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The estimated number of the dead lied in the hundreds, and this was the first fact to check on, as journalists. If that was true, than the Danube turned to be a bloodier border to Romania, than the Berlin Wall was for the Germans in East Germany. For the Romanians who unsuccessfully attempted to cross that border crosses marked "Romanian" were the only ones guarding their bones, with rain the only one to shed tears over them. Decades after their deaths, not even crosses mark now were the tombs stood, the locals witnessing their burials are getting older, as do the forensic doctors who once assessed the cause of their deaths. The papers, however, documenting the Romaniansâ ordeal are still there; a forensic doctor in Negotin showed me a few of them. It is high time for Romania to start documenting these stories; for too long governments in Bucharest overlooked the fate of these victims, while not forgetting to give higher ranks to the military responsible for their deaths.
Kladovo, or Cladova, as Romanians call it, is a 32,000-strong town, a short distance away from the border crossing at Iron Gates. Some 22 villages around it are inhabited by ethnic Romanians, and only one of them is of Montenegrins. Small traffic over the border forged relations during the communist years that lasted for a life time: the Serbs sold blue jeans to Romanians for the equivalent of a monthly wage, while also bringing along information on how life really was in "the capitalist camp." The cooperation went even further: Romanians attempting to cross the border passed their personal documents, in advance, to their Serbian friends. Some crossed the River Danube clinging for life on tiers, others on oxygen or liquefied gas recipients. People risked their lives and that of their children attempting to cross over the river while keeping the family whole. One local in Kladovo recalls the case of a pregnant woman, who was helped by a fisherman to reach Serbia; another one talks of a father and his two kids clinging on two truck tires. Those attempting to cross the river with no support for flotation at all were in the biggest danger, since Danube is famous for its treacherous waters; hence many had died.
Translated By ANCA PADURARU |
