Iron Curtain Project

It looks like a standard debate setting: two leather couches, four journalists, and a discussion moderator standing in the middle. But on each sofa, two people who are each other’s opposites are sitting. Both are Poles; there are few European countries where journalism is as polarised as it is here. Those opposites usually do not speak to each other – let alone seemingly friendly share a couch.

“It’s amazing how well-mannered and civilised that right-wing boy is. Much better than expected, I have to say,” Seweryn Blumsztajn (71) breaks the ice in his unique way at the start of the debate about the state of the Polish media. In Poland, Blumsztajn is famous for his fight against the communist regime in the 70s and 80s, and because he was the co-founder in ’89 of the largest Polish newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza. If you divided Poland into roughly two camps, then Blumsztajn would belong to the progressive-liberal camp. People on ‘his side’ oppose the current government and are usually pro-EU.

“You can only eat vegetarian food here.”

That ‘well-mannered boy’ Blumsztajn is talking about, is Marcin Makowski (31). Makowski belongs to the other side: he is a right-wing conservative and a supporter of the current government. Blumsztajn’s comments induce in him a friendly chuckle; this is what he had expected. Upon entering the Warsaw theatre where the debate takes place, Makowski had looked around a bit uncomfortably. “You can only eat vegetarian food here. It doesn’t get more left-wing than that,” he had mumbled disapprovingly. “But then again,” he had explained apologetically, “everything in Poland is political, there is no way to avoid it.”

Next to Makowski on the red couch is his contemporary and opponent Jakub Majmurek (35). Majmurek is a freelance journalist and writes for newspapers and magazines that Makowski would never read; Majmurek visits places where they make progressive theatre and vegetarian food. Both men know each other only by name and hardly look at each other during the debate. But there is a relaxed atmosphere. For the moment.

Blumsztajn is also sitting next to a contemporary of ‘the other camp’: Janina Jankowska. Just like Blumsztajn, Jankowska, a renowned radio journalist, did resistance work for the trade union Solidarność during the communist era. Both journalists once fought for the same ideals, but after ’89 they went their separate ways: Jankowska turned right, Blumsztajn turned left.

PARALLEL WORLDS

Two generations of journalists, two political camps that would rather not be in each other’s company. Why are they here now, side by side? The occasion is the fiftieth anniversary of the protest march in Warsaw in 1968, which Polish students had organised against the censorship of the communist regime – an unprecedented action at that time. Almost thirty years after the fall of communism in 1989, there is freedom of the press, officially, but despite this, there are grave concerns about the state of the Polish media. The independent American democracy watchdog Freedom House, for example, has since a few years been assessing the status of freedom of the press in Poland as only 'partially free'. According to Freedom House, the right-wing government is ‘intolerant’ to independent and critical reporting, and the self-censorship of journalists has increased.

When you look at the world through the eyes of the right-wing Polish media, you get a completely different version of reality from the one you see when you look at the world through progressive-liberal media glasses. They are parallel worlds that hardly ever meet, each with its own narrative. What then remains of journalism and what is the responsibility of the individual journalist? To discuss these questions and to bring together those parallel worlds on one stage, the IRON CURTAIN PROJECT organised a debate on the anniversary of the fight against censorship.

We had been warned: “It’s a bizarre plan, and probably impossible,” journalist Kamil Bałuk (28), coordinator at the Instytut Reportażu, a Polish training centre for journalists, assured. Either the opposite camps are going to bicker without end, or – more likely – no journalist is going to be willing to participate.

That turned out to be no exaggeration. Some journalists refused the invitation. “Sorry,” Aleksandra Rybinska, a renowned journalist who works for right-wing outlets, wrote. “I know the views of the liberal Polish media inside out. I already know what I’m going to hear, and I also know what the more conservative journalist is going to tell me: the exact opposite. I doubt this will help anyone to understand the situation in Poland better.”

“A bizarre plan, and probably impossible.”

Those who are in power dictate the narrative. That is how it has always been in Poland. After the fall of communism, the newspaper of Solidarność, Gazeta Wyborcza – which actually means ‘election paper’ – became the most important newspaper in Poland. It became the mouthpiece of the liberals, co-financed by advertisements from government organisations. The newspaper was made by the ones who won from the communists: they were the new elite, they benefited from capitalism and became more and more arrogant, according to their opponents. Gazeta Wyborcza was not the only one: Solidarność’s elite controlled the entire media landscape. Democracy watchdog Freedom House confirmed that public TV and radio stations also leaned more towards the liberal views of the government than towards the views of the right-wing opposition. According to the organisation, Poland does not have a tradition of independent public broadcasting such as the BBC.

THE OTHER SIDE HAS ITS TURN

And now, after all these years, the right-wing side ‘has its turn'. Since 2015, the conservative right-wing party Law and Justice (PiS in Polish) is in charge and controls the narrative. But PiS is doing that harsher and more viciously than any other government has ever done, the progressive-liberal camp of journalists like Jakub Majmurek protests. Shortly after PiS had won the parliamentary elections in October 2015, the entire management team of the public broadcasting companies was replaced. Journalists were fired or left on their own accord. Since then, the TV news is the mouthpiece of the PiS government, something that Freedom House also worriedly confirmed in its report on the freedom of the press.

The language of '68 is back, according to the liberal camp. “After all, that was also based on lies and manipulation,” Majmurek states during the debate. The relaxed atmosphere on the red couches in the theatre in Warsaw has disappeared. “If you don’t like the TV news, just watch a different channel – that’s actually possible in a free country like ours,” Jankowska, from the right-wing side snidely remarks. “I don’t buy into that panic that Kaczyński poses a threat to the freedom of speech.”

Jankowska, small in stature and fierce in tone, knows only too well what it means when the state has a monopoly on media: she worked in '68 as a young reporter at Radio Polska. “It would not even have occurred to me to make a report about the student uprisings in '68,” she explains. “For whom? Nobody, nobody would publish or broadcast it. Of course not, the state decided everything. Nowadays, you can just go to a different medium.” In the seventies, Jankowska secretly set to work – in addition to her 'normal' radio job – for the underground press; in the eighties, she worked for the opposition union Solidarność. Blumsztajn, next to Jankowska on the red couch, had been active in the underground resistance movement since '68. “That whole struggle has been for nothing, Mrs Janina,” Blumsztajn snarled at his contemporary Jankowska. “What is happening now, is against the rules of democracy. The public television station is only concerned with propaganda and hate speech. The medium is the party, just like it was back then.”

“Gazeta Polska is simply a ‘szmata’, a slut”

Blumsztajn’s criticism bounces back at him. His newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza has been campaigning on the front page for years, Makowski tells Blumzstajn. “You publish manifestos and even give advice on how to vote.” That is not the same thing, Blumsztajn replies. “We do it because we believe the current government is destroying democracy. I don’t believe in non-engaged journalism. We are fighting for freedom of the press. If the government opposes it, we fight the government.” Majmurek, who is completely on Blumsztajn’s side, gives his two cents: “It’s just like war. Armies are allowed to fight, but they have to follow certain rules.”

Blumsztajn is on a roll. What Gazeta Wyborcza does, cannot be compared to how the right-wing media behave, he states. Take the right-wing newspaper Gazeta Polska which is regularly compared with Nazi Germany because of its populist and xenophobic articles, “it is simply a ‘szmata’, a slut.” At hearing that word, some people in the audience start to clap while others shuffle their feet disapprovingly. One person even gets up and walks out. Makowski addresses the people who are clapping: “How would you react if something like that was said about Gazeta Wyborcza? We’re not going to get anywhere when we talk to each other using those types of words.”

THE BICKERING CONTINUES

What they warned us about, seems to begin: name-calling instead of conversing. The common love of journalism appears unable to overcome political differences. On the contrary, both sides accuse each other of being a threat to the beloved profession. “Journalists have been too involved in politics in Poland since '89,” Jankowska assesses. “A real public debate doesn’t exist here, because everybody only addresses their own audience. Journalism should be about exchanging thoughts instead of persuading other people to think what you think.”

