In the Jilava prison, the following convicts await their execution:
Marshal Ion Antonescu
Mihai Antonescu
Gheorghe Alexianu
General Picky Vasiliu
Saturday, 1 June 1946, 1600 hours, Mrs. Maria Antonescu arrived from Bucharest in a car and brought her husband and the others, at their request, 16 meters of tricolor ribbons [in the Romanian national colors].
She came free and spoke to her husband [marshal Ion Antonescu] for about and hour, sitting at a table under the supervision of an agent and of a gendarme.
Before 1700 hours a priest came and gave all the convicts the Eucharist, with the exception of Ion Antonescu who refused and said: Forgive me father, but I refuse the Eucharist because I have Mihai Antonescu on my conscience. He should have stayed at the University where he was one of the best professors, but I am guilty of taking him in the Government.
They were taken under a heavy prison guard escort to the execution site, in the so-called Peach Trees' Valley, allowing only the gendarmes, which were standing guard, and some Russian and Romanian camera operators and journalists to assist.
The convicts stood willingly near the execution poles.
The firing squad, formed from prison guards and gendarmes, took up a U shaped formation and the State Attorney read slowly and in a loud voice the sentence to the convicts.
The State Attorney then asked for their last wishes.
The convicts answered:
Ion Antonescu asked to be executed by the army, not by prison guards, but he was refused, to which he replied: Scumbags, scumbags!
Mihai Antonescu said he had nothing to say. Being completely exhausted.
Alexianu the same
General Picky Vasiliu wished to be shot by his gendarmes, which had gathered to see him. The State Attorney refused. Vasiliu then said: Attention Gendarmes and saluted them and then said Good bye! waving his hand. Then he added: I ask the State Attorney to ask the comrades prison guards to aim good and not make me suffer. Then he asked to cover his eyes, to which the guards replied: We do not have anything to cover them so he took off his gray scarf and said: use my scarf.
Then the command for the execution was given. The weapons were loaded and when they were fired the Marshal saluted by raising his hat with the right hand, after which they all fell down. The Marshal immediately rose up, leaning on his elbow and said: You didn't shoot me gentlemen, fire!, after which the chief guard went with his pistol to Antonescu and shot him in the head. The doctor consulted them and came to the conclusion that the Marshal and Vasiliu were still alive. The chief guard fired another shot in the chest of Antonescu and then of Vasiliu and the doctor examined them and said they still weren't dead. The chief guard went again to Vasiliu, but his pistol jammed when he tried to fire it. He took a rifle from one of the guards and fired one shot in Vasiliu's head, but then it also jammed.
He changed it with another one and fired another 3 shots in different parts of Vasiliu's body and then went to the Marshal and fired 3 shots in his chest. The doctor examined them and said that Antonescu was dead, but Vasiliu was still alive.
Again the guard fired a shot in Vasiliu's head. The result: Vasiliu's brains were coming out of his head, but he was still moving and saying something we couldn't understand.
The guard went again to to him and fired two shots in the head and after this the doctor said that Vasiliu too was dead.
They were carried on stretchers to a van, which took them away.
From the moment when the convicts left the cells and until their bodies were loaded into the buses, they were filmed by two cameras operated by a Romanian and a Russian.
Name of the guard: Furgina
Observations: for the execution, 17 guards volunteered and only 12 were picked.
This report was found by Stejarel Olaru in the archives of the CNSAS
