oa An encounter with the public archives of Romania. In-between personal family history and collective history

Archives are related to history, memory, and the creation of meaning. In the context of post-communist Romania, getting access to and studying the archives of communism are highly relevant to help us understand the recent history of the region, including those events that a lot of people would like to be/have forgotten. As someone born in 1989, the year of the Revolution and the fall of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, I am looking for my own answers in both state and private archives about the trauma the city of Bucharest suffered during communism, while also wanting to retrace personal family histories. This is an account of my first encounter with the archives of several public institutions and my preliminary observations on them.