Forensic scientists have dug up two bodies believed to be the remains of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, in an attempt to solve a dispute about their whereabouts.
The early morning dig at Ghencea military cemetery in the west of Bucharest was watched from a distance by a handful of mostly elderly spectators, some of whom wept as the graves were opened.
During a two-hour process, pathologists lifted wooden coffins out of the graves and took samples from them, before resealing the caskets and burying them again.
After being toppled by the Romanian people’s revolution, Ceausescu and his wife, who was the country’s deputy prime minister, tried to flee Bucharest but were given a summary trial and executed by firing squad on Christmas Day 1989.
The couple had ruled the country with an iron fist for more than 25 years, controlling everything from food supplies and the strength of light bulbs to contraception, in what was arguably the most draconian communist regime in eastern Europe.
The blurred television pictures of their execution went round the world and became one of the defining images of the 1980s.
According to the official version of events, their bodies were swiftly buried in an unmarked grave in Ghencea.
But over the years, doubts have been expressed as to their real whereabouts.
The exhumation follows a five-year long court battle by their three children, two of whom have since died.
The Ceausescu family, now represented by the couple’s surviving son, Valentin, and Mircea Oprean, the husband of their late daughter Zoia, demanded identification.
On Wednesday they said that having seen the bodies they now believed that the remains were those of the Ceausescus.
“I’m inclined to believe that these are my parents-in-law,” Oprean was quoted as saying in the Romanian media. “But I won’t be 100 percent sure until the DNA tests have been done.”
He added that the bodies were well preserved.
“I recognized my father-in-law’s black winter coat ... which like his trousers had some holes in it,” he said.
The holes are believed to have been caused by the shooting. Ceausescu was apparently also still wearing his trademark grey fur hat.
Valentin Ceausescu, a physicist, was not present at the exhumation.
It will take up to six months for DNA tests to be confirmed.
The row over the Ceausescus’ grave has highlighted the cult following that has grown ever stronger in the 21 years since the couple’s death.
Their admirers are largely from the old elite and the elderly, nostalgic for the years when they were ruled by their conducator (leader), and his wife, who liked to be called “mother of the nation.”
Oprean and Valentin Ceausescu have even bought the rights to the name Ceausescu, paying US$260 to have it registered as a trademark.
The growing number of dictator souvenirs protected under the label, include a US$3 sugar-dusted “Ceausescu” cake, Ceausescu vodka and Ceausescu chocolate, as well as a range of cosmetics, drinks and sporting events.
So protective are some Romanians of their former leader that a play by a German director charting the couple’s final hours was halted earlier this year after just three days of production because of complaints that it was disrespectful.
This summer a new film highlighting Ceausescu’s cult status has been receiving a widespread critical response across Europe.
Romanian director Andrei Ujica’s The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu draws on the more than 10,000 hours of film of or about the leader held in the national film archives, including private cine footage.
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