Honoring History, the Hungarian Way

By: Rio Djiwandana

May 5, 2015

Walking through Budapest’s Liberty Square (Szabadsad Ter in Hungarian), it is impossible to miss the WWII monument built to commemorate the 1944 occupation of Hungary by Nazi Germany—not because of its exceptional size or beauty, but because it is surrounded by a government barricade and a huge assortment of memorial pebbles, photographs, and other personal items, all placed there defiantly by enraged Hungarian protesters.

In July 2014, the monument was erected stealthily and almost entirely overnight under the orders of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the Hungarian government. The monument depicts a hawk, which represents the “evil” German Nazi forces, attacking the archangel Gabriel, who personifies “innocent” Hungary. The intention behind the monument’s construction was to depict the German Nazis as being entirely responsible for the mass deportation and extermination of the thousands of Hungarian Jews, gypsies, gays, and political dissidents that perished during the Holocaust—which could not be further from the truth. In reality, Hungary was not as innocent as the monument suggests; the Hungarian government and countless Hungarian citizens played a major role in assisting Nazi Germany and systematically eliminating these marginalized communities from Hungarian society.

To the protesters, the monument is an attempt by the Hungarian government to rewrite history and conveniently forget the truth. After the end of communism in 1989, Hungary has been struggling to build stronger democratic political institutions while simultaneously trying to dismantle government corruption, and the construction of this statue represents a major step backwards.

“As a matter of a fact, the monument is really a genuine symbol,” the protesters wrote on their main poster, strategically placed directly on the surrounding barricade. “It is a monument of the government’s arrogance and the criminal steps it took. Its removal will also be symbolic, signaling that liberty has returned.”

From an outsider’s perspective, I initially did not understand why the construction of the monument was such a big deal, but then I remembered what my Hungarian study abroad director had said to us on the first day of orientation: “We Hungarians proudly wear our history on our sleeves,” a sentiment that has defined my study abroad experience.

My semester in Hungary has essentially been one never-ending history lesson, and if I’ve learned anything in my time here, it is that remembering Hungarian history is an extremely important part of Hungarian culture. Although I am technically not enrolled in any history classes, the amount of Hungarian history I have covered in each of my five classes is tremendous. Additionally, I volunteer as a teaching assistant at a local Hungarian middle school twice a week, and I am constantly amazed by how much the middle school students are able to teach me about Hungarian politics and history through simple conversation.

From a historical perspective, saying that “Hungary has been through a lot” would be a huge understatement. From the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, to allying with Nazi Germany during World War II, to enduring two consecutive communist regimes (and this is just in “recent” years), Hungarian history has become unmistakably intertwined with Hungarian national identity. The Hungarians know that their history is defined by tragic losses and unspeakable crimes just as much as it contains valiant feats of heroism, but they believe that it is just as important to remember the bad as well as the good, a value that—as a product of the US public education system—I am particularly impressed by. While I learned a great deal about America’s “awesomeness” in my high school history classes, topics such as the Vietnam War, American colonial exploitation of indigenous populations, and Japanese internment camps were deemed taboo, quickly glossed over, or not touched on at all, thus perpetuating a culture of historical “amnesia” that I only became aware of once I got to Georgetown. While the United States may be considered the world’s foremost superpower, the overwhelming and excessive patriotism that many Americans possess often prevents us from admitting our past/current failures and actively moving forward.

The great writer George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” and while many Americans may disagree with me, I believe we have a lot to learn from the Hungarians in this sense.

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