Richard Wormbrand’s journey began far from faith, as a self-made businessman, an atheist and Marxist in Romania. But a profound personal crisis led him and his wife, Sabina, to embrace Christianity and dedicate their lives to ministry. When Richard bravely declared that Communism and Christianity were incompatible, he faced the immediate, brutal wrath of the Communist regime. For fourteen agonizing years, he endured imprisonment and horrific physical torture, a stark testament to the courage it took to stand for truth against an oppressive system.
Yet, beyond the physical torment, Richard Wormbrand faced an even more insidious struggle: the regime’s relentless campaign to “rape souls” and break spirits through brainwashing. Imagine enduring seventeen hours a day of relentless propaganda, forced to hear “Christianity is dead” and “Communism is good” until it echoed in your nightmares. This incredible American story reveals the extraordinary resilience of faith in the face of absolute psychological torture, and how one man found spiritual freedom and strength. His legacy lives on through the Voice of the Martyrs, inspiring hope for countless others persecuted for their beliefs around the world.
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Speaker 2: 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 that China. They’ve killed one million in Little Cambodia. They’ve killed one million, and in Communist Ethiopia.
Speaker 3: But there exists—
Speaker 2: Something worse than killing the bodies of man. It is the rape of souls, the violence exercised against the minds of man.
Speaker 3: I speak Russian fluently.
Speaker 2: 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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 brainwashing consisted in this: that from five in the morning until ten in 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 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 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. Don’t scratch yourself.”
Speaker 3: You will see you will not be able to think about anything in the world anymore than just about the itching.
Speaker 3: You are not allowed to scratch yourself.
Speaker 2: 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: could not move.
Speaker 2: 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 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. 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, 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, 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 had not seen my wife almost thirteen years.
Speaker 3: I did not know if she is alive.
Speaker 2: 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 his burial.” Yes, hangked 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. 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: 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 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: 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 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 loves you anymore, nobody loves you anymore,” we believed it that we’re alone.
Speaker 3: The whole outer world has forgotten urse.
Speaker 2: 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 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 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: Jesus has given us a remedy against brainwashing. It is heart washing.
Speaker 2: He has said, “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 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 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 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 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: The television and the radio, and it begins to:
Speaker 2: “Ra Tam Tam Tam Tata tampam Tam Tam tam tam.”
Speaker 3: The brave washer tells you a few things.
Speaker 2: When you drive in the car, it’s absolutely forbidden to think. You’ve entered the car.
Speaker 3: You’ve switched on the radio.
Speaker 2: “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: The wife is in the kitchen. She’s not allowed to.
Speaker 2: 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 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 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: You have the
Speaker 2: 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 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. You will kiss Steve.” 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 would know what if freedom this is, and what a terrible torture it was in prison.
Speaker 3: Not take you. That’s what I
Speaker 2: 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 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: We were very hungry in prison.
Speaker 2: 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: We were terribly hungry.
Speaker 2: 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 now, may God forgive me. But I have to quote from you to you 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. 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.”
Speaker 1: 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 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 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 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. No.
Speaker 2: The Commanist I have also published an “Our Father.” They teach their youth to pray. And now, may God forgive me.
Speaker 3: But I have to quote from you to you.
Speaker 2: 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 the Holy Mass over these elements.
Speaker 3: He said the holy words of Jesus:
Speaker 2: “‘Take and eat; this is my body. Take and drink; this is my blood over this element.’”
Speaker 3: And he did it.
Speaker 2: 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
Speaker 3: Romans 12.
Speaker 2: 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 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. 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 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: And I wished to finish by tending to just one thing more.
Speaker 2: 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 sat and gazed to the gray balls.
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