Aventurile unui psiholog in comunism si postcomunism: Inside the labyrinth ( 1)

Illustration to: :
Franz Kafka - The Trial
Publishing House for Literature, Library for All, Bucharest,1977

Metrology High School, Bucharest, 1976

The period I am referring to here is the one in which, after being a student (with a scholarship, I entered with an average of 9.00) at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Installations section (sub-engineers) in Bucharest, I withdrew with the recommendation of the faculty *) to take the exam at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Bucharest.
According to the regulations of the regime, the right to withdraw and take the exam at another faculty was granted only if I worked for a year "in production" so that the state could recover its expenses.
That is how I became a teacher at the "Mihai Eminescu" Economic High School in Bucharest, which was located near George Cosbuc Square and later transformed into the Economic and Public Catering High School.
Until the inauguration of the new headquarters on Soseaua Viilor, the high school students were accommodated in the dormitories of the Metrology High School on Soseaua Vitan-Bârzești, Bucharest, which in 1976 was practically outside Bucharest, on the line of the 102 motorway and in the middle of the countryside. At night, you could only get there by taxi.
The Metrology High School had many dormitory students and for this reason there were two dormitories with hundreds of students inside its premises, one for boys and one for girls. For these reasons, the psychologists worked in day and night shifts.
The closest to the Metrology High School was the "Autobuzul" enterprise, which was right on the outskirts of the city.
All these dull details have the role of recreating the atmosphere of that time and gain significance in the story below.
At the beginning of the week, on a Monday morning when I was getting ready to meet a fellow teacher who was coming off the night shift to do a shift swap, I was walking towards the boys' dormitory (in photo 1 it is the white building in the background **). On the way, a scared student stops me and tells me with a strange look to go to the back of the dormitory where there is a group of girls. Intrigued, I ask why. His answer was even stranger:

- There's a child behind the fence ...

I didn't understand anything, but I went around the boys' dormitory and saw a strange scene. Behind the dormitory, about a meter from the fence, there was a group of 25-30 students, especially from the older classes, very agitated and gesticulating and shouting continuously. They were all looking at the fence, but without daring to come closer. I realized that something was serious. I approached the group because classes would start soon and the students should have already left for their classrooms.

- Good morning! What happened?

They suddenly fell silent, turned to me and looked at me suggestively, but without saying anything. Since the silence was strange, like when something bad is in the air, I calmly asked them again what happened, insisting that they had to get to class. They started whispering among themselves. Finally, the boldest one spoke:

- There's a dead child behind the fence!

It was clear from her tone that she was telling the truth and this time I fell silent. It took me a few seconds to decide what to say and how to react in a situation where my mind was blocked (I was feverishly trying to understand what it was about and what actually happened).
To gain time, I moved closer to the group and then I noticed that it had stopped where there was a crack in the fence made of concrete slabs that a person could pass through if they bent down. Through the crack, you can see further on, about 10 meters from the fence, a large plastic sheet covering something.
I tried again to find a way out of the situation:

- Whatever it is, you're not allowed to stay here, you have to go to class.

The reply came instantly:
- There's a dead child there, we want to see it too!
I tried again to find a way out. I remembered that some of the students were adults because they had already turned 18 and I found the solution.

- You can't all go. Which one of you has turned 18?

A few hands went up.

- Only one is going with me, the rest stay here.

The boldest one who had first told me what was behind the fence offered herself. We both went through the gap and told her to wait until I called her. I went to the large plastic sheet with the (absurd) hope that there would be nothing under it. I lifted it with my hand and froze because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Under the sheet was a dead newborn, about 5-7 months old, with the umbilical cord on my belly. I stood still for a few moments and took a deep breath to recover because I had to get back to the students. I put the sheet back in place and turned seemingly calmly to the student who was waiting for me:

- Are you sure you still want to see what's there?
- Yes!
- Okay, let's go.

We walked together and stopped next to the sheet. I put my hand on the corner of the sheet and looked at the girl who was obviously experiencing strong emotions. I lifted the sheet. The girl suddenly turned yellow and immediately screamed so loudly that the whole group behind the fence ran away.
We returned in silence and both were shocked by what we had seen. The student went to the dormitory, and I stopped directly at the office of the high school principal, the Romanian language teacher Popescu (I don't remember the other name), to whom I related everything that had happened.
He did not seem very shocked by what I told him, and his opinion, later refuted, was that probably one of the skilled or unskilled workers from the greenhouses behind the high school had an abortion and left the fetus there to blame the high school students.

