Fraternity-Testvériség, 1966 (44. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1966-11-01 / 11. szám

FRATERNITY

3

SPEECH OF DR. ZOLTÁN BEKY

President of The Hungarian Reformed Federation of America ON THE OCCASION OF THE

TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION

Which Was Recorded in the Congressional Record On October 20, 1966

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen! May I express my sincere appreciation and thanks to you, first, for inviting me to speak before this illustrious gathering on the occasion of the anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

My heart, and I am sure that the hearts of every freedom- loving man and woman are full of deep sorrow and sadness when we recall the brutal and often bestial slaughtering of tens of thousands of innocent freedom-loving men and women during the heroic days of resistance in Hungary and its bloody aftermath.

The dying words of the heroes who died for freedom’s cause hounds us incessantly through the passing years and months, it worries your conscience, tears your peace to pieces and disturbs your sleep.

In our ears their heart-breaking cry echoes: “Civilized people of the world ... in the name of liberty and solidarity we are asking for your help. Our ship is sinking. The light vanishes. The shadows grow darker from hour to hour. Listen to our cry! Start moving. Extend to us your brotherly hands. God be with you and with us. Help! Help! Help!”

However, there was no help for them, no answer to their anguished cries. The Western world remained silent, deaf, blind and unconcerned, and left the martyrs for freedom to die on the streets of Budapest. It let tens of thousands of people whose only crime was to believe in freedom and democracy be massacred on improvised gallows, by tanks and firing squads — and let 65,000 Hungarian youth be deported to the death camps of Siberia and looked at the spectacle of 230,000 Hungarians flee into exile from their homes and country.

Since the genocidal crimes of the Nazis committed against the Jewish population under their control, the Russian genocide in Hungary was the most tragic, outrageous and horrible crime