’56 and Romania

The conference titled ’56 and Romania,’ scheduled to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the revolution, will begin on October 24, 2016, at 10 AM at the headquarters of the Hungarian Writers’ Association (1062 Budapest, Bajza u. 18.).

This will be an exceptional occasion for the scientific session commemorating the round anniversary, where Transylvanian Hungarians and Romanians who identify with the ideals of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and may have been sentenced to life-long forced labor as a result, will meet for the first time within such a framework and in such large numbers. The event will also feature songs from writer and musician Zsolt Berta’s album “Luk van” (There is a hole) released to mark the anniversary of the revolution.

About the speakers and the presentations:

Zoltán Tófalvi, historian, researcher of the repercussions of the 1956 revolution in Transylvania and Romania, and compiler of the conference programme, will give a brief introduction to the major Transylvanian conspiracies and their leading figures, which resulted in the arrest of tens of thousands of people and the imprisonment of more than 1500. The title of his presentation: Organizations in Romania and Transylvania formed as a result of the Hungarian Revolution. The retaliation in Romania after the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution.

1. The conference’s keynote speaker is the 96-year-old Franciscan monk Francis Béla-Ervin, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Szoboszlai trial. Father Ervin – as he is known to all, the recently retired head of the Franciscan monastery of the Ferenc monastery in Gyergyószárhegy – as a philosopher delivered literature to Aladár Szoboszlai, who wrote a series of studies of more than 2000 pages based on it. Father Ervin also speaks about how the pragmatic West made Central and Eastern Europe dizzy in the “Geneva spirit” of November 1955. He will be accompanied to the session by Péter Orbán, sentenced to 25 years in prison in the Szoboszlai trial. The title of his lecture was Aladár Szoboszlai’s Hungarian-Romanian confederation plan, an alternative solution to the “Transylvanian question”.

2. Etelka Orbán, a former prisoner, spoke about the horrors of political prisons . In political prisons, women were not only destroyed as men, but also as women. After her release, she could only have adopted children. Her adopted son also spoke.

3. Unfortunately, there is no survivor of the trial of the Érmihályfalvi group, which ended in two executions, and of the Hungarian-Romanian population exchange plan, which also included the Transylvanian Calvinist Bishop Kálmán Csiha and was marked by the name of Pál Fodor, which is why it is important that the lecture was given by the Calvinist pastor László Varga, who was also sentenced to life imprisonment in the “UN Memorandum” trial. Title of the presentation: The “UN Memorandum”, the Hungarian-Romanian population exchange plan following the Wesselényi Plan

4. The literary historian Gyula Dávid was sentenced to seven years in prison in the second group of the Bolyai University of Cluj trial. His lecture was entitled: The Autumn of the Hungarian Revolution at Bolyai University.

5. The husband of Anna Páskándiné Sebők, a writer and documentary filmmaker, later Kossuth Prize-winning writer Géza Páskándi, was sentenced to six years in prison in the trial of the second group of the Bolyai University. The title of her presentation: The relationship of the Hungarians in Transylvania to the Hungarian Revolution and the Hungarian War of Independence. Géza Páskándi and 1956.

6. At the beginning of November, four 15-16-year-old high school students from Barot decided to cross the Romanian-Hungarian border under the leadership of Márton Moyses and directly help the Hungarian revolutionaries. Two of them, Csaba Józsa and Benjámin Bíró, crossed the border and went all the way to Debrecen. Sixty years on, Csaba Józsa remembers. The title of his presentation: The death by fire of Márton Moyses. An attempt to help the Hungarian revolutionaries.

7. László Ferencz Takács was sentenced to fifteen years in prison in the trial of the Association of Freedom Seeking Youths in Oradea. The title of his presentation: From behind the glasses. A few hours after the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution, the Organization of Young People Longing for Freedom in Oradea was founded

Contributions by Attila Kerekes, sentenced to 10 years in the SZVISZ trial, Endre Sárközy, also sentenced to 10 years in prison, Gyula Tassy, sentenced to 15 years of hard labour.

8. Árpád Szilágyi, a geology student, was sentenced to 47 years in prison in two trials. He is the only one who was a victim and survivor of the the prison riot in Samosújváros on 14 July 1958, the anniversary of the taking of Bastille. His memoir of his prison years,The Victim , was published in English in the United States of America. The title of his lecture was In fact, it was not the Literary Newspaper that received my letters, but the Securitate.

9. Octavian Bjoza, National President of POFOSZ Romania: The echoes of the Hungarian Revolution in Romania.

10. Teodor Stanca is a former convict: The clash between the students of Timisoara and the armed forces on 30 and 31 October 1956.

11. Ioana Boca, Research Fellow at the Academy of Democracy Foundation, Bucharest: the impact of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution on Romanian university students.

12. LiviuPleșa, chief researcher at the National Council for the Investigation of the Securitate Archives in Bucharest: The post-1956 resistance of Hungarian historians in Cluj against the Securitate’s attempts to recruit them.

13. László Csendes is Vice President of the National Council for the Investigation of the Securitate Archives: Retaliation against the Hungarian Evangelical Church in Romania. The campaign against Transylvanian Saxon writers, the 1959 Brasov show trial.

14. There is hardly a settlement in Transylvania, where there was no attempt to organise in the autumn of 1956. In Csíkszereda, the Roman Catholic high school that bears the name of Márton Áron is known for its student-teacher conspiracy. The main defendant and organiser of the trial is Attila Puskás, a biologist who was sentenced to 20 years in prison. His lecture was entitled: The echoes of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in the Roman Catholic high school in Csíkszereda, now named after Márton Áron.

15. In numerical terms, the largest political suit rating was awarded to the Hungarian Youth Organization of Transylvania (EMISZ). In this trial, 77 young people were convicted. Balázs Sándor, a Unitarian theology student, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His lecture was entitled: The Association of Hungarian Youth of Transylvania or the Beheading of the Unitarian Church in Transylvania.

16. The students of the Székely Mikó College in Sepsiszentgyörgy decided to worshipped the 1848 monument in the town square on 15 March 1957. At the second wreath laying ceremony on 15 March 1958 they were busted. The leader of the group, Attila Szalai, was sentenced to 18 years. His colleagues, Csaba Jancsó, then a minor, were sentenced to 10 years and Attila Bordás to 12 years. Csaba Jancsó‘s lecture was entitled: The Székely Youth Association and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

17. László Páll was sentenced to 15 years in prison as a member of the “Black Hand” organisation. His lecture was entitled: The anti-regime activities of the Black Hand and the Hungarian Revolution.

18. József Török, the president of the former Political Prisoners’ Association’s branch in Tricis was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The title of his presentation: In Romania, there were also convictions for 1956 in 1966. The anti-regime activities of the Galócási group.