Radio România Internațional

Category: The History Show

History Show

Scheii Brasovului was the burgh
that was fated to host the first education institution in the Romanian space,
back in 1495. The building was restored in the 18th century, and
today is home to the ‘First Romanian School’ museum. Father Vasile Oltean
talked to us about the history of this monument:

Across history, we can see
that the church sheltering this area had as patrons 32 rulers and noblemen of
Wallachia and Moldavia. Thanks to this fact, confirmed by 80 royal edicts,
today hosted by this museum, a Romanian cultural and spiritual center was
created here, materialized in the first Romanian school. History tells us that
Romanian education dates back to the 16th century, but his is
contradicted by the chronicle of the church, which says clearly that, the holy
church and school were erected in 1495. How can we not believe what the
chronicle says, considering that in 1932, Aurelia Muresan published the
documents of the construction in 1495. This is documentation capable of proving
the truth. In the meantime, we find this in the text of the papal bull issued
by Boniface the 9th, of December 13, 1392, in which the pope in Rome
spoke of the schismatic church in Schei, where pseudo-teachers taught.

Genuine cultural centers
flourished around the School of Schei, being representative not only for the
Barsa Land but for the entire Romanian region. The books by deacon Coresi were
printed here in Romanian for the first time. Dimitrie Eustatievici, a local
from Brasov, wrote here the first Romanian grammar back in 1757. Father Vasile
Oltean, who is also a teacher, told us more about the tumultuous history of the
first Romanian school in Scheii Brasovului.

I am thinking of the year 1981,
when we first discovered the 700 pages school manuscript from the 11th
– 12th centuries. The lesson on virtue alone has 250 pages. Such a big volume of major importance and
with such a rich content is evidence that there was a high-level education system
back then. I was trying to imagine the profile of the student who was supposed
to study that manual. We have 15 storerooms and another three rooms that are
still unexplored. We have 6,000 old books and 30 thousand documents. Until 1962
all these had been hidden in the steeple. Nobody knew about that, but in 1962,
an old man, professor Ioan Colan, went to the tower to take a board. He pulled
the board out of the wall and made such a break into it that he was able to see
the room where these documents were hidden. Ioan Colan served an 8-year prison
sentence for keeping Saguna’s bible in his private book collection; he didn’t
accept to burn it so he was declared a thief and enemy of the people. After his
jail years he got a job here at the church as unskilled carpenter, in spite of
having three bachelor degrees and three PhDs.

In 1949, along with Ana Pauker’s
decree, under which all assets in the church patrimony were to be burnt out,
the documents belonging to the School in Schei were also to be destroyed. A priest
had hidden them in the walls of the church tower, to protect them from the
imminent destruction ordered by the communist authorities. They stayed there
until 1962, when somebody found them. Dean Vasile Cuman started right away the
organization of the Schei museum. Here is with details father Vasile Oltean
once more .

If we
have a 16th century school-book, it means that there was definitely a school
back then. We also found a class book, probably the oldest in the country,
dating back to 1683. The school had just one teacher, Ioan Duma, who had 110
pupils. The oldest of them was 20 years old. He would come to school for 3
months, then he would become a ‘gociman’. The word comes from the German
Gottsmann, meaning ‘God’s man’. It was in fact the administrator of the
settlement and of the church. Administrators back then had a big power, they
could even sack the priest, if he wasn’t fit for the job. If he stayed 6 months
in school, he would become a teacher and a deacon. He would sing in church and
take care of the school. If he stayed 9 months, he would become a priest. In
order to be allowed in school, a pupil was supposed to bring a bucket of wheat,
a cart full of wood and money, four Florins, as the class book shows. But it
was not the pupil or the father who would pay, it was the responsibility of the
entire village. The fact that there were 110 pupils shows that children came
from the entire Barsa Land, not just locals. The first girl was only registered
in 1846.

In the Schei School’s
collection there is also the first book in Slavic, written in 1491, printed
under order by the ruler of Moldavia, Stephen the Great. Sweipold Fiol was the
one who, without knowing it, printed the first orthodox book, although he was
in the center of the Catholic world, in Krakow. The 6 thousand old books and
the 30 thousand documents in Brasov include genuine treasures of universal
culture.

13 July 2015
Poland’s Treasury in Romania

In the autumn of 1939, shortly after the hated Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was signed by Nazi Germany and the USSR, the two totalitarian powers started to divide their spheres of occupation and influence according to the treaty. Poland was first on the black list, and in the second half of September it was effectively wiped off the map. The German attack of September 1st 1939 was followed by the Soviet one on September 17th; Poland, caught in a giant pincer, could not hold on for more than two weeks.

What followed was a disaster as refugees, military survivors and civilians tried to flee to safety, but there was also a scramble to safeguard Polish wealth, mainly the National Treasury of the country, most of it kept in the royal Wawel Castle in Krakow. As Czechoslovakia had been taken over in March 1939 and also wiped off the map, and Hungary was a German ally, the only way out for Polands treasures was through Romania. After WWI, Romania became once again Polands neighbor, after the former kingdom of Moldavia in the Middle Ages shared a border with the Kingdom of Poland, and the two had a very significant relationship up until the 18th century.

This was the beginning of a veritable odyssey for hundreds of major artifacts. The most important were the over 300 Jagellon silk tapestries, in gold and silver thread, about 110 of them dating to the first half of the 16th century, the famous Szczerbiec (Shcherbiets) coronation sword, used by Polish kings between 1320 and 1764, and an original Gutenberg Bible from 1455. The way to Romania was still open, and the Romanian authorities worked closely with the French and the British, who endorsed the transfer of the treasury. Traian Borcescu, an officer with the Special Intelligence Service, witnessed the operation by which the Polish treasures traversed Romania under very watchful eyes. He spoke to Radio Romanias Center for Oral History in 2003:

“I was on the General Staff, and I was appointed as an aid to Colonel Diaconescu, who was in charge of supervising the transfer of population and authorities from Poland to Romania. The Polish were better friends with the Hungarians, Poland had not recognized Transylvanias union with Romania, they were rather on the side of the Hungarians. And it turned out that it was exactly the Hungarians who didnt lend a hand. The only ones to do so were we; we took in the treasury at the suggestion of the French and the English. Armand Calinescu acquiesced on condition that the army turn over their weapons at the border, then undergo triage to eliminate possible foreign agents, have the weapons put in storage, then bring in the treasury in complete secrecy, on a day not know to either the Germans or the Russians, since it could fall under attack.

The Romanian-Polish border, which would disappear after 1945, started being crossed by a convoy of trucks, cars and several trains on September 3rd, 1939. Traian Borcescu traced for us the Polish treasury to its destination, the Black Sea, where a submarine was set to take it further:

“There were two transports: one from Visnita to Cernauti, then from Cernauti to Constanta. A part of the treasury was kept by us, to help with the Polish refugees and troops, but, under pressure from the French and English. We had to allow the treasury, a collection of about 70 crates and parcels to be loaded on a British submarine, awaiting in Constanta, under the command of Captain Brett. The transport was done by train, by car between Visnita and Cernauti, and then again by train to Galati. I dont know what happened from Galati to Constanta, it may have been by car. In Constanta it was blocked by the Romanian army, State Security and Polish intelligence, in addition to French and English agents. The treasury could not stay with us, even though we offered to keep it. The English realized that Romania would have the same fate as Poland, under the August 1939 treaty, as the Russian influence sphere was towards the Baltic area, while the German sphere was towards Romania, Bulgaria and so on. If we were to be occupied, the treasury was not to fall into the hands of the Germans.

