The 1989 Timisoara Revolution Route

15 November

The qualification of the Romanian national football team for the 1990 World Cup in Italy leads to a protest against the Ceaușescu regime in Timișoara. Security operatives dispersed the participants in the demonstration.

16-18 November

In the days leading up to 19 November 1989, the park in the Student Complex was full of flyers urging young people to come to the Opera Square in Timisoara on 19 November at 4pm to demonstrate against the regime.

November 23

At the U.M.T. enterprise, workers from shift I tried to stage a protest but the Security Service managed to calm things down.

10 December

During a sermon at the Reformed Church on Timotei Cipariu Street , the Reformed pastor László Tőkés informs the parishioners of his forced eviction on the coming Friday, based on a court order. On the night of 10/11 December, posters with exclusively anti-Ceaușescu content were scattered on the streets of Timișoara.

11 December

Budapest 1 TV station broadcasts video footage from Timișoara during the political programme “Panorama”, with the Reformed pastor László Tőkés in the foreground, asking for support to avoid being moved from the religious community he led.

15 December

A small number of parishioners gather in solidarity with Pastor László Tőkés in front of the Reformed Church in the early morning hours. They are joined by a small number of citizens of the city. At lunchtime, Denis Currie, secretary of the U.S. Embassy arrives in Timisoara to talk to the Reformed pastor. Despite the opposition of the local security workers, the two manage to have a brief discussion inside the gate of the church building in Maria Square. In the evening, plainclothes Security workers attempted to arrest some of the participants. A scuffle breaks out between the protesters and the Security employees, but the incident remains without major consequences.

16 December

Early in the morning, László Tökés’ parishioners return to the Reformed Church on Timotei Cipariu Street. Soon more and more Timisoara residents join them to protect the Reformed pastor from eviction. The local authorities have been in dialogue with Pastor Tökés to solve the problem. In the afternoon of that day, the reformed pastor would make repeated calls to those gathered in front of the parish house to disperse so as not to give rise to incidents.In the afternoon of that day, the Timisoara people’s action of solidarity with Tőkés turned into a revolt against Ceaușescu’s dictatorship. Around 4 p.m., several trams were stopped and blocked in St. Mary’s Square . From the platforms of these vehicles, various citizens will make anti-communist speeches. The highlight will belong to Daniel Zăgănescu who will shout “Down with Ceausescu! “. This incendiary slogan marked the transition from an action of solidarity with Pastor Tőkés to a revolt against the totalitarian regime. The crowd started chanting anti-communist slogans: “Down with Ceaușescu!”, “Freedom!”; “Wake up Romanian” was sung.  A column of demonstrators went to the Timis County Council to talk to the authorities . Some protesters attempt to break into the building that used to house the county committee of the Romanian Communist Party (P.C.R.), others try to tear off the signs of communism on the facade of the building. The demonstrators are attacked by Interior Ministry security forces. Violent clashes take place between demonstrators and police. A fire engine is sprayed with water but is damaged by protesters. A platoon from the anti-terrorist subunit (U.S.L.A.) equipped with overalls, shields, batons and helmets disperses the demonstrators. The authorities intervene and some of the protesters are arrested. Some of the protesters head for the Student Complex, but most of them return to Maria Square, where violent clashes take place with the Security and Militia forces. Rejected by the security forces, the demonstrators in Maria Square decide to head towards the Student Complex to call for student participation. Here they would meet up with the column that had been there earlier. Due to the fact that the students did not join the protest, the column headed towards the industrial platform on Calea Buziașului. In front of the company ,,Banatim” the demonstrators are attacked by a fire engine that will be damaged by the protesters. The next area was the Soarelui district and Calea Girocului, and from there once again towards the student dormitories. After the two columns had joined, at the urging of Sorin Oprea, a mechanic at “Electrometal” Timișoara , who had climbed onto a transformer block, the demonstrators decided to set off for the Cathedral, to ask for the support of the Metropolitan for a dialogue with the authorities . Arriving after midnight in front of the Cathedral, thousands of demonstrators sang “Hora Unirii” and “Deșteaptă-te, române!” and chanted, at Sorin Oprea’s urging, for the first time, “Down with communism!” . From here, the demonstrators decided to move to the densely populated neighbourhoods – Circumvalațiunii, Calea Aradului and Calea Lipovei – to call on other Timisoara residents to join them. By morning, following the intervention of the repressive forces, the demonstrators have been dispersed, hundreds of protesters are beaten and arrested. At around 4:00 a.m., Pastor László Tökés is forcibly evicted from his home and taken to Mineu.

