The Eighth Tribe, 1977 (4. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1977-11-01 / 11. szám
November, 1977 THE EIGHTH TRIBE Page 5 massacres took place in 1944 and 1945, when Rumanian civilians, aided and encouraged by the intruding Romanian army, wiped out entire Hungarian villages in Eastern and Central Transylvania beheading men by the use of axes, burning women on stakes, and smashing the heads of babies against the walls. Only the intervention of the Russian army was able to put an end to these horrors. See: Documented Facts and Figures on Transylvania, Danubian Press, 1977.) Since World War II there has been a concentrated effort in action on the part of the Rumanian Government to annihilate, exterminate, disperse and absorb the Hungarians of Transylvania as quickly as possible. We are sad to notice that even the Rumanians in America are aiding this inhumane act of genocide by trying to avert the attention of the American people from this tragic situation. A carefully planned, and meticulously executed network of deceit, aimed at the American public, the Academic community and all those who influence American Foreign Policy, is put into action here by the Rumanian Government in order to mislead the world. Using the smoke-screen of a falsified history and falsified geography they are trying to create the illusion that Transylvania is the “ancient homeland” of the Rumanians, was built by Rumanians, is the “cradle of Rumanian cultural heritage”, while the true native population of this land, the Hungarians, are only a small number of intruders with whom the Rumanians are dealing in an extremely noble and generous manner. The editors of the “American Rumanian Review” have the affrontery to suggest that “one way of finding out the truth (about the Hungarians in Transylvania) is to make a personal visit there.” They know very well that the American visitor would not be able to find anything Hungarian in today’s Transylvania, since not only the geographical names were completely changed, but even such well-known and outstanding landmarks of the Hungarian culture as medieval churches, folk music, folk art and national costumes are being claimed as “ancient Rumanian cultural heritage”. Furthermore, every Hungarian who talks to a foreign visitor is taken afterward to the police station, where he undergoes lengthy and brutal questioning. Hungarian leaders, as clergymen, teachers, low ranking public officials are under strict surveillance whenever they meet with “foreigners”, and every word they utter goes on the record. One wrong word, and they end up in prison on one pretext or another. The intimidation of the native Hungarian population in Transylvania reached such proportions in the last three decades, that many intellectuals, writers, teachers, clergymen, took their own lives in order to escape the ordeal, called “minority existence in Rumania.” It is indeed sad that even those Rumanians who chose the exile instead of subjecting themselves to the communist regime, do not realize that lasting peace in the Danubian Basin can be built only on good will, tolerance and mutual respect between the coexisting peoples of that area. That sooner or later, in one way or another, a mutually acceptable framework will be found by all the neighboring, and territorially overlaping nations of Central and East Central Europe, which will enable them to expand their narrow frontiers of today into a larger economical and political unit in their search of permanent peace and prosperity. It must be cldar to everyone that such enduring unity can be built only on honesty, understanding, good will, mutual respect, and the strict adherence to factual truth. As long as the Rumanians, in their own country as well as outside of it, stubbornly cling to their present-day political notion that advantages can be gained, and national goals accomplished at the expense of others through the use of deceit: they will, in no way, be able to join the progressive, peace-seeking community of coexisting European nations. Albert Wass de Czege, moderator, The Danubian Research Ceuter.