A small part of the Polish treasury did stay in Romania, however. I the summer of 1944, that small part of it, 3 tons of gold, joined the 242 tons in the National Bank of Romania treasury that was carried west, towards Tismana Monastery, to be protected from the Soviet invasion. The operation, code named Neptune, took the treasury under greatest secrecy to a cave near the monastery. In 1947, the gold in the Romanian National Bank went back to Bucharest, while the 3 tons of Polish gold went back to its rightful owner.

The odyssey of the Polish gold was immortalized in a Romanian-Polish co-production, The Golden Train, made in 1986, directed by Polish director Bohdan Poreba. The movie features both Polish and Romanian actors. Once it was no longer in danger of being captured by the Germans, the Polish treasury went on a long trip to Malta, Switzerland, the Vatican and France. It could not stay in France, as the German threat was looming over it there too. It crossed the ocean towards North America and much coveted safety.

6 July 2015
Industry in Romania over 1965-1975

The communist regime counted on industry as the main economic sector. However, a systematic investment policy was only possible starting with the second half of the 1960s. In all socialist countries, the political regimes tried to invest in industry in order to increase production and economic productivity. Romania was no exception, contracting loans from the international financial institutions like the IMF, focusing on the building of big iron and steel and chemical platforms. Maxim Berghianu was the president of the State Planning Committee, in charge of economic planning. In 2002, he gave an interview to Radio Romanias Centre of Oral History about the investment in industrial development over 1965-1975.

Maxim Berghianu: “During this period, the allied steel aggregate works in Targoviste was built, the iron and steel platform in Calarasi was opened, the iron and steel works in Hunedoara was overhauled, two bigger roll mills were built, as well as some new furnaces in Hunedoara. A roll mill in Resita was planned to make train rails. We used to make train rails, but just a small range. If we could find train rails in the East, we got them from the East, if not, we got them from the West as we couldnt do without train rails. The wire industry developed in Campia Turzii, producing all kinds of wire, from aluminum and copper cables to all sorts of shaped wire. We exported a lot of such products. They were rare products of the iron and steel industry which not any country could afford to manufacture. Concurrently, plants in Otelul Rosu, Calan and Hunedoara developed, to say nothing of the giant works in Galati, which had to produce around 6-8 million tons of steel and specific steel products.

The investment policy encountered great difficulties because of the bureaucratic state and the lack of experience. Generalized ideology and the submission system hindered the completion of projects, which could not become effective. Such an example was the Galati platform.

Maxim Berghianu: “As I worked at the State Planning Committee, I realized that a huge gap was taking shape there. So, I took charge of the Galati works myself. I brought together all ministers who had some connection with the works, from the energy, metallurgy, machine building, building materials ministries. In Galati, there was a command center involving the contractor, equipment and material producers. A deputy prime minister would go there, analyze and establish jointly with them what had to be done until the next month. We established every goal and deadline. I appointed Chesa, deputy minister at the Metallurgy Ministry, an experienced man whom I knew from Hunedoara, I appointed him general manager of the Galati works. I told him he was in charge of the works and of the deadlines. He would give me a ring every day at 8 a.m. And that went on for 8 months.

Maxim Berghianu also spoke about the organizational shortcomings with a major impact on investment in industry: “We made mistakes too, we were not perfect. We allowed the investment to break down. We were keen on making investment in as many industrial units as possible. That was a generalized disease, especially in chemistry, metallurgy, machine building, where a lot of money was going. The largest amount of funds would go to energy, metallurgy, machine building and chemistry. Nearly three quarters of the investment over 1965-1975 were predominantly made in those industries. The investment was not prepared beforehand. Although we had a five-year plan spaced out over the years and they could start designing the units and conducting research, they did nothing. And the money was wasted. When we realized that, we drew a line. There were stocks of equipment, many of which were imported and fell into disuse because the construction of the respective factory or plant was not completed and they could not be put into operation. So, that was an ineffective system particularly during the first five-year plan over 1966-1970. We established more severe rules for the next five-year plan, no longer allowing an investment to be made in a certain industry unless the units were completed. We provided funds for the completion and commissioning of a plant or factory.

However, Maxim Berghianu believes that after the first decade, those in charge of industrial development acquired a certain experience: “One cant say that the whole Romanian industry was below world standards because otherwise, the French and the Americans would not have bought low-tech products, numerically controlled tools, to say nothing of chemicals or face mill cutters made by IMGB. The iron and steel industry was in the front ranks, so we succeeded in making such products. That was Ceausescus madness. He wanted our production to be comparable with that of the developed countries. But hardly over 1971-1975 did we manage to capitalize on our potential, increase the quality of products, which also allowed for a rise in the price of exported products.

The policy of fostering the Romanian industry over 1965-1975 was an ambitious project. Unfortunately, the system flaws, fully manifest in the 1980s, as well as the oil crisis triggering the increase in energy prices revealed the weak points of the Romanian industry, which in the absence of a command management, collapsed to a great extent after 1990.

29 June 2015
The Miner Raids of June 1990

In June 1990, Romanians took to the streets, unhappy with the fact that, the previous month, the National Salvation Front (the NSF) had won the first democratic elections after the fall of communism. Supported by miners from the Jiu Valley mining basin, security forces in Bucharest intervened brutally against protesters in University Square, as well as against the population. The events of June 13 to 15, the so-called ‘mineriada, known as the ‘miner raids abroad, had a major negative impact on democratic structures and the rule of law. Political scientist Gabriel Andreescu talked about the political background that allowed that crisis:

“These events are not unpleasant, but tragic, in every sense of the word. In the sense of a cost in human lives, individual lives, as well as a collective cost. It definitely has to do with the moment when the NSF was attempting to gain legitimacy, and it decided that it was the moment to use any means at its disposal to gain the control it was used to. Let us not forget that the former secret police the Securitate had been almost completely recycled in the Foreign Intelligence Service, which appeared in 1990, and the Romanian Intelligence service, which emerged officially in March 1990, and which had in fact been functioning previously. There was a visible growing economic power of the former apparatchiks. We are talking about some human groups whose experience was that of full control. From then on, full control was no longer an option. This is why protesters stayed on the streets in spite of the popular vote and in spite of requests for protests to cease.

On June 13, 1990 the tents set up by the protesters in University Square in Bucharest, were destroyed by security forces. The first arrests were made, and workers from the Bucharest Heavy Machinery Factory joined those who were trying to restore order, shouting slogans against the intellectual class. After violent clashes, public television broadcast a message from President Ion Iliescu, who had won the democratic elections a year before. The message said: ‘We are calling on all responsible forces of conscience to gather around the Government building and Television to put an end to the forced attempts of these extremist groups, in order to defend the democracy gained at such great cost.

On the evening of 13 June, three trains brought to Bucharest miners from the Jiu Valley basin. Gabriel Andreescu told us about the events that followed:

“The newspaper Romania Libera, as well as the Group for Social Dialogue and others challenged constantly the power, which had been, however, confirmed by the population. Therefore what happened subsequently destroyed democracy. The miners who came to Bucharest were to liquidate the main sources of opposition. We are talking about Romania Libera, which was attacked, its headquarters destroyed, and the Group for Social Dialogue. I was present there, in the latter case. The miners came to the gate to throw us out, and they were stopped only due to a whole strategy of negotiation.

