CONTEST

Every member of the Union of the Communist Youth from our high school would be in charge of the Literary Circle. And the best of them were sent on free rest and instruction camps to the mountains or to the seaside. For instance, the secretary of the Union of the Communist Youth from our high school was sent on a camp in Democrat Germany. Contests were organized on various themes: musical, sports, literary, creation. I participate to the Song of Romania with a poem, and I won the first prize locally and the special prize per sector. I was sent to free camps myself because I was editor-in-chief of the high school magazine. I still have the poems from those days, because one would participate to contests of patriotic poems. (C. S., 20)

There were neither contraception pills, nor condoms?There were other things. There were some thin layers of soap, 20 in a small envelope, Chinese ? Maxim or Butterfly. (I. H., 29)

That was a useful appliance in those cold winters when there was no heat in the radiators. At least the gas pressure was somewhat enough, during the night mostly. We used to put brick or a layer of sand in the cooker?s oven to better spread the warmth. The fire was always on in the oven, and the kitchen door wide open so that the warmth could enter in the other rooms as well. That happened when it wasn?t very cold. When the temperature sank dramatically, people would close the door of the cramped kitchen and the whole family gathered around the stove. Somebody told me that the sector policeman stopped by every day to prevent people from putting a bed in the kitchen and sleep there, especially at the outskirts of the town, where people still lived in houses. (125)

Why should this happen only in the Resita factories? Our house was also a unit where lights never went off. While there was any gas pressure, we used to keep a heat-resistant brick with holes in it on the cooker and that is how we kept ourselves warm. We had to be careful, though, because the gas supply could be cut at any time. God forbids! Now we see on television what could have happened, but we were very careful, we even used to sleep in turn