Minister for Human Capacities Zoltán Balog spoke about the importance of remembrance in Mosonmagyaróvár on Wednesday at a ceremony to commemorate the victims of the 1956 massacre. The Minister also announced that the Government had decided to double political rehabilitation pension supplements over the next two years.
“Hungary will only have a future if we do not forget everything from which our future takes root and realise those noble ideals that guided the youths who rose up against tyranny in 1956”, he said. At the town’s day of mourning the Minister declared: “We must not allow the killers to win”, adding “They would be victorious if people became indifferent to the events of 1956”.
Mr. Balog announced that at the last cabinet meeting it had been decided that political rehabilitation pension supplements will be doubled in two steps: a 60% increase from 1 January 2017 and a further 40% from 1 January 1 2018. The decision will affect 63,000 people.
“The duty of we who were not there is to teach future generations the meaning and truth of the revolution, which is that there is a nation in the centre of Europe that insists on deciding its own fate”, he said, adding “National self-determination, the rule of law and liberty are the values that we must pass on”.
Mr. Balog also mentioned that an exhibit at the House of Terror museum in Budapest includes the coat of one of the people wounded in Mosonmagyaróvár, a flag with the Communist coat of arms cut out of the centre and a Molotov cocktail, which together symbolise the essence of 1956.
“The flag symbolizes freedom, the Molotov cocktail represents the fact that there are times when it makes no difference what weapons we take up to defend it, while the shot-through and bloody coat symbolises both the courage of the unarmed protestors and the fact that even an unarmed citizen can become a hero”, he said.
“During the forty years of Communist rule in Europe, Hungary was the only country in which there was armed resistance”, the Minister highlighted.
At the commemoration, the German Democratic Republic’s last foreign minister Marcus Meckel said that just like in 1953 in Germany, the 1956 revolution in Hungary was quashed and the oppressors came to power and deprived the people of their freedom. “Those who died were victims, because they gave their lives for freedom”, he said, adding that “the events in Mosonmagyaróvár are part of the history of European freedom”.
At the close of the ceremony, the participants laid a wreath at the Golgotha statue on the town’s Mourning Square.
Sixty years ago, the soldiers of the border guards barracks in Mosonmagyaróvár opened fire on a crowd of unarmed protestors, killing more than 100 people. In 1999, the local council declared 26 October the town’s official Day of Mourning.