On the 25th December 1989, outside a military base near Bucharest the former Dictator of
Romania Nicolae Ceacescu and his wife Elena were executed by a firing squad.
There had been a revolution and things were very tense in the nation, as the Ceacesucu’s
were considered despots who ordered the army to shoot at civilians.
They were tried very quickly and were then executed swiftly after, but the wife of the
former dictator Elena was a woman with a vicious tongue, and she was a woman who held senior
positions inside of the country.
Along with her husband, she visited many countries and was part of many state visits meeting
important world leaders, but she was referred to by some as ‘The Mother of The Nation,’
and she was considered a woman who was motivated by power and honours.
But what is the story of the execution of Elena Ceacusecu.
Join us today to find out, and remember as always to support our channel please make
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Elena Ceacescu was born on the 7th January 1916 into a peasant family in the region which
was formerly known as Wallachia.
Her father was a ploughman and a farmer, and she was not the most well educated.
Following school she moved with her brother to Bucharest and worked as a lab assistant,
and she then worked in a factory and became a member of the Romanian Communist Party in
1939.
Whilst inside the Bucharest branch, she met a 21 year old Nicolae Ceausescu, and the pair
fell in love.
But Nicolae would claim he never looked at a woman again after he met Elena, but he was
imprisoned a number of times.
The couple married on the 23rd December 1947, and following the Communists seizing power,
Elena worked as a secretary in the Ministry of Foreign affairs.
Her husband was more senior and became the Communist Party General Secretary, and this
job meant Elena often was dispatched to other countries with her husband to visit other
lands in alliances with Romania.
She took part in state visits to China in 1971, and she idolised Chairman Mao’s wife,
and she then took inspiration from her to place herself in this position of power in
Romania.
She became a member of the Central Commission on Social Economic Forecasting, and then she
became a full member of the Romanian Communist Party Central Committee, and had a number
of senior roles in the Romanian Communist Party, As time went on, she became the second
most important person in Romania behind her husband, and she was very influential and
many women across the land idolised Elena Ceaucescu.
She then became party of the highest political executive in the land, and held a seat in
the Great National Assembly, and she represented the main industrial region of the country
until she was executed.
She then in March 1980 became the First Deputy Prime Minister, but she was a woman who was
as mentioned considered the Mother of the Nation, and she was incredibly vain.
She was in control of how she was portrayed, and she was hesitant to be shown in profile
as she was worried about her large nose.
However she would fall from grace along with her husband during the Romanian Revolution.
In the 1980s there was growing tension in Romania and on the 16th December 1989, the
Hungarian minority in Timisoara held a protest in response to attempts by the government
to evict a Hungarian pistol named Laszlo Tokes.
The government said he was causing and inciting hatred, and they wanted him gone.
But that evening the protests grew and spread, and the original cause of the unhappiness
was forgotten.
Some protesters attempted to burn down buildings, and the police and security forces responded
with firing tear gas and using their water cannons, and the police then attacked and
beat up a number of the rioters and they arrested them.
The group then began a protest march around the city, and they were confronted by security
forces.
The following day the riots and protests resumed and the protestors broke into a district committee
building and they threw propaganda out of the window.
But things were getting worse, the military was sent in, and fighting broke out and there
were many people who were injured and cars were set on fire.
But then the Ceacesucu’s sent the tanks in.
There was shocking shooting from Liberty Square around the city, and helicopters were overhead.
It was like a war zone, with blood being shed on the streets.
But Nicolae, Elena’s husband then left to go to Iran and he left crushing the uprising
to Elena and his officials.
Whilst he was away, Martial law was declared and a curfew was brought in.
Many people refused to abide by this, and many men were fired upon and some were killed.
Elena then made the decision to send other officials to deal with the riots, and they
agreed to free some of the arrested protesters.
But Nicolae Ceausescu then returned on the 20th December after his meeting in Iran and
he made a televised speech telling the protesters to stop.
