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« I have heard the question: Why didn’t you rise up? That is a question. Why didn’t we rise up? Because many people might have been ready to do something like that - I don’t know whether I would have been one of them – but then you would ruin not only yourself and your own family but also a very large network of more distant relatives, your uncles, your first cousins, your second cousins. They would all go to jail or they would be sent into exile, and would be kicked out of work! Supposing that something like that happened now, me and my son would go to jail for reasons that was easy for them to find. These two [his wife and his daughter] would be sent to a village where the Party would do them great harm and they would have to work in order to make a living. And they would not just be psychologically oppressed the way we are a little bit oppressed here. No, here things are very nice in comparison to what they would suffer there. Even if they beat you or did whatever they wanted to you, you wouldn’t have the right to go anywhere to complain. That’s why the regime kept this practice. So that a person would think it over. You couldn’t do that to two or three people. »
« Yes, when you applied for something the biography was what counted most. Namely, where your parents and your grandparents were and what they were doing during the war, what was their attitude, on whose side were they. Were they in favor of the communists or of the Balists? If they had been on the Balists’ side, you couldn’t go to school even if you had a grade of 10 points. And afterwards, they also cross-checked everything you said. They knew everything about all of us. The security police kept records on all of us. So, you couldn’t lie. If you lied…they would come to your house and say "Why did you say these things? This isn’t right. We know who you are." If, for example, you had been in jail and you hadn’t told it, you wouldn’t pass. […] Apart from not going to school you wouldn’t have been able to find a job either. You would either work in the fields or in construction. The worst thing would be to go into exile. How can I put it, it was a pure tragedy! »
Political biographies
