Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2014 (26. évfolyam, 1-39. szám)
2014-06-20 / 25. szám
Hungary donated USD 1 million to build victims of communism museum in Washington DC The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation commemorated the 25th anniversary of the fall of Communism with a series of events in Washington D.C. on 11 June, organised in cooperation with the Hungarian Embassy. The Embassies of Hungary and Austria in Washington co-hosted a „Triumph of Liberty” luncheon to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the opening of the border between the two countries, dubbed the Pan- European picnic. At the event, executive director of the Foundation Marion Smith announced the launch of www.BuildTheMuseum.com, where donations can be made for the construction of a museum in Washington, DC to commemorate the victims of communism around the world. This initiative also marks the 25th anniversary of the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the 20th anniversary of the setting up of the Foundation. The Hungarian Government has donated USD 1 million for the cause. At the event, Ambassador György Szapáry, himself a refugee of the 1956 revolution and war of independence spoke of his personal experiences of 1989, when he returned to the country he once had to flee to witness its democratic transition. He presented Hungary’s Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit to historian Lee Edwards for “his laborious work on the cold war history of the Central-Eastern European countries and the sins of communism”. For twenty years, Edwards has been chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, an educational organisation established by a bipartisan Act of Congress in 1993. Mr. Edwards stated that most people are not aware that 100 million lives had been lost under communist dictatorships during the 20th century and that people were still dying under such regimes. He expressed hope that the cornerstone of the museum could be placed in 2017, the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Austrian Ambassador Hans Peter Manz, who at the time was the Hungary desk officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Austria, gave a first-hand account at the luncheon. Congressman Dennis Ross (R-FL), whose grandparents emigrated from Hungary and Senator Chris Murphy, Dem-Calling Hungary’s Jobbik Party ‘Far-Right’ Ruled Illegal Hungary’s Jobbik Party, a party so far to the right that France’s Marine Le Pen won’t touch it with a whole bundle of rods, cannot be identified as “far-right” by Hungary’s broadcast media: Hungary’s supreme court said that by referring to Jobbik as a “parliamentary far-right party” in a newscast in 2012, the Hungarian commercial television channel ATV breached the law because it expressed an opinion. Jobbik said ATV violated the statutory ban on opinionated news commentary. Hungary’s media regulatory bodies, the Media Authority and the Media Council sided with Jobbik, and ATV went to court, where it won in a lower court. But the supreme court overturned the earlier ruling. The court said that since Jobbik does not consider itself an extreme-right party, referring to it as “far-right” expresses an opinion, and leaves a negative impression with the viewer. In its next decision, we hear the court is expected to make it illegal to say that that ugly neo-Nazi loons are turning Hungary into a global laughingstock. Such statements would also, involve “judgement”, and that is something Hungarian law courts find scary and subversive. the-american-interest. com ocratic Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe, also addressed the guests. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán sent a letter supporting the commemorations, which were read out by the Prime Minister’s senior advisor Jenő Megyesy. The letter stated that the museum should address everyone; those who grew up in freedom as well as those who fled those regimes and came to the United States. It will serve as an eternal admonition reminding everyone of communism’s horrible crimes and will profess that the sacrifice has not been in vain; good conquers evil regardless of their numerical superiority, the Prime Minister wrote. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Made in Hungary: a New Hub of Premium Compact Car Production Hungary is known for paprika peppers, old bridges over the Danube in the capital of Budapest and Attila the Hun. It only has a population of 10 million people, as much as New York. And yet this is where both Mercedes and Audi make their compact premium cars. The Mercedes-Benz star logo appeared on the Hungary map in March 2012. The German company invested over €800 million to create a hub of production for compacts built on the MFA platform, starting with the B-Class and followed by the A- and CLA-Class. All have been hugely popular in Europe and abroad. Mercedes has actually said it can’t keep up with demand for the CLA four-door coupe from America. For the automaker, it means savings in cost, since Hungarians are payed much less than their German counterparts. On the other side of the coin, the city of Kecskemet and its population have a lot to gain, not only from the thousands of jobs created, but also from the spending and the arrival of hundreds of German employees and their families. Audi tells us much the same story. Their division “Audi Hungária Motor kft.” owns and runs a large factory in the city of Gyor, where they make the TT sports coupe and convertible, the A3 Cabriolet and A3 Limousine/Sedan. The factory opened two decades ago in 1994 also makes the majority of Audi engines, about 2 million of them per year. After its acquisition by the German company, Lamborghini also sourced its V10 cylinder blocks for the Gallardo from Hungary. In 2009, Audi launched the TT RS, a hot coupe offering 340 hp from a 2.5-liter inline 5-cylinder and quattro all-wheel drive. It was the first RS model in Audi history not to be made by the quattro GmbH in Neckarsulm. That’s right, it’s also made in Gyor. autoevolution.com Június 20, 2014 ÍD AMERIKAI Magyar Hírlap The English Page Subscribe to the Hírlap! Advertise your business in the Hírlap! If you have any questions or suggestions, please call (323) 463-6376 (626) 765-4534 Holocaust tensions still evident in Hungary today Sixty pairs of shoes line a prominent stretch of the bank of the Danube River, which bisects this European capital. From a distance, they look real. Up close, the cast iron shoes stand as painful replicas of those ordered off the feet of innocents, just before they were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were washed away. The horror of the Holocaust is captured eloquently, simply and silently in the variety of footware now embedded in the sidewalk. Some were obviously dress shoes, some child-size, ladies’ heels stand next to men’s work boots. The variety shows how no Jews were spared from the brutality of the Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944 and ’45. I visited the haunting memorial near dusk recently, and the few others present were quietly reflective. As a guide had explained earlier, the display memorializes how shoes represented items of value; the lives of those who wore them meant nothing. A day later, off on my own, I happened upon another collection of shoes, this one not made of cast iron, but actual old shoes, mixed with old eye glasses, Jewish memorial candles and plastic-covered copies of photos showing Adolf Hitler riding through the city with a Hungarian leader at his side, both all smiles. The patch of memorabilia turned out to be a protest, laid out on a sidewalk opposite a new memorial to honor Hungarians who died in the second world war. Two dog walkers, not related, stopped to answer my questions, answers that ramped up unexpectedly into a heated confrontation. An animated Hungarian woman wanted to explain the legitimacy of the war memorial, emphasizing that many Hungarians, not just Jews, suffered during the war years. Another passerby vehemently countered her recitation. “You can’t rewrite history,” he snapped at her. “Hungary invited Hitler into the country.” Frustrated by his comments, she headed off across the street toward two police officers stationed near the blocked off monument, appearing to complain about the man’s opinions. At one point, she yelled over at him, “We don’t need your kind.” His “kind”? He had told her he was German. Later, in a lower voice, he confided he was Jewish and Israeli, originally from Germany. He explained it’s not something he would share with most passersby. It’s not comfortable to do so today. Seventy years after Nazis cut down the once-thriving Jewish population of Hungary by 600,000, painful, raw feelings remain, disputes linger, the government is again swinging toward nationalism, while the hunt throughout Europe continues to prosecute the final living Nazi henchmen and enablers. The “Shoes on the Danube” memorial sits on the Pest side of the river, facing the massive, dramatic historic Royal Palace building in Buda, an edifice astoundingly impressive when lighted at night. The juxtaposition of grandeur and horror makes the cruelness more searing. Empty shoes are a repeated motif of Holocaust memorials worldwide. Massive piles of victims’ shoes shock visitors in Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, just as they do at the Washington, D.C. Holocaust memorial. But the simplicity of the 60 pairs of shoes beside a river now heavily trafficked by tourists is equally dramatic, á reminder of the horror of what happened to so many, not really so many years ago. As the sidewalk confrontation confirmed, healing in Hungary remains a work in progress. Miriam Pepperthe, kansascity.com Hungarian suicide rate on the rise The number of suicides in Hungary has been rising since the start of the economic crisis, according to the Central Statistics Office (KSH). Before 2008, the incidence of suicides in Hungary was in line with European standards, and suicides were decreasing. KSH reported that suicide cases increased by 10% per year in Hungary since the crisis, which means more than 10,000 more people decided to put an end to their lives in 2008-2013. Experts speculate that the major factor for the rising number of such cases is people’s fear of losing job and becoming unemployed. According to Oxford researchers, since 2008, the number of suicides has been on a world-wide increase. Before the crisis, both Canada and Europe had seen falling suicide rates. The United States was experiencing an increase in suicide cases even before the crisis, but since 2008 the growth sped up, the researchers said, bbj.hu (TELEFONKÖNYV amhir.com)-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------AMERICAN Hungarian Journal
