Summary

Írta: Archívum - Rovat: Archívum, English

Summary

In his editorial (Under reconstruction…the liberation keeps going undisturbed) János Gadó writes about the transformation of one-time left-wing ideologies: “In 1989, in the euphoric moments of the lull of Communism, for a moment it seemed that history had ended, and the light between different interpretations of the world has come to an end, and only the winning liberal capitalism prevails. A few years later though it turned out that the misery of the third world, the crisis of Islam, the destruction of our natural environment and the fear of the globalized world are more than just minor imperfections of the nice new world, and instead they ate explo­sive elements of history rolling on”.

In our Israel section Ildikó Eperjes bids farewell to the era ending with Ariel Sharon’s illness.

György Konrád writes down his memories of 1944 and talks about his Jewish identity.

We publish an interview with state secretary Tamás Suchman about his elec­tion as president of MAZSIHISZ (Alliance of the Jewish Communities in Hungary). To a question about his own role Suchman replied: 7 am not going to keep my opinion a secret I do not think that the present structure will remain unchanged forever. I feel that the Jewish community wants to give up its motion­lessness. and I fully suppport this.”

We publish an interview with dr. György Sági, the new president of The Federation to Maintain Jew ish Culture in Hungary. Sági emphasized that culture connects the various types of Jewish identity.

In our special supplement Szombat remembers the Jewish victims of Communism in Hungary: the country’s remembrance day for the victims of Communism is to be held in February. The First article in the series, written by Ágnes Szalai, deals with the Zionist trial of 1949 in which Béla Dénes and his friends were sentenced. The Hungarian Zionist trial caught the attention of the international media. At the sometime Israel’s reaction to the case was characterized by a lack of interest, instead of condemning or opposing the Soviet politics. Israeli leaders commented on the trial as regretful, but at the same lime they stated that they were not able or willing to interfere with other countriesinternal affairs even if those affairs involved Jews. The Jewish Agency did not comment on the case.

Ervin Groszberg (Slomo) orthodox teacher was arrested in the spring of 1953. Attila Novák collected documents in connection with his arrest. During an inter rogation held on 13th of May in 1953 Groszberg was forced to confess the fol­lowing: “/ admit to have been given the task of spying by attaché Chaskel (an employee of the Israeli embassy to Budapest – N.A.). as well as Being instructed – by Chaskel through Kornhauser – to spy on the whole of the Hungarian industry, and not only on the export activities of the local textile industry.”

In the spring of 1953, Miksa Domonkos, secretary general of the Budapest community was also arrested. Pál Várnai interviewed his now aged son, István Domonkos, who remembered the following: “In the early hours of the 7th of April in 1953, half a dozen members of the State Defend Authority (ÁVH) turned up in this very house where we are talking. They claimed my dad was only being taken away for a minor interrogation, but later they returned without him.”

“Put on the right track” is the title of a selection of documents by András Kovács on a raid by the Hungarian secret police in March 1965, following the reestablisment of contacts between Israel and West Germany. “As soon as the news came, they tried to compensate immediately. On the same day as the diplo­matic event became publicly known, the political police tried to draft a plan to raise anti-Israeli feeling among Hungarian Jews, using their memories of the Shoah. The authorities hoped that the anti-Fascist propaganda, healing anti-German feelings will get Hungarian Jew s into a conflict with the Israeli embassy. The political police wanted to achieve this with the help of their agents working in the Jewish community and through their other contacts.” – writes Kovács.

We publish parts of Anna Koós’s autobiographical work. “The unwanted inher­itance”: “My mother to be. Vera Soós, née Weisz, was nineteen when she joined the Ministry of the Interior. From the autumn she worked at the Press Control Department, a year later until 1950 she worked at the secretariat of slate pro­tection colonel Ernő Szűcs. I was born in January 1948. My father finished a six month course at the Marxist-Leninist Party college that year. For four years after 1949, he went to work to an office at the same place: at 60. Sztálin út (renamed since)…”

György Dalos wrote a sensitive, intellectual piece on Arthur Koestler and on how in his own youth he and his fellows was against the Communist regime.

Címkék:2006-02

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