Tag #127915 - Interview #89861 (Dan Mizrahy)

The year 1989 didn’t seem to be any different from the previous. It was on 20th December, when Ceausescu – who had just returned from Iran – appeared on TV, surrounded by the vice-presidents of the State Council, with the tricolor in the background, and announced the proclamation of the state of emergency in Timisoara that we realized we were living truly historic days. We watched a part of the rally that took place the following day – a Thursday. At 12:30pm, after the first interruption of the broadcast, we had to go to a warehouse of the Jewish Community on Negustori Street to buy the kosher meat ration that the Community sold to us once a month. While we were crossing Republicii Avenue at the crossroads with Armeneasca Street, we heard a powerful explosion. We later found out that it had been produced by the petard that had caused the rally in Palatului Square to fall apart. The news was confusing. We didn’t know anything about the events in front of the Intercontinental Hotel and in Universitatii Square and Romana Square. On Friday morning an unscheduled television broadcast announced the proclamation of the state of emergency in Bucharest and throughout the entire country. They ran patriotic songs and folk dances. We turned the TV off. Towards noon our friend Geta Coman called us and told us to turn the TV on. We complied and it was then that we learnt that the impossible had become reality. A saying had been running for a few months: every Romanian keeps a bottle of champagne in the fridge. No one explained it, but everyone knew what it meant. However, the euphoric moments at noon were followed by the shots in Palatului Square, today’s Revolutiei Square in the afternoon, then by the sporadic shots that could be heard all night, even in the vicinity of our house. News began to arrive about people killed on the street like actor Horia Caciulescu, for instance; helicopters that didn’t belong to the army began to rotate at low altitude; we got contradicting news about the capture of the Ceausescu couple; there was shooting at the Television Company and at the Defense Ministry. In other words, life was far from being back to normal. Teams of armed volunteers wearing tricolor badges were patrolling the streets not knowing what and whom they were after. I remember the television speakers and other employees, who came on air and apologized, asserted their position, blamed the others, and exculpated themselves: actors, composers, military, people who wanted to ‘step in front’.