The following day, on June 14, the miners led by Miron Cozma were taken by employees of the Romanian Intelligence Service to all the major points of Bucharest. The building of the University was attacked, illustrious academics, among them Petru Cretia, were assaulted, alongside student leaders. The same thing happened to the headquarters of the National Liberal Party and the Christian Democratic National Peasant Party. Back with details is Gabriel Andreescu:

“The headquarters in historic buildings were destroyed, therefore, normally, after these raids, the opposition was supposed to be reduced to marginal, absolutely inefficient forms. But that didnt happen. The reaction from the inhabitants of Bucharest, and all over the country, was extraordinary. What these events did was to mobilize people even more, bringing together different communities, like labor unions, parties in the opposition and independent intellectuals. These events prompted the creation of the Civic Alliance, the largest civic structure in the country. The Cluj Anti-Totalitarian Democratic Front was set up after that, which then became the Democratic Convention of Romania, which in 1996 ensured a change in power. It allowed the stabilization of the first truly democratic institutions in Romania.

On 15 June, 1990, the miners who had devastated downtown Bucharest and had savagely beaten protesters, intellectuals and students gathered at the Romexpo exhibition complex, and Ion Iliescu personally thanked them for restoring order in the Capital. Political scientist Gabriel Andreescu tells us about the impact of this tragedy:

“There were overwhelming influences in a variety of ways, by mobilizing the domestic opposition. The international impact, however, was terrible, and we still bear the consequences of those terrible, horrible images that people in the West could see live. The way in which, with the blessing of public authorities, gangs of miners assaulted young people, destroyed abodes of learning. It is a huge shame, a stain on history that Romania will be hard put to be rid of.

25 years after the events that shook Bucharest to its core, there is still no definitive review and bottom line drawn on the real toll taken by this phenomenon that brought a new word to the Romanian language, ‘mineriada, a sarcastic and bitter marriage of the words ‘miner, miner, and ‘olimpiada, Olympics.

15 June 2015
25 years on from the first democratic election in Romania

On May 20th 1990, five months after communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu had been ousted from power, Romanians went to the polls to cast their ballot for the countrys president and their representatives in the two Parliament chambers. The election process at that time was held under a law issued by the Provisional National Union Council, a temporary body with legislative authority, which was set up after the 1989 revolution and led by Ion Iliescu. 25 years on from the first democratic election in Romania the May 20th 1990 election is thought to have been aimed at reconfirming the leaders of the December 1989 revolution. The National Salvation Front (the FSN in short), a political group registered in February 1990, obtained a landslide victory in the election. Political analyst Gabriel Andreescu explains why the FSN candidate Ion Iliescu had to become Romanias president.

Gabriel Andreescu: “First and foremost the election was partially free since the FSN had the ability to control the entire election process and the countrys resources. A couple of decisions had been made at the time on the use and allotment of resources, measures, which pleased the voters. The facts remained unknown to many as they happened in the countryside, but in many Romanian villages lists didnt include all the candidates running in the election. Irregularities in the election process, as well as the intense propaganda put out then, had a decisive role in the FSNs landslide victory.”

On February 6th 1990, the National Salvation Front morphed into a political party with the intention to run in the May election. But for a couple of publications, the new political party was controlling all the Romanian press particularly the main TV station, which declared itself free in December 1989. In the opinion of Gabriel Andreescu it was not only mass media manipulation, which led to the FSNs victory, but the ballot counting as well.

Gabriel Andreescu: “It was a controlled election process from the way in which resources were used to manipulate voters, to ballot counting. I have an example to prove that. Two types of independent candidates appeared on Bucharests lists, including Octavian Paller and Gabriel Liiceanu. Until election, these two celebrities had enjoyed a tremendous popularity with the press a fact proved by the massive sales of magazines where they were contributing, such as Magazine 22 and the Group for Social Dialogue. Under these circumstances, every candidate should have obtained at least over 30 thousand of the votes needed.”

Ion Iliescu s contenders were Ion Ratiu, of the then Christian Democratic National Peasant Party and Radu Campeanu of the National Liberal Party. Political analyst Gabriel Andreescu will now be speaking about these historical parties failure to grapple with a political group that at that time had but recently been founded.

Gabriel Andreescu: “When I said the National Salvation Front was very well stocked, by that I meant it was well stocked in every respect, I didnt just mean the bananas and the oranges that were imported and placed on the market in order to appease the population that had been craving for them for years. I also meant the symbolic resources, such as information. Television, over and above anything else, but also radio, and to a lesser extent, the press; all these were turned into a mouthpiece for those who had seized the power in December 1989, groups chiefly clustered around former president Ion Iliescu. Then there was a big amount of hatred, mystification, manipulation that succeeded in deceiving the population. Its deep-seated fears had resurfaced after the dissemination of slogans like landowners are coming, to take your land” or” capitalists are coming, to take your factories. For the record, it was neither the landowners nor the bourgeoisie that came to reclaim the assets they had lost in 1940. It was the former Securitate and the nomenclature who turned up instead, getting down to fraudulent privatization, laying their hands on assets that had hitherto been public property.”

For quite a few of the 14 million Romanians who cast their ballot on May 20th, 1990, freedom frenzy and the hope for a better life in a country that had recently been freed of communism would shortly turn into regret and frustration. The day of the so-called free election would later be nicknamed “the blind mans Sunday”.

Here is political analyst Gabriel Andreescu again, this time speaking about the meaning of the phrase.

Gabriel Andreescu: “People did have their moment of freedom. Freedom was theirs and not the systems, which was only partially free. But each of them was free to choose. And people voted with their feet without giving it a second thought and without taking a good look at what they had in front of them. Of course, a great number of votes back then – although not to the extent that had been made public – went to Ion Iliescu and his group. Honestly, I think people did not give a great deal of thought to Ion Iliescu and his past, to what he actually was. They agreed to get blinded and that was what happened to the voters in 1990.”

That voters status in the following month proved that the National Salvation Front had been ready to resort to any means in order to grab control in the young democratic state. In June 1990, against the backdrop of protest rallies mounted by the Romanians disgruntled with the election outcome, a decision to replace riot police with miners from the Jiu Valley to reinstate order in Bucharest eventually resulted in the bloodiest events Bucharest had seen after December 1989.”

8 June 2015
Planned Economy and Banks

The centrally planned economy system was one of the pillars of the communist regime. After the first communist government came to power in Romania, on March 6th 1945, the Romanian Communist Party started the implementation of this system. In transforming the economy, the communists relied on the governmental agencies it had seized with the help of the Soviet Army, on its own members, on ideological propaganda, on pressure and persuasion.

The shift from a free market economy to a centrally planned one took several years to achieve, but it had well defined goals and it reached its targets. It involved nationalisation and property seizing, and banks were among the main assets to become state-owned. Viewed as one of the symbols of capitalism, banks were stripped of assets, of the right to give loans and to set interest rates, of deposits and other receivables.

Law no. 119 of June 11, 1948 nationalised industrial companies, banks, insurance companies, mining firms and transport operators, which all became state property. The law included virtually all profit-making means of production. In a 1996 interview to Radio Romanias Oral History Centre, Mihail Magherescu, a member of the Liberal Youth and chief of staff for Finance Minister Mihail Romniceanu, recalled the moments that followed the nationalisation:

Mihail Magherescu: “All the employees of other banks were taken over by the National Bank, which became a state-owned bank and which remained the only one that carried out all banking operations: loans, repayments, anything. It was the only bank left, and this is when the centralised system began. It started with the banking sector, because this was the sector that controlled all economic and financial operations. So dismantling the private banking sector and concentrating all operations in a centralised bank was the beginning of the centralised economic system.”