Nevertheless, the young journalists are content afterwards – although they do not drink a beer together, each stands with its own ‘supporters’. They call it 'unique' that they were ‘more or less forced’ into a conversation with each other. They also noticed that both camps were represented in the audience. That does not happen often, says co-organizer Kamil Bałuk, beaming – he is pleased that the plan has actually become a reality.

“So it is possible after all.”

“I will often think back to this,” Makowksi says. “ Because apparently, it is possible, a conversation between both sides. It has certainly made me think. We, journalists, all have a responsibility in this. I will keep it in mind.”

The next morning, the right-wing newspapers report on the internet in the ‘scandal’ section that Blumsztajn has offended Gazeta Polska. Makowski has shared a video of Blumsztajn's comments on Twitter, resulting in hundreds of reactions. The bickering continues.

Nizhny Novgorod 2018

NO TOUCHSCREENS OR TABLETS

‘His article is still relevant,’ Lyubov Potapova says. She walks away and comes back with a plasticised page of Het Parool (an Amsterdam-based newspaper) of 13 July 1968. She unrolls the page on a table in the Sakharov Museum in Nizhny Novgorod, four hundred kilometres east of Moscow.The headline 'In four stages towards a liveable world' immediately catches the eye. It is the second and final part of the famous essay by Andrei Sakharov, the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb.

It is ten days after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech of early March in which he bragged about new supersonic nuclear weapons, when director Potapova gives a tour of the Sakharov Museum in Nizhny Novgorod. It is located in the four-room apartment to which Sakharov was banned in 1980 because of his persistent criticism of the Soviet regime.

Potapova, guiding me through the hallway with at the end a portrait of Sakharov, points at his old living room and bedroom on the right side, with brown furniture, orange upholstery and a cabinet with family photos arranged just like back in the day. She stops in the exhibition space that shows Sakharov’s life story, told through newspaper articles, documents, photographs and anecdotes from Sakharov's autobiography. This is not a museum of touchscreens and tablets.

When reading his essayThoughts on progress, peaceful coexistence and intellectual freedom, one cannot but be struck by the similarities with the world today. The nuclear scientist pointed out the danger of atomic weapons fifty years ago. He detested ‘spheres of influence’ and military aggression, and he criticised nationalism, extremism, dictatorships, dogmatism, and racism. Sakharov argued for intellectual freedom and not only fiercely criticised the lack of democracy in the Soviet Union but for example racism in the United States as well. And, not unimportantly, he offered solutions to solve those problems in four steps, among others by allowing socialism and capitalism to grow towards each other, as an alternative to the complete destruction of humanity.

In the office part of the museum, Potapova puts biscuits, chocolate and tea on the table. Thoughtfully and carefully choosing her words, in the spirit of the former occupant, she takes the time to speak about the life and ideas of the man with whom she never talked, but who has profoundly influenced her life.

The Object 1968

Two rows of barbed wire

In 1968 Andrej Sakharov worked in The Object, a remote nuclear research centre between fields and forests. The site was surrounded by two rows of barbed wire. On 10 July, Sakharov was listening to the radio, a some time after his essay had been published. He would later write about this in his autobiography:

‘On the 10^th of July […] I was listening to the BBC’s evening broadcast (or the Voice of America, I don’t remember) and then I heard my name. They said that on 6 July a Dutch newspaper had printed an article from A.D. Sakharov, a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR [...].’

Sakharov had written his essay because he understood that the time had come that he, as an intellectual, had to speak openly about the great questions of his time. As the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, he felt personally responsible. Through his work, Sakharov knew the totalitarian Soviet system well and understood the dangers of a regime that can act without opposition. Earlier that year, he had heard about the Prague Spring. He had felt the excitement, the hope and the enthusiasm about ‘socialism with a human face’. That same year, something remarkable happened in the Soviet Union as well. Sakharov called it a kind of ‘mini-version’ of the Prague Spring. After three dissidents had been convicted, a thousand signatures were collected in their defence. This was unprecedented under a suffocating regime.

Sakharov’s essay came as a shock to the Kremlin. Moscow did not appreciate these dangerous ideas from a respected Soviet scientist who saw similarities between Stalin, who had won the Second World War, and Hitler. A scientist, moreover, who did not reject capitalism, Moscow’s ideological enemy. Two deadly sins. The authorities prevented the publication of the essay. It ended up in the samizdat (the underground literary circuit) and circulated within a small group. The essay went unnoticed by a wider audience.

But the article did find its way abroad and ended up with the Dutch writer Karel van het Reve, who was a correspondent in Moscow at the time. Sakharov wrote: ‘[…] I did not know that a few people had already tried to get the manuscript abroad through a correspondent of the American New York Times, but he refused the manuscript because he was afraid it was a forgery or a provocation. After that, Andrej Amalrik (a dissident and writer, FA) gave it in mid-June to Karel van het Reve, the correspondent of a Dutch newspaper, I believe the Amsterdams Avondblad (it was Het Parool, an Amsterdam-based newspaper, FA).’

Without knowing him personally, Van het Reve made Sakharov world-famous. People outside the Soviet Union suddenly heard a different point of view from inside the closed-off Soviet bloc. And not just from anyone, but from the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, who had always been treated with respect in the Soviet Union. After Het Parool, The New York Times followed with a publication, and it was picked up by the rest of the world. ‘I remember that, according to the International Publishers Association, the total circulation of my piece in the years 1968-1969 was eighteen million; that made me end up in third place, after Mao Zedong and Lenin but before Georges Simenon and Agatha Christie,’ Sakharov wrote proudly.

Gorky 1980

An agent guards the front door

‘The article completely changed Sakharov’s life,’ Potapova remembers. No longer ‘just’ a scientist, he became the humanitarian, enlightened conscience of the country. It gave the people who did not agree with the rulers in the Soviet Union a voice. In 1975 Sakharov received the Nobel Peace Prize. However, he was not allowed to leave the country to collect it.

In 1979 Sakharov expressed his criticism of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the foreign media. Again, his statements enraged the Soviet leaders, and the Kremlin put him and his wife in January 1980 on a plane for a one-way trip to Gorky, his place of exile. He ended up in a four-room apartment in a suburb of the city. Gorky (named after the Russian writer Maxim Gorky and known since 1990 as Nizhny Novgorod) was forbidden for foreigners because of the presence of military industry. The Kremlin did not want prying eyes, so no journalist could visit Sakharov. He did not get a phone. An agent guarded the front door and the KGB, the secret service, kept watch outside. Whenever Sakharov left his apartment, he was shadowed by KGB agents. When he drove his car, he was followed, often even by two cars, aiming to intimidate him. ‘Sometimes they tried to scare us by creating a situation that could lead to an accident,’ Sakharov later wrote in his autobiography.

Sakharov’s new flat was located in an apartment building in which the teenager Lyubov Potapova also lived. In the days prior to Sakharov's arrival, police cars appeared at the building, she says. The residents suspected that something special was about to happen. Once he had arrived, they realised who was coming to live in the apartment on the ground floor. ‘We knew his face. Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was, of course, a well-known physicist. But we didn’t know why he moved into our building.’

‘Others who listened to foreign radio stations told me why Sakharov was staying in Gorky,’ the director of the Sakharov Museum continues. ‘But I wasn’t interested in him. I was eighteen years old. I was in my first year of college and trying to make new friends.’  She would occasionally run into him at the entrance of the apartment building, but they never exchanged words. ‘He understood that he should not talk to us because that would put us in danger. We saw that it was better for us not to say anything to him either. We didn’t know anything about his ideas. There wasn’t a lot of talk about it. With some other students, we asked our lecturer in political economics why Sakharov was in exile. He said: “I don’t know, and I advise you not to know either.”’

Gorky 1986

‘Good afternoon, this is Gorbachev speaking’

In the evening of 15 December 1986, Sakharov’s doorbell rang. Two mechanics, accompanied by a KGB-agent, began to install a white phone. ‘Tomorrow around ten you will be called,’ the KGB-agent said when he left. The next day at three o’clock, just when Sakharov was about to get bread, the phone rang.

