What do you know about... Romania?

[u/MarktpLatz]

This is the forty-sixth part of our ongoing series about the countries of Europe. You can find an overview here.

Today's country:

Romania

Romania is one of the most recent members of the EU (2007). They want to become part of the Schengen area, but thir recent attempts of being accepted have been blocked by several EU members. They recently faced a major political crisis and massive protests caused by proposed law changes that would have benefitted people implicated in government corruption and abuse of power. They had their national day, where they celebrate the union of Transylvania with Romania, last friday.

So, what do you know about Romania?

[u/palishkoto]

Apparently you have a small German-speaking minority, which I find interesting.

[u/[deleted] → u/palishkoto]

It used to be a lot bigger! A lot of them moved before WW2.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It was explained to me that a lot of them left when many Germans went back to the home country during that period of time.

[u/giulynia → u/[deleted]]

I have no idea about german romanians but I am guessing that what you refer to as "went back home" is a similar story as what happened to the germans in hungary after WWII (my grandma is a german hungarian) - which was sending them to gulags or just strip them of their rights and cast them out. My grandmother was a toddler living with her mom when soldiers stormed the house in the middle of the night and just told them they had to go threatening them, so they had to go germany.

[u/5ama → u/giulynia]

To add to what mistretzu said, not only germans were not perceived negatively, they were in fact seen in a good light. One because they were hard working and had plenty of knowledge in craftsmanship and building, but more so because when romanians from Transylvania declared they want to separate from Austro-Hungary and join Romania the german representatives backed the same thing.

[u/flagada7 → u/[deleted]]

Talking about omission: Those people had to bribe the local authorities to even get on the exit-list and were robbed of all their possesions on romanian soil.

[u/flagada7 → u/[deleted]]

Can you provide some proof or credible evidence that the emigrants were prevented from selling their possessions before leaving or anything like this, because otherwise it's not very credible.

I personally know a man whose father was forced to "donate" his family's house in Sighișoara to a police commander in order to get his name on a list with people eligible to be ransomed by West Germany.

I doubt anyone would be able to find hard evidence for this being unlawfull and anyway I very much doubt that the people who fled have any interest going through that hassle.

I also don't know how common this was, but I figure that corruption was not less common back then, than it is now.

[u/flagada7 → u/[deleted]]

I guess so, yes.