The moving video about the June 9 elections: “A message for my grandson. You know, I shouldn’t have been here today. I should have died” – VIDEO

A 4 minute film was broadcast today. It is created by the European Parliament and thought like this: grandparents from several European countries, including Romania, send a message to their grandchildren explaining how they escaped alive from the hands of the Nazis or Communists. “You were born in prosperous and peaceful times. But democracy must be defended”, say the grandparents, briefly showing their grandchildren what they went through.

Nazis throwing entire families and communities into camps in the inhumane 40s. The revolution in Prague in the spring of 1968 with tanks against people in the streets. The revolution in Timișoara, from 1989, with peaceful protesters shot on the steps of the cathedral. The fall of the Berlin Wall. The people of the Baltic countries holding hands, in August 1989, woman next to woman, child next to child, a chain of hundreds of kilometers of people who declared without violence their unwavering determination to be free from the USSR. This is how democracy and peace were won in Europe, by generations that are no longer here or, some of them, are in the twilight of their lives.

These generations appear today in a clip in front of their descendants and speak to them to ask them to vote on June 6-9, in the European elections. In Romania, the European elections will be held on June 9, at the same time as the local elections.

“When you’re 12 and you see your mother die to protect you, you never forget”

The clip opens with a grandmother from France saying, “I’ve carried this in my heart over the years. You know, Robin, she tells her grandson, I shouldn’t have been here today. I should have died.”

“On June 17, 1940, I was 12 years old.” It was the very period when the Nazis occupied part of France. “Soldiers were everywhere. I went down to the garden with a bowl of fruit,” says the grandmother. And that’s when the machine guns started, she says. “My mother died over me, defending me,” the grandmother recounts, while, filmed in turn, the grandson tears up. “When you’re 12 years old and you see your mother die to protect you, you never forget,” the woman says.

This memory returns today, in the film, through the words of grandparents from several European countries. They are asking their grandchildren to vote June 6-9, regardless of their choice. To vote.

“A message for my grandson. And for the rest of Europe”

In the clip, images from the streets of Timisoara also appear. And testimonies of the people who fought in December 1989 against the Ceaușescu regime, the only European regime that shot at its citizens.

“Don’t take democracy for granted. You always support her and defend her”, says, in the clip, an Italian grandfather, visibly moved.

Then, the grandparents take out letters from envelopes that they read. “A message for my grandson. And for the rest of Europe”.

“I’m glad you’re the way you are and I love you for it,” a grandmother in the Czech Republic tells her granddaughter, who also appears in the film. “Remember that there has not always been freedom and democracy and that they can be lost very quickly.”

“If I had to leave you a message before I leave,” says the grandmother from France, the one with whom the European Parliament film began, to her grandson: “This message is: Live democracy. Listen to each other.”

The film ends with the inscription “Use your vote or others will decide for you”.