He is best known for taking part in the 1953 Cavnic lead mine labor camp escape and for his book "Give us each day our daily prison" (Închisoarea noastră cea de toate zilele), a reference to the verse from the Christian Lord's Prayer.

Tilică Ioanid was descended from an old and well-known Greek landlord family, a National Liberal Party member, and a secretary in the Romanian government led by Miron Cristea before World War II.

The first, from his cousin George Boian, containing economic, political, and military information about the situation of Romania at the time, was addressed to a friend outside of the country.

Beaten and tortured into admitting his part in the so-called plot — the other persons involved were cross-examined in parallel, and any lie told with the intent of protecting the others was eventually revealed — he was released a few days later.

[2] Following the purge in May 1952 of the Vasile Luca, Ana Pauker, and Teohari Georgescu group, a new wave of political trials was initiated and Ioanid was again arrested.

However, it was the first contact with the brutality of the prison guards, as "it was pouring curses and fists, generously distributed to all those who were not executing orders fast enough",[3] with the strictness of the detention, as the inmates were not allowed to talk loud to each other, sing, look outside the window, attempt to communicate with other cells, lay down in bed during the day, or perform many other ordinary tasks.

[4] They were tortured, either directly — beating and isolation were commonplace — or indirectly, with bad food or malnutrition, lack of hygiene, deprivation of almost all or any medical care.

Personally beating the inmates, his favourite torture was that, during summer, he had the windows of the overcrowded cells nailed closed, until, because of heat exhaustion and lack of air, people started to faint".

Coming from prisons all over the country where personal space was very restricted, and where cold and famine were regular, the inmates started working hard, raising the workload on a daily basis.

[12] From Cavnic, they headed east, across Maramureș County and the Rodna Mountains, feeding on what they received from the shepherds and peasants they met; most of whom, despite the escapees' efforts to conceal it, recognized they were fugitives.

One possibility was to attempt an escape towards west, by hiding on a barge that transported timber to Austria, with the help of Rici Tailer, who apparently specialized in such actions.

Through the help of underground organisations, they tried to obtain fake identification, and Ioanid managed to get work at a building site at Drăgășani, Vâlcea County in early September.

[16] "Convinced that I had no intention of pulling out a gun or whatever other hidden weapon, they rushed up towards me, faking – for the few people passing by, intrigued at this curious crowding from the square – the joy of a friendly rendezvous.

After the investigation at Baia Mare, the two were sent to Oradea Prison, which "[...] was in fact a dungeon, reminiscent of the Hungarian times, with one meter thick walls and iron bars latticed windows, behind which, visible from the outside, the broken glass and peeled plaster gave the impression of a deserted building.

During the cross-examination preceding the trial, it became clear that one of them was a denouncer, as the investigators had a very deep insight about the escape plans, connections between the Cavnic prisoners and civilian workers and personal details about the escapees.

Although their ordeal worsened, with daily raids and searching through the barracks, increased and impossible quotas in the mine, as well as hardened punishments for every small act of defiance, the inmates did not show grudge on the group and had unanimous support towards their actions.

Most of the night time was spent using the bucket, moving around to take the chill off and cuddling under the blanket in a futile attempt to waste as little warmth as possible.

The increased quantity of food helped the dystrophy suffering inmates recover and it was possible, with extra care, contrary to prison rules, to get short periods of sleep also during the day.

The prison doctor was Cornel Petrasievici, an inmate himself and former colleague of some of the Cavnic mine group at the Baia Sprie labor camp and a close friend.

During one of the many solitary punishments received while in Aiud, Ioanid recollects being sent to a room where he managed to contact his neighbors, by talking close to the window bars.

The initiative was met with general endorsement, as with extreme care – and occasional retaliation when caught – it was possible to communicate with other cells and coordinate such an activity.

Ioanid recalls his own personal experience of the ordeal: "At the very first sip, when the tube Ciortan was pushing barely passed the larynx, the involuntary contraction of the esophagus in contact with rubber was so violent, that in an instant, feeling as if choking, I pulled it out.

This time, there were several concessions made by the management: the diet got better, a new set of clothes was received, the guards' vigilance lessened, and inmates were able to perform actions not possible before (sleep during the day, talk out loud or with other cells, make custom tools, etc.

The fact that now, they were accepting, willingly and in advance, the responsibility of applying physical punishment, as a disciplinary measure, made us realize the difficult times we were facing.

As it was very difficult and ineffective – the distance was great and it was hard to make out the body gestures needed to emulate the signals – as well as very risky, this happened only a few times, before giving up on the procedure.

In April 1960,[38] Ioanid was moved from Pitești to Timișoara Prison, where he was subjected to a new secret police investigation regarding his involvement in the Ion Baicu group.

For some time, General Aurel Aldea sought shelter at the Ilovăț residence in order to organize the resistance, and although George Boian was his main confidant, Ioanid was also aware of the plans made there.

Stimulated by the authorities' violence and overall camp conditions, the attitude of the detainees, aimed towards self-preservation, led to mass sabotage and utterly inefficient work procedures.

There are several episodes presented, such as wasting tons of pesticides as they are discarded over the fields on high winds (the only health-related measures being a toxic sign on the container bags), a whole crop of sunflower seeds being compromised because it was stored before it was well dried (yet the inmates told their guardians later about this, because in the storage house where the seeds were kept it was warm during winter, thus avoiding working on a different task out in the cold), prisoners, old and weary, being sent to harvest frogs for export, the one-day work resulting in two captures, and so on.

And then there was the violence, hard and exhausting work, bad food, with dead flies forming a crust on the afternoon soup, rats running around the camp, causing foot spanking on the latrine floor, in order to scare them away, to become a natural habit.