17 December

In the early hours of Sunday, the task force of the Department of State Security (D.S.S.) arrives in Timisoara. In the city, the windows of broken shop windows are replaced, and Timisoara residents are going around the city, commenting in groups on the events of the previous day. From Bucharest, the Minister of Defence, General Vasile Milea, orders a demonstration of force by M.Ap.N. units through the city centre. The parade was intended as a show of force to discourage any protest action . At 10:30 am, four columns of over 550 soldiers march through the city with fanfare, battle flags and weapons without ammunition. In the city centre, thousands of demonstrators greet the intimidation forces with boos and chants of anti-Chavez slogans. Around noon, Ceaușescu called Radu Bălan several times to inform himself about the way the M.Ap.N. units were marching and about the behaviour of the Timisoara people gathered in the Opera Square. Shortly afterwards, thousands of Timisoara people headed for the County Party headquarters. Local officials refuse to engage in dialogue with the demonstrators and order the crowd to be dispersed with tear gas and water jets from two tankers. Some of the demonstrators attack the headquarters, break in and ransack the offices on the ground floor. Protesters throw Ceaușescu’s writings, party documents, propaganda leaflets and other symbols of communist power out of windows and set fire to them. They also tried to set fire to the building, but were stopped by military units. After driving the demonstrators out of the Party headquarters and in front of the County Party Committee, Nicolae Ceaușescu ordered Radu Bălan to mobilize the entire Party and to wait for Ion Coman, who would come with a group of 7 generals and 3 colonels from the M. Ap. N. and M.A.I. to restore order . In Bucharest, at 4:30 p.m., the meeting of the Political Executive Council of the C.C.C. of the P.C.R. begins with a view to the repression by the M.Ap.N. and M.I. forces of the demonstrators in Timișoara.

At around 17:00 a teleconference is held with all the first secretaries of the county committees of the CPMR, including the commanders of the military garrisons. During the teleconference, Ceaușescu asked Ion Coman about the situation in Timișoara, to which Coman replied: “I have ordered to fire!” But by this time the first victim of the revolution, Popescu Irma Rozalia, crushed by an armoured amphibian near the Decebal Bridge, was registered. Also around 4 pm the first shots were heard in Timisoara, and in an hour the first victims from the use of weapons were recorded. At 18:45 General Vasile Milea transmits the “Radu cel Frumos” order for Timiș county, which implied “partial battle alarm”. As a result, all military troops receive weapons and ammunition of war. The army turned Timișoara into an inferno: street fighting, gunfire, casualties. Shots were fired in Libertății Square, the Opera, in the Decebal bridge area, Calea Lipovei and Calea Girocului. At the Cathedral, shots were fired at the demonstrators when they had already finished devastating the shops in the area and even the fires had been put out and the demonstrators had started to retreat.  An impressive number of military sub-units backed by military equipment (tanks, trucks and TABs) blocked access to the city and were defended from the air by helicopters. During the evening of 17 December, more than 60 people are killed, more than 200 injured and 800 arrested . After midnight the protests die down. Ion Coman, Ilie Matei and Ștefan Gușă inspected the city. Foreign radio stations begin to broadcast news of the bloody events in Timisoara. On the night of 17-18 December, as Nicolae Ceaușescu was preparing to begin his visit to Iran, Elena Ceaușescu, together with Tudor Postelnicu and Emil Bobu, decide to cover up the traces of the Timișoara massacre.

December 18

In the morning, mixed patrols (armed soldiers, assisted by plain-clothes security workers) guard the centre of Timisoara. At 9:00 a.m., a meeting began at the University with the directors and party secretaries of the city’s enterprises and institutions . Speakers condemned the “vandalism” of the previous days, blaming it on “thugs” and “hooligans” who had lured children and women to their side, and got them drunk and drugged. A “state of emergency” was introduced , and meetings were to be held in all businesses and institutions to urge employees not to go out on the streets; at the same time, security and safety measures were stepped up and the atmosphere became very tense. In the meantime, although Romania’s borders are closed, at 9:30 Nicolae Ceaușescu leaves for the Islamic Republic of Iran, leaving Elena Ceaușescu, Emil Bobu and Manea Mănescu in charge. In the city on the Bega river, demonstrations and repressions by the authorities continue.  Security officers and militiamen descend on the Timișoara County Hospital with the task of interrogating those wounded by gunshots in order to identify the leaders of the revolt. After 15:00 a group of young people, waving a flag with the communist coat of arms cut out, chanting anti-communist slogans on the steps of the Orthodox Cathedral, are fired upon from an armoured vehicle. The demonstrators scattered, but regrouped in the central area of the city, booing the army and chanting slogans. At 18:30, at the order of General Mihai Chițac simultaneously, both the use of weapons and tear gas grenades are used against the demonstrators in front of the Cathedral in Timisoara. Both repressive actions resulted in deaths, injuries and arrests. In front of the County Hospital, a large group of citizens who wanted to recover their dead opened fire, resulting in deaths and injuries. At 18:00, at Cabinet 2, by order of Elena Ceaușescu, the “Operation Rose” begins to erase the traces of the Timisoara massacre. Around 11 p.m., a COMTIM bus arrived at the Ministry of the Interior Inspectorate. From here, it was sent to the County Hospital, where 6 militia officers removed 43 bodies from the hospital morgue. These bodies were those of those shot dead at the demonstration, as well as those of the wounded executed in the County Hospital.For several hours while the “parcels” were loaded into the isotherm, the lights were turned off in the medical unit and the patients were forbidden to leave the wards. At around 5:00 am, the auto isotherm left for Bucharest accompanied by the “Dacia” type cars of the Securitate. From the hospital, the documents containing the cause of death (consultation registers, admission registers, death certificates and medical records) were collected and finally destroyed. The bodies were cremated at the “Cenușa” crematorium in Bucharest, the burning operation starting on the evening of the 19th and ending on the 20th of December. The explanation was that suspicious parcels from abroad were being burned. The disappearance of the bodies was to be explained to the families of the victims by the fact that the persons concerned had fraudulently left the country, fleeing across the border to neighbouring states .   The resulting ashes were collected in four rubbish bins and subsequently dumped in a sewer in Popești-Leordeni, Ilfov. 

19 December

In the morning of the day, at the ,,ELBA” factory, Timisoara, workers refuse to work as long as armoured vehicles and the military are still in the street. At the request of the workers, Radu Bălan, together with Mayor Petru Moț, went to the company to talk to them. The workers in the yard of the enterprise had stopped working and demanded the removal of the army from the enterprises and the city. It was also here that an altercation took place between General Ștefan Gușă and the workers. The Army opens fire on the workers, resulting in the serious injury of a woman. Under pressure from the workers, General Gșă addresses the crowd and promises them that the army will stop shooting at them. Afterwards, the Communist dignitaries, having failed to persuade the workers to continue working, leave the ELBA factory area accompanied by the armed forces.

