Communist Ghosts
by Anonymous
Published at DVHH.org
13 Feb 2013 by Jody McKim
Pharr
I was born in
Romania.
For so many people, the word "Romania" brings to mind
DRACULA, the dark mysterious vampire of Transylvania, or maybe the
great gymnasts… Others may think of the enforced uniformity of a
country under communism prior to the democratic reforms following
the ’89 revolution. The horrific image of our leaders, executed by
a firing squad may have, for some outsiders, been the first images
of the anguish of the Romanian people, the injustices they suffered,
to the point where assassinating their leaders appeared to be the
only way they could begin to work toward freedom.
Many have also heard
of the gypsies, the legendary nomads, tinkers and traders… And
Americans have witnessed the images of Romania's orphans, broadcast
on television documentaries. Half naked, these children were shown
crowded into cold orphanages, hosed off by their caretakers,
fighting each other for food, their round dark eyes prompting a wave
of foreign adoptions.
Still, these images are
so few when forming a picture of the true Romania. The ethnic
groups within Romania are as diverse as those in the United States.
Among these groups are German immigrants located in Banat.
My people arrived in
the 18th century from Germany bringing with them agricultural skill
and deep Catholic roots. They came to cultivate the farmlands and
built towns each with an impressive Catholic church rising up in
its center. The Germans enjoyed their freedom to celebrate and
maintain their cultural identity & religion freely until the end of
World War II, when
the ethnic Germans of Romania
were declared collectively guilty of sympathizing with, and
collaborating with Nazi Germany.
By the time I was born
(1957), the ethnic German population had lost their land, their
homes, their businesses to nationalization as well as their freedom
of religion and began, along with the other minorities, their
struggle to survive against a new force: the Communist power.
Communism meant
collective farming and industry. Private household gardens still
flourished, and quiet religious worship was tolerated. Everyone
would be officially equal; no particular group would be privileged.
The new regime spoke of the West, with evil Capitalism as its
defining characteristic, as a land of decadence, obscenity, and
disorder.
This is the world to
which my father belonged: the world of the Communist Party. It was
a way to belong, a way to gain approval, a way to succeed, a way to
leave the peasant life and its struggles behind. Knowing it was the
only way; he buried his culture and religious beliefs and flung
himself into the party.
And the party wanted
him, gobbled him up, and used him for all he was worth. They knew
that in order to gain the approval of the ethnic minorities, it was
necessary to place a few of them in positions of power and he was a
perfect candidate. At home, we were subject to his emotional and
physical abuse (outbursts and demands), and were always somewhat
surprised when others would speak highly of him. "Your father is
such a good leader," they would tell me. "You are very lucky to
have such a smart man to guide you." I would always agree. My
mother would agree. My grandmother would agree.
It didn't take him
long to move up and his loyalty and gratitude toward the party
grew.
My father looked around
and observed the lives of the men in the higher party positions. At
state dinners and ceremonies, their pretty, obedient young wives,
quiet creatures, trained in proper behavior, most often flanked
these men. Always respectable women, from hardworking families,
they added a degree of stability to their husbands' careers. He
must have reasoned that he needed the same element, if he was to
continue on his way up.
In his search for the
appropriate wife, he chose my mother. Shy, quiet she was overwhelmed
when he proposed to her and she accepted.
Their wedding was less
than spectacular. It was performed at the village hall, with just
the two of them present. There was no wedding dress, no cake, no
photograph, and no reception. After the ceremony, however, mother
was able to persuade her husband to go to a church in the nearby
city to have a priest bless their union… A few months later mother
became pregnant while he continued his bachelor lifestyle… Well, you
get the picture and I will not go into any details which people in
the West are tired off from tabloids and talk shows in poor
taste.
Religious sacraments were taboo and
so was my baptism.
I was
baptized after dark so nobody could see mother and her cousin
rushing me to the church and I was baptized after St. Ottilia, the
German Saint, but my parents chose a non-religious name. School
taught atheism; it was the churches that offered religious education
in their tiny sacristies. I was not enrolled instead mother secretly
approached a local nun to teach me one of Transylvania’s important
second languages: Hungarian. Religious services were held in both
languages. Under the pretext of teaching me Hungarian - which we
also did - she taught me Catechism and prepared me for my First
Communion. While other girls wore white dresses on their important
day, I went with Sister to church on an ordinary Sunday and her and
I kneeled next to each other while I had my First Communion. My
parents never witnessed this sacrament not did they see my
Confirmation when again all girls were dressed in white lined up
waiting for the Bishop to perform the sacrament. The Sister and I
stood in the background and when my turn came I stepped forward and
was confirmed – then the Sister took me by the hand and we rushed
away… There is no recollection of religious rituals celebrated with
my family. Religious Holidays were not celebrated. We had a winter
tree and a Santa look-alike winter man who brought small gifts (toys
and sweets) during the holiday season for the children to the
parents’ work places. We had a winter-tree at home and I got gifts
at Christmas. I remember being allowed to attend Christmas Eve Mass
at midnight in our village while my parents stayed home and went to
bed…No real traditions, hardly any memories…but what I felt was that
God was calling me to his house and I started going to church before
and after school, on Sundays and every occasions I looked for HIS
guidance…
Mother was alone
in the hospital after giving birth to me struggling
with the rejection of her husband, who didn’t come
to see her or their new daughter. As I grew, mother
became aware that My father had little interest in
his daughter as he had hoped for a son.
