Richard Wurmbrand

Richard Wurmbrand (March 24, 1909 – February 17, 2001) was a Romanian Lutheran minister, evangelist, and writer of Jewish heritage who founded the international ministry Voice of the Martyrs (originally Jesus to the Communist World, 1967). Born in Bucharest to a Jewish family, he was educated as a young adult in Marxist atheism, married Sabina Oster (also Romanian Jewish), and was converted to Christianity in 1938 through a German carpenter Christian Wölfkes in a small village.

After Communist takeover of Romania (1947), he and Sabina ministered in the Romanian underground church and to occupying Soviet soldiers. Wurmbrand was arrested in 1948 and imprisoned for 14 years total — first 1948–1956, then 1959–1964 — including 3 years of solitary confinement in a windowless cell. The prison experience included substantial torture; his body bore 18 holes (cigarette burns and other torture wounds).

After Western Christians paid a ransom for his release in 1964, he and Sabina relocated to the United States and founded the international ministry that became Voice of the Martyrs. Tortured for Christ (1967) and In God's Underground (1968, with Sabina) are the foundational texts. He testified before the US Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in May 1966 — exposing his back to demonstrate the torture wounds.