The nationalisation of the banking system prompted the collapse of the free market economy and of the loan system, of the circulation of money, which is the driving force of any healthy economy. Mihail Magherescu remembers the working conditions for a bank employee in those times:

Mihail Magherescu: “I was new with the bank and I had the smallest salary, around 45 million lei, when a loaf of bread cost between 200 thousand and 400 thousand, maybe even more. In order to destroy or seize all the production means that were in the hands of the middle class or the bourgeoisie, the government launched a monetary reform. But it was not a reform in the true sense of the word, it only seized all money without giving anything in return. Those who had a job were privileged, so to say, because they received a salary, no matter how small. I remember in 1947 I got 30 lei, but you could buy things with this money. The others, who were not employed, didnt get anything. And this was the hardest blow dealt to the bourgeoisie, the fact that their money was taken away. One year later, the government nationalised all private enterprises, and that was the second blow. A second monetary reform followed, in 1952, but the exchange rate was not 1 to 1, but 1 to 20, and the government did not exchange all the amounts the deposit owners had, but set a ceiling instead. So these were the methods used by the Communist Party to get rid of the bourgeoisie and to absorb all the money circulating in the country.”

The Soviet advisers were a critical element in the new type of economy that the communist power in Bucharest was implementing. Mihail Magherescu:

Mihail Magherescu: “At the National Bank, I saw some of these advisers myself, when we were taken over from Banca Romaneasca. Because I was very young and single, I was sent to the Ploiesti branch, but I only stayed there for two years, then I got back to the head office. This happened in 1949-1950. There was this Soviet adviser, his name was Romashov, I remember it clearly. His clothes were all messy and unkempt, as far as I remember. He brought instructions from GostBank in Moscow, and we had to change all our operations to fit the GostBank model.”

But, Mihail Magherescu says, the regime also used the old professionals in reaching its objectives:

Mihail Magherescu: “All those who coordinated this well-planned process were the old-generation professionals. If you were clean, as they said, you had not had any properties or companies, if you were a good employee, they let you work. And during the 8 or 9 years that it took to make this change, the communists worked with these people. I know the situation at the National Bank in more detail, because I worked there until retirement. All the former managers, who were around 45 to 50 years old at the time were gradually replaced with old-time party activists and even workers who had no training in the field, but relied a lot on the old experts, who were kept in the bank in non-management positions.”

After nationalisation, the Romanian banks were integrated in a type of economy that had not been tested in any developed country. Planned economy seemed, in theory, better than the free market one, but time proved the opposite.

25 May 2015
Radio Free Europe

Radio Free Europe has been a landmark of democratic and civic spirit and defense of human rights. It was listened to widely, its popularity owing to its professionalism and critical spirit. In the 1970s and 1980s, Radio Free Europe was one of the few credible sources to act as a link to the free world, a way for free spirits to escape once in a while the terrible prison in which the regime kept millions of Romanians. Radio Free Europe was, for the generation that enacted the 1989 revolution, a school in every sense of the word: for freedom, for politics, for society, for culture. Proof of its popularity was the fact that the names of its anchors were better known than those of Romanian journalists. Some of the programs achieved better popularity than anything broadcast on official channels, such as The Political Show by Mircea Carp, received nightly at 18:10, as well as Romanian Current Affairs and From the Communist World, broadcast between 19:10 and 20:00.

Mircea Carp is one of the journalists whose name is synonymous with Radio Free Europe. He started working there in 1951, after fleeing communist Romania, then went on to work at Voice of America. In 1978 he came back to Free Europe, where he produced the Political Show, one of the most widely known shows aired at the time. He was interviewed in 1997 by Radio Romanias Center for Oral History, and spoke about his contribution to raising the audience and popularity of Radio Free Europe:

“Before I got to Radio Free Europe, shows were flatter, less dynamic. Forgive my lack of modesty, but I brought an American dynamic to these shows, shorter reports, with important voices from around the world, including Romanian personalities, at that time only exiles to the free world. But apart from what I brought to those shows, which is less important, was the fact that Radio Free Europe itself, perhaps feeling that the collapse of the Iron Curtain was looming nearer, renewed its attack, so to say, on communist regimes. Of course, the Romanian department, increasing its number of shows that stirred the pot on the situation in Romania, exposed that intolerable situation. I am referring to everything that could not be seen on the surface, the truth that eluded most people. The fact that a foreign radio station brought these details of real political, economic, cultural and military life in Romania, excited many of our listeners, who could not speak openly about these things, but found their feelings reflected in the information from Free Europe. I could say that from the early 80s, the dynamic of shows on Free Europe, in our case the Romanian language shows, stepped up their pace, they were becoming more and more aggressive. Not violent, but aggressive in the best sense of the word. The political show took on a different dimension. It no longer spoke only of what was happening abroad, but touched on Romanian topics as often as it could.”

The popularity of Radio Free Europe was owed to the freedom that the American management of the station granted everyone there, and to the accuracy of sources. The documentary sources for the situation in Romania were the western press, namely those Romanians who had managed to make it to the West, as well as Romanians from within the country who managed to convey information through letters sent illegally, as well as the stations own reference and research center. Mircea Carp spoke about the aims of the shows called Romanian Current Affairs and From the Communist World, which brought the station much popularity.

“Then we created Romanian Current Affairs, one of the key elements of our broadcasts. Then Doina Alexandru was given the show called From the Communist World, which also presented the situation in eastern European countries under communist regime, maybe even in the USSR or Cuba, but not Romania. The aim of this program was to inform our listeners on the situation in other communist regime countries, so that listeners could see that what was going on in Romania was not an isolated thing, it was part of a complex of situations, of persecutions, a complex of attitudes of regimes in power, attitudes that resembled each other closely. What was happening in Warsaw was also happening in Sofia or Budapest. Listeners in the country had the opportunity to follow things in other countries with communist regimes. The whole dynamic of Radio Free Europe broadcasts in the 80s was leading to a certain point, which came in December 1989. Prior to that there was a small outburst, so to say, namely the revolt in Brasov, on November 15, 1987. That was the first signal clearly indicating that Romanians were no longer willing to put with a situation that had become absolutely unbearable, from all points of view.”

Free Europe was living proof that the truth can never be silenced. And the truth conquers all, and is always validated by popularity.

11 May 2015
Sector 3 of Bucharest, the City within a City

Bucharest was first documented on 20 September 1459, in a document issued by Vlad the Impaler’s Chancery. In 1862, Bucharest was declared the capital of the United Romanian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. It developed as a major culture and arts center, and in the early 20th century, as the Bucharest elites modeled themselves after Western ones, mostly French, Bucharest came to be known as Little Paris, mainly due to its architecture, a moniker it would keep in the interwar period too. Unfortunately, the communist regime had a brutal effect on its architecture and infrastructure. Many historical monuments were outright destroyed, especially in the 1980s, some of them to make room for industrial neighborhoods. Right now, Bucharest is divided into six administrative sectors, which radiate from the center like slices of a pie.

Historian Emanuel Badescu spoke to us about the birth of the Romanian capital city: “Bucharest’s core was the Princely Court, or Princely Palace, and a village that evolved to become the oldest neighborhood, developed around the Old St. George Church. This is the so-called Popescu Quarter. This neighborhood extended beyond Delea Veche and Delea Noua, up until it almost reached Marcuta Monastery, east of Bucharest. Lt-col. Papazoglu, 19th century Romanian historian, archeologist and geographer, claims that the second neighborhood he moved to, after living in Ban Ghika’s houses by Mihai Voda bridge, Dobroteasa Quarter, was the birth place of the city, according to his studies. He was wrong by only a few hundred meters, since the core was right by Old St. George Church.”

Sector 3 of the capital city comprises the most significant part of the historic center of the city. This interesting mixture of old buildings, representative of Bucharest, and new quarters, Sector 3 stretches from University Square to the eastern edge of Bucharest. It has 34 sq km, and is the most densely populated sector in Bucharest, with a population of 342,000, according to the 2011 census. It is seen as a city within a city, which has undergone many changes and transformations along its history, some better known than others.

