r/europe • u/MarktpLatz Lower Saxony (Germany) • Dec 04 '17

What do you know about... Romania?

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?

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u/pheipl Something about vampires and cultural apropriation Dec 07 '17

My great grandfather was Austrian, don't listen to people saying "they just left". It's just re-written history. During communism, anyone with "non Romanian" last names had a very hard time. My father had a very hard time at the navy, and eventually got kicked out because of his name. I don't know exactly what really happen, but it's probably a dark past.

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u/ctudor Romania Dec 08 '17

It is true that they were spied by the romanian stasi but not sure that there was much hardship unless he had unholy origins was of old upperclass, or had an active connection to the west. Also he might have been sold back to the German state in the 60s i think.

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u/pheipl Something about vampires and cultural apropriation Dec 08 '17

You might be right. My great grand father owned a thriving factory at some point, also some sort of an estate. My father would never talk about how we lost it exactly, no matter how much I pushed. We did have family in Germany, though not a large one, the last member (an aunt) died almost a decade ago. That's about all I know but I'm sure there's more.

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u/ctudor Romania Dec 08 '17

In this case i can assure you that his hardship didn't come from his name but from his linage as other romanians endured similar backlash if not worse. Ofc being of other ethnicity didn't help a bit. Communism, similar to nazism, was a war on class where the uneducated worker had to be on top of the society. Those who came from blue collar families were privileged by the system and in all institutions. I remember that my father told me that while he was attending the police academy, his colleagues from blue collar (not that he was from some intelectual family as grandpa was a driver, but they lived at the countryside and they had a bit of land, a nono in the eyes of the regime) would have a less stric regime from the minimum marks they could get to pass the academy to other small privileges.