Review for “Romania for Export Only”
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Nicolae Viorel Burcea
I am a Romanian orphan; later I became a Romanian adoptee to the United States at the age of almost 9. I had seen a lot of Romanian orphanages- I had been through six, mostly centered in Bucharest, but some in the countryside. When I left the country, I hadn’t many words to describe what I saw or what I felt about the whole event. Sometimes, in my young tweens, I often wondered if it had just been a bad nightmare, situated somewhere in morpheus-like dreamland. Any chance I got to read about Romania, I did. Any chance I got to connect with Romanian adoptees, I did. But there were hardly any to know and fewer still who wanted to speak to me about the orphanages. Most came as babies, and a few came when they were a few years older. The ones who had been in longer- people, perhaps, like myself- had already carved out careers as activists. Most of them, unfortunately, didn’t want to talk to me. (more…)