20 December

Workers in Timisoara go on general strike and the city’s businesses cease operations. An employee at the Timisoara Mechanical Works (U.M.T.) sets off the air siren. It was the signal for thousands of Timisoara residents to take to the streets again. Massive columns of workers head towards the city centre (Opera Square). Employees from the industrial platform in Calea Buziașului, (,,Optica”, A.E.M., “Electrotimiș, ,,Azur”) are heading towards the centre from the southern part of the city. From the northern part of the city, workers from ,,ELBA”, “Solventul”, “Electromotor” , ,,6 Martie” are coming from the north. The workers from U.M.T. (the most powerful enterprise in Timisoara), will head towards the Party County. Around 11:00, General Ștefan Gușă orders the withdrawal of all the troops and military equipment in the city to the barracks (a measure also approved by Minister Vasile Milea) and the prohibition of the use of the weapons in the equipment. Some soldiers (soldiers and lower ranks) fraternise with the revolutionaries. At lunchtime almost all of Timișoara was on the city streets, going to the Opera Square or in front of the Party County. Tens of thousands of protesters have occupied Opera Square and are chanting anti-government slogans.  At around 1pm, on the initiative of university professor Lorin Fortuna, a group of revolutionaries climb to the Opera House balcony, where they decide to form a coordination and leadership committee. They will be joined by representatives of businesses . In the foyer of the National Theatre in Timișoara, the committee formulated a programme of minimum demands (which included the demands of those in the Opera Square), on the basis of which they would negotiate with the representatives of the communist authorities, and elected a permanent bureau made up of Lorin Fortuna (president), Claudiu Iordache (vice-president), Maria Trăistaru (secretary), Ioan Chiș and Nicolae Bădilescu as members. In the afternoon Lorin Fortuna announced in front of tens of thousands of demonstrators the establishment of the first free political party, the Romanian Democratic Front (F.D.R) and that Timisoara was becoming the first free city in Romania. It also called on all the country’s cities to follow Timisoara’s example.

At 2.30 p.m., appointed by Elena Ceaușescu, Constantin Dăscălescu, Prime Minister, accompanied by Emil Bobu and three ministers, arrive in Timișoara on a special plane. They were awaited at the party’s county office by representatives of local power and Ion Coman. The headquarters of the County Committee of the Communist Party of Romania was surrounded by thousands of Timisoara citizens chanting slogans against the dictatorial regime. In an attempt to resolve the crisis, Communist leaders meet with a delegation of demonstrators. The Timisoara crowd appoints 13 revolutionaries to present their demands to the Communist authorities. They form a Citizens’ Committee, which will be the second core of leadership of the Timisoara uprising. The revolutionaries and the Prime Minister had a harsh exchange of words, from which a set of demands was drawn up: the resignation of Nicolae Ceaușescu and the government, the release of those arrested, the return of the dead to their families for Christian burial, free elections, reform of education and absolute freedom of the press, radio and television, the investigation and sentencing of all those responsible for the armed repression of 17, 18 and 19 December . The demands, transcribed by Ioan Savu, will be presented to the crowd by Petre Petrișor and will be communicated to the Yugoslav Consulate, to be broadcast abroad.

Around 3:00 p.m., Nicolae Ceausescu returns from Iran and discovers a deteriorating situation in the country. Shortly afterwards, he organizes a teleconference with the first secretaries in which he explains the involvement of the US, USSR and Hungary in the events of the last few days.

In Timisoara, around 6 p.m., a delegation of the F.D.R. arrives at the County Party headquarters to participate in the talks with government representatives. Their demands were almost similar to those of the Citizens’ Committee, the most important one being the dismissal of Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Negotiations with government representatives failed because they refused to meet the demands of the Timisoara people and the situation remained largely unchanged. Throughout the so-called negotiations, the crowd chanted anti-Caucasian slogans. Under pressure from the demonstrators, some of the demands were accepted (most of the prisoners arrested in the previous days were released ), while the others were promised that Ceaușescu would respond personally.

