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February 10, 2025 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. Here's one of those talks. 

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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 Sabina,
who had also been imprisoned, were ransomed for ten thousand
dollars and immigrated to America. Warmbrand 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 aid Christians

(01:18):
around the world who were persecuted for their faith. We
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):
that China, They've killed one million. In Little Cambodia they've
killed one million, and in Communist Ethiopia.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
But there exists.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Something worse than killing the bodies of man. It is
the 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? Gifted towards me
eyes without any understanding, and said, we have no order

(03:09):
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,

(03:32):
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
Kristiov and from Bridgnev and in China, from aute 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.
You were not 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

(05:24):
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 allow me to scratch myself?
And usually his answer would be no. Can you imagine
what a torture it is when it teaches and you

(05:48):
are not allowed to scratch yourself? Just try for a try,
sit in a comfortable chair, put a watch before for you,
and say half an hour. I will keep my hands
behind my back. Whatever happens, it will begin to each

(06:09):
Don't scratch yourself.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
You will see you will not be.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
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, and you.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
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've said it half
a minute. They said it during hours, days, weeks, months, yeares,
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 brainworship. 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.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
I did not know if she is alive.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
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. We have attended he's burial. Yes, hangked
himself in prison. That is what you knew. And I
knew nothing about her. I didn't know anymore if I

(09:15):
have children or if I don't have them. At a
certain moment, the communists were very nice and gave us postcards.
Heard everyone write 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 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 the brainwashing. Nobody loves you anymore. Nobody

(10:55):
loves you anymore. Nobody loves you anymore, loves you anymore.
Your wifes have forsaken you, your children have become communists.
We did not know that they have never sent these postcards.
Everything has been a decease. 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.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Believed it that we're alone.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
The whole outer world has forgotten urse, and all those
who have passed through prisons, through communist prisons, have kept
a hunger after love for me. Now it is not
enough to know that brethren and sisters in Christ love me.
They have to tell me that they love me, and

(11:49):
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 same written in
which they said Christianity is dead. Christianity is dead. Christianity

(12:11):
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 purian 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

(12:54):
the communists. They will not see the torture ers. 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 brain worship. Afterwards, I was released

(13:15):
from communist prisons. I came to America. Now I've not
come to tell you what you would like to hear.
I've come to tell you what is my message from God.
I've come to tell you also what you will not
like at all. I came to America, a nation which

(13:35):
is terribly brainworshed. America is terribly brain worsed, And basically
it is the same technique with the devil uses under
the Communists. There exists a conspiracy in America not to

(13:56):
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 Americans are not
allowed to think. The first thing. When I'm an American,
he breaks from sleep, has not rubbed his eyes yet,
he switches on.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
The television and the radio, and it begins to.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Ra Tam Tam Tam Tata tampam Tam Tam tam tam.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
The brave washer tells you a few things.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
When you 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):
Tara pump pump pump tra pampum pam tra pamp umpamp
Until you arrive to your job, in your office, in
your factory where you work. Tara pump pum pum, ta
pump pum pump, tra pamp 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 Pampum pump tra pampam vamp.
And we fall asleep 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 we

(15:16):
are brainwashed. Here with our consent, and under communism without
our consent. The souls are raped, our minds are submitted
to the violence of communism. You will never imagine Americans

(15:42):
can't realize the freedom which they have. Not only you
have the freedom to vote. We have the freedom to speak,
to write, to think.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
You have the.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Freedom to choose what to eat. You have the freedom
how to close yourself. You have the freedom of whom
too many 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

(16:17):
by Michael Vermbrandt is a counter revolutionist, so you will
not be dated by him anymore. We found for you
another boy, Steve. You will not kiss Michael.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
You will kiss Steve.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
The secret police decides, oh, 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 years when I was in prison. And you have
the great freedom to go to the toilet. If you

(16:52):
would know what if freedom this is, and what a
terrible torture it was in prison.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
Not take you. That's what I.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
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.