‘Good afternoon, this is Gorbachev speaking.’
‘Good afternoon,’ Sakharov replied.
‘You will have the opportunity to come back to Moscow’, Gorbachev announced. ‘The decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet will be revoked.’

Two days later, Sakharov and his wife took a train to the capital. Their release was coherent with the more open Soviet Union of new leader Mikhail Gorbachev. In Moscow, Sakharov was committed to reducing the number of missiles in Europe. He argued for the reduction of the Soviet army and pointed out the dangers of nuclear energy. In March 1989 he was elected to the new parliament but later that same year, on 14 December, he passed away. The people massively paid him their last respects. Two years later, the Sakharov Museum opened in his former flat in Nizhny Novgorod.

Nizhny Novgorod 2018

‘What is more important?’

‘The years after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 were a difficult time,’ the director of the museum remembers. ‘I taught math at a school, but I didn’t get paid.’ In 1991 Nizhny Novgorod was no longer closed to foreigners. ‘Russia opened up. Things were written about many new subjects. All sorts of books and magazines became available. I learned more and more about Sakharov’s history. Then in 1993, I saw a vacancy for a cashier in the museum and they hired me. There I worked as a guide, a research assistant, the head curator and in 2000 I became the director. In the early years, there were many visitors. Even his former guards came to see how Sakharov had lived.’

Now buses no longer travel regularly to and from the Sakharov Museum. Only two thousand visitors per year are left. In school, they no longer teach children about him. The memory of Sakharov is getting weaker. ‘Russians over forty years, who grew up in the Soviet Union, admire his work as a scientist but think he is a bad politician,’ Potapova explains. ‘But in the context of the present-day relationship between Russia and the West, his essay is still relevant. Although there are some differences between then and now,’ she stresses. 'Current world leaders can learn from Sakharov’s solutions,’ Potapova thinks,‘because he rose above national interests and stood up for the interests of people. ‘For what is more important? Humankind or your own country?’ she asks rhetorically. ‘This question is more relevant than ever. Unfortunately, politicians do not think in the spirit of Sakharov.’

Fifty years ago, the nuclear scientist emphasised the importance of a military equilibrium. No country should be superior to another. The temptation would be too great to carry out an attack. And in his relation to the West, it is precisely this point about which Putin regularly expresses his frustration. Sakharov also attached great importance to intellectual freedom, which enables the people to control and judge those in power, and which also provides fresh and new ideas.

‘You have to be free to think without pressure,’ Potapova stresses. ‘When people talk about problems openly, it will lead to solutions. Then you do not have to take up arms. There is more individual freedom in Russia now than during the Soviet Union era, but there is no complete freedom. Just look at the murder of Boris Nemtsov (the politician and Putin critic murdered in 2015, who was governor of the Nizhniy Novgorod region in the nineties, FA).’ She continues morosely: ‘It is still not clear who gave the order. The highest politicians should involve themselves in the investigation and not remain silent. Sakharov would not have been happy with this.’

Potapova does not see a new Sakharov. ‘Nobody has a brain like his. He understood problems immediately, where we need ten steps. In Russia, there is no one with such vision. No world leader has that. But we need one.’

In the museum, financed by local authorities, everything is focused on preserving and disseminating Sakharov’s legacy and ideas. The museum’s crowning glory is the white telephone in the living room, the original one that Sakharov released from his exile. Potapova feels a connection to the nuclear scientist. ‘Of course, it would have been fascinating to talk to Sakharov back then. But that was impossible. The monitoring system, the guard at the entrance who let no one go inside...It was clear that you could not have a conversation with him. You might be disappointed that you did not do anything when you could have done something. But in this situation, I could not have spoken to Sakharov, so I can’t regret it.’

Bucharest 2017: ‘Thieves, thieves’

Vlad Dragomirescu tears the tickets himself. It is crowded in the foyer of his own theatre, located on a dark street near the centre of Bucharest. He is standing next to the main entrance and greets all visitors individually. Improvisational theatre is on the programme today. Dragomirescu, born in 1989, studied film directing and sound design. On 1 February 2017, he closed his theatre for two-and-a-half weeks, without hesitation. Even though the theatre is called Recul, culture as medicine, he had more important things on his mind. He left a message on Facebook: ‘We are arranging something in the Piata Victoriei (Victory Square). We will see each other again when the decree is thrown out.’

The previous night, 31 January 2017, the newly established Romanian government under the leadership of Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu had issued Decree 13/2017. From then on, corruption offences with a value of less than 44,000 Euros would no longer be prosecuted. In addition, prisoners convicted of corruption would be released. Officially, the measure was intended to ease the pressure on prisons, but in reality, the new rules would be very convenient for many politicians, especially for the leader of the government party PSD Liviu Dragnea who was also accused of corruption. Romania is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe according to the index of Transparency International, for example.

“The measure was announced late in the evening.” Dragomirescu laughs scornfully: “Maybe they hoped we wouldn’t notice.” He was sitting in front of the TV, watching the news, a glass of wine in hand. His wife and son had already gone to bed. Dragomirescu is a quiet man, but when it comes to politics, there is a fire in his eyes, and he has the tendency to repeat the last words of his sentences: “I called a friend and told him: they did it anyway. ‘No, noooo,’ my friend cried out. We had already participated in small demonstrations, a kind of ‘pre-emptive-strike protest’, with which we wanted to let the government know: ‘Don’t you dare!’ And now they went ahead and did it anyway, now they did it anyway!”

Dragomirescu immediately jumped into his car, despite the glasses of wine, and without waking up his wife. His destination: the Piata Victoriei. The obvious place to go, because in the adjacent government building the responsible heads of government were still present. Dragomirescu arrived around midnight. Several hundred people had already gathered in the immense sea of asphalt that is the Victory Square, surrounded by broad four-lane boulevards where the traffic rushes by day and night. It was freezing, the trees in front of the government building were covered with snow, but the people were coming. And they kept coming. Dragomirescu: “Within an hour we were with tens of thousands.” ‘Thieves, thieves’ the protesters shouted at the politicians who were hiding behind the stern façade of the government building. They stayed there for two-and-a-half weeks, the largest protest since the revolution against dictator Nicolai Ceaușescu in 1989.

Timișoara 1989: a small incident

600 kilometres west of Bucharest in the city of Timișoara, Constantin Jinga also stood in a square in the freezing cold. Jinga (1969) is a priest in the church where Vlad Dragomirescu used to come, and they know each other well. “He is a good priest.” Dragomirescu keeps his description short and concise. Among the thousands of fellow demonstrators in Timișoara, Jinga felt hopeful for the first time in a long time. “It smelled like the spring of 1990. I thought: this could finally mean the completion of the revolution.” He is not the only one who refers to the past: ‘1989’ returned in slogans on protest signs and hashtags on Twitter. Jinga: “I was very touched when I heard a woman of about thirty say: ‘I am here because my father was killed in December 1989. Now I want to finish what he started.’”

In contrast to countries such as Czechoslovakia, Germany and Poland, the revolution against the communist regime in Romania was far from peaceful. It was estimated that there were more than a thousand deaths. Constantin Jinga could have been one of them. He was shot from close range on the first day of the uprising against the dictator. “That day is still the happiest day of my life,” he says, without a trace of irony in his voice. Sitting in front of an imposing bookcase in his home, he tells us about that formative time, via Skype. Once he starts talking, he seems to be catapulted back in time and remembers every detail. His tone remains light, even when he tells about the most terrible things, or perhaps especially then.

In late 1989, when Constantin Jinga was 20 years old, he had finished his military service and started to study French and Romanian at the University of Timișoara. Ceaușescu, together with his wife Elena, still calmly conducted his reign of terror and there was a lack of everything. The news about the revolutions in the rest of Europe only sparsely filtered through to Romania. Jinga: “I remember exactly how I walked down the street with a friend and how he told me that they were breaking down the Berlin Wall. I thought he was kidding.” Jinga and his school friends were desperate for change. “We tried to get hold of an illegal typewriter to distribute flyers and we made plans to swim across the Danube.” He chuckles at his youthful hubris: “We were serious about our swim training; the Danube is a dangerous river, you know."