Back with details is Emanuel Badescu: “This city within a city is the place that was the worst affected by the Great Fire of March 23 1847. If we look at the Papazoglu map, we can see that the fire had its flashpoint in the courtyard of the Filipescu household, across from St. Dimitrius Church, then spread beyond St. Stephen Church to what is now Calarasi Street, which used to be Podul Vergului. Basically, this great fire engulfed the whole of what is now Sector 3 of modern Bucharest. This sector was also the first which, as a result of the fire, issued the first building and zoning regulations, proposed by both Prince Gheorghe Bibescu and his brother, Prince Barbu Stirbey. These norms are still in place when building private homes. I don’t know if the conflagration was an accident or if it was arson. I am thinking of the fact that some areas did not burn, which is suspicious. For instance, the old Town Hall, built by Xavier Villacrosse in 1843, escaped the fire miraculously. The building was later demolished, once the river Dambovita was built an artificial bed around 1880.”

The University of Bucharest as it stands now, one of the most important buildings in the city, lying on the line between sectors 1 and 3 of Bucharest, is built on what was St. Sava Monastery. In the 18th century, that monastery, which was a center of education, was turned into the Princely Academy. In 1918, Gheorghe Lazar created here the University as we see it now, laying the foundation of Romanian modern university education. Among the monuments that withstood the vicissitudes of the communist regime are the National Bank of Romania, the Postal Service Palace, which now houses the National History Museum of Romania, Manuc Inn and the old Stavropoleos, Coltea, Annunciation and Russian Churches.

Unfortunately, not the same can be said about many other historic buildings, as Emanuel Badescu told us: “Historians look in pain to the widespread destruction of 1981 to 1986. This sector had much more to suffer than the other five sectors. We are talking mainly about the destruction of the oldest traditional neighborhood in Bucharest, Popescu Quarter, which was the old core, between Old St. George Church and St. Vineri Church, which were wiped off the face of the earth. The new apartment buildings reached the intersection Calea Calarasi- Mihai Bravu Blvd. We can see how the old part of this quarter, which it shared with the entire capital, was mutilated. Beyond Calea Mosilor we have left the church built by Marshall Ion Antonescu, which has preserved his bust.”

The communist idea of cramming an industrial population into massive tall buildings is now a thing of the past. The biggest threat right now to historic monuments is modern real estate development, which can be unpredictable.

4 May 2015
Romania’s Balkan policy after World War Two

Before 1940, Romania’s policy in the Balkans had been mainly focusing on cooperation and making alliances with various state entities. After World War 2, until the mid-1950s, Romania’s policy in the Balkans was controlled by the USSR and it was only after Stalin’s death in 1953 that Romania started its own initiatives in the region. The country tried to reach out beyond the barriers imposed by the post-war delineation in the Balkans, where Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania where under the communist grip, while Turkey and Greece had democratic regimes.

Attempting to improve its international image, in the aftermath of its intervention against the anti-communist revolution in Hungary in 1956, the Soviet Union eased its grip granting some freedom to its satellite countries. In Romania’s case the Soviets took this process a step further by pulling their troops out of this territory in 1958. Romania wanted to make the most of this freedom and tried an economical and cultural rapprochement with its neighbours.

In an interview with the Oral History Department, Valentin Lipatti, a former ambassador, essay-writer and translator, spoke about the initiative of denuclearizing the Balkans at that time.

Valentin Lipatti: “Romania’s first major initiative after the war was Prime Minister Chivu Stoica’s 1957 proposal to denuclearize the Balkans. It was a major, daring initiative, which of course, slammed against a wall of rejection. Whereas Bulgaria and Yugoslavia were largely in favour of denuclearization or turning the Balkans into a region free of atomic bombs, NATO members Greece and Turkey stood against it, and the initiative, no matter how inspired, failed. It wasn’t completely buried, but kept dormant for a year or two. However, this idea of denuclearizing the Balkans got momentum and snowballed into a movement that eventually comprised other parts of the globe.”

With the barrier between communism and democracy seemingly impossible to overcome, cultural cooperation proved to be the only way to cross it.

Valentin Lipatti: “Concurrently with this governmental initiative, which proved difficult because it involved the military sector, and military issues were always the most prickly, a major cooperation process commenced in the Balkans, in the cultural field, consisting in exchanges in education, sciences and culture. But that was at non-governmental level only. And this kind of multilateral cooperation went on for years at this level, which was easier to accomplish and had only few obstacles. This is how a number of associations and organisations operated, such as the Balkan Medical Union, which had been founded between the two wars, the Balkan Union of Mathematicians as well as the younger International Association of South-eastern European Studies, set up in 1963. These professional associations and organisations maintained a sense of trust and cooperation in scientific areas and professional environments in the Balkans.”

The Balkan Cooperation Committee, headed by Mihail Ghelmegeanu, was designed to coordinate cultural activities. However, its success was limited.

Valentin Lipatti: “The Balkan Cooperation Committee, headed by Mihail Ghelmegeanu, was a non-governmental committee lobbying for peace. Such organisations were very much in fashion at that time. There was this idea, mainly coming from the Soviet Union, of holding world-level peace conferences, regional conferences for peace, against imperialism, and so on. In the Balkans, this Committee was set up, focusing on defending peace in the Balkans. It was a multilateral committee, but it did not have a large-scale activity. More important were those professional associations, of medical doctors, architects, archaeologists, geologists, scientists, historians, writers. Their efficiency was twofold. First, a specific cooperation project was established in a given profession, in the field of history, let’s say, or in the field of language studies, or in archaeology. It resulted in research studies, research activities, reviews, colloquia, a multilateral professional activity between the Balkan countries, between specialists from Balkan states. Thanks to this kind of cooperation, these professional circles maintained a climate of good neighbourhood, reliability, friendship and trust.”

However, at a 1976 governmental meeting in Athens, focusing on economic and technical cooperation, the flaws of that kind of policy came to light.

Valentin Lipatti: “The objective Romania was firmly pursuing, just like Yugoslavia, Turkey, and to a certain extent Greece, was to create some kind of follow-up. That is, to create an institutional framework, because one conference, a one-off event, good as it may be, doesn’t amount to much, people forget it. And in this respect, we had to face Bulgaria’s staunch opposition. Our Bulgarian friends claimed they had not been authorised to approve anything like this. Generally, a five-way consensus was quite easy to get. But it was enough for a country to veto, and the decision could not be approved. Bulgaria was voicing the Soviet Unions’ view, and at that time Moscow did not favour economic cooperation in the Balkans, which in time could get out of its control. It saw a common Balkan regional market as a threat, because Romania and Bulgaria were socialist countries, but Turkey, Greece, non-aligned Yugoslavia could take that cooperation to a direction the Soviet Union did not want it to go. So the Bulgarians were instructed to veto the follow-up. That blow below the belt dealt by the Bulgarians blocked the multilateral process for long, for quite a few years, actually.”

The success of Romania’s policy in the Balkans during the communist years was limited. The clashing interests within the same bloc, as well as the different political regimes, were reasons enough to hinder Balkan regional cooperation.

6 April 2015
Callatis, the ancient city on the Black Sea coast

Between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, a phenomenon occurred that historians refer to as the great Greek colonisation. Colonists headed out from the great centres of ancient Greek civilisation in all directions, founding urban centres that kept close commercial, cultural and political ties with the cities of origin. The Black Sea area, in fact, was surrounded on all sides by Greek colonies.

On the western shores of the Black Sea, on what is now Romania, the Greek colonists from Miletus, on the eastern shore of the Ionian Sea, founded the cities of Histria, also known as Istros, and Tomis, while the colonists from Heraclea Pontica, on the southern shore of the Black Sea, 100 km east of the Bosphorus, founded the city of Callatis.