(17:23):
They beat him today because he wished to go to
the toilet. Four hundred and seventy five have been killed
only in this one psychiatric asylum.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
We were very hungry in prison.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
We had times when we had one slice of bread
a week. A week 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 should destroy our minds.
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 and

(18:22):
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
Soulsnitzen 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 anymore. 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 end of

(19:13):
love and the death of God himself. When we come
back more of Richard Warmbrand's story his testimony here on
our American Story, and we continue with our American stories.

(19:40):
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 No.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
The Commanist I have also published an Our Father, they
teach their youth to pray and now may God forgive me.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
But I have to quote from you to you.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
What prayer they teach their youth Our Father, Cursed be
your name, 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,

(20:38):
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive yours, And
don't 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. Amen. Now we teach our children

(21:07):
the our Father which we received from Jesus. 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

(21:32):
to say, what does the child know? He 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

(21:52):
you feel if your children would say such prayer? Christians
have been compelled day after day to eat their excrement
and to drink urine. It gave a special kind of madness.
During the night, these men would bang on the door

(22:13):
of the cell, shouting, give us.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
More urine, Give us more urine.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
On a Sunday morning, a Catholic priest, a friend of mine,
was given in one hand a plate with excrements, in
the other a cup with urine. And he was compelled.
He was half mad because of tortures. He did not
know anymore what he does. He was compelled to say

(22:42):
the Holy Mass over these elements.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
He said, the holy words of Jesus.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Take and eat this is my body, Take and drink
this is my blood over this element.

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.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
Have happened, and continue to happen. It is written so
beautifully in.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Romans twelve, it is written, there rejoice with those who rejoice.
If I don't have a joy, but there are millions
who have a joy, And I can rejoice with those
who rejoice. Every Sunday I rejoiced with all those who

(23:40):
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 can rejoice with every one of them.

(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. And I must not always brood about my
little tragedy. The self is not so important. I am

(24:25):
one of billions of men. No, there's 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 together with all those who rejoice.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
And I wished to finish by tending to just one
thing more.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
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 we never saw We never saw a man except
the tortures. We had no book, We had nothing. We

(25:21):
sat and gazed to the gray balls.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
That was all. We never heard a noise.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
The gods had felt sol shoes, and you did not
hear the reproach. But then I wish to take holy communion. Now,
hw in the world should you take holy communion? Having
just nothing?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
Nothing? We have not?

Speaker 2 (25:50):
And God, who is always good, God reminded me in
that moment, do you know out of which, out of
what Heaven and Earth have been made, They've been made
out of nothing. If God would have built to make

(26:13):
a world, heaven and earth out of gold, out of diamonds,
he would not have succeeded. Try to make out of
gold a butterfly, which would fly, it can't go, But.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
Out of nothing he could make.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
So the most valuable material in the world is nothing.
Out of nothing the world is made. He said that
the biability 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

(26:52):
had the resistance to keep suspended such a big globe.
Only nothing can. And the Bibility is written that in
the first century there was a church in Corinth, and
there they quarreled. The Christians quarreled, and some said, there
exists no bigger preacher than Paul, and the others said,

(27:14):
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.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
And they quarreled.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
And Paul writes to them, why do you call Paul
is nothing? Peter is nothing, A Paul is nothing. Well,
so to be nothing.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
Is very is a very great thing. If somebody is
a very.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Very good preacher, then you can compare him with Billy Graham,
with oral robots. You can see that is another Billy Graham,
if he's a great preacher. But if somebody is the nothing,
you have compared him with Saint pauland with Saint Peter.
Because in Peter have been nothing Christ everything and wishing

(28:04):
to take holy communion, And I had for holy communion nothing,
so I took in my hands nothing. I thanked God
for the nothing. I broke nothing, and I said, take

(28:25):
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, and I said,

(28:46):
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 I took
communion with nothing. That is the message which I have

(29:06):
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 in the house

(29:29):
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 toward and torture, and more

(30:02):
torture and brainwashing. They were ransom for ten thousand dollars
and immigrated to America and brought their message here. Richard
Rombrandt's story here on our American Stories
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