[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 48 (Thursday, March 12, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRUTH ABOUT COMMUNISM

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                            HON. JOE WILSON

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 12, 2020

  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Madam Speaker, I am grateful Dr. Derek 
W.H. Thomas of The First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, South 
Carolina, in the weekly First Things (Monday, March 1) newsletter 
published a tribute for Richard Wurmbrand of Bucharest, Romania. This 
tribute is a reminder to all Americans of the tragic true inhumanity of 
totalitarian communism enforced by Soviet Socialists.

                        The Voice of the Martyrs


                          This Saturday . . .

                        The Voice of the Martyrs

       This Saturday, February 29 (it is a leap year), is the 
     anniversary of the arrest and imprisonment of Richard 
     Wurmbrand in 1948. Born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1909, 
     Richard was sent to Moscow as an adolescent to study Marxism. 
     He was pursued by the Soviet secret police, and upon his 
     return to Romania, he became a Comintern for the communist 
     regime. At the outbreak of the second World War, he was 
     converted to Christianity and was later ordained, first as an 
     Anglican and then, as the war was almost over and his country 
     occupied by the Soviet Union, a Lutheran. In 1944, he began a 
     ministry to his Romanian countrymen and to Red Army soldiers. 
     As the Soviet regime began to control churches, Wurmbrand 
     began an ``underground'' ministry to his people. Within a few 
     years, he denounced communism as incompatible with 
     Christianity. He was arrested on February 29, 1948, while on 
     his way to church.
       Richard Wurmbrand passed through several penal facilities 
     and would spend three years in solitary confinement, twelve 
     feet below ground without light or sound (the guards put felt 
     under their shoes). He later recounted that he maintained his 
     sanity by sleeping by day and staying awake at night 
     preaching out loud a sermon to himself.
       Wurmbrand was released from prison in 1956 after eight and 
     half years. Warned not to preach again, he continued to serve 
     the underground churches and was arrested again in 1959 and 
     sentenced to 25 years. During this second imprisonment, he 
     was beaten and tortured, including mutilation, burning, and 
     being locked in a freezer icebox. Later, he recounted how his 
     feet were beaten until the flesh was exposed, and then the 
     next day beaten until the bones were exposed.
       In 1964, Norwegians paid the Communist regime $10,000 for 
     his release, and Wurmbrand and his wife would eventually 
     emigrate to the United States. He died in 2001 in California.
       During his time in the United States he authored almost 20 
     books and founded The Voice of the Martyrs, an organization 
     that draws attention to the persecuted church worldwide.
       Here is one of Wurmbrand's famous quotes: ``I have seen 
     Christians in Communist prisons with fifty pounds of chains 
     on their feet, tortured with red-hot iron pokers, in whose 
     throats spoonfuls of salt had been forced, being kept 
     afterward without water, starving, whipped, suffering from 
     cold--and praying with fervor for the Communists. This is 
     humanly inexplicable! It is the love of Christ, which was 
     poured out in our hearts.''
       --Derek W.H. Thomas, Senior Minister.

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