Romania was a former communist country ...

   with it most notable for the Ceaucescu regime. I consider myself
very fortunate to be able to live here for 2 years. The reason
being is that it takes time to learn not only about the country,
as in the sites and customs, but also of the lives of the people
themselves.

   It came to mind that despite being in a former communist
state that I only knew the plain historical facts of Romania.
The genuine incentive for this article was the thought
… what about the people? How were their lives throughout
this time. I am not an historian or a journalist by any means.
I hadn’t noticed much information concerning the lives of
ordinary people in Romania or any former Iron Curtain
country for that matter.

   So, I mentioned this to a small number of elderly people. I
said that people from the USA really knew utterly nothing
of how it was here in Romania during this period. I was
extremely lucky to meet an 84 year old man named
Stefan Janczik seen below.

     
                                  Mr. Stefan Janczik

   With the help of my friend Marienka I was blessed with the
opportunity to meet and discuss this issue with Stefan.

   When I mentioned my interest of the post WWII communist
times here in Nădlac, one and all mentioned that he would be
the best one to speak to. He has an incredible memory and
it was amazing, but he out of anyone else I have ever met,
reminds me of my father. Until my father’s last day he had
this incredible memory, even at the age of 92.

   I was brought to Stefan’s house by my friend Marienka and I
was also fortunate to meet his daughter Betty and her husband
Vasile. Who live in the Capitol Bucharest but were here in
Nădlac visiting. They were an immense help as they can both
speak excellent English. I wish my Romanian was better but
in time it will be, that is my goal.

  With what Stefan knows I could probably have enough material
to keep me writing in this blog for the next couple of years.
What I really was interested in was what happened here in
Nădlac after the end of WWII and how it affected their lives in
this small border town during communist rule.

  Nădlac was fortunate not to be in the middle of the horrors of
war but there were many people who participated and as you
can see by the names on the monument to their war dead,
many died in battle.

                  
       WW I + II monument to war dead from Nădlac

      
        Probably is impossible to read. There are 2 other
            plaques filled with names on this monument

   The Russian army really just passed through on their way West
towards Germany. At this point in time there weren’t any problems
and life was pretty much routine. Stefan mentioned that life didn’t
start to become difficult till around 1948 when the communist came
to power or began to take a more forceful approach. It really became
severe in the early 1950‘s.

   Stefan was fairly well to do at the time and that made him and the
people like him targets. He himself had his house taken from him
including land and other possessions. Some of his taken land was
made public land and can’t be recouped. The communists would
just take whatever they wanted at any time without any compensation
or reason. Many people lost everything. I asked him about his house
and that I has heard that he had had a problem. He told me that they
came to his house, told him they had 48 hours to get out. The
communists took a block of 5 houses with his being one of them. I
believe it was for military use and four years later to the day that
they told him to leave, they themselves evacuated his home. The
probable reason they left was that the house was virtually destroyed
and useless at that point. They just ruined everything, there were
no doors or windows and there were holes in the walls. Stefan
returned to his home and repaired without any compensation.

   Stefan was also brought to the mayor’s office and beaten. At that
time there were two prison cells in that building. He was brought at
the same time as another elderly lady. Both were beaten. I asked
him: “why?”. He answered “ I think it was because I was a little
well to do, they didn‘t explain why, they never did“. I believe that
this happened to him a total of 3 times.

    I also asked him if anyone profited during this time and he said
yes there were people who did. They were the ones that
collaborated with or were part of the communists party. Stefan
said that at any time of the day one of the officials (police,
secretaries or any other type) would just come to one’s house
and if they wanted something that you had, they took it. I asked
him if there were any people still here that were collaborators
or profiteers. He said that about all of them had died and that
there were just a couple left. He didn’t name names and I didn’t
ask. I also asked if there were any incidents of revenge, and he
said that there wasn’t that he knew of. My opinion is that it is
better that way.

   The communists also executed two people and when I again
asked why he told me in his opinion it was just to make a point.
His next door neighbor was one of the people executed and
it was a lady, but I forgot to ask what her age was at that
time.

   Stefan mentioned a few things that were very interesting and
that it that it was much more difficult while Stalin was alive.
Also he said that he wouldn’t wish that experience on even his
worse enemies. So I am sure that there is a lot more to it.

   Again I have to admit that I am not a journalist and I have to
apologize if I didn’t do this subject justice. I have to say that it
is really an experience to be able to sit with a man like Stefan
and be able to discuss this subject. As his daughter Betty
mentioned people really don’t want to think or talk about it.
That is why I consider myself fortunate and honored to have
had the chance.

   Stefan is just one of the inhabitants who have had these
very bitter experiences. I can only imagine what other tales
people have that are similar or worse.

   For me, before arriving in Romania the extent of my
knowledge of life behind the iron curtain in a communist country
was limited to basic history. Facts like when the communists
arrived, when they left, Ceausescu … etc. I always heard about
how if people behind the iron curtain got caught listening to the
‘Voice of America’ they could get shot. (Don’t know how true that
was). But what I thought of was … what did we ever hear of the
lives of the people themselves. Not just the big shots. So I hope
that this article is of some interest to you and will give you a little
insight to the lives of regular people during Romania‘s communist
time.

