The Eighth Tribe, 1980 (7. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1980-10-01 / 10. szám
and cultural minorities by the Rumanian regime was the Hungarian Reformed (Calvinist) Church. In Transylvania, the mother country of the reformation movement dating back into the sixteenth century, officials from the Department of Culture of the Rumanian Government seized the archives of more than two hundred church communities. All material was loaded into trucks and carted away, location unknown. Thus, the Rumanian government has openly embarked on an escalated campaign against the Reformed (Calvinist) Church and the Hungarian minority. The archives of the Transylvanian Museum Association, with documents of great historic value dating back into the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were also confiscated, piled up out of doors in rain and snow, and used by construction workers instead of firewood during the winter. According to reports emanating out of Rumania, for the past two and a half decades the native Hungarian population of Transylvania, about three-million strong, has been the object of a carefully planned, systematic and aggressive campaign of forceful assimilation, amounting to CULTURAL GENOCIDE. This cultural genocide, together with the forced relocation, forced Rumanization, and the total discrimination to which the Hungarians are being subjected today by the Government of the Socialist Republic of Rumania, needs very special attention. FOR IT IS THE MORAL OBLIGATION OF ALL CIVILIZED SOCIETIES ON EARTH TO CURE THE ILLS CAUSED BY HATRED, IGNORANCE OR CHAUVINISTIC BIGOTRY, AND TO ELIMINATE UNNECESSARY HUMAN SUFFERINGS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Transylvania and the Hungarian-Rumanian Problem, a symposium, 330 pp. maps, statistics, bibliography, cloth ..............................................................$18.00 Haraszti, Andrew: The Ethnic History of Transylvania ..........................................................$10.00 Zathuraczky: Transylvania, Citadel of the West .....$ 4.00 THE DANUBIAN PRESS Rt. 1, Box 59 Astor, Florida 32002 The Transylvania Quarterly is a supplement to the Eighth Tribe bi-lingual monthly magazine. Subscription is $10.00 per year — $12.00 outside U.S.A. payable in U.S. funds. Eighth Tribe, P.O. Box 637, Ligonier, Pa. 15658. SOME OF THE INDIVIDUAL CASES INVESTIGATED AND REPORTED BY THE TRANSYLVANIAN WORLD FEDERATION BETWEEN 1976-1979 JENŐ SZIKSZAI, professor in Brasso-Brasov, was arrested in the spring of 1977 for collecting signatures against the closing down of Hungarian schools. He was severely beaten and tortured by the security police under the command of Lt. Dan Nicolescu. He committed “suicide”. LAJOS KUTHY, also professor in Brasso-Brasov, was beaten and tortured for collecting signatures, and was found shot in a forest. JANOS SZABÓ protested against the harassment of the Hungarian minority in Rumania, and sent a letter to exiled dissident writer Paul Goma in the spring of 1977. He was arrested, beaten and tortured and condemned to forced labor. (Amnesty International records.) BÉLA NISZLY, elderly lawyer, gave judicial assistance to Hungarians who denounced the discriminatory measures of the authorities. He was interned in the Dr. Petru Groza psychiatric hospital, his house confiscated and given to Rumanians. JÁNOS TÖRÖK, textile technician in Kolozsvár- Cluj publicly criticized the electorial procedures and stated that deputies elected “in advance” by the government would not represent the interests of the workers. He was beaten, tortured and interned in the same psychiatric hospital as Niszly, where he was treated for several months with massive doses of Plegomazin and Amital. SIMA, school teacher in Fogaras was exposed to the same treatment in the same hospital for teaching in his history class that Transylvania was formerly part of Hungary. TIVADAR BUSA, artist, organized a group of protesters in Lugos. He was arrested in 1978 and disappeared. FRANCIS HOLZ, signed an open letter in favor of human rights, was beaten, tortured, and locked up in the psychiatric hospital. No report about him since 1979. SFERDIAN of Arad is a Baptist of Hungarian origin. In April 1978 he requested authorization to leave Rumania. He was refused, arrested, beaten and tortured for several months. THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY V