We went and sat in the nearest tavern. A sign read “We serve only club members,” but we got tea with no trouble. Here, too, people were talking about yesterday’s murder, the barmaid cheerfully told them that traffic had been heavy that afternoon on account of the press. “I didn’t tell them anything”, she added, and we heard similar statements from many people in the course of the day. One couldn’t say that the air was charged with fear, but there was much revealed about the situation by the fact that no one was willing to state his name or to allow his picture to be taken.

The murder at Veszprém last Sunday [Febr. 8] at dawn threw back by decades the cause of fighting prejudice and of Roma-Hungarian coexistence. Yet, paradoxically, the death of hand-ball player Marian Cozma of Bucharest has done more to advance Romanian-Hungarian reconciliation than years of joint government meetings and diplomatic attempts. [Translator’s note: European handball, also known as Olympic handball, is a team sport played on a soccer field. Marian Cozma was a Romanian national, a professional player for the Veszprém team in Hungary.] The repercussions of the tragic event may fundamentally reshape people’s thinking in both countries.

50 years on, the wounds from the 1956 uprising still have not healed

Half a century ago, the bipolar world, split between the Soviet Union in the east and the United States in the west, was shaken to its foundations. A tiny country in central Europe dared to stand up in defiance. The threat to the status quo was such that those who professed to support people willing to fight for their freedom suddenly and ignominiously looked the other way. As a result, what began on Oct. 23 as hope for a new beginning ended in November in bloody tragedy.

Given such a past, it should come as little surprise that those who had lived through the events 50 years ago harbor within them a sense of bitterness -- even betrayal. These feelings are often manifested in the cynicism they have toward the West. Subsequent world events since the Hungarian uprising of 1956 seem to have added a measure of justification to these attitudes.

With the internal collapse of communism in central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, one would assume that the events of 1956 would have found their proper place within the social consciousness of the country. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.

October 23, 2006

Dear Friend:

Many of us will always remember the day, November 4th. It was then in 1956, on Sunday, when Soviet troops invaded Budapest in Hungary. The country’s hopes of independence and self-rule were dashed for more than a generation. It was there and than that a revolution which began with a tantalizing taste of freedom ended in tragedy and suffering for so many.

As a recently married young architect in Budapest, I had joined in the uprising, also to be among the victims of the ensuing disaster. Not only did Hungary lose thousands in the struggle against the Soviets - many of them friends - but some 200,000 became its refugees, fleeing through the Iron Curtain seeking new lives in the West. My wife, Judith, and I were among them.

On November 4th, 2006, here in New Canaan, there will be a special event commemorating that exodus and its aftermath, to which you are warmly invited. Beginning at 3:30 PM, it will take place in the auditorium of the New Canaan Library.

At that event we will meet some of those, now living in our midst, who took part in the Hungarian Revolution. We will also be reminded of the very special role New Canaan played in the aftermath of this immense disaster, and will honor fellow citizens who helped the refugees build their new lives here.

During our program we will also hear Kati Marton, author of her new book, “The Great Escape”. A native Hungarian and a journalist, she writes of the extraordinary lives and accomplishments of some earlier Hungarian refugees, victims of the Nazi occupation era.

Our special 50th anniversary event and Ms. Marton’s presentation is expected to conclude at 5:30 PM, followed by a reception upstairs at the Library, offering to meet our speakers and others from our community who played such important role here after the Revolt, and for whom, also, the date November 4th will always hold special meaning. We hole, you can be wit us.

Laszlo Papp
For the 1956-2006 New Canaan Hungarian Revolution Commemoration.

Within months of the election of a left-wing government in Slovakia which
governs in coalition with the nationalist right, relations have deteriorated
between Bratislava and Budapest over the question of the rights of the
Hungarian minority in Slovakia. During the governments of former Prime
Minister Vladimir Meciar, Hungary constantly claimed that the rights of the
Hungarians in Slovakia were under threat. Once a more EU-friendly
government was elected, these complaints stopped. Now they have re-started,
ever since the new Prime Minister, Robert Fico, decided to govern in
coalition with Meciar~Rs Movement for a Democratic Slovakia and Jan Slota~Rs
Slovak National Party. Fico~Rs own party has been expelled from the
Socialist International for his alliance with the "extreme right" and
letters of protest have been sent by various European grandees. Now an
attack on a Hungarian woman by two skinheads has been transformed by
Budapest into an affair of state. The Hungarian Government demanded that
the Slovak Government clamp down on such racist attacks. The Hungarian
Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, a former Communist youth leader, called on
Mr Fico to condemn the alleged rise in attacks on Hungarians. The Slovak
Government responded angrily that such attacks happened in all countries and
that Slovakia did not expect to be taught lessons by others on how to combat
intolerance and xenophobia. Meanwhile, the Slovak minister of Foreign
Affairs accused Hungary of orchestrating with the Hungarian minority in
Slovakia a campaign to discredit Slovakia. [Martin Plichta, Le Monde, 5
September 2006]

[Analysis] Government mismanagement, poor health and a democratic deficit

At the beginning of this month, the first phase of Hungary's austerity measures came into force. Energy and utility prices all rose, and consumer prices have all been creeping up little by little as well. Yet this is only a taste of things to come. The more painful parts will come toward the end of the year, that is, after the municipal elections which are slated for the beginning of October.

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary June 22, 2006

Forwarded to us by Ferenc Koszorus, President of AHF - Washington DC

In Focus: Global Diplomacy 4:38 P.M. (Local)

Endre Marton, reporter of the 1956 revolution, has died in New York City.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D, California) has written a letter to Prime Minister Koštunica protesting atrocities against ethnic Hungarians in the Voivodina region. Our thanks to HHRF (Hungarian Human Rights Foundation) for making a copy available to us.

5/11/2005 - Washington Times publishes AHF Letter to the Editor