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When countries which you know, suddenly become the headlines of world news, you follow that news with special attention. After having visited Romania a few years before, I was especially shocked when in December 1989 it became clear that Ceaucescu did not want to give up to the power he had held for a long time, and was the only Eastern European leader to cling on to it. This would have disastrous consequences, both for the Romanian people as well as for himself and his wife. Since I felt a kind of tie to the country, I decided I should witness myself what was happening. So on the first occasion, I traveled to Romania.
One of the first things to see after walking out of the train station, was the tank in the street. It was a kind of shock, as if the images on TV had not been true. I would see many more tanks the next days. And other consequences of the civil war that had ravaged the city. It seemed strange to me that everyone would pretend as if life could go on without any problem, as if nothing happened.
Everywhere, the communist signs were cut out of flags, the world 'socialist' was deleted from major buildings, and the atmosphere was eerie, because of course something had happened just a few weeks before. Hastily improvised graves could be seen everywhere, just beside the traffic. There were strikes, manifestations, signs everywhere of a country in revolution. It was hard to believe that I was actually walking in a revolution which had always seemed something of the remote past.