On another occasion, on my way home, I was viewed with suspicion at the customs inspection at Oradea railway station because I had no luggage. They took the only item hidden in my handbag, a memorial album of the martyrs of Arad. Without any written acknowledgement of confiscation, of course. I was more fortunate when I was able to bring over hidden in my rucksack, a wood carving by sculptor Jeno Szervatiusz, depicting renowned composer and lutenist Balint Bakfark as a gift to the rector of the Academy of Music in Budapest.
Another absurdity of the eighties was that "foreigners" like myself from the motherland were no longer allowed to stay with relatives; only in officially approved accommodation. The border guard checking my passport instructed someone to follow me from Oradea railway station to the Black Eagle Hotel. Even at night, they followed me to the toilets down the unlit corridor. And in the morning, in the porter's booth, the Securitate agent would organize the reels of wiretapped conversations of the hotel guests without the faintest sign of secrecy.
In the final days of the dictatorship, the names of those entering the country were openly checked at the border. In addition to mine, Balazs, it wasn't difficult to find on the passport list the name of Ferenc Bartis, who had resettled in Hungary. When I had earlier asked Andras Suto about Bartis's book entitled 'Behind Bars in Romania' published in Hungarian, the Transylvanian Hungarian writer and playwright said that unfortunately, everything in it was true.
The recollection of some grotesque and in spots horrifying memories of a bygone era only adds to our joy that young generations are now free to enjoy, without restrictions, an important achievement of the European Union.
But at the same time, the younger generations also need to be aware of where we started from. This makes the elation over Schengen accession, of crossing borders quickly and without obstacles, all the more authentic and blissful.
The lines of Mihaly Babits, one of our most pro-European poets, in his work entitled 'Transylvania', are fitting here, even if they were inspired by entirely different historical circumstances.
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