“We must remember the era which has deprived everybody of something: from some people it only took away a home, the fruits of decades of work, the possibility of meaning work or it took away people’s family or life, Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga said on the Day of the Victims of Communism in Hungary.
On this day, the 25th of February, the memory of people killed, deported or chased away by dictatorship has been honoured all over the country for fifteen years. In 1947, Secretary General of the Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party Béla Kovács was arrested and carried off on this very day.
In the show trials of the following years more than one hundred people were sentenced to death and executed. But not only political opponents were mercilessly done away with. Following a Soviet model, in 1951 some 13 thousand people were relocated from Budapest to the countryside, to the homes of people stigmatized as “Kulaks”. Some of these people have never again been allowed to return to their homes and had to live for decades branded as enemies of the people.
In Central and Eastern Europe, the forty years of dictatorship caused the death of 1 million people, Mihály Varga pointed out. On the other hand, the number of those who grew up as orphans or were left with a broken life or were denied a productive and worthy life cannot be counted. As the Minister stressed, the past that casts a dark shadow on the Hungarian people must be transcended in order to come to a dignified existence that we can live without self-denial as proud Hungarians. However, the nation must not forget the past. It must be remembered that Communism -- or as it was called in Hungary, Socialism – used murder, oppression, forced migration and the jailing of innocents as Government weapons, he said.
In Hungary, between 1946 and 1956 some 42 thousand people were sentenced to prison as a result of show trials. The number of those who were executed was almost 500.
In light of these, the Minister stated, whatever is happening in the world we must know the values we insist on keeping with us. Accordingly, in recent years the Government has made decisions that helped cement Hungary’s position in Europe and revive the economy. This is the path to follow in the future, to stay committed to Europe and to our nation, he added.
(Ministry for National Economy)
