Notorious Deeds

During the final weeks preceding the Revolution of 1989, the Mihai Viteazul secondary school in Bucharest was shocked by an incident which once more revealed Ceausescu´s totalitarian regime. A student had hung posters in the city depicting the dictator as a dangerous murderer wanted for arrest. Local militia soon captured the instigator. He was delivered to the Securitate – the feared secret service – where procedural machinery was quickly set in motion: Schoolmates were questioned, the Communist youth organization was forced to intervene, the female director of the school was asked to proceed with exmatriculation, his father lost his...