He then spoke to 100,000 people the following day to condemned the uprising, with many of
the crowd being bussed in under duress to support Ceasescu.
However Ceausescu was out of touch, and many of the crowd began to jeer and boo and whistle
insults at him, and the crowd then roared for the uprising that had began.
He became desperate, but then movement came from the outskirts of the crowd, as did the
sound of gunshots, fireworks or bombs, and chaos broke out.
The crowd tried to disperse, and there was news that the Security forces were firing
on the crowd, as the revolution was unfolding.
The speech was broadcast around the nation, and Ceacescu and his wife panicked and were
hustled back inside the building.
The crowd turned into a riot, chanting down with the dictator and death to the criminal,
and as time went on many more people took to the streets.
Anti terrorist special squads were brought in, and soon the crowd was being shot at by
the army also from a number of buildings.
There were many casualties as victims were shot, clubbed to death and stabbed by the
government forces.
Some were even run over, as one APC drove at the crowd crushing people.
Water cannons were turned on people, and the police continued to batter and beat everyone
they saw.
Intense firing and shooting continued into the night.
The situation was looking ominous for the Ceausescu’s, but Elena stayed by her husband’s
side, and she was obviously a target for the protests also as she was so senior in government.
In the morning of the 22nd December, the couple decided to wait until the mid morning to flee,
but at 7am Elena realised that large groups of workers were converging on Bucharest to
join in with the protests.
There was a ban on large groups, but thousands were now in central Bucharest.
T 9:30 a defence minister died and it’s believed he was executed as he refused to
give the order to fire on the protesters which had been asked of him by the Ceausescu’s.
But Nicholae and Even then went for the roof of the building they were sheltering in but
the protesters broke in and made their way to the balcony overpowering the bodyguards.
The protesters were meters away from Elena and her dictator husband, and they were airlifted
out.
However the pilot of the helicopter saw protesters coming to the terrace and the Ceausescu’s
came out with their body guards and they looked shell shocked.
They were allegedly white with terror.
The pilot said, ‘There wasn't enough space, Elena Ceaușescu and I were squeezed in between
the chairs and the door ... We were only supposed to carry four passengers ... We
had six.
‘ But then the pilot was told that he could do no more for the Ceasescu’s as there was
a revolution in full swing, and he dropped them off in Snagov, however they were arrested
by local police and were then taken to the Targoviste garrison military compound, and
they were then held captive until they were brought to trial.
Elena Ceausescu and her husband were placed on trial, and it only lasted an hour and was
over very quickly.
They defended themselves, but it was clear what would happen to them.
They were accused of the genocide of 60,000 people and also organising armed action against
civilians, as well as destroying public property and damaging buildings and the economy.
They were found guilty of all of the charges, and they were then condemned to death.
But they could not choose their own lawyers, and the Ceasescu’s believed the court was
illegal, and that their death sentence was an illegal act of murder.
Elena Ceausescu was to be shot alongside her husband, and they were executed just days
after the Revolution had occurred.
Elena and Nicholae were executed at 4pm, at a military base on Christmas Day 1989.
The execution was carried out by a firing squad which was made up of paratroopers.
Hundreds of people volunteered to be the ones selected to executed the Dictator and his
wife, and Nicholae said before the execution that, ‘We could have been shot without having
this masquerade.’
Elena’s hands were tied by four soldiers before the execution, and she screamed ‘You
sons of dogs,’ and she was then led outside with her husband, and they were lined up against
a wall of the barrack building.
Her husband sung as they took their final breaths, and then the executioners shot through
their condemned victims.
Elena Ceausescu was 73 when she was executed and she was the only woman ever to be executed
by the modern state of Romania.
She was the most powerful woman in Romania, and she was hungry for more power and international
recognition.
But Elena Ceausescu was seen alongside her husband as despotic and as tyrannical dictators
who needed to to be brought down to earth and needed bringing out of power.
She was shot dead with her husband, and it was a bloody end to a dictatorship that had
been in power for many decades.
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