Twenty-five images from an archive of mostly amateur photographs capture daily life through Romania’s turbulent journey from World War II to the collapse of communism in 1989.
Romania: From Fascism To Freedom
- By Amos Chapple and
- Eugen Tomiuc
1
A Hungarian soldier torches a bunker on an abandoned defensive line between Romania and Hungary in 1940.
2
Ethnic Germans in northern Transylvania welcome Hungarian troops with Nazi salutes in 1940. The Romanian region was occupied by Nazi-allied Hungarian forces through most of the war.
3
A rabbi speaks in front of a swastika in the Transylvanian town of Bistrita as Hungarian troops arrive in 1940.
This striking image from Romania, along with the other photos in this gallery, are from the Fortepan photo archive. The collection of mostly amateur photos captures life in Central Europe through the 20th century.
This striking image from Romania, along with the other photos in this gallery, are from the Fortepan photo archive. The collection of mostly amateur photos captures life in Central Europe through the 20th century.
4
U.S. bombers target an oil refinery in Brasov in 1944. In 1940, after a fascist ruler seized power in a coup, Romania allied itself with Nazi Germany.
5
Romanian oil was a vital resource for the Nazi war machine.
6
A Hungarian soldier poses with locals in occupied northern Romania in 1942.
7
A young woman on holiday in Constanta in 1955.
8
Socialist-realist statues in Bucharest photographed in 1957. Romania was ruled by a communist dictatorship after the country was occupied by the Soviet Red Army.
9
Actors Istvan Rozsos and Dorottya Geczi relax in the waves of the Black Sea near Constanta in 1959.
10
Women working on a collective fruit farm in Transylvania in 1962.
11
By the 1960s, communist politician Nicolae Ceausescu (pictured during a speech in Arad) ruled the country.
12
Schoolchildren wearing the red scarves of the communist Pioneer youth group run into a building in Targu Mures in 1964.
13
Romantic Romanian students wait for a group of young women in Targu Mures in 1964.
14
Nicolae Ceausescu walks with a newlywed ethnic Hungarian couple near Brasov in 1967. Although Ceausescu oversaw the widespread repression of his political opponents, he was initially relatively popular with Romanians -- especially after he took out foreign loans that ensured Romanian shops were well stocked with food.
15
A young worker at a dairy in Targu Mures in 1967.
16
Welders at work at Bucharest's Vulcan Machine Factory in 1973.
17
A suburb under construction in 1977 in the Transylvanian city of Alba Iulia.
18
A sign declaring "Ceausescu -- heroism, Romania -- communism!" By the 1980s, Ceausescu's obsession with glorifying himself and repaying foreign loans was having a devastating effect on the Romanian people.
19
A trash collector in Bucharest in 1986.
20
A Bucharest street scene in 1986.
21
A Bucharest department store in 1986. When this photo was taken, Ceausescu, backed by his fearsome network of secret police, enforced the rationing of food and heating.
22
A Bucharest fruit market in 1986. Outside of the capital, people were limited to buying five eggs, half a kilo of sugar, and half a kilo of cooking oil per month. Half a loaf of bread was allowed per day and only 6 kilograms of red meat was permitted a year.
23
A man sleeps outside a factory with a sign declaring, "Long live our free and independent motherland the socialist republic of Romania!"
24
Locals block a road in the western city of Timisoara on December 16, 1989, during the beginning of what would become known as the Romanian Revolution.
25
A television crew runs into position in Timisoara during the revolution. After Romanian security services shot many demonstrators dead in Timisoara, a larger demonstration in Bucharest eventually led to the overthrow of the communist regime. Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed on December 25, 1989.