On Saturday, 16 December 1989, the revolution also began in Romania, although, early in the morning, nobody in the country – including Ceaușescu – was expecting it. The uprising started, perhaps like all revolts, with a seemingly minor incident. In Jinga’s hometown of Timișoara, in the Western part of Romania, the popular pastor László Tökes was forced to leave the city because of his critical statements. He called on his parishioners to attend the 'move'. And so, an illegal gathering ensued in front of his house.

“In the middle of Saturday night, a friend called me. She was frantic,” Jinga explains: “She lived near pastor Tökes and was screaming that people were fighting with the Red Police. The people were calling for freedom. The news was unbelievable. I was so happy at that moment. I asked her if I should come, but she told me the police had dispersed the crowd. I went to bed, but at five o'clock in the morning I couldn’t bear it any longer.”

Jinga was expected at the university at seven o'clock for volunteer service in the canteen. “My mother urged me to be home at seven o'clock in the evening. I went outside, it was still dark, and saw that Timișoara had become a besieged city. There were soldiers everywhere.”

Bucharest 2017: the voice of the street

“When you demonstrate with a hundred people, you show them you mean business. When you are with tens of thousands of people, it becomes a party.” It is three months after the issuing of the decree in early 2017. A meagre sun is drowning Bucharest in white light. Vlad Dragomirescu is sitting huddled in a thick winter coat on the terrace of a hip café around the corner of the university. He is drinking home-made lemonade with a complicated name through a straw. The morning after the first demonstration, he immediately checked the news. “It gave me confidence, because intellectuals, artists, writers, philosophers, university teachers, the whole justice system – except the Minister of Justice, of course –judges, prosecutors ... "Dragomirescu takes a deep breath and continues: " the anti-terrorism department, the anti-fraud department, absolutely everyone criticised the new law, absolutely everyone. I immediately went back to the Piata Victoriei. It made no sense to go to work, because the actors, the audience and my colleagues were in the square too. It was spectacular: it was freezing cold, but people were playing the drums, and everyone was very inventive with slogans and protest signs. The Romanians have an interesting sense of humour when things go wrong. The square became a kind of Greek agora. You would go there and meet people with whom you discussed all sorts of things.”

In early February 2017, more than three hundred thousand people were demonstrating in Romania every day. Fake news flourished, as it does with every uprising, and even took on bizarre proportions. Romania TV, for example, led by business people suspected of corruption, was spreading the news that protesters were being paid by multinationals for their presence. Adults would supposedly receive 100 lei, children 50 and dogs 30. In response, the protesters brought as many four-legged friends with them as possible. Dragomirescu calls out: “As if Danone would pay us! Danone, those bloodsucking vampiric yoghurt makers!”

On 4 February, Prime Minister Grindeanu announced on television that he had heard ‘the voice of the street’ after all and that he did not want ‘a divided Romanian society’. Parliament would discuss a new corruption law and the Minister of Justice Florin Iordache was going to have to ‘take responsibility’. He did not resign immediately but did step down a few days later.

The government's response was too vague and unconvincing, the Romanian people decided. The next day, the demonstrations were even more massive. More than six hundred thousand people took to the streets. Loudly they demanded the resignation of the government and new elections.

Bucharest 2017: the voice of the street

“When you demonstrate with a hundred people, you show them you mean business. When you are with tens of thousands of people, it becomes a party.” It is three months after the issuing of the decree in early 2017. A meagre sun is drowning Bucharest in white light. Vlad Dragomirescu is sitting huddled in a thick winter coat on the terrace of a hip café around the corner of the university. He is drinking home-made lemonade with a complicated name through a straw. The morning after the first demonstration, he immediately checked the news. “It gave me confidence, because intellectuals, artists, writers, philosophers, university teachers, the whole justice system – except the Minister of Justice, of course –judges, prosecutors ... "Dragomirescu takes a deep breath and continues: " the anti-terrorism department, the anti-fraud department, absolutely everyone criticised the new law, absolutely everyone. I immediately went back to the Piata Victoriei. It made no sense to go to work, because the actors, the audience and my colleagues were in the square too. It was spectacular: it was freezing cold, but people were playing the drums, and everyone was very inventive with slogans and protest signs. The Romanians have an interesting sense of humour when things go wrong. The square became a kind of Greek agora. You would go there and meet people with whom you discussed all sorts of things.”

In early February 2017, more than three hundred thousand people were demonstrating in Romania every day. Fake news flourished, as it does with every uprising, and even took on bizarre proportions. Romania TV, for example, led by business people suspected of corruption, was spreading the news that protesters were being paid by multinationals for their presence. Adults would supposedly receive 100 lei, children 50 and dogs 30. In response, the protesters brought as many four-legged friends with them as possible. Dragomirescu calls out: “As if Danone would pay us! Danone, those bloodsucking vampiric yoghurt makers!”

On 4 February, Prime Minister Grindeanu announced on television that he had heard ‘the voice of the street’ after all and that he did not want ‘a divided Romanian society’. Parliament would discuss a new corruption law and the Minister of Justice Florin Iordache was going to have to ‘take responsibility’. He did not resign immediately but did step down a few days later.

The government's response was too vague and unconvincing, the Romanian people decided. The next day, the demonstrations were even more massive. More than six hundred thousand people took to the streets. Loudly they demanded the resignation of the government and new elections.

Bucharest 2017: The wrong side

Twentysomethings are sitting hip to hip on wooden benches in the small auditorium of Recul. They move a little closer together to make room for a latecomer. Vlad Dragomirescu is in the back, behind the mixer panel. He does almost everything himself, including light and sound. There is no curtain; a French and an Italian actor enter the simple stage from the foyer. In a mishmash of languages, they improvise with the words the public shouts at them. There is loud laughter.

Dragomirescu thinks that humour can help. Not long ago, he directed his own play here: ‘Fiare’, or in other words ‘The Beast’. “It is about the unfortunate connection between the art world, the theatre and politics. There are a lot of respected actors who choose the wrong side. It’s a comedy about things that aren’t really funny. But maybe if you laugh about it, who knows…”

It is not hard to determine what ‘the wrong side’ is, according to Dragomirescu: “To put it bluntly, the wrong side is that of the PSD, the government party. They still have former members of the Communist Party. It’s Iliescu’s party! Iliescu!” Ion Iliescu replaced Ceauşescu immediately after the revolution. He is accused of having recruited miners in June 1990 to beat up protesters against his government. Hundreds of people lost their lives. In spite of that, he became president of the country again in the 1990s and 2000. Dragomirescu: “That is now twenty-seven years ago and …” A meaningful silence ensues. “I’m not saying another party is better, because, frankly, there is no good party right now. It’s just a tragedy. A tragedy.”

Older revolutionaries like to complain about the Romanian youth, who, supposedly, are not interested in history. This is not the case with Dragomirescu. Born in 1989, just one day before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the child of a father who participated in the revolution, he tells the stories of that time as if he had been there himself. He grew up in the town of Resita in the shadow of a huge steel mill, which came into Russian hands after the fall of communism – which Dragomirescu views as quite ironic. “My father was a devout orthodox Christian, but religion was banned during communism. He used to listen to Radio Free Europe every day. After the revolution, he became politically active. He was naive then, very idealistic, thought he could actually change something. If he couldn’t do it, then who could?”

Dragomirescu sees a connection between the massive demonstrations of 2017 and the revolution against Ceauşescu. “In 1989, the people wanted not just food on the table but freedom. Although that is a somewhat romanticised way of thinking about it because we didn’t really know the concept of freedom. People took to the streets because they wanted a country that was like other countries. They looked across the border and saw that even the Serbs in Yugoslavia had a better life. People wanted politicians who would think about the wellbeing of the people, politicians who would tell the truth - although, of course, the truth is a tricky concept, but it would be nice if they would at least spread information. Liviu Dragnae, the real leader of the PSD, has been convicted of electoral fraud! The acts of violence during and after the revolution have never been properly investigated; so much is still unclear. No, in a sense, the 1989 revolution is far from complete.”

Timișoara 1989: Young men

“I saw flashes in the air. I just hoped it was a flare to illuminate the crowd, but I wasn’t sure.”