Experts and archaeologists agree that Callatis was the most important cultural centre in antiquity in the entire region of Dobrudja, an area lying between the Danube and the Black Sea. It was a great economic centre, especially thanks to its harbour. Callatis was built by Greek colonists from Heraclea Pontica on the site of an older Getae settlement known as Acervatis or Cerbatis. The inhabitants were at first a mixture of the local Getae population and the Greeks newly arrived.

On the site once occupied by Callatis we find today the town of Mangalia, with a population of around 33,000 inhabitants. Sorin Marcel Colesniuc, the curator of the Callatis Museum, which is part of the Callatis Cultural Complex, told us about what has survived to this day of the ancient city of Callatis:

“First of all, we have a number of inscriptions we have dug up in Mangalia, as well as funeral stones featuring a number of ancient teachers. We also have the ancient writers in the old city of Callatis, such as Istros of Callatis, Demetrius of Callatis, Herakleides Lembos, and the philosopher Thales. In Mangalia, we found the only ancient papyrus discovered on Romanian territory. It was uncovered in 1959, and because the country didn’t have the proper conditions to preserve it, it was sent to Moscow. It was believed lost to researchers in Romania for half a century. I looked for this papyrus together with my colleague Ion Paslaru and found it after 2 years of searching, in 2011, at the Moscow Centre for Restoration and Conservation. That year we brought back to Romania this unique document. We don’t know exactly what the text says, because it disintegrated when exposed to air and sun after being found. It could have been lost forever, but luckily it got to Moscow and it was preserved. Today there are 154 surviving fragments, and on the larger fragments we can make out letters in ancient Greek. We don’t have any complete word, just a few letters here and there. The papyrus dates back to the 4th century BC.”

We asked Sorin Marcel Colesniuc what visitors can see in the Callatis Museum:

“The museum exhibits many architectural pieces, such as columns, capitals, architraves, friezes with metopes, cornices featuring bucrania and various ceramic vessels, the most important being the amphorae. There are also oil lamps, aqueducts, Tanagra figurines, vessels made of glass, funerary stelae, inscriptions, depictions of the gods, jewels, coins and metal objects. In front of the museum, you can see lots of architectural fragments. There is also an architectural park, as well as the sites around Mangalia. You can see the north wall of the city of Callatis and its north-western wall which has been dug up and extensively studied. Another site worth a visit is a princely tomb located 3 km away from Mangalia, on the way to the village of Albesti.”

The ancient harbour provides significant insight into the economy of the ancient city of Callatis. Unfortunately, however, it lies today below the sea surface. Sorin Marcel Colesniuc, the curator of the Callatis Museum, explains:

“The harbour in Callatis was built in the 4th century BC. Unfortunately, the sea level went up about 2 metres in the last 2,000 years, so the ports and its structures are now under the Black Sea. In the 1960s and 1970s, Constantin Scarlat did an underwater survey and drew a map of the ancient harbour. He found many architectural fragments, lots of ceramic pieces, especially shingles and amphorae, and we have the map he published in 1973 in a science journal in Cluj. The map includes a few sunken ships as well. We worked with companies from Italy and Hungary which came to scan the bottom of the Black Sea in the Mangalia area, and their scanners have confirmed the presence of these ancient shipwrecks.”

From a flourishing city, Callatis gradually suffered a dramatic decline, which Sorin Marcel Colesniuc says was the result of migrations:

“In the 2nd century AD, the area saw the arrival of migratory populations. The first are the Costoboci, followed by the Goths, the Carpi and the Huns, in the 5th century. The Avars and the Slavs arrived in these parts in the late 6th and early 7th century. They dealt the final blow to Callatis, and for the next 300 years nothing is known of the city. No archaeological traces were found from this period. Later, around the 13th century, we encounter for the first time the name of Pangalia to refer to the site of the ancient Callatis. The Mangalia was first mentioned in historical records in 1593.”

As is often the case with history, few traces remain of what was once the ancient city of Callatis and they tell us very little about the people who lived here.

30 March 2015
Fiscal Reforms in the interwar Romania

Romania’s territory doubled in size after the historical provinces of Bessarabia, Bukovina, Banat and Transylvania had united with the old kingdom of Muntenia in the aftermath of WWI.

However, the Greater Romania, as the new kingdom was also known, was facing a difficult economic and financial situation, with a weak budget into which the Central Bank kept pumping depreciating currency in a bid to achieve stability. After the country’s default on foreign debt its entire administrative system went into a tailspin. The country’s Finance Minister at that time Vintila Bratianu was facing a difficult task but resolved to carry on the implementation of an economic recovery plan initially drawn up by his predecessor Nicolae Titulescu. Here is historian Ioan Scurtu with more on the fiscal reform Romania resorted to back in the 1920s.

“Nicolae Titulescu was the first Finance Minister to have proposed a law that introduced the progressive tax principle, that is according to incomes, as well as the comprehensive business income tax. Under the law – which had been very complex, intricate and difficult to implement – those with incomes from several businesses had to pay accumulated business tax. Bratianu practically borrowed the basic ideas for the economic reform from Nicolae Titulescu and out of his initiative, a new and simplified version of Titulescu law was adopted in February 1923.”

Vintila Bratianu’s financial policy focused on modernizing Romania’s tax system and complying with the principle of the budget balance. The draft law on direct contributions, drawn up under his strict guidance and voted in Parliament in 1923, met all the requirements in the process of streamlining Romania’s fiscal system. It had a positive impact on the value and the structure of budget incomes. The new system of dividing incomes was a big step forward in strengthening the financial situation of the interwar Romania. Here is historian Ioan Scurtu with details.

“The law stipulated special protection for industrial activity incomes. Vintila Bratianu was the supporter of a policy called ‘on our own’, which was aimed at strengthening the economy and particularly the industry. Vintila Bratianu said that after the war Romania regained its territories and political independence but it also needed economic independence. He believed that a country could not have political independence without an independent economy. And the reform I’ve just mentioned was aimed at bolstering Romania’s economic development, particularly in the field of industry. That happened during the Liberal governance of Romania, the longest in the entire interwar period – between January 1922 until the end of March 1926, to be precise. This period was characterized by the adoption of a new Constitution stipulating the nationalization of the soil resources. An entire legislation was issued to allow for the implementation of the new Liberal policy focusing on rapid economic development. I would like to mention that in 1928, a decade after the unification of the Romanian provinces, the country’s industrial development was nearly two times higher than prior to the war.”

The finance minister was facing two main challenges back then, namely to capitalize on the economic potential of the Danube border and on Romania’s crude oil resources. Vintila Bratianu was the first to notice the difficulties caused by the massive inflow of foreign capital into the country’s oil industry and also the first politician to have identified the main coordinates of a national energy policy. Under the Liberal principle ‘on our own’, Bratianu insisted on the optimum use of the country’s oil resources against the rising demand at both domestic and international level.

“Nicolae Titulescu’s reform was important, because it had set a certain direction to follow. And Bratianu carried his reforms forward, indicating where state budget money must go after pensions and salaries had been paid – although few benefited from state pensions at that time. He didn’t focus on paying state debts, but on ensuring investment mainly by granting loans to various business ventures that could produce goods that did not exist on the manufacturing market in Romania at the time. This is the case of the machine-building industry – the Malaxa factory, the Aeronautic Industry and other major businesses in Romania whose foundations were laid in the interwar period.”

Finance Minister Vintila Bratianu believed that capitalizing on the country’s natural resources was a key element in reducing an economy’s reliance on foreign capital. The economic policy measures backed by the Liberal government between 1918 and 1940 largely contributed to the stabilization of the Romanian currency.

