The Horror

December 18, 1989. In Timisoara more people lose their lives, shot by the repression forces. Thousands others are imprisoned, and in the arrest they are savagely beaten by the militia and securitate forces.

The romanian communist party sends its officials into the factories and workplaces of people, to justify the repression, explaining that Timisoara has been under the attack of hooligans and irredentists, enemies of the glorious socialism that the party is working hard to achieve for the good of the people. Tens of thousands of working people listen to the lies of the dictatorship’s representatives, but in their minds and hearts they all know The Truth. They know that there, in the street, it was their children, their parents, their wives, their husbands, who were beaten, shot, killed, for the only fault of having shouted Freedom! In the Design Office of Timisoara, one man stands up while the director speaks about the hooligans, and, in a gesture that petrifies his colleagues in the audience, he interrupts the director and speaks: “This is not true! It is all a lie!” The director, after a moment of shock, calls him a traitor. And as he says the words, gunfire is heard from outside, and Claudiu Iordache speaks again, pointing to the window: “This is the truth! There in the street there are no hooligans, but Romanians who are asking for freedom! And if the Power had wanted to communicate with them, a way of dialogue might have been found, but its despise for the people has made the Power shoot fire and kill! It is not in hooligans that the repression forces are shooting now, it is in the ordinary people of Timisoara!

On December 18, 1989, Timisoara retreated in shelters to heal her wounds and count her missing and dead. Outside, gunfire was heard, in different areas of the city, all day long. But the worse was yet to come: something that will surpass in horror even the bloody actions of the two past days.

Following the direct order of Elena Ceausescu, at night, officers of the Securitate arrive at the County Hospital in Timisoara, and ask that the bodies of the dead are given to them. The doctors, paralyzed with fear, don’t dare to oppose their request. The Securitate men take 44 bodies, all of the people who had been killed in the past two days, put them in the frigorific truck they had brought, and leave…

44 bodies of the heroes of Timisoara are taken to Bucharest, to the Cenusa Crematory. There they are thrown into fire and burned. The night of December 18 to December 19 the crematory functions without pause. And in the morning of December 19, the ash of the Martyrs is taken to a deserted place near Bucharest, and thrown into a gutter.

It was the supreme proof of the baseness of the two dictators, Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu – their criminal order was horrifying, and announced what was to come, if history would follow their command: “Erase Timisoara from the surface of the earth!

Eight of the Martyrs of the Timisoara Revolution. The criminal regime called them “hooligans, foreign agents, irredentists, ennemies of the glorious socialism and of the romanian communist party”. They were shot in the streets, killed in the hospital, burned in the crematory, their ashes thrown into a gutter. The criminals are alive and well. They have never paid for their crimes.

The Repression