Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2016 (28. évfolyam, 14-50. szám)
2016-09-30 / 38. szám
Hungarian Journal Former antisemitic Hungarian MP who discovered Jewish roots to make aliya A one-time MP for Hungary’s extremist right-wing and antisemitic Jobbik party, who quit when he discovered he was Jewish, is now making aliya to Israel. I —p ^ j- x I In an interview with The Jerusalem Post’s Hebrew language sister I newspaper, Ma’ariv, Csanad Szegedi said that he is waiting with bated ■ breath tor the moment that he becomes an Israeli citizen and can con:rib ute from his wide experience to the fight against international antisemit'sm- Szegedi, 34. revealed his intention to make aliya with his wife and two children at a World Zionist Organization conference that took place in Budapest over the weekend. Prior to discovering his Jewish roots, Szegedi was known for his extremist positions and antisemitic statements as a member of Jobbik. He was one of the founders of the Hungarian Guard, an extreme nationalist group whose members don black uniforms and see themselves as the descendants of the Hungary’s fascist Arrow Cross Party, which collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. Szegedi rose in the ranks of Jobbik through the years, becoming a senior member and even serving as the party’s vice president until 2012, and as the party’s representative to the European Parliament. In June 2012, Szegedi stunned Hungary, particularly his fellow Jobbik members, when he revealed that his grandparents on his mother’s side were Jewish. His grandmother survived Auschwitz and his grandfather was in forced-labor camps. Szegedi began to learn about Judaism, to observe the Sabbath, to keep kosher and to go to synagogue. He has since had the opportunity to visit Israel. After discovering his roots, he quit all of his posts in Jobbik, which distanced itself from him, claiming that the reason for his leaving was not his Jewishness, but rather a corruption scandal. Since undergoing the transformation, he has become an activist against antisemitism in Europe as a whole, and in Hungary in particular. He is now completing the transformation by making aliya to Israel with his family. WZO vice chairman-acting chairman Yaakov Hagoel, who organized the conference in Hungary, welcomed Szegedi’s announcement and said that the WZO will assist his aliya process and help his family’s absorption in Israel. “Recently, it has been reported that 35% of the Hungarian population is antisemitic,” Hagoel said. “This should turn on a red light for the Jewish community in Hungary and for all Diaspora Jews. In light of the grave nature of the situation in Hungary, there is no doubt that the story of Szegedi, who took an active part in incitement against Israel from within the Hungarian Parliament and now actively promotes its image to the world, serves as an inspiration.” jpost.com Hungarian Roots Celebrities - artists, actors, musicians, sport stars and scientists - who have some Hungarian origin, yet only few would consider them as “par excellence Hungarians”. In many cases even the person concerned knows only very little about his or her Hungarian roots, while others are proud of their “magyar” background despite lacking the ability to say a word or two in the language of their parents or grandparents. American Fashion King, Calvin Klein Calvin Klein was born on November 19, 1942 in Bronx, New York, the son of Flore (née Stern) and Leo Klein. His father was an immigrant from Hungary while his mother was the daughter of an immigrant from Austria and an American dentist. “Calvin’s stooped, subdued, Hungarian-born father, Leo Klein, was less comfortable with his son’s interest in women’s clothing than his wife, but Leo didn’t have much to say about it - or about anything else in the household... A grocer by trade, he had come to this country at age eleven with his older brother Ernest, and together the two had worked six and seven days a week building up a series of superettes, writes the biography titled The Lives and Times of Calvin Klein. Calvin Klein started to work with design in his early life as he attended the High School of Art and Design and matriculated at, but never graduated from, New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, receiving an honorary Doctorate in 2003. He did his apprenticeship in 1962 at an oldline cloak-and-suit manufacturer, Dan Millstein, and spent five years designing at other New York City shops. In 1968, he launched his first company with a childhood friend, Barry K. Schwartz, that would later became Calvin Klein Inc. In addition to clothing, he also has given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewelry. Calvin’s establishment grew rapidly, for the three sequential years (from the 1973 till the 1975); he was the holder of the Coty nomination. In 1974, Klein designed the tight-fitting signature jeans that would go on to gross $200,000 in their first week of sales. In that same year he also became the first designer to receive outstanding design in men’s and women’s wear from the CFDA award show. In the 1978, he became the first designer who launched “fashion jeans” showing them on the catwalks and selling them. Calvin Klein brand on the back pocket of luxury jeans has become one of the initial signs of what was later called “logomania”. “I’m in a business where no one cares about anything except how well your last collection sold” Calvin says. In 1983, he was placed on the International Best Dressed List. Also in 1981, 1983 and 1993, he received an award from Councils of Fashion Designs of America. In 2003, Calvin vended his firm for $430 million to one American cooperative association, named Phillips-Van Heusen, which is engaged in production of shirts. Today, his firm is evaluated at $34.7 billion, being it the richest firm in the globe. hungarytoday.hu DUNA Travel 8530 Holloway Dr. If 102 W. Hollywood, CA 90069 Spa, Hotel foglalások Kocsi bérlés Kedvezményes repülőjegy árak HAJÓUTAK BÁRHOVÁ A VILÁGON Hívják ZSUZSÁT TEL: (310) 652-5294 FAX: (310) 693-5320 1-888-532-0168 dunatravel@earthlink.net Szeptember 30,2016 © In Memóriám 1956: The “Lads of Pest” The so-called “Lads of Pest” (pesti srácok) - youngsters mostly in their teens or early twenties who took up arms to fight against Soviet occupation - are a familiar symbol of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and freedom fight. As many of them served as commanders of armed insurgency units, many of them were either killed in combat or executed during subsequent reprisals. Some of them - such as László Iván Kovács, the first commander of the famous Corvin köz unit - were victims of Communist persecution because their fathers were army officers during the inter-war Horthy regime, others fought for the ideal of “true” Socialism, such as István Angyal, leader of the Tűzoltó utca group. As a joke from the time goes, Which are the world’s superpowers? The United States, the Soviet Union, England, France and Districts VIII-IX- this referred to the fact that these two inner-city areas were the strongest bastions of resistance on the Pest side of the river after Soviet tanks entered the capital on 4 November. In Buda, fighting was most intense at Móricz Zsigmond körtér and Széna tér. While the “Lads of Poest” were no match to Soviet forces in terms of armament and headcount, they nevertheless managed to gain temporary successes - in recognition of which Time magazine named the Hungarian Freedom Fighter as the “Man of the Year” in 1956. One of them, József Sándor Rácz, who joined the freedom struggle as a second-year medical student, and jailed with four others during reprisals, has spoken of his anguish at surviving the ordeal, while his three fellow freedom fighters were all hanged in 1958. Speaking to Origo.hu, he said: I was shattered the most by the very fact that I survived - especially because Danish photographer Vagn Hansen’s haunting portrait of 15-year-old revolutionary Erika Szenes has become a symbol of the Revolution my cell was above the execution yard and I was forced to listen to their execution, their last screams. This is impossible to forget. Many recollections suggest that the young generation of 1956, whov grew of age during the Communist dictatorship of the Fifties, were keener to take up arms titan older people. “I said that over eighty per cent of “Corvinists” (Corvin köz fighters) are below the age of twenty. These children achieved victory for the Revolution with their fighting and became .heroes of the nation; we will not deprive these children of their weapons”, Gergely Pongrátz, the commander-in-chief of the famous Corvin köz unit is believed to have told Pál Maiéter, the Revolution’s Minister of Defence. The majority of “Pest Lads” fought in Ferencváros, also known as District IX, an area long known for its strong national sentiments where five larger groups were formed, and Corvin köz, a secluded side-street just off Üllői út. Here, the young Hungarian freedom fighters defeated the 33rd mechanised Soviet Guard division and destroyed 17 Soviet tanks in a single day. József Pestessy, a doctor, said the following in memory of Corvin köz lads: “Children wounded by Molotov cocktails were often taken to the aid station operating in the cellar péter Mansfeld) the youngest _ and of the Kilián barracks with arguably most tragic _ martyr of burns on their palms. Following the Hungarian Revolution treatment, instead of waiting for complete recovery, the Pest lads rejoined street fighting, saying that “we can already throw with this...” Péter Mansfeld is perhaps the best-known of the Lads of Pest - and the one who suffered the most tragic fate. Born in March 1941, he was well under 18 years of age - the legal limit of imposing the death penalty at the time - in late 1956. However, in an extraordinary display of ruthlessness, he was nevertheless executed shortly after he turned 18 years old, on 21 March 1959. In September 2016, a thematic park was opened on Horváth Mihály tér, District VIII, in memory of the Lads of Pest as part of commemorations to mark the 60th anniversary of the Revolution, hungarytoday.hu AMERIKAI tyagyar Hírlap
