‘Borsa first came to the attention of state security in 1960, and from 1962 onward, he became a target of internal counterintelligence under the code name “Milliomos” (Millionaire). Initially, he was monitored within the group file titled “Együttműködők” (The Collaborators), and later a personal file was opened on him.’
‘4 April was a day of paying fealty to the “Heroic Army of the Soviets” and celebrating the military force upholding the Iron Curtain. Celebrating the same army that plundered its way through our homeland, and the system that was born from it, be it already watered down by the 70s and 80s: it was a holiday that never quite fit into the organic Hungarian tradition.’
‘The final assessment in terms of the policy of appeasement would be that at the diplomatic and political level, the allies did indeed achieve their goals of buying time, mobilizing, as well as isolating Germany in the first months of the war from either Japan or Italy. They made Germany dependent on Soviet resources to sustain short-term operations, and pushed its economy on the brink of collapse.’
‘In recent years, articles mentioning this aspect of her life have almost exclusively referenced “Xavér” in this context. While we do not intend to question this moral judgment of her activities as an informant, it is important to recognize that before she became “Xavér”, Benoschofsky was also a victim of the Rákosi regime. Her arrest and interrogation left behind a chilling 284-page dossier.’
‘I represent today the 6 million Holocaust victims who were murdered just because they were Jewish. I demand the world remember what happened only 80 years ago.’
Albeit much smaller than the one dedicated to the Soviet Red Army, and much more hidden than Ronald Reagan’s statue, Liberty Square is also home to the bronze sculpture of a little known but extraordinary figure: US General Harry Hill Bandholtz.
People’s Courts were special judicial bodies in Hungary set up after WWII, operating between February 1945 and 1 April 1950, established primarily for the purpose of prosecuting war criminals. However, they became the controversial instrument of a regime change originally intended to be democratic, sometimes abused to exact personal revenge.
‘Hungarian Jews were generally known for their assimilated and law-abiding nature. By and large, they saw themselves as loyal Hungarian citizens and followed the law of the land to the letter. This was part of a well-rehearsed strategy on the part of their leaders. Between the emancipation of Hungarian Jewry and its nearly complete annihilation, Hungarian Jewish leaders experienced various levels of antisemitism. For most of their history, they could and did turn to the state authorities to ease their suffering. This strategy, useful during the previous decades, turned self-destructive in 1944–45.’
The campaign remembers the victims of 20th-century totalitarian regimes in Europe, on the 85th anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on 23 August 1939.
István Horthy, the son of Miklós Horthy, lost his life in a plane crash on the Russian front barely six months after he was elected Vice Regent of Hungary.