I Must Betray You Quotes

Hannah Mackler

Lindblom

7th Grade English

May 23

I Must Betray You Essay

Imagine constant surveillance, distrust, and no freedom. That is what life was like in Romania under Ceausescu’s dictatorship. Nicholae Ceausescu ran his country very differently in Romania than past leaders. Brittanica states, “He charted an independent, nationalistic course but also maintained rigid repressive controls over free speech and internal dissent. His harsh economic policies and grand building projects reduced Romania from relative prosperity to near starvation” ("Nicolae Ceauşescu''). I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys takes place in Romania in 1989. Christian Florescu, the main character, was a 17-year-old boy living in Romania. He was blackmailed by the secret

The people have to wait in line for hours just to get a small ration of food, no matter the weather. It was often really cold and Christian would head out at 5 am just to get towards the front of the line and not have to wait all day. The power was also going in and out and for the majority of the time, the people had no access to any electricity or hot water. Christian described, “I left quietly. As if in unison, the other apartment doors opened and a line of tired residents clutching oilcloth shopping bags appeared. We trudged down the cement stairs to join the sea of humanity swarming into the freezing dark– that bleak wasteland of time” (Sepetys 74). Christian stated, “When the power snapped off in the winter, the dark was instantly deep. The windows became a glaze of ice inside and out. Even when the electricity was on, the temperature in our apartment rarely rose above 12 degrees Celsius, which was 54 degrees Fahrenheit” (Sepetys 69). Unfortunately, This, like the majority of I Must Betray You, is accurate. A life like this, especially compared to our life nowadays, sounds dreadful. An article by an actual Romanian supports these ideas almost exactly. Godeanu-Kenworthy states, “ The power always went off around 11 a.m. and came back at 5 p.m. In the winter, it got dark early, so I had to finish homework

"The Rise and Fall of Nicolae Ceausescu, 'the Romanian Fuehrer.'" COMMENTARY, 31 Dec. 2019. CATO Institute, www.cato.org/commentary/rise-fall-nicolae-ceausescu-romanian-fuehrer. Accessed 5 May 2023.

Barberá, Marcel Gascón. "Keys, Mikes, Spies – How the Securitate Stole Romania's Privacy." BIRN [Bucharest], 25 Dec. 2019. Balkan Insight, balkaninsight.com/2019/12/25/keys-mikes-spies-how-the-securitate-stole-romanias-privacy/#. Accessed 1 May 2023.

Besliu, Raluca. "Communist Nostalgia in Romania." Open Democracy, 13 Apr. 2014, www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/communist-nostalgia-in-romania/. Accessed 27 Apr. 2023.

Bucharest, Moses. Ceauşescu, Romania's Jews, Chief Rabbi Rosen, and Me. E-book ed.

Godeanu-Kenworthy, Oana. "My Dictator: Growing up in Ceausescu's Romania." Popula, 21 Feb. 2020, popula.com/2020/02/21/my-dictator-growing-up-in-ceausescus-romania/. Accessed 5 May 2023.

“Murder of the Jews of Romania.” Yad Vashem, yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/final-solution-beginning/romania.html. Accessed 5 May 2023.

"Nicolae Ceauşescu Summary." Britannica Student, www.britannica.com/summary/Nicolae-Ceausescu. Accessed 1 May