Between Forced Survival and Smart Choices
It is clear that the world has changed, and this shift is striking. I’m not just talking about the fact that we have internet everywhere or that we can communicate instantly with someone thousands of miles away. It’s about mentality and how the value we place on our own dignity has evolved.
Recently, I stumbled across a post on Facebook where a user shared a harrowing story. I looked into it to see if it was real, and it seems there is a core of historical truth to it, perhaps passed down from a grandfather who lived through those times in Iași. It’s a story about the students of Dormitory T8 and a winter that turned education into a struggle for life.
Source: Adapted from a Facebook post
"In February 1985, Student Dormitory T8 in Iași was left completely without heat and hot water for 11 days due to a major boiler failure. The 840 students survived a brutal winter with outside temperatures reaching -23°C, while ice formed on the inside of their windows. Students took desperate measures, improvising stoves out of metal buckets and burning books, notebooks, and chairs just to stay alive. Water was another crisis: the pipes froze, and students had to melt snow in their rooms to have something to drink. The drama reached its peak when Maria Ionescu, a student, suffered severe frostbite on her toes.
(Original Post Conclusion): Yet, all 840 students survived. Through improvisation, solidarity, and a refusal to accept defeat, they proved that youth can endure anything when there is no alternative. They didn't wait for the authorities to solve the problem; they proved that through pure grit, you can overcome the system."
The Frozen Dormitory: The Full Story of T8 Iași, 1985 (Part 2/2)
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My Take: The State Should Work for Us, Not the Other Way Around
Reading this post left a bitter taste in my mouth. The person who wrote it seems to view the story in a heroic light, filled with pain but also pride. However, I believe they are fundamentally wrong. They praise the fact that students didn't wait for the system and managed on their own. But is this really how a civilized world should function?
Why weren't they sent home? There were 840 students. Even if not all were from Iași, many had families in the countryside or other cities where they could find a wood stove and human conditions. It would have been far more logical to close the university for those two weeks. But the authorities refused, ignoring human suffering.
And I ask myself: What can you actually learn at -5°C? Believe me, in that kind of cold, you can’t do your homework, you can’t think of "smart" topics, and you can’t put any valuable ideas on paper. When you are shivering and terrified that your feet are freezing, your brain's productivity is zero. These young people didn't learn anything academic during those days; they only learned to accept hardship and stay silent.
We must force the system to work for us. We shouldn't be slaves to the system. If you are a citizen, you pay your taxes, and you are a human being—the state has a duty to protect you. That is why rules, police, and administrations exist: for our safety. We cannot have 10 million people each judging for themselves; that’s why we elect leaders to use their brains for the common good. If everyone did as they pleased, we’d be back in the Dark Ages.
The fact that we are "smart" makes us humans, not animals that merely survive. Today, we have the freedom and the technology to communicate, organize, and say "NO" when our rights are trampled. I don't think those students were "smart" for staying there to freeze; they were victims of a time when the individual didn't matter.
Questions for my readers:
- Do you think those students did the right thing by staying to "fight" the cold, or should they have all gone home, forcing the authorities' hand?
- Is it heroism to burn books and furniture to survive in a state-owned dorm, or is it a humiliation that should never be repeated?
- Do you feel that today we are "smarter" in our relationship with the state, or have we remained just as passive in the face of systemic failures?
I look forward to your comments below!