Constantin Jinga, just out of the service, knew the military protocol for the use of force by heart: First say ‘stop’, then 'stop or I’ll shoot', and if a person still continues, shoot in the air and only in the last instance aim your gun at the person. “At the legs, because you don’t want to kill.” Jinga could not imagine the soldiers would actually start shooting at people: “The soldiers were young men like me.”

Hundreds of people came running his way. He and his friend were carried by the stream of people, crossing the bridge in the direction of the cathedral. Again shots were fired. The sound lasted for minutes. Jinga no longer smiles when he talks: “It felt as if a war had broken out. I began to realise that it was not going to be easy.”

Had he been afraid? The questions bring back a smile to his face. “Not at all. I started to get really into the mood now to do … to do whatever.”

Bucharest 2017: #Insist

At nine o’clock exactly, the national anthem can be heard in the sea of asphalt that is the Piata Victoriei. In the setting June sun, about forty men are standing in a circle in front of the government building. Their singing is drowned out by the roar of passing cars. The large-scale protests disintegrated from mid-February. A small group of protesters, however, perseveres. They stand there every day, for 134 consecutive days straight now, and they will last until the end of the year. They have set up a small encampment of a few plastic chairs, a parasol and a cool box right in front of the government building. They have put up two banners along the road: the first one says #rezist, the second one #insist. After the national anthem, the demonstrators turn to the government building and chant: 'Step down! Step down!’ The building does not falter. The cars that are whizzing past honk at the protestors. Sometimes someone takes the trouble to roll down the car window and shout: "Find a job, you losers!"

Vlad Dragomirescu tries to join the demonstrators as often as possible: “Our request was straightforward: the decree has to go, and after that, so do you. The government is still there. That’s why I still go there every Sunday. With about twenty others,” he adds ironically, but without cynicism. “Something has really changed in Romania. A movement was created. People have put fear aside. A fear that would be understandable, because people remember the violence of the past. Who was shooting at whom in ’89? No-one knows.” Constantin Jinga also thinks that something has changed: “People have become more aware of their power. They have rediscovered solidarity. Now they have to learn how to use it," the priest adds.

Dragomirescu is trying to stay positive: “I have to, I do not want to move to a different country. I want to stay in the place where I feel at home, but I don’t want to raise my children between all the garbage. And by that, I don’t mean the waste on the ground, or maybe that too, but I am talking about a clean political situation. I do not want a leader who thinks that extortion is not that important.”

Timișoara 1989: The happiest day of his life

“We were stopped by soldiers. They were carrying machine guns and they were lined up in two rows, which was odd.” Constantin Jinga wanted to bring his friend back to the hospital so that she could be with her son again. Jinga himself was planning to go back to the campus, through side streets, to further organise the occupation of the radio station there. “Clearly, the situation was so serious that we had to inform the international media.”

“We were standing there with about a dozen people. Next to us was a mother with two children, and an old man. ‘Are you going to shoot us?’ the man asked. ‘You are Romanians, why would you shoot us? Is it because you love Ceaușescu? And an ice-cold shower and nothing to eat?’ The soldiers did not answer. The man continued: ‘These people could be your brothers and sisters. You want to shoot them?’ At that moment, Jinga saw from the corner of his eye that an officer was approaching. “He ordered the soldiers to retreat. At least, that’s what I thought. I remember counting their steps: one, two, three, four… and then they raised their guns. I told myself that this was to intimidate us. But…, then…, I saw that they were shooting. Just like that. The old man next to me fell.” Jinga clears his throat: “He was shot in the head. I turned around and saw that the woman was running, taking her children by the hand. Later I heard that the smallest one did not make. In a split second, I turned and tried to press my friend to the ground. At that moment, I was hit in the shoulder. I felt no pain, just a feeling of powerlessness. I saw blood and thought I was going to die. I had seen it in movies. Strangely enough, it also flashed through my mind that I would arrive late at my parents’. I started to pray, and everything became quiet. Looking back at it, it is a great feeling, very beautiful. Haha, I wouldn’t like to do it again though.” Jinga was brought to the hospital by four people. One of them was hit while helping Jinga. “To this day, I do not know what his name is.”

His shoulder would never quite be the same. From his hospital bed, Jinga watched how the rest of the revolution unfolded. On 21 December, Ceaușescu gave a speech from the balcony of the parliament building in Bucharest to a so-called ‘counter demonstration’ of thousands of people. His words were broadcasted live on television. Suddenly someone from the audience shouted ‘Timișoara! Timișoara!’ Others joined in. The TV footage shows Ceauşescu hesitating for a moment, his next sentence lingering in the air. He is silent and looks around, dismayed. Then the television broadcast is cut off. The uprising spread to the capital. On 22 December, Nicolai Ceaușescu and his wife Elena fled from Bucharest by helicopter in a blind panic. During a show trial, they were sentenced to death on Christmas Day and immediately dragged in front of the firing squad.

Epilogue: Bucharest 1 year later

Early in December 2017, almost a year after the large-scale demonstrations in February, Vlad Dragomirescu was protesting in front of the parliament building. ‘Burn the PSD’ he wrote on Facebook. Parliament wanted to adopt a law that strengthens the government's grip on the justice system and erodes the independence of the judiciary. Who was it that led the investigation in preparation for this proposed piece of legislation? It was Florin Iordache, the Minister of Justice who was also responsible for the corruption decree. The day after Christmas, the PSD announced that it wants to introduce a new law that would allow corruption offences of up to €200,000 to go unpunished.

Halfway through our conversation, in the middle of a sentence, Visinel Balan (1987) can no longer contain himself: “This is my first day as a father!” His son was born the night before. Yet, here Visinel is – on a Saturday barely twelve hours after having looked his son in the eyes for the first time – in a stuffy room with a dropped ceiling in a remote industrial park in Bucharest. The small, sweltering room is the office of his foundation Desenăm Viitorul Tău, Draw your Own Future, which supports orphans.

“Cold,” he answers when he is asked what it feels like to be a father. “I try hard not to be influenced. I’m afraid of getting too attached to people.” With an almost triumphant look as if to prove that he is faster than his conversation partner, he adds: “And yes, of course, that has to do with my past.” He continues in a serious tone: “But when I saw him for the first time yesterday – in a room full of babies, him being the only quiet one – I suddenly had to cry.” It mainly feels strange, he says. “I don’t know what maternal love is – or paternal love, for that matter. It made me think of Adam and Eve. They had a child but didn’t know what to do with it; nobody had ever shown them. Still, together they discovered love. It has to be something like that.”

Visinel Balan was one of the estimated 100,000 children who grew up in an ‘orphanage’ around 1989. Nicolae Ceauşescu had just taken office as leader of the Romanian Communist Party when he announced a decree designed to ensure population growth. Abortion became illegal for women under 45, parents without children received fines, the marriageable age was lowered from 18 to 15, and the sale and production of contraceptives were banned. This way, Ceauşescu hoped to build a great communist nation and a large army. Bringing a child to the world was like a gift to the country.

Ceauşescu’s children

Visinel Balan’s mother gave birth to as many as fourteen babies. Ceauşescu's decree soon produced a population surplus. At the same time, his economic policy led to empty stores and a shortage of everything. Many families were too poor to take care of their children; their ‘surplus’ ended up in huge state orphanages. Balan, too, was delivered to such an orphanage two months after his birth.

Daniel Rucareanu (40) was six when he ran away from home because his stepfather abused him incessantly, he explains while sitting at a small table in the back corner in the courtyard of a cafe in Bucharest. As a little boy, he lived on the street for some time – ‘that was tough but much better than back home’ – until September 1985 when he wound up, eight years old, in an orphanage through child protective services. In that public institution in Ploiești Town, he lived together with 100 children. After one year and a half, he was moved to another institution in Bușteni. There were 400 other children living there.

The first day, he learned an important lesson, he says. “I was overwhelmed by the noise of the huge number of close-packed children, and by the penetrating odour. A mixture of dirty clothes and urine. That first day, I was beaten by a boy. He was bigger, so he hit me. The children would beat others because they themselves were beaten by other children. That day, I learned what life was like in an orphanage: you have no protection, anyone can hurt you.” He remembers a few deaths. “A boy who could play the harmonica. He fell from a window. Another little boy drowned in the Black Sea when we were there during the summer. There were more cases like that.”

