Nicolae Ceaușescu the country in the three days since the Ceaușescus fled Bucharest. Similarly, Victor Stănculescu, who had been defense minister before going over to the revolution, said in 2009 that the alternative would have been seeing the Ceaușescus lynched on the streets of Bucharest. The Ceaușescus were the last people to be executed in Romania before the abolition of capital punishment on 7 January 1990. Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu were originally buried in simple graves at Ghencea Cemetery in Bucharest, on opposite sides of a path; their graves were often decorated with flowers and symbols of communist rule. In April 2007,
Nicolae Bretan Nicolae Bretan Nicolae Bretan (25 March 1887 – 1 December 1968) was a Romanian opera composer, baritone, conductor, and music critic. Bretan was born in Năsăud. He studied in Cluj, Vienna and Budapest before becoming one of the pioneers of Romanian opera - his opera "Luceafărul" (1921) is cited as the first opera in Romanian. Bretan also composed over 200 lieder. In 1944, Bretan wife's family, who were Jewish, were transported to the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz and murdered. Refusing to become a member of the Romanian Communist Party in 1948, he was not favoured by the Romanian communist