Hungarian Heritage Review, 1991 (20. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1991-09-01 / 9. szám
Because the author was not familiar with Cleveland, one of the committee members offered to drive us on a tour of the city, showing the places of particular interest to the Hungarian community. From my earlier visits, I remembered the Hungarian Cultural Garden. It was part of a city program to bring the various ethnic groups of Cleveland closer to each other. The feeling in the early 1950s, when the idea was developed, was that it would be wonderful to designate specific sections of the inner-city park—which houses the museums, a concert hall, and other cultural highlights—to the ethnic groups to design, build and maintain their own gardens. The gardens would be seen together as an open display, much more public than could be observed inside a clubhouse, community center or minority church. The Lithuanians, Polish, Germans and other ethnic groups, including Israelis, Irish andSpanish, started their ownprojects. Even a United States garden was designed with a statue of Abe Lincoln and a year-round display of native flowers, shrubs, and trees. The Hungarians displayed their favorites: tulips, carnations, oleanders, hollyhocks and lilacs. The Germans placed statues of Goethe and Schiller, and planted linden and pine trees and seasonal flowers. The Spanish overcame some difficulties, as I recall, because the Cleveland climate wasn't the best for olive trees and other Spanish flora. And the gardens flourished, each group eager to demonstrate its horticultural skills and artistry. The ethnic cultural gardens became the talk of the nation, with illustrated articles in national publications. When our guide offered the sightseeing trip, I suggested that she include the cultural gardens as a tribute to Tollas, the poet, who, during the years in solitary confinement without seeing a flower or a branch, yet wrote so beautifully, remembering the gardens of his childhood. We stopped briefly at a statue of "The Thinker" by Rodin. It had been particularly blown up by a "protestor" some years ago and still sits, with nead on hand, but without legs. We drove slowly on a winding road between landscaped hills under small bridges and viaducts toward the cultural gardens. The October sunshine poured like honey through the brown, yellow and red leaves on the trees. Small patches of gold and goldengreen lighted the shadows of young trees on tne grassy hills. Finally, we arrived at the Hungarian garden. It was absolutely empty, not because of the fall weather, but from vandalism. Trees were broken in half, flower beds destroyed, bushes pulled from the ground. It was the same at the other gardens, too. Gone was the elegantly trimmed French formal garden. The Geothe and Schiller statues were standing alone and frustrated on their damaged marble pedestals. The Slovak, Polish, and Estonian gardens were vandalized in the same way, as were the Italian, Spanish and American. Somebody had wielded a hammer against the Lincoln bust. The sights were frightening, sobering. The differences among the cultures of the various groups had faded. It was hard to distinguish one garden from another. They had been turned into an ugly green-gray, blue-gray, gray-gray mass of devastation, a destruction of what had been proudly refreshing and reassuring. vVho did this? we asked our guide. "When did it happen?" "It started years ago," she replied. "Dark forces at night began to vandalize and destroy all the ethnic gardens, with no exception." She continued sadly: "At first we tried to fight back. What was destroyed at night, we tried to replenish during the day. We patrolled the park at night. But the vandals were stronger. Finally we gave up, one group after the other, and abandoned the gardens. The police couldn't, or didn't, do anything." Tne sunshine wasn't like goldenhoney anymore. All three of us had tears in our eyes, possibly from the strong sunshine, but probably because of what we had seen. We were silent during the rest of our sightseeing. I don't want to go back to those cultural gardens. I want to remember them as I first saw them, full of tulips, black-eyed daisies, sunflowers and roses, each garden so different. Yet now, they were all so similar. All victims. SEPTEMBER 1991 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW 19
