How we were children in Communism Any child growing up in a country ruled by an opressive regime can tell this: first of all you learn the rules. Before you learn how to spell and read and do arithmetics you learn what you must NEVER do or say. You can't say bad things about the Communist party. You can't say bad things about comrade Ceausescu and his wife. You can't say you like the Westerners and their way of life. You can't say you have an uncle who ran away to Canada, USA or Germany. And there are many other rules. I still remember them. I ought to: my Dad told me every day what these rules were. Above all I must not, under no circumstance, say that Dad listens to Radio Free Europe where they say bad things about comrade Ceausescu. It was forbidden to listen to this radio station. It was forbidden to read a lot of books: George Orwell with "Animal Farm" was on top of the list. Followed by "1984", the French philosophers and all the Romanian writers who had run away and published their books abroad. The penalty for disobedience? In the middle of the night entire families were taken from their homes, thrown in prison without any trial, tortured and killed. Sometimes they killed you instantly, sometimes they kept you on in isolation for years and tortured you every day. The lucky ones lost their minds or died. The unlucky ones still live and remember. I knew all these by the time I was five years old. I obeyed the rules. I saw what they did to my uncle, how they exposed him to radiations. A strong, healthy man of 45, he suddenly developped laeukemia and died in three months. I still hope to find out who did this to my uncle. We did not have Christmas, but winter celebration and neither Santa Claus, but Papa Winter. Easter was celebrated in secret. Churches were demolished and people devised cover-up plans worthy of James Bond simply for having a church wedding or a Christening. Oficially, there was no religion except for Communism and no God except for comrade Ceausescu. In 1989 we could take it no longer. Even since Ceausescu's visit in August to Communist Korea there were rumours. I was 10 by then and I knew who Gorbatchev and Bush were. I also had a pretty good idea about the Berlin wall. Then the Revolution came. I do not pretend to hold the absolute truth about it. I can only tell what I remember. It was around the 18th of December when the evening news told about hooligans in Timisoara creating havoc. The army was sent to calm things down. In fact, it was a general massacre with hundreds of unarmed people shot down or ran over by tanks. Students, women, children died together just because they wanted to live free of fear. Things started to precipitate in Bucharest, too. Ceausescu ordered a workers' reunion in the cetral plaza of Bucharest, on the 21st of December. That was his undoing. People came mad with rage. Groups started to gather - mostly students and intellectuals. I live in the cetre of the city so I heard them marching down the street and shouting "Come with us!" It was about 6 in the evening. I didn't know that things were already going seriously wrong at the workers' reunion. Ceausescu was raving against the "hooligans" at Timisoara and people started to shout "Down with Ceausescu" "We want to be free" and "Today in Timisoara, tomorrow all over the country". Ceausescu fled from the balcony. He called the biggest general of the army and ordered him to call the army and repress the manifestation. TABs (smaller tanks) started to pour in. I heard them rumbling dowm my street. 20 minutes later I heard sounds I knew from the movies: shots and artillery projectiles. I remember being confused. I knew they were bad, but I was still young, I did not associate guns with death. The massacre in Bucharest was horrible; Ceausescu's henchmen killed hundreds and thousands of INNOCENT, UNARMED people. The army refused to shoot the people they were supposed to protect. General Vasile Milea told Ceausescu "No" and he paid with his life for this refusal. But for Ceausescu it was too late. The coup succeeded and he ran away with his wife in a helicopter. They were caught, tried in 1/2 hour and executed. It was Christmas day. This is the only thing I do not approve of. Executions shouldn't be done on Christmas day. I cannot give my fair and honest opinion about the execution, because I am strongly biased. Even if God asked me, I'd say the same thing: for what they did to my people, these two deserved to die. Please do not judge me for this opinion. My uncle was murdered by the regime and my father was taken by the opression police force and beaten black and blue to admit something, ONLY because he resembled the man they looked for. They didn't even bother to do an identification. In the next chapter you will see how we woke up to realize we were free - and didn't know what to do with this freedom. Stay tuned.