SAINT CLAIR - As America celebrates its independence today, Radu "Rudy" Olimpiu Gherghel is celebrating his own freedom.
An Orwigsburg businessman with a master's degree in chemical engineering, Gherghel escaped communist Romania in the 1960s, settling in Schuylkill County. He spoke from his office near Saint Clair last week on how grateful he is living in a free country like the United States.
Born in the city of Timisoara, Romania, in 1943, Gherghel, 70, told his story of growing up in Romania and the escape that led him through several European countries before reaching the U.S. in 1967 in his book titled, "Dead Run," released in February.
There are two main reasons for Gherghel to have his story conveyed in published form.
"The one reason started about four or five years ago when my sons (Dean and Jason) began to pass along my story to my grandchildren, who are now old enough to ask their own questions," Gherghel said. "That gave the idea about putting it in writing for my family and friends, who also ask me."
The second reason is that the younger generations receive very little information in schools about communism, its history and the suppression of freedoms in other countries.
"I started asking people, especially young ones, what do they teach you in school about communism, and I was shocked," he said. "In high school, they probably had a page or two about China, Mao Zedong, a little bit about Castro but nothing else. It's getting lost. We need to know about it because it is so important not to repeat it. Our human nature is that we don't have a long memory and we need to read about history to remind ourselves. I really wanted to bring history back and tell people how bad communism was."
Gherghel credits his search for freedom to his grandmother, Paulina Kostic, who got him interested as a boy of 12 in listening to Radio Free Europe.
"The communists had jamming signals so we couldn't listen to any radios from outside of Romania," he said. "They were afraid for people to learn what freedom is. We used to listen to Radio Free Europe, which was broadcast in different languages. We would listen to the Serbian broadcast, since the Romanian government wasn't jamming it. That's how I got to learn about America and it showed me what a free country it is. That's what planted in me the desire to come to America."
He continued, "The book is really an adventure story of a young man who ran from communism in a cruel regime. It shows the hardships and the hard times I went through to come to America."
After he began listening to Radio Free Europe, Gherghel began planning his escape from Romania, considering "all types of scenarios."
"I got the chance to go from Romania (at age 21) to another communist country, Yugoslavia," Gherghel said. "That's when I escaped and where my journey started."
In his book, Gherghel details the story. He traveled from Romania into Yugoslavia with a legal passport only valid for the neighboring country in order to visit Kostic, his grandmother. She had moved to Yugoslavia to live with her son, Dean, a bishop in the Christian Orthodox Church, when she became very sick.
While in Yugoslavia, Gherghel slowly traveled close to the Italian border. One day, he decided to take his chances and boarded a bus filled with Serbian laborers with visas to work in Trieste, a small Italian port at the north end of the Adriatic Sea near the border. The bus was stopped near the border and everyone's documents were checked, and a border guard looked over Gherghel's passport and pointed out that it was only valid for Yugoslavia.
Gherghel told the guard he wanted to shop in the port town but the guard made a phone call, which made him worry. Gherghel got the passport back but was told to wait. He didn't know what to do so he came up with what he described as "a new and dumber plan" - he decided to run for it.
"I got up from the bench and casually began walking toward the (guard) booth, praying the kill zone wasn't mined," Gherghel wrote. "When it looked like all the guards were distracted, I ran for it. I called upon every bit of willpower and physical strength I could summon as I sprinted, pumping my arms and sucking on air. To my horror, the slick soles of my dress shoes slipped on the grass. I almost fell down. I regained my balance as the first loud crack of a rifle sounded behind me. I ran harder, Faster! Faster!"
Gherghel kept running as the soldiers opened up with rifle fire from the guard towers. He ran from the open area - the "kill zone" - into the nearby woods. He saw a sign in Italian indicating where the border was and Gherghel ran as fast as he could, finally crossing the border and running a short distance before falling in a meadow. He began to cry.
" 'I'm free! O, thank you, God! Oh, thank you!' I cried. 'I'm free!' " Gherghel wrote.
From Italy, he went to France and then on to America. Ghergel remembers his first view of America as the airplane approached New York City.
"People who are refugees from communist countries realize how beautiful America is," Gherghel said. "No other country is like America. Always feel proud that you're an American. Let other countries follow us as a country of the free, and opportunity and free enterprise. You can become anything you want in America. It's true."
When Gherghel came to America, he arrived with a small carry-on bag with a few clothes.
"America gave me the opportunity to succeed," he said. "And now I have several businesses. People don't realize how lucky they are. They should cherish this country."
Gherghel said that a good way of cherishing America is not to try to fix what isn't broken.
"The key is not to change it, especially the Constitution," he said.
Gherghel considers writing his new hobby, so he has a new fiction book in the works.
The last paragraph in the book's introduction conveys not only his gratitude to America, but also his positive attitude in life. After first thanking his grandmother for inspiring his dreams of freedom, his wife, Judy, his sons and grandchildren, the publishing company and his ghostwriter, David W. Shaw, he states:
"Most of all, I want to thank America. This is the best country in the entire world. It is a place where an immigrant like me can come with nothing and go out having led a full and mostly happy life in the warm embrace of freedom. Sure, it gets rough out there at times but after the rough times come the good times. I, for one, have never forgotten the gift of freedom. I hold it dear to my heart. It truly has been a shining beacon in the darkness."