That same day the Militia, the Prosecutor's Office, the forensic experts, etc. came and picked up the little body.
As for me, I left high school horrified by what I saw that day. It was the first time I had ever faced something like that.
In the days and weeks that followed, rumors began to circulate and slowly the truth was revealed that shook the entire high school.

First the girls, later the boys, found out that the abortion had taken place in the dormitory. A student had an abortion in the dormitory with the help of three roommates, but the abortion was actually a birth. The baby was born alive and to keep it from screaming, they had strangled it. Paralyzed by fear, they had first put it in the trash can in the room, then taken it beyond the high school fence and left it there covered with plastic wrap.
In the weeks that followed, the students were investigated by the Militia (the investigation lasted about a month). Beyond the rumors, the nightmare had become reality. It was not about a greenhouse worker, but about a high school student. It was found out that a student (let's call her Ilona) had an abortion in the dormitory with the help of the three roommates.
When it became certain that it was a female student and that the abortion had been performed in the dormitory, in parallel with the investigation by the authorities at the time, the school also took action.

Ilona's principal contacted her mother and urgently called her to the high school. From here, things become difficult to understand. When the principal asked the girl's mother if she had not noticed that her figure had changed dramatically and that the girl's belly was getting bigger, the mother's answer was of astonishing sincerity: "I saw it, but I was ashamed to tell her!".

Since the splinter doesn't jump far from the trunk, another interesting episode followed that I witnessed without wanting to.

After about two weeks since everything had started, Ilona, about whom the whole high school now knew what she had done, stood out with her unusual behavior. Without being affected in any way, she had no remorse and there was something defiant in her actions.
I saw this in the high school cafeteria and at lunch where the dormitory students were supervised by teachers.
The system was self-service like in student cafeterias of the time. Each student sat in turn to take the tray with food served by the cooks at the counter.
During the investigation period when the students were periodically called to the Militia, Ilona no longer went to the cafeteria, but ate lunch in the cafeteria with the other students who were coming and going to classes.
One day at lunch when the students in uniforms had sat in line waiting to get their tray with food, Ilona entered the dining room who was not wearing a uniform, but instead had an (extra) mini skirt.

To the amazement of the students in line, those already seated at the tables, the three burly cooks at the counter, and myself, who was watching from the hall, Ilona walked past all the students in line without any embarrassment and sat down first at the counter.
The cooks who had also learned Ilona's story were stunned. The burliest and oldest of them immediately came to her senses and addressed her:

- Ilona, don't you see how these children are standing in line?! Stand in line too!

That's all it took for Ilona to react in a flash. With formidable courage, she doused the astonished woman who had filled her tray with egg and vinegar just to get rid of her mouth.
Intrigued by this behavior, I wanted to see what kind of person this behavior was. When she finished eating, I exchanged a few words with her, trying to find out why she had yelled at a woman much older than her and why she hadn't stood in line like the other students.
She gave me an innocent look (she had light blue eyes, was blonde and had a very fair complexion) and blocked me when she told me that she had the right to go in front, but without saying why. She looked at me with serenity and slight amusement, a kind of "As if you didn't know why...".
After this discussion, I understood that I was dealing with behavior in total contradiction with social and moral norms, I suspended my judgment and for the moment I gave up trying to understand how it appeared. I took it as it was, waiting for the outcome of this situation that had shocked everyone.
What followed after a month of investigation and how it was finalized I never found out (at least it was not officially communicated), but from what I remember Ilona (who was 18 years old at the time of the abortion) and her roommates, some minors, continued to attend classes and finished high school.
For me this was a terrible and incomprehensible experience because although I kept my composure in front of the students (years later, when I became a teacher I understood how difficult a profession is that requires competence, empathy, self-control, presence of mind and possession of terms) I was actually shaken by what I saw (I was 22 years old) because if I hadn't seen it then, I wouldn't have believed that teenagers were capable of such a thing.
When I got home to my father, a teacher, who at that time was the principal of a general school in Mehedinti County, I wanted to tell him the horror episode at the Metrology High School in Bucharest. When I told him the sequence with the lifting of the plastic foil, he told me briefly:

- Please stop your story here, I don't want to hear anything else!

He was shocked. Born, raised and educated under the previous regime and after many years in education, he could not conceive of something like this from teenage girls, namely an act that violates all social, moral and religious taboos.
It is one of the situations I have experienced in which beliefs, values, and human, social, and moral norms in general are suddenly called into question, and the question reflexively arises in the mind: "How is this possible?!".

These kinds of personal experiences, crucial experiences, and borderline situations that I lived through and for which I could not find explanations in ordinary logic, sparked my interest in the field of psychology.

Notes

*) Typical document from the 70s :