The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1982 (9. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1982-04-01 / 4. szám
According to eyewitness reports, from the city of Kolozsvár (Cluj) alone, more than 24,000 Hungarians were herded together, beaten, tortured and deported. Within three months an estimated 200,000 Hungarians were moved out in this way from Transylvania, placed into labor camps, mostly in the swamps of Dobrudja. In 1945 the Soviet Military Administration of Northern Transylvania was replaced by Rumanian administration. Mr. Zathureczky writes in his book Transylvania, Citadel of the West (Danubian Press, 1964) page 52: “Stalin gave back Northern Transylvania to the Rumanians under the condition that they would respect the rights of the ethnic groups. With this step he introduced into Transylvania the Stalinist national policy. This policy consisted of the recognition of ethnic autonomies, and it was based on a federation of these autonomies. These autonomies are nationalistic in form, and socialistic in substance.” One of the conditions, under which the Russsian Military Government returned the full administration of Transylvania to the Rumanians was the setting up of two or more Autonomous Hungarian Districts in order to secure complete selfadministration to the Hungarian population of Transylvania. This condition as well as many others pertaining to the basic rights of the Hungarians in Transylvania were never fulfilled by the Rumanian government. In 1947, on February 10, the Rumanian Peace Treaty was signed in Paris, officially declaring the return of Northern Transylvania to Rumania - in spite of American protest. Rumania again guaranteed the rights of the minorities. On April 13 the Rumanian People’s Republic was proclaimed. On August 7 a new constitution was adopted, which again proclaimed equal rights and self administration to the national minorities. However, ail religious and cultural organizations were subjected to State control. Roman Catholic opposition led to the arrest of the remaining bishops and to dissolution of all Roman Catholic organizations. In 1949 lay leaders, priests, ministers of the Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran and Unitarian churches were imprisoned or sent to forced labor camps. The Greek Catholic Church was liquidated by law. The congregations of these parishes were automatically “returned into the Greek Orthodox Church and listed on census-sheets as “Rumanians” no matter which ethnic group they belonged. In 1950 under Soviet pressure the Rumanian government agreed to create an autonomous Hungarian Region on the Territory inhabited by a compact Hungarian (Dzekely) population with the capital of Marosvasarhely - Targu Mures. In this “autonomous” region, however, the official language remained the Rumanian, the top administrative offices were held by Rumanians, sent there directly from Bucharest, and the police force was kept 100% Rumanian. Those Hungarians who dared to object, were deported into the ill-famed labor camps in the Danube delta. In 1956 following the uprising in Hungary, the Rumanian Government availed itself of the opportunity to order new mass arrests throughout Transylvania. Though only seventeen Hungarians weré executed — beside Imre Nagy, premier of Hungary for those few glorious days of freedom and his entourage who were handed over by the Russians for “safekeeping” — more than 200 died from the beatings during the interrogation, and about six thousand received heavy prison sentences in Kolozsvár (Cluj) alone. George Bailey, American journalist, descried the situation in THE REPORTER of November 1964: “After the Hungarian revolution thousands of Hungarians were arrested in Transylvania, perhaps hundreds put to death. In one trial alone in Cluj, thirteen out of fifty-seven accused were executed. This year (1964) some eight thousand political prisoners were released with considerable fanfare by the Government in a general amnesty.” M. Eugene Osterhaven (The Present Situation of Hungarians in Transylvania, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan, 1968, page 34) adds to this: “.. .but as far as I could ascertain (in 1968) in my recent travels through Transylvania, not one of the Hungarians arrested during the revolt has yet been released.” In 1959 the Hungarian University of Kolozsvár (Cluj) and the Hungarian high schools all over Transylvania became absorbed by their Rumanian counterparts. Thus Hungarian higher education was abolished in Transylvania. Several members of the Hungarian faculty were driven to suicide. (See: “Der Spiegel” No. 45, October 31, 1966. Also: “National Minority Problems” by George Hay in Kurt, London, ed. of Eastern Europe in Transition, The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1966, page 133. Also: “The New York Times”, June 10, 1959.) (To be continued) VIII THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY
