December 21st 1989

I was 7. I was coming home from school. It was last day of school before Christmas holiday. My grandma prepared something good to eat and I was having lunch in her bedroom. TV was on and there was another boring speech of Ceausescu at the balcony. My grandma wanted to watch TV but I insisted I want to eat so by the time she was in the kitchen, preparing the food, something happened. Suddenly the crowd in the plaza begun to make some noise and Ceausescu interrupted his speech. My grandma came back and asked me what had happened. After that, transmission was off. We waited for something to happen. Some neighbours told us that few days ago something bad happened at Timisoara. There was a rumor that people were protesting "Jos Ceausescu!" and that the army shot them. My mom was at work at the airport and managed to come home about 10.30 in the evening. She was terrified. We found out from the radio and people coming home that there were shootings at the University, people dead or injured on the streets. Romanian army was shooting against Romanians. The minister of defense was found shoot in his office. There was a general chaos. We never slept that night. National television had a full transmission of the events out there: on air revolution with shootings, speeches and regime changes.

Next day mom had to go to work but her boss and one of the coworkers told her to stay home. She did but her colleague, the one telling her is better to stay home, didn't. He didn't make it. Was shot in the head in the phantom car that drove the employees at the airport. He might have saved my mothers' life by telling her not to go that day.

Even though I was only seven back then, I can clearly remember the terror, the shootings outside (ever since I can't stand the firecrackers' noise) and mostly the pictures in the papers of the dead naked people left on the streets, tanks crossing over people.

Many years after that when I was myself a student at the University I was thinking how lucky I am to have the liberty to speak whatever I like in a democratic country. Someone else before me payed a price for that. I was also thinking that if I was a student by the revolution time I might not have got any chance to get out of that crowd at the University. Innocent people died back then just because they wanted freedom.



20 years after I can say that I will never forget. December 1989 is part of my memories, it was a change that marked my life.