Physical abuse began at a young age, despite the
efforts of mother and grandmother to protect me. Due
to the role of women in society they did not to even
consider escape from their tormentors, despite
domestic abuse and/or their knowledge of
extra-marital affairs. Words to describe the
injustice and inequality were not even part of the
vocabulary yet.
***
At age five I was being groomed and
coached before attending a Christmas party given by my father’s
company. After that night my father began to realize his daughter
could become an asset for him in his political and social career.
Welcoming the attention I found a way to gain my father’s approval:
performing for those he was trying to impress.
Meanwhile mother fell deeper into
depression, compounded by her husband’s rejection. At the same
time, she willingly participated in the shaping of me as a social
companion for her husband, a couple of foreign languages being of
great importance as well as dancing lessons. My father continued to
ascend the political and career ladder, but as he did, he became
even more abusive at home – in today’s terms: we were victims of
physical and emotional abuse and I witnessed the continued
destruction of my mother. There was nobody to turn to – no person
and/or institution who would give psychological, financial or
religious support –all three women in our household knew we had to
endure if we wanted to eat and have a roof over our head. He was our
boss and there was nothing we could do without him and or his
permission.
When I was seven, My father moved
the family from the village to the city, where we started to witness
the effects of the hard-hitting economic crisis. Store shelves
stood empty, and a thriving black market developed… Mother and I
secretly listened to Radio Free Europe and the liberating music from
England and the United States, and I slowly began to question the
Party policy…
Growing into a teenager my mother
interceded for the first time on my behalf and convinced My father
that the beatings must stop, if anything, for the sake of his
reputation and career. Grateful for my mother’s influence, I felt
guilty for betraying her by aligning myself with my father.
For his dedication and devotion to
the party, My father was awarded the “Hero of Socialist Work” medal,
and a substantial cash award. With the money, he purchased a
western car, and the family made its only trip ever together to
Bucharest to pick up the car. While on the trip we made a stop at a
tourist attraction, one of Romania’s famous monasteries steeped in
legend and mystery based on the story of a mason who encases his
wife in stone after experiencing a vision. I imagined My father as
the villainous mason and my mother as the sacrifice, buried alive by
her husband’s ambition and cruelty and I vowed to save mother from
him.
* It was winter of 1980 in
Romania and I found myself growing more dissatisfied with the
state of affairs and the suffering of the Romanian people. To
make things worse, mother discovered love letters from My
father’ mistress in the discarded papers left in a spare
bedroom. Angered and hurt, My mother insisted that My father
give up the apartment he kept for the mistress, and hand it over
to me, who was then working as a schoolteacher.
* Now out of favor with my
father, I made plans to travel to Sofia/Bulgaria and gain
passage to Turkey and political asylum at the West German
Embassy. Optimistic after hearing rumors that Romanian tourists
can travel to Turkey without a passport if the ticket is
purchased in Bulgarian currency, I made it to Sofia for a New
Year’s celebration, but I was turned away at the counter
fortunate that the clerk did not call the police. I went back to
Romania, defeated and humiliated.
* The following summer, I began
a more careful plan for my eventual escape. Using strategies I
learned from my father, I obtained a passport by making promises
on my father’s behalf, promises I knew I couldn’t keep, as I was
no longer on speaking terms with My father. Hoping I could be
out of the country before My father learned of these promises, I
accepted the intervention from the man responsible for issuing
visas and passports, and the plan was set into motion.
*August 1983 – I packed my bag,
rolled up $30 dollars in the hem of my skirt and boarded a plane
for Frankfurt, West Germany, finally to escape the tyranny of my
father, and to seek repatriation as a German citizen. To escape
suspicion from the armed guards, I assumed the attitude and
appearance of a tourist. My mother knew of my plans, but we both
kept the secret from my father still a well-placed member of the
Communist Party. Once in Frankfurt, I received help from a
German-Romanian couple who I contacted and they harbored and
assisted me on the first leg of my journey. They took me to
Nuremberg for the repatriation process only to find out that
shortly after that my father sent the Secret Service after me,
so I was passed from family to family for both my security as
well as their sanity.
