Magyar Hírek, 1985 (38. évfolyam, 2-26. szám)
1985-06-08 / 12. szám
]r*n btt*? «r vhry* rncn* "rorv TM MJTfOUS blMTIlf-s »MV» A MMH IN THf WO«l I> TO « OMI THl TM.*ur* 1. Imre Reviczky 2. The memorial tablet 3. Andor Svéd, Adóm Reviczky and Sándor Davidovici Colonel Reviczky’s Memory Ute CteafeB fogas Zsuzsi Roboz Countless Hungarians know and honour the name of Colonel Imre Reviczky. His deeds have been commemorated by memorials in Israel and Australia, not only Budapest; they have also received wide publicity in lectures, television programmes and radio broadcasts in America and West Germany. Colonel Reviczky saved thousands from deportation, and concentration camps during the second world war. Labour service units organized by him were spared the worst; the men were able to weather the hardships of those murderous days being welltreated and living under decent human conditions. Colonel Reviczky died in 1957, but his son, Ádám Reviczky cherishes his memory. He recently returned to Budapest from Australia, where a memorial tablet to the memory of Colonel Reviczky was placed in a synagogue. “Who organized, the memorial tablet to be set up?” “A committee was formed in Australia to keep the memory of my father alive. Endre Székely, Sándor Davidovici and Andor Svéd are the executives of the committee. But their story began much earlier, back in 1979. They named a street and erected a memorial tablet in Sfat, in Israel. The brother of one of the men my father saved was the mayor of Sfat and he felt it his duty to call attention to my father’s deeds. I had planted a tree in the memory of my father in the “Forest of the Just” in Jerusalem. That was when the idea came to me to collect -material on the activities of my father, and to write the story of his life. I went to see everybody I knew, and asked them also to try to find others, who had knowledge of his activities. During my search I went to Israel again, and paid a number of visits to the Unites States.” “Did you also give lectures?” “Yes, and not only I. In New York Professor Braham talked about my father’s work. But I also gave lectures, television and radio interviews. I talked about the time of the war and of the persecution of Jews to senators of Colorado State the year before last, in Los Angeles last year, at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and to pupils of a Catholic school. I did the same in a programme of the Jewish Television Network.” “And how did the Australian memorial committee come to be founded?” “It was linked to my Los Angeles visit. The Budapest weekly, Üj Tükör, published a full story of the Budapest memorial tablet. A few weeks later a young man wrote a letter to the editor saying he was fed up by the continuous warmingup of these memories. The letter, which was published together with a clear rebuke, triggered extremely angry reactions amongst the readers. One of the scandalized readers— who had also been saved by my father—sent the cutting to a relative of his in Los Angeles, George Brown. The latter took it upon him to keep alive and spread the memory of my father’s deeds, as a belated reward. Together with Louis Weinstock, who knew my father in his childhood, they organized my trip to Los Angeles. It was also George Brown, who knew several people whom my father saved who lived in Australia. He called their attention to the work of my father. This is how the memorial committee came to be set up, and the memorial tablet was erected.” “Where does the memorial tablet stand now?” “In Sydney, on the wall of the South Sydney War Memorial Synagogue. The inauguration was also attended by Béla László, the Hungarian consul. I was deeply moved to hear people speak with so much respect about my father on the other side of the globe.” “You mentioned that you wrote a book about Colonel Reviczky. Have you finished the MSS?” “Yes. I have been advised by the publishers that it will come out in Budapest during Book Week this year as part of the series Tények és Tanúk (Facts and Witnesses), under the title Lost Wars, Won Battles.” JANOS PÉTER SOS The exhibition of the works of Zsuzsi Roboz, a Hungarian painter, now resident in London, in the entrance hall of the Erkel Theatre— a somewhat irregular, yet stylistically appropriate background—was one of the successful events of this year’s Budapest Spring Festival. The reason why the venue was particularly appropriate was because of the subjects represented. The Erkel Theatre, home of opera, ballet, and concerts, gave the right air to drawings and paintings of Zsuzsi Roboz that show great musicians and balletdancers. This was Zsuzsi Roboz’s second visit to Hungary this year. She is a well-established artist whose exhibitions are welcome events all over the world from Britain through the United States to the Far East. Her works grace private collections as well as important galleries. Earlier I wrote about her works showing members of the Royal Festival Ballet at work and in rehearsal, arguing that she brought to life movement itself on them. At the present exhibition I discovered a new feature. Her ballet dancers do not only have bodies, that fill her pictures with life with the graceful movements of their arms, legs, and slender figures, but also their heads. Even the title of one of her portrait is—like that of Rodin’s famous piece of sculpture—thinker. “That’s right—says Zsuzsi Roboz— states of mind thrill me more than anything else. The fully developed, apparently routine, movement of a dancer is often the result of long maturation and meditation.” New works stand out among the familiar drawings of dancers and they have an irresistible magnetism. Is that because I know the models? The fact is that these portraits of artists—for they all are that—demand attention and grip one’s heart. For instance the painting, on which Kodály and his wife, Sári, look at each other through the mists of the Plain. Another shows Tamás Vásáry sitting at his piano, bending Two drawings by Zsuzsi Roboz over the keyboard deep in thought. Doráti’s portrait, as the artist studies a Dvorak score, conjures up a process of profound empathy, the recreation of a great work There is yet another painting that captures one; that of Bartók and Menuhin. The face of the violinist expresses tense attention, while Bartók, a step behind him almost seems to suggest the music with his ethereally disciplined, concentrating power. I enthused about Zsuzsi Roboz’s dancers before, now I feel that these creative and performing greats—recalled through the creativity of another artist—are closer to me. Past the magnetism of these pictures, the consistency of Zsuzsi Roboz, with which she turns her back on all of the isms, and places man, and man’s creation at the centre of her works, deserves attention. I questioned her in vain about the methods and creative intentions of her painting. Her forms of communication are lines and colours, not words. But she speaks readily about her stay in Budapest. “It is wonderful” she says. “It is a flattering and pleasant thing to be a guest of honour anywhere, but here in Budapest, where I was born, and to which I am bound by a thousand ties, well, this is different, more, it makes me happy. I was really moved that Dr. Rezső Bányász, formerly Hungarian Ambassador to the Court of St James, and now Secretary of State, head of the Office of Information, rose from his sick-bed to open the exhibition.” Several of her works were sold at the exhibition—as she intimated— the Hungarian State Opera House wanted to buy the Kodály portrait as well as a drawing of Lesley Collier, a dancer of the Royal Ballet. “Wanted?”—I raised my eyebrows. „Oh, well, yes, for naturally I will give them to the Opera House—she says, adding—I am happy that I can say thank you for the wonderful welcome.” MAGDA SOÖS /) V 29 I I
