Amen. Now we teach our children the Our Father which
we have received from Jesus.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
In Russia and the communist countries, parents who love their
children as much as we love them are simply driven
to madness. When the child comes home from school and
he begins to say, what does the child know? He
(21:35):
says what he has been taught in school? And he
knows that if he does not say it exactly exists,
he will get a bad mark, and he will remain
another year in that class, and he will never arrive
to high school or to college. What a terrible torture.
How would you feel if your children would say such prayer?
(21:57):
Christians have been compelled day after day to eat their excrement.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
And to drink urine. It gave a special kind of madness.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
During the night, these men would bang on the door
of the cell, shouting, give us more urine, Give us
more urine. On a Sunday morning, a Catholic priest, a
friend of mine, was given in one hand a plate
with the excrements, in the other a cup with urine.
(22:34):
And he was compelled. He was half mad because of tortures.
He did not know anymore what he does. He was
compelled to say the Holy Mass over these elements. He said,
the Holy words of Jesus. Take and eat this is
my body, Take and drink this is my blood, over
(22:59):
the elements.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
And he did it.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And years of prison have passed. I have made fourteen
years of prison, which is not much. May tell you
how we endured all these things which have happened, and
continue to happen. It is written so beautifully in Romans twelve,
it is written, there rejoice with those who rejoice.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
If I don't have a joy, but there are millions
who heavy joy, And I can rejoice with those who rejoice.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Every Sunday I rejoiced with all those who were in
church on Sunday. I was not in church fourteen years.
We are in a subterranean prison. We don't see the sun,
but the sun exists. And so many are on the
beach now and turn themselves and swim and serve. I
(23:57):
can rejoice with every.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
One of them.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
We don't have what to eat, but others eat such
good things. I don't have a church they have. I
don't have my wife. I don't have my children. But
there are so many who have a wife and have
healthy children.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
And I must not always brood about my little tragedy.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
The self is not so important. I am one of
billions of men, not as one self, as a two day.
This one self has some difficulties, some drama, but there
are millions who don't have these dramas. And I must
not be selfish. I must deny the self and rejoice
(24:45):
together with all those who rejoiced, and I used to
finish by telling you just one thing more. The first
years we have tapped everyone alone in a cell thirty
feet beneath the earth. We never saw sun, moon, snow flowers, stars, grass, trees,
(25:10):
we never saw We never saw a man except the tortures.
We had no book, We had nothing. We sat and
gazed to the gray balls.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
That was all.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
We never heard a noise. The gods had felt sol shoes,
and you did not hear the reproach. But then I
wish to take holy communion. Now, how in the world
should you take holy communion? Having just nothing? Nothing?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Nothing?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
And God, who is always good. God reminded me in
that moment, do you know how which out of what
Heaven and Earth have been made? They've been made out
of nothing. If God would have built to make a world,
(26:15):
heaven and earth out of gold, out of diamonds, he
would not have succeeded. Tried to make out of gold
a butterfly, which would fly, it can't go, But out
of nothing he could make.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
So the most valnerable material in the world is nothing.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Out of nothing, the world is made. He said that
the bibility is written in the Book of Job this
big globe the earth. It hangs God and the earth
upon nothing but a powerful rope. No material would have
had the resistance to keep suspended such a big globe.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Only nothing can.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Then the Bibility is written that in the first century
there was a church in Corinth, and there they quarreled.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
The Christians quarreled, and some said.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
There exists no bigger preacher than Paul, and the others said,
go away, what your Paul is there nothing at all?
Peter is the right preacher. And the others said, no,
Apollo is the right preacher. And they quarreled, And Paul
writes to them, why do you call Paul is nothing?
(27:30):
Peter is nothing, A Paul is nothing. Well, so to
be nothing is very is a very great thing. If
somebody is a very very good preacher, then you can
compare him with Billy Grahm, with oral robots.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
You can see that is another Billy grand if he's
a great preacher.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
But if somebody is nothing, you have compared him with
Saint Paul and with Saint Peter. Because in Peter have
been nothing Christ everything and wishing to take holy communion,
and I had for holy communion nothing, so I took
in my hands.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Nothing. I thanked God for the nothing. I broke nothing,
and I said.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Take there nothing is there's nothing. There's nothing is my
body which is broken for you. And then I took
another nothing, and I blessed it. I thanked for it,
(28:45):
and I said, take and drink from the nothing. There's
nothing is my blood, the blood of the New Testament,
which has been shed for you, for the forgiveness of things.