An article about Romania’s an auto called 'Dacia'

   The next paragraph is a condensed historical description
of the company.

   Dacia, the brand around which the Romanian auto industry
was created and developed, came into existence in 1966, at
Colibasi, Arges district. A close cooperation evolved between
Dacia and Renault from the very beginning. Dacia has been
an integral part of the Renault Group since 1999 and it is
currently becoming more and more visible as an international
brand. In 1998, the anniversary year of three decades since
producing the first ever Dacia car the vehicle number
2,000,000 came out of the plant.

   This is not to say that the Dacia is the only car here, there is
about any make of automobile that anyone would want. It is
just that this car is what my brother-in-law would call ’A Classic’.
As you can see by my neighbor’s 1998 4-door.

          

  This one is actually pretty ‘misto’ Rroma/Gypsy word for
‘cool’ because of the wheels. The owner of this ‘classic’ Dacia
is Mr. Pavel. He’s had this one for about 8 years because he
bought it brand new in ‘98‘.

          
This photo almost puts you behind the wheel of a ‘98‘ Dacia.

  Below you can see what powers the Dacia on and off road,
you see these cars going everywhere. One advantage to the
older Dacia is that they are very economical to repair. But as
someone mentioned ... if you have to repair it weekly, is it
really that economical? Probably that is why it is not unusual
to see 20 year old cars still motoring down the highways and
traversing fields.

          

   The power plant is a four cylinder and I have seen some that
run on propane. What they do is place a propane tank in the
trunk and people have mentioned that it costs almost 50% less
than regular fuel, here fuel is called ‘benzina‘. Mr. Pavel’s Dacia
is not propane powered.

   It is kind of funny how a vehicle kind of relates to one’s Peace
Corps experience. In El Salvador it was the ‘chicken buses’ …
the brightly painted and decorated old yellow school buses with
Salsa style music blaring. In Senegal it was the Peugeot station
wagon that was called ’7-palaas’. Both of those being the main
modes of public transportation. Though the Dacia isn’t a means
of public transportation it is similar to the others as just the
mention of it's name will forever trigger memories of Romania.

          
Older models of the Dacia, the typical four door and station wagon

   A few volunteers from the Senegal tour would mention that when
they returned to the States, they had this crazy desire to buy
a Peugeot station wagon. Some even looked on E-Bay and found
some. Don’t know if they bought any. But you know, having a
little Dacia wouldn’t be that bad a thing. Also seeing that it is
becoming an international brand I may be able to buy a brand new
one. Right there in the ole USA.

I have to make a couple of retractions ...

   to the information that I posted in some past articles in.

   The corrections are more specific to the article/posting
of the coffee shop.

 First the coffee shop owner’s name isn’t Radi.    
Her name is Roska.

  Also the man in the middle of the three gentleman
named Stefan (that is his name, I got that right)
didn’t work for a TV station.

     
                He really was a TV repairman.

  Ok, how did these mistakes happen? I think it has
to do to the fact that after 5 months there is still a
lot more of the Romanian language that I need to learn.

  Which leads into the real purpose of this posting …
and that is to describe the pretty funny and interesting
situations that you can get into when you don’t really
have a handle on the language. I know that I just plain
didn’t understand what they said. The name was kind
of easy and I probably should have gotten that one. But
the TV repairman thing was a little more complicated.
The words ‘prepara’ and ’repara’ are pretty similar. So
of course you can see that one is to prepare and the
other is to repair. I guess when he told me what he did
(at about 90 mph Romanian) I just didn’t get it. I thought
that he prepared TV programs.

  Of course that isn’t the only two times that’s happened.
The other day I went to the local school and with a teacher
we went to the park. The kids are from the 5th grade and
they went to the park for a lesson to learn the trees, flowers
… etc. I took my little digital camera and took some pictures
and movie clips. After that I was going to make a little
amateur film showing the kids naming plants, trees and
flowers.

  I put the little film together and I put in some frames
with words in them, of course the words were in Romanian.
I was lucky enough to have a person take a look at it. Good
thing, in one of the frames I put in Romanian ‘ A tree ‘. I
wrote it this way ‘ O Capac ‘. It should have been ‘ O copac ‘.
I will explain the differences in the words. ‘ O copac ‘ means
a tree. ‘ O Capac ‘ means the cork on a bottle of wine. So …
good thing he looked it over. I could just imagine the kids
watching this little film and that frame comes up … cork of a
wine bottle … then the next clip comes up with a little girl
pointing to a tree and saying it‘s name. Could have been kind
of funny. If you think of it it is kind of funny.

  One other experience was a few weeks ago I went to this
church in the city of Timisoara, about 100 kilometers away.
After the service I was invited to talk to the pastor. They
were a few of us there and we had a discussion. In this point
of the discussion we were talking about parents and their
children. So I said in Romanian what I thought was ‘ you
should love your children, shouldn’t you'? The word for
children is ’copii ’. I used the word copac (that word again)
which again means ’tree’. So after they stopped laughing …
which took a few minutes … they told me that they do love
their trees. But they asked what does have to do with a
parent and children?

  Of course these are just a few of the instances and they
have been many more than I want to remember. It is sure
that they will be a lot more.