"There was a sea of people there. They came in army trucks and wanted to carry ammunition from the trucks in the building of the Central Committee. There were lines of people, crammed together to make way for soldiers to carry the ammunition boxes. I clutched to this live fence of people with my hands. Immediately afterwards all hell broke loose in the square, they started shooting. So it was around seven in the evening, on December 22. That was when chaos struck us. Everyone threw themselves to the ground. Terrible noise, everywhere. I couldn't see any bullets. I didn't see any dead people at first, but there was a terrible uproar. People started shooting towards the square from the top of the roofs of the Parliament’s and the University Library’s building, and then soldiers began to retaliate. Of course, hell had broken loose. I threw myself to the ground. People broke the windows from the basement of the building of the Central Committee and started getting into the building. As soon as I saw this, I ran towards the building and got inside myself, spending the entire night afterwards either inside or outside, giving food to all those young people who were there, a lot of young people. I remember a young teenage girl standing on the top of a bus, a car or something like that, and shouting "Ole! Ole! Ole! Ceauşescu is gone!" Finally, a glorious atmosphere.
I can firmly say that I also took part in the revolution that night, just like the other thousands of people who were there. We stayed until the next day until eleven o'clock, on December 23. I got out safe. But I did get to see dead people; I saw wounded people; I saw members of the Securitate shot down, the bullet-riddled chest of one of them; I saw a so-called terrorist caught in the neighbouring building being brought in the building of the Central Committee and actually lynched by people - they were all hitting him, him covered in blood."
"... this also came amid feelings of dissatisfaction with the life we were all living in Romania at that time, being deprived of freedom and lacking many things, including material things. I remember, for example, that I was waiting in line; there were ration stamps for everything. We were entitled to 5 eggs per month, for which we had to wait in huge queues. The same goes for a litre of oil or two pounds of sugar. This was the ratio we were entitled to. And so I waited in line at the store. After having waited for one or two hours, I would finally get in front to find out there wasn’t nothing left to buy, and would then go home angry because, on the one hand, I didn't have anything to eat, and because, on the other hand, I would have to wait in line again in just one or two days. So, you constantly felt frustrated."
„…the two or three cells, all the cells that were there, were packed, crammed with people who had been arrested. I think there were about 70 people from all of Romania's borders in total. They had even picked up young Romanians from Yugoslavia, from the Austrian border (who had managed to flee from Romania locked up in containers, with water and dry bread, and had been discovered by the Serbian border police in Maribor, before getting to Austria). There were so many of us that we didn't have beds, we were sleeping on the floor. On Sunday night we could no longer fit in there, and we barely had space to lie on the floor on our backs. There were so many people in custody there, all because of having attempted to cross the border illegally. There was a group of around eleven people, an entire family - parents, children and other relatives, the smallest child in somebody’s arms -, all having been caught for attempting to cross the border."
"They had already started to bring other people in. They brought another girl. At about eleven o'clock in the night, the border guards took the girls away for questioning. We were talking to each other, communicating, there were metal doors, but we were shouting and I could keep track of Mariana. When I heard the doors opening, I shouted to Mariana and she cried out that they were taking her away for questioning. I asked the soldiers and they told me the same thing, that they were taking her away for questioning. In fact, I suspected that they weren't going to question them, but were taking them away to rape them, what usually happened to women who were arrested back then. I started making a huge scandal, pounding on the door with my feet, I yelled at them to bring her back straight away, that I was otherwise going to report them the following day. These were all soldiers during their military service, who were doing this such things.
R: Was this tolerated?
I: Of course, it was tolerated. They were not alone, the sub-officers were also involved. For sure. And it took them a while to bring her back, a half an hour later. I never asked her if something had happened to her. The other person was brought back only after a few hours, and Mariana confirmed me that she had been raped. I don't know who this woman was."
... this also came amid feelings of dissatisfaction with the life we were all living in Romania at that time, being deprived of freedom and lacking many things, including material things...
George Sava (Gheorghe Asavei)
photo: Arhiva foto a Memorialului Victimelor Comunismului şi al Rezistenţei
photo: Arhiva foto a Memorialului Victimelor Comunismului şi al Rezistenţei
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He was born on September 13, 1962 in Viişoara, a village in the commune of Păuneşti, Vrancea County, into a family of peasants.
In the autumn of 1962, his father, Leon Asavei, was forced to join the collective farm.
In 1978, George Sava, aged 16, got hired as a worker at the Rulmentul plant in Braşov. Then, between 1982-1983, he worked as a miner at the Lupeni mine, and from 1983 to 1989 at the city fire department. At the same time, he graduated from high school after having attended night school, and then had several unsuccessful attempts to be admitted to the Faculty of Letters in Bucharest.
In the summer of 1986, his brother, Costică Asavei managed to cross the border illegally to Serbia, afterwards succeeding to get to the United States of America.
In 1989, dissatisfied with living conditions in Romania, George Sava decided to protest against the regime by giving out manifestos in Lupeni, and then finally became determined to leave the country, by crossing the border illegally to Serbia. In order to avoid raising any suspicion on the part of the communist authorities, George Sava gathered materials for manifestos (cardboard, markers) over several weeks. At the same time, he carefully prepared his departure from the country. With the help of his girlfriend, Mariana Lazăr, he prepared manifestos with anti-communist slogans (“Down with the Securitate!”, “Down with Communism!”, “Down with Ceauşescu!”), which he then distributed by sticking them to the walls of several buildings in the city, in the night of October 19-20, 1989. On the morning of October 20, George Sava and Mariana Lazăr left for Timişoara with the intention to flee the country. Once in Timişoara, they took the train to Otelec, a town at the border with Yugoslavia, but were arrested by border guards on the train. After being questioned about their intention to cross the border, the two were taken to the border guards’ unit in Jimbolia, where they were held together with other 70 persons that had also been arrested for “attempt to cross the border illegally”. After three days spent in the custody of border guards in Jimbolia, the two were released.
Back in Lupeni, on October 24, under the pretext of an investigation related to an instance of dynamite theft from the mine, George Sava was called to the militia station to give a statement, which was afterwards used to identify the handwriting on the anti-communist manifestos, which had been spread in the night of October 19-20. Following a militia search of his home, in which the militia found draft manifestos, George Sava and his girlfriend, Mariana Lazăr, were arrested again in the evening of October 24. After the arrest, the two were separated and would only see each other after their release. George Sava was first taken to the militia headquarters in Lupeni, where a brief investigation was done, then transferred to the Securitate headquarters in Petroşani, and, after three days, to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Securitate on Calea Rahovei, Bucharest. He remained there until December 22, 1989, when he was released along with all the other detainees in the outbreak of the revolution.
After 1990, he graduated from the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies at the University of Bucharest. He worked as a journalist at the “România Liberă” [Free Romania] newspaper until 1999, when he immigrated to Canada. Once he immigrated to Canada, he changed his name from Gheorghe Asavei to George Sava.
He currently lives in Canada, where he runs a publication dedicated to the Romanian community.