23 February 2015
The National Liberal Party and Romanian Neutrality Early in WWI

King Carol I himself sided the pro-German faction. The pro-Allied faction was made up mainly of politicians who wanted to promote the rights of the Romanians in Transylvania, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time. Neutrality was the temporary arrangement considered best for the early part of the war. Another reason why neutrality was tempting was the state of the Romanian armed forces. Even though efforts had been made to bring Romania in line with Western countries, the archaic economy and the backward state of the armed forces were important arguments for staying out of the conflict in the beginning. Here with details is historian Alin Ciupala:

“Romania’s situation was very complicated, because it already had an alliance treaty with Germany and its allies. It was a defensive treaty, but one which was unknown to the public and most of the Romanian political class. German imperial chancellor Otto von Bismarck, when signing the treaty, had a condition, that this treaty remained secret, and therefore it was known only to the king and a handful of politicians. This 1883 alliance brought Romania security guarantees it sorely needed as a young independent state. In 1914, the treaty was a problem, because it limited, at least in terms of international law, the freedom of movement of the Romanian political.”

Romania was therefore in a conundrum in 1914. It wanted to defend and promote the national and civil rights of the Romanians in Transylvania, Banat and Bukovina, three provinces that were an integral part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The arguments for rejecting the call of the Central Powers to observe the alliance and join them in the war and staying neutral, were summarised by pro-Ally prime minister Ionel Bratianu:

“A state like ours, which entered this alliance as a sovereign state, on equal footing, cannot be treated in this manner. (…) At the same time, Romania could never acquiesce to take up arms in a war whose point is precisely the obliteration of a small nation. (…) The public sentiment is almost unanimously against war. (…) The fate of the Romanians beyond the mountains and the Romanian national ideal are matters that no Romanian government can afford to overlook.”

VF Historian Alin Ciupala told us about the Crown Council in which neutrality was proclaimed:

“Politicians and the Prime Minister, Ionel Bratianu, were aware of the fact that the Romanian army was not prepared, it did not have the technical means to cope with the exigencies of a modern war. The military capacity of the Romanian army could be seen in 1913, when it was sent south of the Danube into Bulgaria, in the Second Balkan War. All this caused tensions in the discussions on Romania’s stance in the war. King Carol I called the Crown Council at the royal mansion in Peles, bringing together the leaders of the National Liberal Party and their government ministers, as well as other important politicians, such as his heir, Prince Ferdinand. Carol I called explicitly for Romania’s joining Germany and its allies in the war, with the 1883 defensive treaty as his main argument. The king was to face for the first time in his rule a deep disappointment, because most of the politicians there were of the opinion that Romania could under no circumstances join Germany in the war, because that would have meant a cancellation of the national project, precluding the union with Transylvania. In addition, because of the country’s and the army’s lack of preparation for the war effort, most of the participants in the Crown Council proposed neutrality. The role of the National Liberal Party and its leaders was as important as that of other politicians of that era. Ionel Bratianu himself was aware of the fact that the responsibility for the decision to join the war was a responsibility that fell solely on the Romanian political class. If we are to think strictly of the role played by the Liberals — especially the Liberal government ministers — we can say that Ionel Bratianu’s government had started a pretty well sustained activity to prepare Romania to join the war. Ionel Bratianu wanted, in fact, to delay that moment as much as possible.”

In the two years after Carol I died, the two sides in the war spent considerable effort on attracting Romania to their side. The new king, Ferdinand I, and the prime minister, Ionel Bratianu, however, had no intention of breaking neutrality until they had a level of certainty that national objectives were to be met as a result. Finally securing the guarantee of its national integrity, Romania joined the Allies in 1916. When they won the war, the long held dream of creating a Greater Romania finally came true, bringing Bessarabia, Transylvania, Banat and Bukovina into the fold of the Romanian Kingdom.

16 February 2015
Testimonies from Auschwitz

For the European Jews, the concentration camps in Auschwitz-Birkenau meant their systematic elimination through a program masterminded by the Nazis. The number of those killed by the largest Nazi death camp is hard to estimate, the figures proposed by various authors varying between 1 and 1.5 million Jews. From northern Transylvania the Hungarian authorities sent to Auschwitz 150,000 Jews starting with the spring of 1944. 70 years after the prisoners were freed from the camp on January 27, 1945, we selected from Radio Romania’s audio archive a few testimonies of those who survived the ordeal.

Eva Berger from Cluj was taken with her mother through at least 10 labour camps. She stayed in Auschwitz only 3 days, but that was enough for her to understand what was really happening there. The recording is dated 1996.

“The right side meant life, the left side death! I was with my mom and they did not tie our hands, although we looked alike. Most probably they did not realize that we were mother and daughter and put us both on the right side. I did not know what that meant, all the other members of my family were pushed to the left side, because I had aunts, cousins with small children, and those with small children could not be used, they had to be exterminated, one way or the other. What I had noticed, and I told my mom about that, was that I could hear no birds singing, although there was a forest nearby. It was in June and there were no birds singing. I found it strange that birds were not singing. Later I realized that there had been gas chambers there, and animals and birds could not survive there with all that gas and smoke. Subsequently I also saw my father whom they had put on the left side, next to those who were to be killed in the gas chambers. They were telling us to keep calm because we would meet our families later, but that now we had to be separated, the elderly and the children together, because that was best for us. We went through a gate on which you could read “Arbeit macht frei” and I told myself that things were going to be OK for us. We were working, so we were going to be free. They put us up in shacks and cut our hair. I could hardly recognize my mom. I could only recognize her voice, because she looked like a man without hair. We were holding our hands. I was lucky enough to stay only 3 days in Auschwitz. After only 3 days I got out, putting the squalor, the hunger and all those horrors behind me.”

In May 1944 Mauritiu Sabovici from Sighetu Marmatiei was taken to the Viseu ghetto following the Horthyst occupation of northern Transylvania. In 1997 he was recollecting how he came to live near the death camp in Auschwitz. As a young certified locksmith he worked in a factory just outside the camp.

“A usual day in the camp went as follows: you woke up at 5, you took a quick shower, then they lined us up and gave us breakfast which consisted of 100 g of bread, tea or black coffee and margarine. At 6 we had to be ready to go to Gleiwitz, as the factory was about 2 kms away. And on the way to the factory those walking on the sides of the line were beaten, while those in the middle were not. That is why everybody tried to stay in the middle of the line. In the factory they did not beat us, only the civilians beat us. SS troops were deployed around the factory to prevent us from fleeing, but inside the factory those who controlled us were arrested German Communists. They were supervising us to see if we were working or just sitting around. There were also Polish Jews that treated us badly, just like the Germans. They did not care that we were Jews like them. They were angry with us because we arrived there too late, in 1944 when the front was already crashing, and not in 1939. They gave us hell there, instead of helping us.”

Back in 1997 electrician Otto Sarudi from Baia Mare was recollecting events similar to those experienced by other survivors. In June 1944 the Jews in Baia Mare were gathered in the ghetto before being put into freight trains headed to Auschwitz.

“From Auschwitz the train took us to Birkenau where the extermination camp was. In Birkenau I ended up in a gypsy camp, the commanders of the camp were gypsy. They drove us forward with their clubs, to make us walk faster. You can imagine 1,000 people in a stable hurrying outside. I stayed there for about one week. Meanwhile the Germans came asking if there were any workers amongst us, namely a bricklayer, a carpenter, a mechanic and an electrician. We introduced ourselves and they gave us numbers, I received number 13034. From there they took us 6 kms away to the Auschwitz camp. They gathered us all outside, and placed us in groups, by jobs. There were 16 electricians and they took us to a workshop. There was a large workshop with poles, and you had to climb those poles and pull a cable. They were actually testing us. Out of the initial 16 electricians only two were left, and I was one of them. They had me control the fences, there were electric fences and they had me control them”.

