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Post by Joanna on Nov 11, 2013 0:25:22 GMT -5
The Wolf ManThe year was 1971, and I was traveling in Communist Romania, then ruled by the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. My nerves were already bad from an incident during the day when a marketplace I had been visiting was surrounded by security men and everyone was lined up and required to show their papers and ID documentation. Some people were arrested and carted off in lorries (trucks).
That evening, I arrived in the town of Suceava and, as was obligatory, went to the police station to register and be told where I would be staying. (There were no hotels for foreigners, you were just billeted in a house with local people.)
On this occasion, though, the police told me I would be staying in a forest camp site about five miles out of town. I took the bus out there and it was getting dark when I arrived. There were about 50 little, pointy-roofed huts dotted among the trees and I didn’t see anyone else. The man at the reception cabin gave me a very large padlock and made it clear I should lock my door from the inside. When I asked why, he just made teeth-baring, growling noises and mimicked what I presumed to be the claw-pouncing actions of wild animals.
I was already frightened and about one in the morning, heard shuffling noises and definite movement just outside my window. Making sure the padlock was firmly attached, I peered through the flimsy cotton curtains only to be met by a pair of burning eyes level with my own. It was a full-grown wolf, standing upright with its paws on the side of my cabin. And there were maybe 20 or more others, all foraging through the woods, clearly illuminated in the moonlight.
Suddenly though, they all stopped as if at some signal and headed off into the depths of the forest. As they scurried back into the darkness, they passed the figure of a bearded man coming out of the trees. He was wearing what looked like a wolf skin himself and there was a large gold crucifix around his neck. The wolves just raced past him without a second look, giving him as wide a berth as they could.
I was transfixed by his appearance, but terrified he was going to come over to the hut, however, he just stood there, looked in my direction, brought the crucifix to his lips and kissed it – then disappeared behind a tree.
In the morning, I asked the man at the reception desk who this figure might be and drew a picture of him on a piece of paper, which he angrily ripped up. “No man!” he insisted, but I later met a family of East Germans who were the only other people staying at the forest site. They said they had been coming to this place for some years and there had once been a monastery in the woods, but when the monks refused to cease holding religious services for the local people, they had been taken away and some of them, it was said, had been shot.
I left later that day, well in advance of nightfall. Source: Christopher Middleton, The Telegraph, October 30, 2013.
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Post by Sam on Feb 7, 2023 18:36:45 GMT -5
I had forgotten about this story until I saw where someone linked it from another site about creepy things. After re-reading it a couple of times, I think that instead of a "wolf man," the man wearing a wolf skin and crucifix was the spirit of one of the monks who had been driven from the monastery. I suppose the communists did to the monasteries in the 20th century the same thing Henry VIII did in the 16th century.
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Post by JoannaL on Feb 7, 2023 23:28:31 GMT -5
I had forgotten about this story until I saw where someone linked it from another site about creepy things. After re-reading it a couple of times, I think that instead of a "wolf man," the man wearing a wolf skin and crucifix was the spirit of one of the monks who had been driven from the monastery. I suppose the communists did to the monasteries in the 20th century the same thing Henry VIII did in the 16th century. The communists were much worse than Henry VIII. While he dissolved the religious houses and displaced their inhabitants, very few of the monks, nuns and priests were killed. On the other hand, it is estimated the communists killed as many as 80,000.
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Post by catherine on Feb 8, 2023 18:59:39 GMT -5
The communists were much worse than Henry VIII. While he dissolved the religious houses and displaced their inhabitants, very few of the monks, nuns and priests were killed. On the other hand, it is estimated the communists killed as many as 80,000. At the risk of having my comment removed for being "political," no other movement in recorded history has been more violent and oppressive than communism. In the former Soviet Union, it is estimated the communists killed as many as 30 million of their own people. At least 70 million were killed in China, almost a third of the people of Cambodia were killed, and millions of North Koreans, Chinese, Russians and Vietnamese were/are enslaved by their own governments. Just 90 miles off the coast of the US, the communists have been imprisoning, killing and oppressing the citizens of Cuba for almost 65 years to the point people have fled their country in droves.
In the US, we are brainwashed into believing the Nazis were monsters, and a lot of what happened under Hitler was monstrous, but in actuality, the number enslaved and killed by the Nazis is a drop in the bucket when compared to the numbers enslaved, oppressed and slaughtered by the communists, and the communist atrocities have continued into the 21st century. But instead of taking action against the communist monsters threatening our way of life, the liberals are doing everything in their power to turn America into a communist dictatorship.
For any of you liberals in favor of turning the US into a "socialist paradise" (like Cuba), I suggest you read about what Romania was like under Nicolae Ceauşescu, a time when the Securitate had listening devices and spies all over the place, and citizens were afraid to speak with their neighbors for fear of being overheard and imprisoned because some government official misheard, or misinterpreted, what they said.
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Post by steve on Feb 8, 2023 22:13:40 GMT -5
Isn't Ceausescu the one they called "Dracula on a bulldozer," or something like that, because he would have these pretty little villages bulldozed and replaced all the historic architecture with ugly communist housing blocks?
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Post by JoannaL on Feb 9, 2023 16:54:11 GMT -5
Isn't Ceausescu the one they called "Dracula on a bulldozer," or something like that, because he would have these pretty little villages bulldozed and replaced all the historic architecture with ugly communist housing blocks? Yes. He is also responsible for the the “Palace of the People” in Bucharest, the second-largest building in the world. In 1984, he had a sixth of the city of Bucharest – including historic structures – bulldozed, to build the 12-story monstrosity, which has 3,100 rooms, including 64 reception halls and a nuclear bunker 65 feet below ground. He drained the country’s coffers and the building, which was intended to house the Central Committee of the Communist Party had not been completed when Ceauşescu was overthrown in December 1989 and he and his wife were executed by firing squad on Christmas Day.
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Post by serena on Feb 9, 2023 18:39:37 GMT -5
Yes. He is also responsible for the the “Palace of the People” in Bucharest, the second-largest building in the world. In 1984, he had a sixth of the city of Bucharest – including historic structures – bulldozed, to build the 12-story monstrosity, which has 3,100 rooms, including 64 reception halls and a nuclear bunker 65 feet below ground. He drained the country’s coffers and the building, which was intended to house the Central Committee of the Communist Party had not been completed when Ceauşescu was overthrown in December 1989 and he and his wife were executed by firing squad on Christmas Day. Was there some significance to executing them on Christmas Day?
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Post by JoannaL on Feb 10, 2023 15:08:48 GMT -5
Was there some significance to executing them on Christmas Day? No, it was a coincidence. After attempting to flee, they were taken into custody on December 21, tried in something of a kangaroo court, and executed immediately thereafter.
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