In 1956 about 200,000 Hungarian refugees fled to the West–among them 20,000 “unaccompanied minors,” mostly teenagers. These kids travelled alone; many of them came from state orphanages. A great number were apprentices who participated in the fights and also peasant and poor children from the countryside. Lajos Kiss was 13 years old when he escaped from an orphanage at Dorog, […]
What a surprise! The San Francisco War Memorial Center will host the 60th anniversary commemoration of the 1956 Revolution. On October 23 the keynote speaker will be Willie Brown, the former Speaker of the California State Assembly who was the 41st mayor of San Francisco. The 82-year-old Democrat is a dynamic speaker and overall fantastic guy. I once met Brown […]
This year we celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight. Pál Maléter was one of the most important actors in the events. He was unusual, complex and his intentions were often misunderstood by the revolutionaries. Some might even say that Maléter became the “accidental martyr” who is rarely written about in English. About 600 Hungarian […]
A small Hungarian-American group has started a letter-writing campaign to convince President Obama to receive Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, at the White House when he comes to Washington in October to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Mr. Orbán has never received an official invitation to the Oval Office and President Obama has voiced serious concerns […]
Leaders of the European Union have been scratching their heads for years about Hungarian strongman, Viktor Orbán’s civil rights abuses, and anti-liberal conduct. This past week, and on the eve of the Hungarian government’s biggest PR show in Montreal, EU leaders, along with some members of the Montreal Hungarian community, are tearing their hair out. Many are wondering, why the […]
American songwriter Desmond Child’s piece Steps of Champions should have been a major media coup for Hungary’s Orbán government. After all, Desmond Child–an American-Hungarian dual citizen who had worked with music legends such as Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Cher, Bonnie Tyler, Ricky Martin and Kiss–had been successfully enlisted by Hungary’s government to write the official anthem of the sixtieth anniversary commemorations […]
Béla Biszku, who died at age 94 last week, was Hungary’s most infamous unrepentant hard-line communist and the only official of the former pre-1989 regime ever prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Biszku served in the Hungarian Workers’ Party (Magyar Dolgozók Pártja) from 1949, as well as in its successor, the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt – MSZMP), including […]
My wife was watching the TV-news when she cried out – Andy Grove died! He was 79. He is widely considered as one of the tech pioneers who built California’s Silicon Valley. I met Andy several times at work, at meetings. I didn’t know him well, he was the legendary CEO of tech giant Intel where I worked as a […]
It seems that historical monuments have more to say about the time in which they are built than the time they commemorate. On March 15, 1928, a large crowd gathered at Riverside Drive, New York, among them the 520-member delegation of the Horthy regime, to dedicate a monument of Lajos Kossuth, the hero of the 1848 Revolution. Progressive Hungarian-Americans boycotted […]
The Second World War ended in Hungary in April 1945. The old regime was gone, to be replaced by a new one based on idealism, lies, hypocrisy and lust for total control and cruelty. The new regime, called Communism, had a new ideal for its citizens. The new man would be of the working class background, intelligent, dedicated, courageous and […]
