The taste of freedom in a country devoid of freedom
My story of today, which I put in the museum next to the memory of my grandfather near a tube radio, is the story of all those who listened to Radio Free Europe under communism or the radio of freedom. We were little, two perpetually restless grandchildren.
Grandpa, a war veteran, told us a lot and tried to teach us the taste of freedom in a country devoid of freedom. He was searching evening after evening the station Radio Free Europe*, on short waves [*An United States government-funded organization that broadcasted and reported news, information, and analysis to countries in the Eastern European block, where the free flow of information was banned or censored by government authorities. Listening to this radio was considered an act of rebelion by the communist party -Ed.].
We weren’t too excited about it, not to make too much noise around - which was almost impossible - and listen together with him. He had lost much of his hearing during the war, so he sat with his ear almost pressed to the speaker and from time to time he stood up to explain things to us. Other issues amused us: the slightly tubby, disturbed sound, with whistles and cracks, grandfather’s feverish search on the radio scale, by the slow rotation of the button. And the cursor that traveled on the screen of the device, through cities all over Europe. We were too young to understand some things. I understood a few of them much later. We are still trying to understand the other ones.
Georgiana Andrei, Brasov