Lives Under State Socialism

This chapter focuses on people who grew up and established their working lives under state socialism and who were near retirement at the time of the systemic changes brought about by the collapse of communism in 1989. Born between 1936 and 1948, they include a member of the village intelligentsia, a university-educated teacher, a kolkhoz member, an industrial worker, and the driver of the chairman of the local kolkhoz. I cover three Germans, two Romanians, and a Roma.