Hearing all these testimonies from the survivors of the Auschwitz death camp, the epitome of the Nazi crime, one cannot help but shudder in horror.

26 January 2015
The Independent Romania Anti-Communist Group

After the aggressive installation of communism in Romania, the democratic parties organized resistance movements. One of these movements was the “Independent Romania” group, created by the National Peasant Party. In the summer of 1947, the leaders of the party were arrested by the communist government following the Tamadau incident. The Peasant Party leaders were offered an airplane to take them abroad, but in fact this was just a trap laid by the communists, who needed a pretext to arrest the democratic opposition.

However, things did not stay like that. The opposition realized things were changing, and that the situation was turning into a military confrontation, after in 1944 – 1947 the communists supported by the occupying Soviet army took over power. The Peasant Party youth started to set up resistance groups, such as the Independent Romania group, created in 1947.

Nistor Badiceanu was a senator in the Romanian Parliament on behalf of the Christian Democratic National Peasant Party between 1992 and 1996. As a young man, he was a member of the Independent Romania resistance group. He spoke about it for Radio Romania’s Center for Oral History in 1999:

Nistor Badiceanu: “We, the Peasant Party youth, sought to switch to a subversive form of organization. This is how a lot of organizations were formed, like Vlad the Impaler, The Eagles, Group 4, Independent Romania. We believed that we needed to prepare, to network, to arm ourselves, and at the right time to start an armed rebellion, as we were hoping for an intervention and imminent war. We had the enthusiasm of youth, and not just youth, because we were keeping in touch with a whole range of former party members, chairmen and determined field activists, especially in Marghita, in the northern part of Bihor County, where I am from, and where I sought to rebuild the local branch. With all our enthusiasm back then, we realized that there was a danger, considering who we were dealing with, and their methods. They weren’t pulling any punches.”

Nistor Badiceanu gave us details on the group’s structure, who the members were, and their guiding principles.

Nistor Badiceanu: “The core group was made up of 32 to 35 members. In the end, to be honest, I don’t even know how many of us there were, we were hundreds. That was the rumor, not everyone knew everyone, for safety reasons. Of three, one recruited three others, and so on. If an uprising had started, it would have been very easy to act in force. The members of the group were mostly locals, in the northern part of the county and the center, Oradea, and the area around Marghita where I had closer acquaintances whom I trusted more. Because some of us were linked together by a lifetime, starting as students, then meeting at various parties and party events, I knew their orientation and beliefs, and the strength of character of some of them. You couldn’t bring in just anyone.”

We asked Mr. Badiceanu about his role in the Independent Romania group. He told us he was an initiator and mostly in charge with raising awareness of the danger that loomed over Romania.

Nistor Badiceanu: “I was a ringleader, a troublemaker, basically an organizer. It was no longer the case to have a democratic leadership, with conferences and congresses, with a democratically elected leader. We were preparing for fighting against state power, what the communists had dubbed ‘the crime of conspiring against social order’, which was included in the Criminal Code, with specific penalties. We also had weapons, because during the war you were allowed to have those. At some point we had a horse cart full of grenades, then handguns and submachine guns, that was not a problem. With the Germans having retreated in disarray, and the frontline going through our region, when someone died, their weapon right next to them, the people who found them kept them hidden. We used to go around villages, gathering the people we trusted and the people they had recruited, and we told them what they had to do, the next step, where to be careful, and where to go out and talk to people. The net was closing in, quotas had been introduced, they were taking away wheat from people, state policy was more and more repressive, and things were getting ripe for us.”

Badiceanu wanted to put together a guerrilla to hide in the mountains and put up armed resistance. Joining the Peasant Party members were members of the Romanian armed forces, former Iron Guard members and peasants who had had their land taken away. This was the anti-communist resistance. After 8 months, the Independent Romania group was uncovered, and its core members arrested because of a recruit who could not keep the secret. The group, however, had made its point.

19 January 2015
The victims of the 1989 anti-communist revolution in Timisoara

The anti-communist revolution of December 1989 remains one of the most tragic events in Romania’s recent history. The human sacrifice that led to the collapse of the communist dictatorship has left a deep scar on collective conscience in Romania. What started as a peaceful protest against the restrictions to religious freedom on the 16th of December 1989 became, on the following day, a spontaneous act of solidarity with and protest against the violation of basic human rights and liberties. On the 17th and 18th of December, army, police and secret service troops opened fire on the protesters. Alexandra Enache, the director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Timisoara, was one of the doctors who performed autopsy on the victims. The first action was to inspect the types of wounds inflicted:

“The external examination of the body, including entry and exit wounds, establishes the direction from which the shots were fired. Most of shots were fired from the same height, but from all directions. We found entry wounds on both the front and back of the bodies. Not many bullets were fired upwards, but these were cases when the bullets ricocheted. A report on the trajectory of the bullets was submitted to the Military Prosecutor’s Office, which created an overview in terms of the direction from which the shots were fired. In most of the cases, the victims were standing, as the wounds were on the heads. Some of them were on the move when they got shot and all had gunshot wounds, none had blunt trauma. You cannot possibly defend yourself against a gun by throwing stones and the shooters were at quite some distance from the crowd. Had they wanted to defend themselves, they would have stood minimal chances. We didn’t have data about traumas among the troops that opened fire on the protesters, or cases of stabbing. I remember someone who was said to have died in a car crash, but was in fact killed in the clashes between the troops and the protesters. The wounded weren’t abandoned but carried by the protesters to the nearest emergency rooms. I remember examining four children with ages ranging from 2 to 16 years; they had been shot dead by the riot police and army. All the victims were Romanian nationals.”

Alexandra Enache referred to the identification procedures and the then grim atmosphere in the institution.

”Of the first victims of December 17 that we examined on December 18, 6 corpses were left unidentified. There were very many unidentified victims in the first days. But, based on the examinations made and the notes we took, based on the description and an identikit picture of the corpse, the families managed to identify their victims in the month of December, and also in January 1990 and later on, by means of those notes referring to certain particular body signs or items of clothing. Many of those victims were taken to Bucharest and cremated. We kept all those notes in the form of forensic reports based on which identifications were made. The families read the reports and talked with the forensic medicine experts who had performed the examinations and managed to find elements based on which they could recognize their relatives. The identity papers and other items that the victims had on themselves were initially taken by the employees of the justice department, who also took pictures of the corpses. As far as I know these papers no longer exist, because they were burnt together with the photographic films and other documents which were drafted by the justice department of the militia. The forensic reports which we wrote were the only documents drafted at the time. On December 18th we worked until late to finalize the documents for all the bodies that were examined and which had stayed at the morgue that day. We called it a day only after all reports were drawn up. At the time I was a resident physician. We were under a lot of pressure at the moment, given the times. We were not allowed to leave the county hospital of Timisoara, where the morgue was, through the main gate. After we finished the examinations and having to return to the office, which was in another building, we had to take a secondary exit.”

In January 1990, the documents issued between December 16-18 by the Forensic Medicine Institute of Timisoara were archived, including the post mortem examination reports of the bodies that had disappeared from the hospital morgue. The corpses had been taken secretly to Bucharest and cremated, in a last attempt of the repressive regime to hide the evidence of the massacre they perpetrated against unarmed civilians. 25 years on, questions about what actually happened in Timisoara in those days of December 1989, are still unanswered.

12 January 2015