It’s Been 73 Years Since They Deported My Family
"We had to bury your great-granddad out in the field in an unmarked grave, like a dog."
ferrantraite | Unsplash They left us in an open field in the dead of the night, with nothing but a stake in the ground to mark our spot.’
I was 19 and my baby was two.
We had to dig holes in the ground to get shelter. These were our homes for the next five years. Roots were growing out of the walls. Water was streaming down them.
‘They told the people from a nearby village that we were political criminals.
There was no food except what we could grow in the scorched earth. No drinking water either. We had to get our water from a nearby river. Swollen, dead cows were floating downstream.
Your great-grandad died there. We had to bury him out in the field in an unmarked grave, like a dog.
It’s been 73 years since they deported my family.
My grandma used to tell this atrocious story again and again up until her death at age 73, her voice almost howling with deep-rooted pain, rage, and a devouring thirst for justice that could never be quenched.
I’ll never forget the haunted look in her eyes and her wailing voice. But above all, I’ll never forget the story. It’s been genetically tattooed in my DNA, like a transgenerational wound with no cure.
Never forget. Always remember.
It was a warm and starry summer night in 1951
New Africa / Shutterstock
At about 2 a.m., they heard loud pounding at the front door. They opened and were faced with an armed soldier.
He was a nice guy, just doing his job. He didn’t yell, didn’t shove, didn’t use force. He asked them nicely to get ready because they had to leave. He stayed there with his gun on his shoulder while they scrambled to compute what was going on and pack their bags.
There were seven people in that house. The oldest was 77. The youngest is only two years old.
Two hours later, they were all taken from their family home, marched to the railway station, and corralled into freight trains together with hundreds of others from the area. The journey took two weeks.
Two weeks of agony
They were never told where they were going. Men, women, children, a cow, ducks, big bags of flour and corn, furniture, pots, and pans, all shoved together in the darkness of a never-ending journey that, as far as they knew, could be their last.
But it wasn’t death they feared most. It was Siberia.
They thought the communist government was taking them to Siberia. It had happened before, to people living under other totalitarian regimes. People taken from their homes, deported, humiliated, gassed, burned, killed, their ethnicity and identity erased from the face of the earth.
And there was no way to know what was going on. Eventually, the train stopped in an open field. People were given a number and led to a stake in the ground.
‘They left us in an open field in the dead of the night, with nothing but a stake in the ground to mark our spot, ’ my grandma wailed over and over.
A mandatory residence
A fenceless prison out in the open field. This was their new home. These were the Plains of Baragan, a place where nothing had ever had borders, rats ate everything, and water tasted like gasoline and death.
It was barren, scorched in the summer, and withered by ice-cold winds in the winter. This was the place where only the strong survived. A place fit for enemies of the state — young mothers, the elderly, and two-year-old infants. These were the enemies of a totalitarian regime.
Whoever worked hard enough to be able to rise above the rest, whoever dared to not be a stooge for the leading party, whoever owned a pub or land, whoever dared speak truth to power — these were the dangerous criminals that threatened a fragile authoritarian system.
It wasn’t an ethnic cleansing, it was an ideological one. They cleansed the people who stood up for themselves — the hard workers, the leaders, the entrepreneurial spirits, and especially, the free spirits.
This happened to my family in Romania in the summer of 1951. They kept them there for 5 years, then brought them back to an empty home where everything had been stolen. It happened all over Europe in other years. It happened all across the world. Most people didn’t come back.
Those who survived it fear it might happen again — very soon
Certain things happen at a global level before people are taken from their homes in the dead of the night. Things that don’t seem to have much to do with politics, but a lot to do with psychology.
Usually, there’s been a war, a pandemic, and economic and political instability. People are tired, scared, poor, and they’ve been through a lot.
They’ve been misled and lied to for a long time. They feel like they can’t trust the people in charge, and they can’t reach an agreement with their friends, neighbors, and family. There’s division, poverty, uncertainty, and chaos. People are alone. They need help. And the only help in sight comes from someone who says everything they want to hear.
Someone like U.S. President Trump, who promised Americans he would make the great American dream real again. A dream nobody believes in anymore. The white picket fences, the streets clean of immigrants, and the bad guys punished and put in their place. An impossible task that targets made-up enemies. The perfect excuse for totalitarianism.
He’ll settle the war in Ukraine before he’s even elected, he said. That’s exactly what the people in my country — and all of Europe — are afraid of. Because there’s only one way to end the war in Ukraine: stop supporting Ukraine so Putin can have it.
And once Putin has Ukraine, he can take the rest of Europe as well. The swing toward authoritarian leaders is happening all over the world.
Just a few hours ago, Romania’s top court annulled an ongoing presidential election after accusations of Russian meddling. The favorite presidential candidate was the one supported by Russia. He had a political discourse so similar to Trump’s that it was eerie.
The people of Georgia have been out in the streets for days. France’s government has toppled, after opposition parties in the French parliament backed a vote of no-confidence.
We are terrified. The sleep of reason produces monsters. It’s the perfect time for fake saviors to sweep us off our feet. It’s the perfect time for future dictators to promise us a good life, save us from our miserable existence, and open the door to a dreamland where all our fantasies can come true. Where we’ll no longer be poor while others are rich, and we’ll no longer be scared for our future.
He’ll save us. He’ll punish everybody who did us wrong and make the world great again. He’ll be the protective father we need so much right now. Someone who can take all the hurt away.
If only we’d vote for him and allow him to lead and take care of us. If only we’d give him the power …
This is happening all across the world
People are choosing autocratic leaders because they’re the ones who play savior. It’s irrelevant that it doesn’t work like that — people will believe (and vote for) anything that makes them feel good and gives them a sliver of hope.
It’s not because they’re stupid, it’s because they’re desperate. We’re all desperate. Some of us are desperate to get out of poverty and live a better life, and the rest dare to hope at the possibility that we could end up on a freight train to nowhere.
Mona Lazar is a writer and unconventional relationship coach with words published in Better Humans, Medium, Illumination, The Soulciety, Newsbreak, The Startup, Hello, Love, The Good Men Project, Curious, and others.
