those who died in the 1956 revolution against Soviet domination. The commemorations were also a chance for Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsanyi and other former Communists to reach out to those their regime had oppressed for decades, including active Christians and political dissidents.
On a breezy autumn morning in front of the gothic parliament building of Budapest, a guard of honor playing the Hungarian hymn raised the Hungarian flag to honor the victims of the 1956 revolution.
It was the same square where Soviet tanks eventually crushed the uprising, which began on October 23, 1956.
Decades later, on October 23, 1989, Hungarian interim president Matyas Szuros began realizing the dreams of those who fought on the barricades when, from the parliament’s balcony, he declared Hungary an independent republic.
By then, tens of thousands of East German refugees had been able to flee to Austria and Western Germany from Hungary as it lifted the Iron Curtain that separated it from the Western world.
ADVENT OF DEMOCRACY
But despite the advent of democracy and Hungary’s entry into the European Union in May alongside nine other countries, most of them ex-Soviet satellites, divisions have remained between former Communists turned Socialists and those opposing them.
Hungary’s recently elected Socialist Prime Minister Gyurcsanyi, an ex-Communist youth leader who made millions with controversial real estate deals, tried to reach out to family members of martyrs.
He visited the house of Imre Nagy, a prime minister who led the revolution and who was later executed for his role in it, by the Soviet backed regime.
"Everyone is affected by the fine legacy of Imre Nagy," the prime minister told Nagy’s grand children. "Nagy’s legacy extends to left and right democracies, and his personality is an example for the nation."
EX-COMMUNIST LAYING FLOWERS
The 43-year old Prime Minister represents a new generation within his former Communist Party. However some of those who lost friends in 1956 make clear they find it difficult to see ex-Communists laying flowers at the graves of Imre Nagy and other prominent and less well known revolution heroes.
"You can forgive many things", said an elderly man as he visited the graves of fallen comrades in Budapest. "You can forgive people being bombed and shot. But I can not forgive the cold blooded murders carried out by the Communist regime that crushed the 1956 revolution."
Another woman in her sixties walked slowly to the grave of Imre Nagy. She cried after putting a white rose there. The memories of those days are still with her.
"GOD FEARING MAN"
"My uncle, who had nine brothers, was a God fearing man," she recalled. "During the 1956 revolution he was beaten to death by the Communist secret police, in what is now known as the House of Terror Museum of Budapest."
People like her hope that the 1956 revolution will never be forgotten. But as Hungary moves on to a new era of the busy business of European Union membership, it seems difficult for younger generations to appreciate that suffering.
On October 23, night clubs were open, and at least one shopping mall competed for space with a 1956 monument. As guards of honor marched in front of the parliament building these days, those who survived decades of Communist dictatorship now hope that Hungary continues to march towards progress, while not forgetting the lessons of its troubled history.
