Europe

[Visited: July 2020]

The images will remain with me forever: in the dark days of December 1989, the people of Romania started booing Ceaușescu while he was addressing them in Bucharest. The Berlin Wall had come down a month before, and the Ceaușescus had crushed revolts in other parts of the country. When the military decided to join the revolution, even the infamous Securitate could not save him anymore. He tried to flee by helicopter with his wife Elena, but was apprehended in Târgoviște, some 70 kilometres from the capital. The couple were held for a few days in the military barracks, were a trial was held on December 25, 1989. The outcome was clear from the start, and the couple was executed in the courtyard of the same barracks mere hours after their trial. The images of the dead dictators shocked many, while most Romanians rejoiced in their brutal demise.
Today, we are on our way to those same barracks, that now have been opened as a Museum of Communism. We arrive at an elegant yellow-and-white building, where the cleaning lady turns out to also be in charge of visitors. She sells us the tickets, quickly shows us the few rooms that are open for visitors, takes her broom again, and continues her cleaning tasks. We see the simple room where the couple slept, in tiny beds, under the emblem of Socialist Romania. A stark contrast with the luxury of golden taps and marble palaces which the dictator couple were used to. There is the room where they had their medical check-up, with a table with four telephones, three yellow and one red. On the wall, the former flag of Romania, with the Socialist emblem in the middle. That same emblem was symbolically cut out of the flags during the revolution. In the corridor, two stands with military uniforms, guarding the rooms.
Then, there is the larger room where the trial was held on December 25, 1989. The names of those involved are on the tables. In a corner: the Ceaușescus. The other tables were used by the military judges. This obviously was a show trial: General Stănculescu had already picked the spot of the execution before the start of the trial, and selected the paratroopers who would carry out the execution. The Ceaușescus eventually rejected the counsel offered to them (they only had ten minutes to prepare their defence with him). Even though the trial lasted only an hour, the couple was charged for genocide, subversion of state power, trying to steal state money, destruction of public property, and undermining the economy. Their lawyers turned against them, and they were swiftly convicted and condemned to death. Their hands were tied, they were led outside, put against a wall, and executed. It would later be claimed that 120 bullets were found in their bodies. They were flown to Bucharest and interred at Ghencea cemetery. We walk outside, probably the same route the dictators must have taken when they were dragged outside. There, in a wall, we see tens of bullet holes, and in white, the outlines of the bodies of the Ceaușescus as they fell down. I recall the rather grainy, shaky images, and watch them again on the internet: Elena on the left, with blood flowing from her body, and Nicolae on the right, in his suit. What were they thinking in their last moments? How did they live their last days, from being the absolute rulers of their countries for decades, to being put up against a wall for instant execution by a couple of soldiers after a hasty trial? The down to earth, basic, stark setting of this small museum, and the historical implications, make it all the more poignant. We are silent, ponder about the happenings of the revolution, of Christmas Day 1989, and walk out. At the corner, I realise I did not leave a message in the guestbook, so I walk back once again to the building. Rather than a Museum of Communism, this is a Museum of the Revolution of 1989, or the End of Ceaușescu Rule.

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Museum of Communism (Romania)

Museum of Communism > Romania > Europe

[Visited: July 2020]

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