The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1982 (9. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1982-01-01 / 1. szám
HORROR IN TRANSYLVANIA! (Excerpts from Tom Kennedy’s article, published in the Calgary Sun, Canada, September 8,1981, page 12.) Today, this former part of Hungária is a wretched corner of poverty, ignorance, spiritual degradation and human tribulations on a scale hard to contemplate outside the realm of Third World despotism. The rural population, mostly ethnic Hungarians, living under Rumanian rule, are without the basic foodstuffs, and everything is fast going from bad to worse. There has been no flour, sugar, meat or coffee available since last spring. Bread is obtained only seldom and in lumps of about a pound of gritty, gooey matter of uncertain coloring. Each night, we pray to the Almighty that we wouldn’t have to wake up in the morning a wizzened old woman of 75 years said. She weeps as she accepted bread and fruits brought from Hungary, less than 100 miles away, where the markets are full of summer produce. Meanwhile, Rumanian state-owned trucks, freight trains and ships are hauling practically all that grew this year abroad to be sold for hard currency. Ironically, this year Transylvania had a bumper crop. But most of thf grain and practically all the livestock had been pledged at rock bottom prices in advance to the Arab countries in exchange for crude oil, and to Western Europe for money. Rumania is the personal kingdom of president Nickolae Ceausescu who rules this tragic land of immense natural beauty and resources with an iron fist. The rest of the presidential family occupies all the high offices of state and party machinery. Flanked by his wife, the vice-president and head of the national women’s organization, officially known as the Great Mother, Ceausescu recently opened the world university games in Bucharest, the Rumanian capital. Enthroned in the style of the Roman emperors atop the many-tiered stadium, the divine couple got as much television coverage as the scores of athletes parading below. Books, pamphlets, speeches, ostensibly written by Ceausescu himself, together with larger-than-life-size posters, abound in shops and offices. The cult of personality obviously encouraged and enjoyed by the president rivals that lavished on his idol, Joseph Stalin, in the post-war-years. ANOTHER HUNGARIAN FAMILY DISAPPEARED In the No. 9 issue of the Transylvanian Quarterly, published in October 1981, we reported on two Hungarian teenagers who were brutaly beaten by the Rumanian police in the village of Noszoly. Soon after the publication of our report, three members of an international welfare organization stationed in Bucharest, Rumania, visited the location where the atrocity took place. They were accompanied by an official of the Rumanian communist state to serve as guide and interpreter. Arriving into the village of Noszoly by automobile, the guide stopped in front of the mayor’s office to ask for directions to the Tokes home. Returning, he stated that “the information received from America” must have been false, since there is nobody by that name residing in the village. The welfare workers, apparently familiar with the methods practiced by the Rumanian authorities, insisted on seeing the registration books in the office. After some discussion, they were allowed to do so. The big, worn books, containing the names in alphabetic order, were handed to them. However, the third page in the letter “T” seemed to be of a different color, much whiter and cleaner than the other pages, and when one member of the group made an observation of that fact, he was told by the interpreter who shrugged and said, “last year a cat ran over the desk while the book was open and spilled the inkwell over it. The page had to be replaced.” Of course, the name “Tokes” was nowhere to be found and no one in the office ever knew a person by that name. Thus one more Hungarian family disappeared from Transylvania in a mysterious way.-----------★------------“THE HUNGARIAN HOLOCAUST” Under the above title a book is under preparation in Switzerland to be published in 1982 in French, German and English languages. According to some statistical data already gathered, more than 2 million Hungarians have perished between 1945 and 1965 in slave labor camps, prisons, torture chambers, etc. as a result of the Communist takeover. About half of these were the victims of Rumanian terrorists. THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY V