And be too, communion with nothing. That is the message
(29:06):
which I have to bring you. I have not come
to agitate against communism here. I have something better to do.
To light a candle is better than to curse darkness.
And to me, a radiant life, a spiritfull life, starts
(29:28):
in the house of every one of us, in our churches,
and in this beautiful land of America, which God may
keep free from the evils of communism. May God bless
every one of you.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Amy, and you were listening to Richard worm Brand, and
my goodness, what a life story. After serving a total
of fourteen years, he and his wife Sabina, who had
also been imprisoned in a Romanian torture house. And let's
make it clear this was to and torture and more
(30:02):
torture and brainwashing. They were ransom for ten thousand dollars
and emigrated to America and brought their message here. Richard
Rombrandt's story here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Richard Wormbrand was
a Romanian Jew who described himself as an atheist and
a Marxist. He stole to get food as a child,
became a very successful self made businessman, married Sabina Auster,
also a Jew, and lived a life of self indulgence.
Worn down by destructive behaviors, he contracted tuberculosis. While in recovery,
(00:34):
Richard began reading the Bible, and shortly after, in nineteen
thirty eight, he and Sabina converted to Christianity. Richard became
a Lutheran minister and began work to expand the church
in Romania. In nineteen forty eight, worm Brand publicly stated
Communism and Christianity were incompatible. As a result, he was
imprisoned and tortured by the Communist regime of Romania. After
(00:57):
serving a total of fourteen years, he and his wife, Sabine,
who had also been imprisoned, were ransomed for ten thousand
dollars and immigrated to America. Warm Brand wrote more than
eighteen books, the most widely known being Tortured for Christ,
which was also made into a motion picture. He founded
the international organization Voice of the Martyrs, which continues to
(01:17):
aid Christians around the world who were persecuted for their faith.
We'd like to thank the Voice of Martyrs for the
story you were about to hear from Richard Warmbran while
he lived in the United States.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
The greatest crime which Communists commit is not the murder
of bodies. The Communists have killed sixty million men in
the Soviet Union alone. They've killed another sixty million in
(01:50):
Red China. They've killed one million in Little Cambodia. They've
killed one medion in Communist Ethiopia. But there exists something
worse than killing the bodies of men. It is the
(02:10):
rape of souls, the violence exercised against the minds of man.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I speak Russian fluently.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I remember my encounter with the first Russian lieutenant. I
asked him do you believe in God? I expected from
him that he will answer yes or no. God has
given to mankind the possibility of choice, and we can
(02:46):
say yes or no, not only to our fellow men,
we can say it even to God. But when I
asked him do you believe in God? Lifted towards me
eyes without any understanding, and said, we have no order
(03:10):
to believe if we will have an order we will believe.
Tears ran down my cheek. I had met a man
who has lost the most precious jewel which God has
given to men, to be a personality on your own,
(03:33):
which can say yes or no to faith or to
any other thing. He had become a robot, a robot,
a machine. He expected orders from Stalin, and afterwards from
Christiov and from Bridgnev, and in China from au the tongue,
(03:53):
what to believe and what to disbelieve. That is what
the communists do to the minds, to the souls of men.
Now we started the secret missionary work among the Soviet soldiers.
We preached to them the gospel. We distributed to them
(04:16):
Christian literature. And then I went to prison. My wife
continued the work. She also has been caught. Everyone is
caught one. And now we were in prison, and they
were very bad physical tortures. I will not describe them
(04:37):
to you. First of all, because there are children here
and very young girls and boys, So I will not
describe to you the physical tortures. But at a certain
moment they started the brainwashing. The brain washing consisted in
this that from five in the morning until ten in
(05:01):
the evening, seventeen hours a day. You had to sit
on a form on which there was no place to lean.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
You were not.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Allowed to rest a little bit your head on your hand.
To close your eyes was considered a crime. You were
under continual surveyance. You were not allowed to move. If
it eached you, you could not scratch yourself. If it eached,
you had to say to the warden, please, would you
(05:35):
allow me to scratch myself? And usually his answer would
be no. Can you imagine what a torture it is
when it reaches and you are not allowed to scratch yourself?
Just try for a try, Sit in a comfortable chair,
(05:59):
put a watch for you, and say half an hour,
I will keep my hands behind my back. Whatever happened,
it will begin to each Don't scratch yourself. You will
see you will not be able to think about anything
in the world anymore than just about the itching.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
You are not allowed to scratch yourself.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
If your nose then and you wished to wipe your nose,
you could not do it. First of all, we had
no handkerchief. We wiped our nose like this well, But
you had to have the permission of the world to
wipe your nose.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
And you could not move.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Seventeen hours a day. You had to sit, and you
had to hurt. You had to hear it uninterruptedly. Communism
is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good.
Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism
(07:06):
is good. Are your born already? I have said it
half a minute. They said it during hours, days, weeks, months, yees.
We had to hear uninterruptedly. Communism is good. Communism is good.
(07:26):
Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. Christianity
is dead. Christianity is dead. Christianity is dead. Christianity is dead.
Give up, give up, give up, give up, give up,
give up. And when at ten o'clock in the night
we were allowed to go to bed, in our nightmares,
(07:50):
we continue to hear Christianity is dead. Christianity is dead.
Christianity is dead. Give up, give up, give up. This
was the worst torture to which Christians were submitted in
communist countries. Happily, Christ is God and knows everything beforehand,
(08:19):
and he has prepared a remedy against brainwashing. It is
art worship. When we were in these prison cells, the
continually hearing this devilish voice. At a certain moment, I
(08:44):
had not seen my wife almost thirteen years. I did
not know if she is alive. She had been announced
officially that I've hanged myself in prison, and the men
who post as former prisoners said, we have been released.
(09:05):
We have attended his burial. Yes, hangd himself in prison.
That is what you knew. And I knew nothing about her.
I didn't know anymore if I have children or if
I don't have them. At a certain moment, the communists
were very nice and gave us postcards. Here, Everyone write
(09:26):
to your family that on that day they may come
and bring you some parcels with food and clothing and
so on. We were very happy everyone wrote.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And you're listening to Richard Wormbrand's story story he told
for his country that adopted him after fourteen years in
a Communist prison. When we continue, more of this remarkable
testimony here on our American stories, and we returned to
(10:10):
our American story. So far, we've heard about the horrific
treatment Richard Warmbrand experienced from his Romanian Communist guards. Let's
pick up where we last left off, with Richard talking
about the promise made to all the prisoners that their
family members would be coming to visit them.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
On that day.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
They cut out air, as they shaved, as they arranged
us somehow so that we should look nicer for this
meeting with our mothers or wives. And we waited the
whole day until late in the night nobody came. And
the next day is the brainwashing. Nobody loves you anymore.
(10:55):
Nobody loves you anymore. Nobody loves you anymore, loves you anymore.
Your wife have forsaken you, your children have become communists.
We did not know that they have never sent these postcards.
Everything has been a deceit. But in the half dark
of the cell, hearing continually nobody loves you anymore, Nobody
(11:19):
loves you anymore, nobody loves you anymore, we believed it
that we're alone. The whole outer world has forgotten. Nurse
and al those who have passed through prisons, through communist prisons,
have kept a hunger after love for me. Now it
(11:42):
is not enough to know that brethren and sisters in
Christ love me. They have to tell me that they
love me, and they have to hug me and to
embrace me, and to make me very sure. Because during
years we have heard nobody loves you anymore. Nobody loves
you anymore. And that made us to repeat in the
(12:05):
same written in which they said Christianity is dead. Christianity
is dead. Christianity is dead. We repeat it in soft voice.
Christ also has been there. Christ also has been there.
Christ also has been there. Christ also has been there.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Jesus has given us a remedy against brainwashing. It is
heart washing, he has said.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Blessed are the puri in art because they will see
not the gray walls of the prison cell. They will
not see the heaven baths. They will not see the
chains at their hands and at their feet. They will
not see the rubber trencheons and the implements of tortures
of the communists. They will not see the torture ers.
(12:58):
Blessed are the pure in heart, because they will see
God and looking at Him, you forget the art god circumstances,
and we could resist brainwashing. Afterwards, I was released from
communist prisons. I came to America. Now I have not
(13:21):
come to tell you what you would like to hear.
I've come to tell you what is my message from God.
I have come to tell you also what you will
not like at all. I came to America, a nation
which is terribly brainwashed.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
America is terribly brain worsed.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And basically it is the same technique with the devil
uses under the communists. Their exists a conspiracy in America
not to allow you to think. And American is not
allowed to think as we were not allowed to think.
Communism is good. Communism is good. Communism is good. So
(14:05):
Americans are not allowed to think. The first thing, when
I'm an American, he breaks from sleep, has not rapped
his eyes yet. He switches on the television and the radio,
and it begins to ra Tam Tam tam, Tata tampampamter
Tam tam tam.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
The Brave washer tells you a few things.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
When you're drive in the car, it's absolutely forbidden to
think you've entered the car.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
You've switched on the radio.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Tarra pum pum pump tra pampum pam tra pampampamp until
you arrive to your job, in your office, in your
factory where you work. Tara pump pum pump tra pamp
pum pump tra pam pampam.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
The wife is in the kitchen, she's not allowed to.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Think Tara pampum pump tra pamp pum pum ta pampam vamp.
