Communist-era files still haunt the old East Bloc

AP ^ | 2009-10-21 | William J. Kole

[rabscuttle385]

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Even his best friend betrayed him.

Stelian Tanase found out when he asked to see the thick file that Romania's communist-era secret police had kept on him. The revelation nearly knocked the wind out of him: His closest pal was an informer who regularly told agents what Tanase was up to.

"In a way, I haven't even recovered today," said Tanase, a novelist who was placed under surveillance and had his home bugged during the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's regime.

"He was the one person on Earth I had the most faith in," he said. "And I never, ever suspected him."

Twenty years ago this autumn, communism collapsed across Eastern Europe. But its dark legacy endures in the unanswered question of the files - whether letting the victims read them cleanses old wounds or rips open new ones.

Most former East Bloc countries have enacted legislation that opens up at least some of their millions of pages of secret police archives to the public, revealing how armies of informers were bribed or coerced into snooping on friends, colleagues and neighbors.

[rabscuttle385]

Balkans/Eastern Europe ping!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

You MUST see "Lives of Others."

Coming soon to a country near you.

[tpmintx]

Feb 13th, 2013 - Dateline Washington - More OFA files have turned up in the Potomac river, found by a fisherman rowing his boat out to catch his meal for the day...

[GOPJ]

Feb 13th, 2013 - Dateline Washington - More OFA files have turned up in the Potomac river, found by a fisherman rowing his boat out to catch his meal for the day...

Why is this happening? What's your best guess?

[BenLurkin]

Does this mean we will finally learn who Clinton met with in Moscow when he was a “student”?

[TexasFreeper2009]

Can anyone tell me why the old communists are not being hunted down like the old nazi’s and being tried for crimes against humanity?

Hitler killed 8 million jews.

The commies killed 100 million people, and yet not one communist has ever to my knowledge been put on trial for crimes against humanity.

[YHAOS]

"The commies killed 100 million people, and yet not one communist has ever to my knowledge been put on trial for crimes against humanity. "

Trouble maker.

I'm telling Rohm.

[tpmintx]

OFA = Obama For America
Files are tossed in the river to keep the incriminating evidence from being discovered.
Fisherman was rowing out to catch his daily meal, because his 60 foot trawler is disabled for lack of fuel. He can feed his family, but no one else.

[Verdelet]

Thay've been put on trial in Poland.

Too bad British Home Office refused extradition of the scum called Wolinska.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Woli%C5%84ska-Brus

[Verdelet]

They've been put on trial in Poland

fixed

[Konrad_PL]

Wolinska died last year in UK.

[Verdelet]

I know, this does not change the fact that even if she would be alive today BHO would not let her to be send to Poland.
People are chasing down WWII Nazis untill today, but she was a commie, happily living in a free country.

She was so fucking evil, and I mean E.V.I.L, but she and her husband had to run from Poland cause of 1968 cleansing.