At 19:00, Nicolae Ceausescu gave a televised address, broadcast from a TV studio inside the Central Committee building, in which he condemned the demonstrations in Timișoara, labelled those protesting in the city as enemies of the Socialist Revolution and ordered drastic repressive measures. The dictator approves the decree on the establishment of a state of necessity throughout the whole of Timiș county, which comes into force at 11pm.  He orders patriotic guards from some counties in Oltenia to intervene in force in Timișoara. Victor Stănculescu is appointed by Ion Coman as military commander of the Timișoara garrison. Elena Ceaușescu’s emissaries hurry back to Bucharest and the F.D.R. delegation leaves for the Opera, accompanied by most of the protesters. The Romanian Democratic Front Committee, which included representatives of the Citizens’ Committee, had a political project based on lists of demands. Thus, on the night of 20/21 December, a committee was set up to draw up an official programme of action for the F.D.R. , programme finalised around 3 o’clock. Nicolae Ceaușescu was not reconciled to the idea of losing control in Timișoara. In parallel with the rally organised in Bucharest, he will order a last attempt to recover the rebellious city from the demonstrators. The generals in Timișoara drew up a complex plan, entitled “Thunder and Lightning”, which envisaged attacking the demonstrators in Opera Square with armoured units supported by helicopters. The demonstrators in Opera Square were to be dispersed and arrested, and in their place, two columns of workers brought by party activists from the industrial platform in Calea Buziașului were to enter the square, followed by M.Ap.N. soldiers and 22,000 patriotic guards from Oltenia .  On the night of 20-21 December, special trains loaded with workers from factories in Oltenia (Craiova, Calafat, Băilești and Caracal) are sent to Timișoara.

December 21

At 9 o’clock in the morning, Lorin Fortuna read the Proclamation for the first time in front of more than 100,000 Timisoara citizens on general strike. At the same time, Radu Bălan called several party activists, informing them that on Coman’s orders they were going to organise a workers’ counter-demonstration in the Opera Square . The intention could not be completed, as the workers protested in Opera Square against the communist regime. Before noon, trains loaded with workers from factories in Oltenia arrived in Timisoara. Having found out in advance about the arrival of the special trains, with the help of employees of the C.F.R. telephone exchange, the F.D.R. leadership was able to intervene. The workers from Oltenia were received at the North Railway Station by representatives of the demonstrating groups, where the situation was explained to them and they were taken to the centre of Timisoara. Here they will fraternise with Timisoara residents, putting an end to the dictator’s latest attempt to take 

22 December

In the morning, more than 150,000 Timisoara citizens were in the Opera Square, chanting slogans against the Ceausescu regime. Among those who climbed to the balcony was Major Viorel Oancea, the first Romanian army officer to side with the revolution . At Coman’s behest, Mayor Pentru Moț contacted the F.D.R. leaders, asking them to give up the amplifier station, as several citizens were reportedly unhappy about the disturbance. They refused, and shortly afterwards news spread that the dictator had fled. An excitement that is hard to describe ensued, with hundreds of thousands of people celebrating Ceaușescu’s fall in the city centre.  

On 22 December the F.D.R. printed the manifesto “Tyranny has fallen!” in which its main demands were announced. The F.D.R. also printed the document “Final Resolution of the People’s Assembly in Timisoara” (also read from the balcony of the Opera House), which was meant to be the essence of the demands of the Timisoara Revolution. In the afternoon, the “false mass grave of the Timisoara revolution” was presented. The bodies unearthed in the poor people’s cemetery on 22 December 1989 were presented as victims of the revolution, although they were people who had died before the revolution.

Since 22 December, “Revolutia in direct” has significantly influenced the events in Timisoara. On the evening of 22 December 1989, fire was opened in the Opera Square in the capital of Banat. It was the first place where shooting started again. 

23-25 December

The actions carried out during this period and later, of lesser intensity, resulted in 20 deaths and 73 injuries in Timisoara.

26 December

The Romanian Democratic Front in Timișoara agreed to subordinate itself to the Council of the National Salvation Front. The Timiș County Council of the NSF was formed and immediately after the revolution it governed the county of Timiș. The newly formed Timiș F.S.N. was dominated by members of the F.D.R., but it also included people who had no particular role in the revolution (for example, Florentin Cârpanu, director of the Comtim factory).

27 December

The Timisoara Municipal Committee of the F.S.N. is formed, which was to be the local council of the city until elections were held in January 1990 .  In the course of the day, 10 deceased persons were taken from the morgue of the county hospital by the Timisoara Municipal Funeral Service and deposited in the chapel of the Heroes’ Cemetery, and on 28 December 1989, they were buried by workers of the same service in a mass grave discovered in January 1990 .