And we fall a sleep near this television set under
the starrup pumpum pump tra pampampamp. And it continues in
our nightmares too. There exists this continual noise in which
(15:16):
we are brainwashed. Here with our consent and under communism
without our consent. The souls are ripped, our minds are
submitted to the violence of communism. You will never imagine
(15:41):
Americans can't realize the freedom which they have. Not only
you have the freedom to vote. You have the freedom
to speak, to write, to think. You have the freedom
to choose what to eat. You have the freedom how
(16:02):
to close yourself. You have the freedom whom too marry.
We don't have this freedom. My boy had a girlfriend
and she was called to the secret police and was
told we have seen that you are dated by Michael
Vermbrandt is a counter revolutionist, so you will not be
(16:22):
dated by him anymore. We found for you another boy, Steve.
You will not kiss Michael. You will kiss Steve. The
secret police decides who my girl will kiss. But you
have the freedom to go and to wash yourself and
to take a bath. I have not washed myself three
(16:44):
years when I was in prison. And you have the
great freedom to go to the toilet. If you would
know what if freedom this is, and what a terrible
torture it was in prison.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Did not take you.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
That's what I heard during the night, female prisoners screaming,
begging the wardens, take me to the toilet, Take me
to the toilet. And he said, wait until tomorrow morning,
and for nothing in the world they would take you.
And one insisted Surganov. They beat him to death because
(17:26):
he wished to go to the toilet. Four hundred and
seventy five have been killed only in this one psychiatric asylum.
We were very hungry in prison. We had times when
we had one slice of bread a week. A week
(17:48):
we had soup of dirty potato, piels, cabbage with unworked intestines.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
We were terribly hungry.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
We were doped with drugs which would destroy our minds.
And because of this we forgot more and more. We
forgot our whole theology. If he forgot the Bible, I
forgot also is our Father? Now the Communists have also
published an Our Father. They teach their youth to pray
(18:21):
and now may God forgive me. But they have to
quote from you to you what prayers they teach their youth.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And you've been listening to Richard Wurmbrand's story for America
after fourteen years in a Communist prison, and just as
Solzhenitsyn had done when he came to America and gave
his infamous speech at Harvard, he was tough on communism,
but he was also tough on consumerism and how that
itself could be a surrender to the world of the
(18:51):
advertising market and away from individuality. When he said that,
he was forced to repeat, nobody loves you anymore, Nobody
loves you any more? Or what a dirty, ugly trick
the Communists played on these people they imprisoned. It just
doesn't get lower than faking the end of love of
your family and then of course following up with the
(19:13):
end of love and the death of God himself. When
we come back more of Richard Warmbrand's story his testimony
here on our American Stories, and we continue with our
(19:39):
American Stories. We last heard Richard Wormbrand discuss how the
brainwashing of the communists in Romania and by the way,
throughout the Eastern Bloc, China and anywhere else the Communists did.
Their dirty work was so effective, but the Communists weren't finished.
Here again is Richard Warmbrand.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
No.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
The companies have also published an Our Father, they teach
their youth to pray and now, may God forgive me.
But I have to quote from you to you what
prayers they teach their youth. Our Father, Cursed be your name,
(20:22):
May your kingdom be destroyed. May you will not be
done anywhere, not even in health. Give us this day
our daily bread, which you have stolen from us, And
forgive us our trespasses as we forgive yours, And don't
(20:43):
lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evils
of capitalism. But seeing that we are poor in spirit
and weak and uncapable to help anybody, down with you
for all eternity.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Amen. Now we teach our children the Our Father which
we have received from Jesus.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
In Russia and the communist countries, parents who love their
children as much as we love them are simply driven
to madness. When the child comes home from school and
he begins to say, what does the child know? He
(21:35):
says what he has been taught in school? And he
knows that if he does not say it exactly exists,
he will get a bad mark, and he will remain
another year in that class, and he will never arrive
to high school or to college. What a terrible torture.
How would you feel if your children would say such prayer?
(21:57):
Christians have been compelled day after day to eat their excrement.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
And to drink urine. It gave a special kind of madness.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
During the night, these men would bang on the door
of the cell, shouting, give us more urine, Give us
more urine. On a Sunday morning, a Catholic priest, a
friend of mine, was given in one hand a plate
with the excrements, in the other a cup with urine.
(22:34):
And he was compelled. He was half mad because of tortures.
He did not know anymore what he does. He was
compelled to say the Holy Mass over these elements. He said,
the Holy words of Jesus. Take and eat this is
my body, Take and drink this is my blood, over
(22:59):
the elements.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
And he did it.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And years of prison have passed. I have made fourteen
years of prison, which is not much. May tell you
how we endured all these things which have happened, and
continue to happen. It is written so beautifully in Romans twelve,
it is written, there rejoice with those who rejoice.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
If I don't have a joy, but there are millions
who heavy joy, And I can rejoice with those who rejoice.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Every Sunday I rejoiced with all those who were in
church on Sunday. I was not in church fourteen years.
We are in a subterranean prison. We don't see the sun,
but the sun exists. And so many are on the
beach now and turn themselves and swim and serve. I
(23:57):
can rejoice with every.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
One of them.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
We don't have what to eat, but others eat such
good things. I don't have a church they have. I
don't have my wife. I don't have my children. But
there are so many who have a wife and have
healthy children.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
And I must not always brood about my little tragedy.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
The self is not so important. I am one of
billions of men, not as one self, as a two day.
This one self has some difficulties, some drama, but there
are millions who don't have these dramas. And I must
not be selfish. I must deny the self and rejoice
(24:45):
together with all those who rejoiced, and I used to
finish by telling you just one thing more. The first
years we have tapped everyone alone in a cell thirty
feet beneath the earth. We never saw sun, moon, snow flowers, stars, grass, trees,
(25:10):
we never saw We never saw a man except the tortures.
We had no book, We had nothing. We sat and
gazed to the gray balls.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
That was all.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
We never heard a noise. The gods had felt sol shoes,
and you did not hear the reproach. But then I
wish to take holy communion. Now, how in the world
should you take holy communion? Having just nothing? Nothing?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Nothing?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
And God, who is always good. God reminded me in
that moment, do you know how which out of what
Heaven and Earth have been made? They've been made out
of nothing. If God would have built to make a world,
(26:15):
heaven and earth out of gold, out of diamonds, he
would not have succeeded. Tried to make out of gold
a butterfly, which would fly, it can't go, But out
of nothing he could make.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
So the most valnerable material in the world is nothing.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Out of nothing, the world is made. He said that
the bibility is written in the Book of Job this
big globe the earth. It hangs God and the earth
upon nothing but a powerful rope. No material would have
had the resistance to keep suspended such a big globe.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Only nothing can.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Then the Bibility is written that in the first century
there was a church in Corinth, and there they quarreled.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
The Christians quarreled, and some said.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
There exists no bigger preacher than Paul, and the others said,
go away, what your Paul is there nothing at all?
Peter is the right preacher. And the others said, no,
Apollo is the right preacher. And they quarreled, And Paul
writes to them, why do you call Paul is nothing?
(27:30):
Peter is nothing, A Paul is nothing. Well, so to
be nothing is very is a very great thing. If
somebody is a very very good preacher, then you can
compare him with Billy Grahm, with oral robots.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
You can see that is another Billy grand if he's
a great preacher.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
But if somebody is nothing, you have compared him with
Saint Paul and with Saint Peter. Because in Peter have
been nothing Christ everything and wishing to take holy communion,
and I had for holy communion nothing, so I took
in my hands.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Nothing. I thanked God for the nothing. I broke nothing,
and I said.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Take there nothing is there's nothing. There's nothing is my
body which is broken for you. And then I took
another nothing, and I blessed it. I thanked for it,
(28:45):
and I said, take and drink from the nothing. There's
nothing is my blood, the blood of the New Testament,
which has been shed for you, for the forgiveness of things.
And be too, communion with nothing. That is the message
(29:06):
which I have to bring you. I have not come
to agitate against communism here. I have something better to do.
To light a candle is better than to curse darkness.
And to me, a radiant life, a spiritfull life, starts
(29:28):
in the house of every one of us, in our churches,
and in this beautiful land of America, which God may
keep free from the evils of communism. May God bless
every one of you.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Amy, and you were listening to Richard worm Brand, and
my goodness, what a life story. After serving a total
of fourteen years, he and his wife Sabina, who had
also been imprisoned in a Romanian torture house. And let's
make it clear this was to and torture and more
(30:02):
torture and brainwashing. They were ransom for ten thousand dollars
and emigrated to America and brought their message here. Richard
Rombrandt's story here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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