* After becoming repatriated as
a German citizen, I began to work and save money to send care
packages to Romania and eventually bring my mother and
grandmother to freedom.
* I entered Romania nine times
between 1985 and 1989 to meet with my mother in secret; the
meetings took place at elegant resorts after I renounced my
citizenship at the Romanian Embassy in West Germany, citing
marriage to a foreign citizen as my reason. I asked Ceausescu to
spare my parents any repercussions; he granted the renouncement
two years after my request. While in Romania we were always
noticeably observed by someone from the Secret Service.
After visiting the Dracula Castle
mother and I had dinner at nearby restaurant. A band started playing
and drunken man (or one who pretended to be drunk) invited me to
dance. Afraid of a scene and sensing it might be a trap I accepted
and the experience was very unpleasant, but when I boarded the train
to leave the country a few days later, a man behind me whispered in
my ear: “you behaved nicely, Miss – it was very smart of you to not
to reject one of your fellow Romanians on the dance floor…” I felt
sick. The train reached the Yugoslavian border and stopped for
passport control; they took mine away after a prolonged look at my
passport picture and me. I was terrified. The minutes I waited to
get my passport back seemed like ages. I stood at the train window
which I opened since I felt I was suffocating. The armed border
guards lining the train, only a few feet away from each other and
armed with Russian kalashnikows contrasted with the peaceful
cornfield in the background… I closed my eyes and thought to myself:
If they do not let me go I will get out of the train and start
running so the border guards have to shoot since my alternative to
freedom was death!
The rising dissatisfaction of
Romania’s citizens culminated in a revolution, ending with the
assassination of the Ceausescu’s in 1989. My father was deeply
saddened by the death of his leader, and watched, powerless, as the
system he’s pinned all his hopes on disintegrated. His political
and social standing deteriorated.
* The time came to bring mother to
safety in West Germany:
I met her half way in Prague. We
dressed her in Western clothes and discarded her old ones and her
suitcase and drove towards the German border in my German car and
both of us trying to look like Western Europeans on a shopping
spree. At the border I showed my passport through the window and
waved which was usual procedure for Western tourists… and guess
what? They waved us through. I felt how I aged quite a few years
during that moment.
But it was only three months later,
I had to risk capture and imprisonment to bring my grandmother
across the border, rolled up in a tapestry.
My father held her hostage in the
house so I had to drive all the way to Romania with a car full of
Western goodies for bribes. I went to the neighbors and after giving
them my gifts I asked them to make hole in the fence separating
their garden from grandmother’s. They did and went in the house for
me and brought Oma – what a moment of joy to see her in her hundreds
of layers of clothes, her babushka waving at me with her cane… I put
her in the car and drove to a downtown hotel where I kept her in the
room while I went to work to “buy” a passport. It took a very long
week and quite a few connections until we finally got her document.
While waiting I visited a Romanian artist who in need of money sold
me her beautiful handmade tapestries. Finally we were on our way
through Budapest/Hungary and towards the Czech border. There a
second hurdle had to be taken. The officer decided he would not let
grandmother pass since she did not have a Czech visa although I told
him we were only passing through – well he knew my intentions. He
spoke Czech and Hungarian. I haven’t been speaking Hungarian in ages
but it sure came back at that moment and I was able to say “Officer,
I will kneel down before you for all these Western cars to watch and
beg you to let me and this 82 year old pass… and down on my knees I
went holding on to his jacket. He shook me off and in a harsh voice
he told me he would have to check with Prague. Minutes later we were
on our way to Prague and the German border. Looking at grandmother
in the rear mirror I realized I could not fool the guards with her
and I stopped and asked her to lie down on the back seat. I threw
the tapestries casually over her. We reached the border and I felt I
was aging again, my heart stopped realizing that this could mean
capture and imprisonment for people smuggling and I was rehearsing
my explanation in case we got caught. I stopped, showed my passport
and the guard glanced at it and the car and wished me (actually the
two of us) a safe trip!
You might think: how heroic! No,
just desperate. Any of you would have done the same thing if you
were in my shoes.
-
Grandmother died a free woman in West
Germany.
-
My father remains powerless,
losing everything he’s worked to gain.
-
I was invited to the Romanian
Embassy in Washington DC, in August 1997, where the Romanian
cultural attaché criticized, ridiculed and accused me of being a
coward for defecting. When he insisted the real victim is my
father, I became aware that little has changed in Romania since
the revolution. The same day I was invited to give an interview
on “Voice of America/ Radio Free Europe” about my Experiences.
And last but not least: my 71 years
young mother joined us six years ago.
“The Lord my God carried me, as a
man carries his child, all along my journey.”
Author wishes to
remain
Anonymous.
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