Tag #134617 - Interview #77952 (Ruth Greif)

When the Romanian Revolution of 1989 [24] started, I was at home with my husband, getting ready for Chanukkah to go to the temple. We heard what happened in Timisoara on the radio - that the students and other people were rebelling against the Communist Party - but we still didn't discuss it at work. You couldn't be sure how things were going to end and who was listening. Also, a student from Timisoara, who lived in our apartment block, came home and told us what was going on, about the slaughters. [Editor's note: several students were arrested, others beaten or even shot during the first confrontations between the revolutionaries and the authorities]. She could hardly make it home by train. So we sort of knew from the source what was going on, that the revolution had finally broken out, and that it wasn't just a pack of hooligans like the authorities said.