Magdolna is a hair stylist in Budapest and that is the only thing I know about her.
On a hot day she went down to the Keleti Railway Station in Budapest where thousands of refugees were stranded. She set up a chair and started to give free haircuts for kids. She had a sign: Free Haircuts. And that is the story. (Magdolna’s Facebook post,)
Refugee parents started to bring kids and they got a nice haircut. After experiencing the cold ignorance of the Hungarian authorities and in some cases the brutality of Hungarian police, they had a couple of minutes of human warmth, some tender loving care. Magdolna did not know the people and she did not know what would happen to them. She just thought they deserved a haircut to make their horrendous journey bearable.
Magdolna Rózsa provides free haircuts for migrants at Keleti Railway Station in Budapest.
Hungary’s strongman, anti-immigrant Prime Minister Viktor Orbán decided that he will make it hard on the refugees, and installed a 120 mile long fence to protect the southern border. Not just a simple fence, a razor fence, the one which rips flesh. In an interview Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister said that the measure was “extremely harsh. Hungary is part of Europe, which has values, and we do not respect those values by putting up fences that we wouldn’t even use for animals.”
Then there is ex-Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, who generously takes-in refugees to spend the night at his home. Mr. Gyurcsány’s kindness is not discreet or spontaneous, he makes sure that journalists show up with their cameras. If not, he provides high resolution photos of the refugees standing on the manicured lawn of his million dollar villa. “First of all, I’m a human being” – he declared theatrically to the BBC. After a successful photo session Mr. Gyurcsány drives the migrants back to their staging area.
(Gyurcsány on BBC.)
Ms. Magdolna Rózsa doesn’t exploit the refugees for political purposes; she just gives them a haircut with a smile.
She is my hero.
György Lázár
