William Penn Life, 2005 (40. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

2005-06-01 / 6. szám

Magyar Matters

‘You cannot compromise with hatred,’ Prime Minister tells Auschwitz gathering

from The Budapest Sun Hungary's Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány delivered an empassioned plea for Europeans to learn from the mistakes of the Holocaust during a recent speech at the site of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

Gyurcsány was in Poland May 5 to take part in the "March of the Living." Some 10,000 people from countries including Israel, France, Hungary and Poland gathered at the site for the annual "march" from Auschwitz to Birkenau to mourn those killed by Nazi Germans.

"We let their hands go," he said. "We were not courageous enough and we were not strong enough to keep them, to keep them with us. We let the evil be stronger than ourselves....We let this happen as Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs; we let this happen as Europeans."

He said that Europe had been soiled in the 20th century, allowing the terror of prejudice instead of goodwill and integrity to write history.

"There were governments, Hungarian governments included, who did not believe that their most sacred task, their most important priority should be to protect all citizens...they betrayed their own citizens and let them perish. They let them down for nothing.

"It was not others who did it, but we did it: people like you and me. The grief that binds us together is the grief

of all Hungarians....[It] is the obligation of all governments of Hungary, once and for all and for eternity, to learn and to understand that you cannot compromise with hatred.

"You may not allow hatred to move the world around us. We may not allow making any differentiation between one human and the other based on his descent, faith, religion, cultural or other kind of identity.

"The joint responsibility that binds us together - us simple people who love and have desires, who are jealous, strong and weak - these common features should be stronger than the differences that fortunately make us different: different creatures of God, fate, the world.

"We are irreproducible in our identity, but we are equal in our humanity."

Gyurcsány then addressed the young people in the audience. "I can see young people in their teens and 20s who know what happened only from the stories of parents, friends and relatives, from memoirs and movies-but they carry it on, and I want to ask them to carry it on. They should tell this, they should tell the story that the most horrible knowledge stays with us very deeply: namely that people can be truly evil."

Gyurcsány said if they take it with them, if they never let this disappear, then this may be our strongest joint immune system. A system of remembrance and of lessons learned.

Forint continues slide despite trade data

from The Budapest Sun Hungary's foreign trade deficit for the first three months of this year was 598.4 million Euros, down some 120 million Euros, or 17 percent, on the figure for 2004. The improving figures resulted from a near 10 percent increase in exports, while imports rose eight percent.

However, the trade figures are not as good as they first appear, according to Giancarlo Perasso, Head of

Emerging Markets Research at WestLB in London. "Trade turnover is not growing as fast as in the recent past, and this trend does not bode well for this year's economic growth, and therefore for [forthcoming] tax receipts and unemployment," Perasso said.

The latest data failed to impress the world's financial markets, with the forint weakening slightly after the news was released in mid-May.

In Brief_____

Church celebrates 100th anniversary

YOUNGSTOWN, OH - St. Stephen of Hungary Church will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a Mass and dinner-dance on Sunday, Aug. 21. Mass will be at 2:00 p.m. at the church. The celebration will follow at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, beginning with cocktails at 4:00 p.m., a family-style dinner at 5:00 p.m. and music by the Bob Zolka Band from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $35 per person, which includes dinner, a Wendell August Forge pewter ornament and a commemorative booklet. Deadline for reservations is July 11. For tickets and more information call St. Stephen’s parish house at 330- 743-1905 or Kathy Novak at 330- 747-7704.

Mádl to not seek second term

Hungarian President Ferenc Mádl has indicated in an interview with daily Magyar Nemzet that he will not seek a second term in office later this year, making the presidential contest a head-to-head between house speaker Katalin Szili and former Constitutional Court president László Sólyom.

The Fidesz party had hoped that a second term would be a solution to the impasse resulting from the parties’ disagreements on whom to appoint.

Have news about the Hungarian community you want to share? Write to: John E. Lovász, William Penn Life, 709 Brighton Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15233. You may also call us at 1-800-848-7366, ext. 135, or send an email to: jlovasz@williampennassociation.org

William Penn Life, June 2005

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