When in 1989 the Iron Curtain was lifted, and Nicolae Ceauşescu was executed on Christmas Day, the world knew little of what had happened in the isolated Romania all those years. In 1990 ‘Ceauşescu’s children’ became world news. Horrified, the Western media showed the images of naked, emaciated children who were locked up together as beasts in prison-like institutes. Countless Americans and Western Europeans offered to become adoptive parents, and many foundations went to Romania to provide help. Romania was put under pressure from abroad: the country had to take care of its children.

Model country

Until the end of the 1990s very little changed. “I had no idea what I had started,” Andy Guth tells us. In 1990, as a young Romanian paediatrician with hardly any experience, he was suddenly appointed director of a large orphanage for children under four. “The managers had all left; everyone was afraid of what would happen after the revolution. I had never been a member of the Communist Party and I knew nobody in that region: that made me the ideal candidate.”

“You could say that not just the children were institutionalised but the employees as well,” Guth continues. 400 babies and toddlers lived in the home; they hardly had any toys or room to play, and often twenty children were crammed into one room, he remembers. “De staff treated the children as objects. With a few exceptions, they did not show any empathy or compassion. They spent an remarkable amount of time on drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.” The staff was had had medical training, but social workers or pedagogues were absent: these kinds of studying fields did not exist in Romania, like in many other Eastern Bloc countries in the seventies.

Aid agencies and NGOs vigorously tried to make improvements throughout the 1990s, which did result in some reforms, but only when the European Union began to exert pressure in the beginning of 2000, things really started to change. The EU warned Romania: if the country did not make rapid progress, it could forget about becoming a member of the EU. The threat was effective. New laws were hastily made with the help of foreign foundations and experts. The Romanian government made an ambitious promise: by 2020 all large children's homes would be closed. Later, the deadline was adjusted to 2022.

The numbers are impressive: in 2000, about 100,000 children were living in large orphanages, in 2016 this number had dropped to 8,000. Also, about 50 thousand children now grow up in kinship care, foster homes or small group homes. Due to the rapid improvements and the great ambitions, Romania became the model for other countries, especially former Soviet states, where child protection was also abominable.

Spotless hallways and tightly-made beds

In a bare living room, Leo is surrounded by as many as three women; he has their undivided attention. The boy – eighteen years old, although his appearance suggests he is much younger – is doing an exercise with a Lego car. The women clap hard. ‘Well done! Well done!’ Leo has autism, an intellectual disability and behavioural problems, Cătălina Tabarcea explains. She is the manager of two small group homes in Bucharest. The facility is brand new: spotless hallways and rooms with tightly-made beds, most of them ostentatiously provided with one stuffed animal. Bare but tidy, with paper stars on the ceiling. Four years ago, 110 children were living here; now there are eight to twelve children per apartment.

Out of nowhere, a boy – a man almost – begins to cry silently. Counsellor Cristina Haivas puts her arm around him; he hides his face in her chest. “Ramon is always anxious and restless, really,” she explains. “Abandoned as a baby, he grew up in an institution. Of course, now he has more space, and there are more people to help him but the years that were crucial for his development have gone by.” The boy keeps holding her hand the entire conversation.

In his sweltering office, Visinel Balan laughs scornfully. “Of course you will only see the facilities the government wants you to see. Romania as a model for other countries? Give me a break. Children are still physically and sexually abused in the system, and disabled children still die.” Two years ago, research from the Romanian NGO Centre for Legal Resources (CRJ) revealed that around 4,500 disabled people – children and adults – had passed away in institutions between 2010 and 2014. The case of Valentin Câmpeanu, an 18-year-old disabled boy who died in an institution, became notorious. In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Romanian state was liable for his death due to lack of appropriate medical care, adequate accommodation and sufficient food. In 2015, the United Nations expressed concern about the inhuman conditions in which disabled children in Romania are cared for. They mentioned neglect, malnutrition, lack of medical and psychological treatment – resulting in death. In the context of the care for healthy children, scandals about physical or sexual abuse frequently emerge as well, but large-scale research into this problem has not yet been done.

Since Romania joined the EU, the reforms have been on the back burner. To shake things up, Balan started a ‘fight against the system’ in which he constantly tries to draw attention to individual cases of abuse and neglect. Consequently, Balan has become a ‘persona non grata’ for many institutions– they simply do not let him inside any longer. Now he tries to stir things up through politics, as an advisor to a member of parliament. In another attempt to speed up the deinstitutionalisation, as the closure of the large orphanages is called in proper caregivers jargon, he recently offered a petition to the Ministry of Justice.

Apologies from the government

At the small table in the cafe’s courtyard with cheerful coloured lights, Daniel Rucareanu dejectedly shakes his head. He has serious doubts about the quality and effects of the Romanian reforms, he says. But while Balan tries to improve the situation for today’s ‘children of the system’, Rucareanu focuses on the past. With his NGO, he wants to bring about a large parliamentary inquest into the abuses in the Ceauşescu orphanages from the 1960s to the early 1990s. “And an apology from the government for all the violence and misery that the state has caused with its system of care.” He makes procedural requests from local authorities to view the institutions' archives, he writes articles, and lobbies with politicians.

Rucareanu cannot let go of the past. When he was 14, he left the orphanage where he had lived for years. It felt as if he had ‘unlearned how to be human’, he explains. “I had lost my ability to talk to other people. I had trouble standing upright.” For a moment, he looks up from the table where his eyes had been focused up to that point. Almost immediately he lowers his gaze again. It is the only time he faintly smiles: “I still don’t dare to look people in the eye.”

“I had unlearned how to be human. I had trouble standing upright.”

Daniel Rucareanu is an exception with his university education – just like Visinel Balan. Most children of the system do not turn out alright. The chance that they will become unemployed, homeless, depressed, criminals or victims of human trafficking is much greater than it is with ‘normal’ children. Rucareanu’s NGO is called Federeii for good reason: it means something like 'place full of garbage'. And the garbage must be cleaned up, he thinks. “I have read a lot about the Holocaust in recent years. I am impressed with the way the Jews deal with the past. Their suffering is described to the last detail. They realise that the past – no matter how terrible – is worth investigating and remembering; after all, it is part of who they are. In my country, on the other hand, there is no respect for the ordinary man's suffering.”

Changing approach

With resolute steps, a small woman gives a tour through a small, stuffy building where it vaguely smells of dampness and sweaty boys. The bedrooms are cosy cluttered with framed pictures on the walls; the hallways are narrow and full of bulging wardrobes. 26 children between 13 and 17 live here, they are sitting in front of the television, doing their homework, or both at the same time. The aim is to make this into a small residential facility as well, the director, who prefers to remain anonymous, tells us. When she took office two years ago, there were 32 children, and a few years earlier 45. Looking at all the bunk beds in the bedroom, you are left wondering where those extra beds would have stood.

“It is better not to talk about it”

In a year or maybe two, this location is going to close, the director says. The children and counsellors will be living in an apartment, but where exactly is still unclear. “We try to prepare the children for an independent life. We teach them to clean up, wash their own underwear. We teach them discipline. Two years ago, nobody thought about that at all: the counsellors did everything.” In the two years that she has been working there, seven employees have resigned. “It might also have something to do with me personally,” she says cautiously. “I do not tolerate anyone who shouts at the children or hits them.” Did that happen? She hesitates, looks away. “In two cases, yes. It is better not to talk about it.”

Against forgetting

Daniel Rucareanu calls for a large-scale investigation and an apology. “Because how on earth can we improve the childcare system if we are not prepared to investigate what went wrong in the past?” Emphasising each word: “We have to clean up the garbage first.”

“The children in orphanages were children of nobody. You could do whatever you wanted with them.” When some boys in his home died, no one cried. “Neither did I. I was just scared. Because if it could happen to them, it could happen to me too. And I knew: if I die, no one will cry either. Nobody remembers that you were ever there. But I have not forgotten them.”

In the summer of 2015, Otakar van Gemund (46) received a call from an unknown woman: ‘Hi Otakar van Gemund. I’m from an international company. Look at your display. Do you see where I’m from? I’m calling from Saint Petersburg. Bye now.’ “I already knew I was being tapped, and this phone call only confirmed that,” Van Gemund says. He is sitting at the kitchen table in his home in a suburb of Prague. His mother is Czech, his father Dutch. After his graduation in the summer of 1989, a few months before the Velvet Revolution, he went to Prague to learn the language.

Defend freedom bare-chested

One wall in the kitchen is covered with family photos from top to bottom: Van Gemund with his wife and his two small children, his children in the snow, Van Gemund with his eldest son. Just around the corner hangs an inconspicuous newspaper clipping. If you look carefully, you can discern a bare-chested Van Gemund. With black letters ‘Defend freedom’ and ‘Take courage Prime Minister’ is written in Czech on his chest. It was the first time his activist group Omen (named after the female action group Femen) struck, he says proudly. It happened in 2014, shortly after the annexation of the Crimea. At a normal press conference of the Czech Prime Minister, which was broadcasted live, Van Gemund and a fellow campaigner showed their chests. All newscasts reported on it. Since then, Van Gemund has bared his body on numerous occasions. With his bald head and his stark white torso he is a striking appearance. “By now, I am an ‘old firm’, as the Czechs say. People recognise my face. It makes me good media fodder. And I never give up: the harder it gets, the more interesting it becomes.”

Until the annexation of the Crimea in 2014, Otakar van Gemund had been carrying out occasional one-time ‘hobby-actions’. He was living a quiet life. He earned his money with translation jobs and sometimes worked as an interpreter or ‘stringer’ for the Dutch media. The annexation changed all that. “The occupation was in the news for a few weeks. After that, it all became quiet again. Here in the Czech Republic, people were even complaining about the sanctions against Russia, saying that it would harm the economy. I thought that was very frightening: a foreign power occupies a piece of land and hardly anyone is talking about it. How is that possible?” Van Gemund’s first step was to hang the flags of the Ukraine and the European Union above his door. He hoped his neighbours would follow this gesture, but nothing happened on his street. On Facebook, he searched for allies. In addition to Omen, he set up the activist group Kaputin. With this group – with varying members – he went to airports among and other places, to symbolically wait for people who were put in prison in Russia by Putin’s government or who have inexplicably disappeared.

Putin Taken from behind

Almost three years later, every Czech who watches the news knows his face. Van Gemund thinks that the divide between Eastern and Western Europe is increasing, which is making him very worried. Russia’s growing influence in Europe, and especially in the Czech Republic, has a strong presence, Van Gemund, who grew up in the Netherlands, feels. He sees it happening, but nobody does a thing: “The actions I organise are very time-consuming, but I must to do them; nobody else will. Europe is falling apart in front of my eyes.” He is quite negative about the Dutch attitude – for example when it comes to the Association Agreement: “The Dutch have never been as selfish as they are now. Even when a plane full of Dutch people is brought down, they are willing to do the Russians a ‘favour’ and vote against the association agreement with Ukraine. They don’t give a damn.”

When Van Gemund talks about Miloš Zeman, the first Czech president who was directly chosen by the people, the look in his eyes becomes even more fanatical. Zeman’s campaign was co-financed by the Russian oil company Lukoil – though Zeman himself says that it was a personal donation from one of the employees of the Russian company. Zeman’s populist stance and the ‘cowardly attitude’ of the Czech people bother Van Gemund. “There is hardly any protest. The government is afraid to take a stance against Zeman because he was chosen directly by the people.” 

Many of Van Gemund’s actions are aimed against Zeman. Another one is planned in two days. A lot still needs to be done, and therefore he is extremely nervous. “We are going to give the Russians back their little green men.” He gets up, walks to his office, and comes back with several pictures of the heads of Zeman and Putin. They have been made bright green. “We stick these heads on sex dolls,” Van Gemund says, laughing. The little green men symbolise the Russian soldiers who, dressed in green, occupied the Crimea. “Suddenly, they were standing there, like some sort of Martians.” In a few days, together with his fellow activists, he wants to throw the green inflatable dolls over the fence of the Russian embassy in Prague. The pièce de résistance is going to be two male sex dolls of Zeman and Putin, whereby Zeman is taken from behind by Putin. After that, the activists are going to chain themselves to the fence and bare their chests.

'Now you can clean the floor with me'

47 years earlier, on 25 February 1969, the student Jan Zajíc walks across the Wenceslas Square in Prague, carrying a grey suitcase. The case contains a large spoon, his shirt, and a dozen half-litre bottles of detergent – bottles with a sticker with a picture of a flame. He walks in a cloud of a pungent chemical odour. Zajíc is remarkably calm.

Less than an hour ago, he asked his friend at the station in Prague to rub his back with parquet cleaner. His friend refused, so he had to do it himself. It took him fifteen minutes, there, in the bathroom of the station. When he was finally done, he tried joking about it with two girls from his school who were with him. “So, now you can clean the floor with me.” Shortly before that, one of the girls had tearfully begged him not to carry out his plans.

He left his friends behind at the great Wenceslas Square. He wants to be alone now. Jan Zajíc – eighteen years old, 179 centimetres tall, thin, chestnut cropped hair, blue jumper, brown checkered trousers, three-quarter coat, scarf and boots – will change history. This will be the greatest and most important thing he is ever going to do in his life.

He had preferred to do it at the National Museum – a symbolic place at the top of the huge Wenceslas Square where the effect would have been the greatest – but it is closed. The square is crowded, full of shoppers and traffic. At number 39, however, near a shop for household items, there is a tunnel-like passageway that leads into a quiet courtyard. Here he can prepare himself.

Burning body

At approximately fifteen to two in the afternoon, an employee of the shop for household items finds an empty suitcase in the bathroom and a letter sticking half out of an envelope. It smells funny as if someone spilt petrol. She starts reading the letter when she hears screaming. Running into the courtyard, she sees smoke coming from one of the doorways in the tunnel. Behind the doorway is a staircase, at the bottom of the stairs lies Zajíc’s burning body, beside him lies a ladle.

In Prague’s city centre, in this symbolic square, Jan Zajíc was going to carry out the ultimate act of resistance. With the burning ladle as a torch in his hand, he wanted, soaked and smeared with combustibles, to walk into the Wenceslas Square to set himself on fire. An act that would make the whole country think, Zajíc hoped.

Perhaps there was a draft in the tunnel, maybe he was being clumsy, but Jan Zajíc, his body burning, collapsed before he could even reach the square. “I’m not doing it because I want people to cry for me, or because I want to be famous, or because I have gone crazy,” he wrote in a letter which he addressed to all the citizens of his country. “I’m doing it to make sure you will resist and you will not be swept away by dictators. (…) Let my torch ignite your hearts and enlighten your minds. Let my torch light the way to a free and happy Czechoslovakia.”

'I may as well Admit it: I Fled"

Van Gemund’s eyes light up when he hears the name Jan Zajíc. Of course he knows Zajíc's story. He would never go that far, but he admires Zajíc for his courage. There is one thing he wants to be certain of: he is not going to be compared to Zajíc in this article, or is he? What he does is much less heroic, so let that be clear.

Van Gemund had not even been born yet when Zajíc carried out his ultimate act of resistance. In the 70s and 80s, Czechoslovakia had one of the toughest communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe – after Romania and East Germany. Even the Soviet Union was less strict than Czechoslovakia towards the end of communism. At that time, Van Gemund was still living in the Netherlands. He did not go to Czechoslovakia until the summer of ‘89. “When East Germany started to disintegrate, I thought: ‘I must go to Czechoslovakia, I want to see what is going to happen there.’” He did this through a student exchange programme that was used by no other Dutch or Czechoslovakian students. His classes were always early in the morning or late in the day: “They tried to prevent us from coming into contact with Czech students. Most of my Czech friends I didn’t get to know until the revolution had started.”

Initially, there was no revolution to speak of. “Those first months, the regime stubbornly managed to stay afloat. Until 17 November 1989: the day when students traditionally organised a march in Prague for Jan Opletal.” This student was shot in 1939 by the Nazis during a student protest against the German occupation. A few weeks later he passed away. “I only knew about the official demonstration. On the way on the tram, I noticed that people had other plans.” The official demonstration was disrupted almost immediately: “People cried: democracy, freedom! It was the beginning of the Velvet Revolution.”

With friends from his language class, he walked in the direction of the Wenceslas Square. “On the way there we were met by a police cordon. We were enclosed on two sides and they started pressing us against each other.” What he did then? “I may as well admit it,” Van Gemund says, embarrassed. “We fled. I was so afraid that I almost wet my pants.” With a small group he went into a restaurant. There he waited. Van Gemund and his friends were standing between the tables with people dining, while a large group of brave students remained outside, sitting in the street. Despite their peaceful way of campaigning, the students were beaten by police with batons. “In the restaurant, we suddenly heard a terrible noise. The police were standing in a small street - the only way out for students - and were hacking away at people.” Afterwards, Van Gemund saw blood, bras and clothes on the street: “The devastation was incredible. Miraculously, no one died.”

He still regrets not having participated in the protest that day. However, from that moment – the Velvet Revolution lasted a little over one month – he was ready. The show of force by the police was criticised. Three days later, the students took to the streets again. Václav Havel founded the Civic Forum. Every day there were more protests, and people dared to do more. Van Gemund remembers: “In that first week, the regime managed to hang on while acting in a harsh manner. For example, the government tried to prevent information from coming out about what was happening in Prague.” Therefore Van Gemund travelled the country to tell – in broken Czech – exactly what was going on in the capital: “I gave lectures in movie theatres filled with students and high school pupils. It was an incredible time. I just knew: ‘History is written here.’ The years that followed with Havel were golden years. People believed that Europe could be one.”

In early '68 everything changes

Jan Zajíc grew up in the 50s and 60s in Czechoslovakia with the idea that everyone had two ‘faces’: one at home behind closed doors, and one for public life. At home in the village of Vítkov, Radio Free Europe or Voice of America was on often. Those stations were banned, but if you did not mind the interference, listening to them on shortwave was tolerable. With his parents and his older brother Jaroslav, Jan discussed what they heard on the radio. But from a very early age he had learned: nothing of what you hear at home you may repeat outside. It could damage your future, his mother always said.

But in early 1968 everything changes. In the Czech Communist Party, the reformist Alexander Dubček comes to power. He chooses a new direction under the heading of ‘socialism with a human face’. Some Czechs are allowed to travel abroad, new political and social organisations are condoned, and most importantly: the reins of censorship are loosened. Zajíc is astonished. He can go to foreign plays, he can see films in the cinema that were previously banned, and it seems like every week new newspapers and magazines are set up.

But of all things, Zajíc is happiest with the debate meetings: there are discussions everywhere. Zajíc participates in every debate he can find at the school in Šumperk where he studies and boards during the week. He writes poems and pamphlets, and talks with his friends about big issues like democracy. They all believe it: they, the young generation, are going to bring about change. Zajíc feels that everything is brighter, as if the Prague Spring has woken everyone up.

Torch Number one

The happiness only lasts a few months. On the night of 20-21 August, the tanks of the Warsaw Pact drive into Prague and destroying everything. The next morning, Zajíc’s father calls his two sons. “Here, take some money, and flee the country while you still can.” But Zajíc refuses. He has seen the strength of the reform movement – it will not be fazed, will it? So Zajíc continues. He chalks slogans on buildings in Vítkov. And after the summer holidays, he tries to make plans for new actions against the oppressor, with his classmates in Šumperk. At first, the teachers also support the student activism but as the Soviet Union tightens the grip on the country, they back out. He is filled with horror, seeing how more and more people – first the teachers, later the students too – seem to resign themselves to the situation.

Then again something happens that turns Zajíc’s world upside down: on 16 January 1969, the 20-year-old student, Jan Palach, sets himself on fire in the Wenceslas Square in Prague. With this action, he protests against the Russian oppression, and he calls himself ‘torch number one’. In a letter, he demands the lifting of censorship amongst other things. If his demands are not met, others will follow his example, Palach warns. On 19 January he dies from his injuries in the hospital.

Palach’s act seems to wake up the Czech people again. His death inspires tens of thousands of people to take to the streets in a memorial march organised by students. Just like in the summer of '68, the Wenceslas Square becomes the meeting place for everyone who longs for change. There are protest rallies, flyers are being distributed, and poets and artists create lots of work inspired by Palach. Students organise a hunger strike to reinforce Palach’s demands. As soon as Zajíc hears about it, he takes the train from Šumperk to Prague on his own. He does not know the students, but feels a strong urge to join them – he wants to do something.

For days, he sits and talks with them in the square, while all of them are trying to warm themselves on a small coal stove. At night they sleep in tents. Passersby look at their banners and praise their actions. Temperatures are below zero, but the students are boiling inside and have fire in their eyes. Zajíc is sure of it: the power of the people is back. Together they will fight for a free country.

Back in Vítkov, Zajíc tells his parents about the banners, the candles and the mass marches. Now we have to persevere, by force if need be, he explains to his parents and his older brother. At school in Šumperk, he tries to convince his classmates, but Zajíc feels that their resignation is even greater than before. People are afraid of the secret service; they stopped discussing and debating things. They withdrew into their shells. Sometimes he just says it during class, without batting an eye: if nothing happens, maybe I should follow Palach’s example. His classmates do not know if they should take him seriously or if they should laugh at his dark humour.

A new spar is Needed, Torch Number two

The days in Prague have changed him. He was crying during Palach’s burial, standing among tens of thousands of strangers who also wept. That had to mean something, hadn’t it? Zajíc is certain of it: the only thing needed is a new spark. He is that spark, torch number two.

In the farewell letter to his family, he asks for a funeral in Prague: “It will be a manifestation for the world.” But it does not get that far. Under intense pressure from the authorities, the funeral takes place in Vítkov. Zajíc’s death does not cause nearly as big a turnout as Palach’s did. Newspapers pay little attention to it – the few journalists who do write about it lose their jobs because of it. “There is so much I want for you. That is why I have to sacrifice a lot too,” Zajíc had written to his family. But his actions are working against them in many ways. His mother is fired on the spot; his younger sister is not allowed to start university. People stop greeting the Zajíc’s in the street. The flowers on Zajíc’s grave are stolen again and again. Czechoslovakia embarks on a gloomy period of ‘normalisation’. It would take until 1989 for the Wenceslas Square to become the epicentre again of a mass asking for change.

‘Nobody does anything’

The excitement Van Gemund felt in 1989 during the revolution has been replaced by fear and anger. “The fact that many Eastern Europeans are now so fiercely against the arrival of refugees is largely due to their history with communism,” Van Gemund thinks. “People who grew up in communism never learned to think critically. They are used to propaganda.” He is quiet for a moment. Then he says: “The Czech people were crushed by the millstone of communism. Politicians have taken absolutely no responsibility for their actions – just like in many other former communist countries. Those politicians are huge hypocrites: with one hand they beg for money from the EU, with the other they warn the people for the same EU.”

In two days he is going to chain himself to the fence of the Russian embassy in Prague – if everything goes according to plan. The chaining will happen after he has pushed the sex doll with the face of Putin over the fence. The goal is for the helium filled doll to jump across the lawn like a dancer. Drawing attention to the issues with controversial actions is the only thing he can do, Van Gemund says. If necessary he will show the Czech people what activism is every day for the rest of his life: “I want to show them that what I do can actually be done. It is part of having a democracy.” He sighs: “I’m just a moralist too, someone who points his finger. I certainly do it for my own peace of mind. If it all ends badly, at least I have tried to do something.”

When the difference between the dreamed future and daily reality becomes insurmountable, people revolt. They awake from their lethargy or overcome their fear and decide to fight for their ideals. Newspapers and television channels spread the images of their protests. We see masses of demonstrators, moving as a single organism, but when you look closer, you see individuals. Find their stories here.

These stories are part of the I'm So Angry Pop-up Museum.