The Eighth Tribe, 1980 (7. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1980-04-01 / 4. szám

press conference dealing with human rights: “There is a clearly defined plan in progress today, executing anti-Hungarian measures beyond imagination by the use of arrests, interrogations, intimidations, terror and torture.”

The Ceausescu government has published again and again new statistics on the country’s population, based on arbitrary census figures. I personally know of Hungarian families in the community where I come from, whose names are Fekete, Szőke, Puskás and Demeter, but are listed now as Negrutiu, Seche, Puskasiu and Dumitru. Even with all the falsifications and intimidations, the Ceausescu government admits the presence of 1,800,000 Hungarians in Transylvania. This figure does not include those deported into the swamps of the Danube delta, those “relocated” into other parts of the country, those living in Bucuresti and in Moldova. I am certain that a fairly and honestly implemented census would bring up the total of Hungarians living within the borders of Romania above the 3,000,000 mark.

However, it is not up to me to list all the grievances of my fellow countrymen of Hungarian nationality. Their plight is made public, and it must be the task of the United Nations and other international organizations to deal accordingly with this abominable oppression, practiced by a newly emerged national-socialist dictatorship.

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORTS ON RUMANIA

Amnesty Internatonal, a world-wide organization, honored with the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize, has consultative status with the U.N., and the Council of Europe. In a 45 page report recently published on Rumania, Amnesty International discloses the deplorable situation of the Hungarian minority in that country. We quote:

“At present there are no Hungarian language universities in Rumania. Three old Hungarian universities, Kolozsvár, Marosvásárhely and Nagyszeben have only some Hungarian language facilities left. Nevertheless, even here discrimination operates. In 1976 and 1977, 1,206 students enrolled at the Kolozsvár (Cluj, Napoca) University. Of these 269 were members of the Hungarian minority, but only 20 students were allowed to attend lectures in the Hungarian language.”

“In the Csango-region there were 72 Hungarian language schools in 1958. Today there are none. Ethnologists predict that the Hungarian minority is

THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY

threatened with cultural and linguistic extinction, as a result of the Rumanian government’s discriminatory olicies.”

“A number of persons who have criticized official policies have been detained. Some have been maltreated. Some have died under mysterious circumstances.”

Some of the cases listed by Amnesty International are those of Zoltán Zsufka, college professor, Jenő Szikszai, teacher, Lajos Kuthy, teacher, T. Sima, teacher, Károly Király, representative of the Hungarian minority, János Török, Béla Niszly and many others.

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FOUR HUNDRED YEAR OLD HUNGARIAN SCHOOL CONFISCATED

The Carpathian Observer reports: “The 400th anniversary of one of the first schools in Transylvania, called today the Mathematics-Physics Lycee No. 3 in Cluj-Napoca, has been recently celebrated. Addressing the attendance at the festivity the headmistress of the lycee recalled the century-old records of the cultural establishment where numerous personalities of Transylvania’s social, cultural and scientific life had been educated.” This report in the “Tribunea Romaniei”, a bi-weekly paper published in Bucharest for Rumanian-Americans fails to mention that the school was established in 1579 by the Hungarian Stephen Báthory, Governor of Transylvania and later King of Poland. In 1948 the Rumanians nationalized and gradually Rumanized this originally Hungarian Catholic Highschool. Plans for the anniversary celebrations included invitation of former students, most of them Hungarian, now living abroad, but this was not permitted by Rumanian authorities. So this truly Hungarian cultural event in the historic Hungarian cultural capital of Transylvania, Kolozsvár (Cluj) was turned into a Rumanian one, just as many other Hungarian historic events and achievements in the past 30 years.”

We must add to this that the two other ancient Hungarian educational centers of Kolozsvár, the Calvinist “Reformed Collegium”, and “Unitarian Collegium” were nationalized and Rumanized the same way, with no credit given to the two Hungarian churches for past achievements.

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.

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