Hungarians can access all files of the former Soviet era-secret police and see who spied on them and why, officials told BosNewsLife.
Political dissidents as well as several Christian groups and church leaders were among those persecuted by the Hungarian Communists and their feared secret agents. "We want to end the speculation over who did what," said Sandor Burany, a Socialist member of parliament who has been involved in the open-file legislation and believes documents can be vetted to keep current spies safe and to ban sexual material from release.
But there are mixed feelings about the plan within the House of Terror, a museum remembering the victims of Hungary’s Communist and fascist past by leading students and other visitors to the darkest corners of the recent history.
It’s located at the Andrassy Avenue in Budapest, the same building that was briefly used as the headquarters of Hungary’s World War Two era Nazis, the Arrow Cross Party. Soon after, it housed the Communist secret police authorities, which were seen as terror organizations
TORTURE CHAMBERS
Music mourning the victims, burning candles for those who died, a survivor crying "why?" in a video presentation and a huge Soviet-era tank are the first signs welcoming visitors.
Hundreds of people are believed to have died in the torture chambers of the museum’s basement and opening up the files as the government proposes will likely enable the public to name and shame those who carried out these and other atrocities.
Yet the House of Terror director and historian Maria Schmidt has her doubts about the proposed files-opening law, which she notes would come 15 long years after the collapse of Communism. Schmidt said the legislation, which will be discussed by parliament in March, contains nothing about the prosecution of former agents.
"INHUMAN CRIMES"
"If you could see that your leaders or your journalists or your politicians committed such inhuman crimes without any punishment, I think that would undermine the moral of the democracy. So than it is very difficult to explain what is the difference between a democracy and dictatorship," she told BosNewsLife.
Unlike Eastern Germany and several other Warsaw Pact countries, new European Union member Hungary did not reveal the names of secret police collaborators, and very little information on the spying services accumulated on the country’s 10 milliom Hungarians.
It led to a scandal in 2002 when then-prime minister Peter Medgyessy was forced, after a leak, to admit that he had served as a counter-espionage officer under the communist regime. Medgyessy told a BosNewsLife reporter that "at that time this served the interests of the country" and that he does "not think that it was a mistake."
HIGH OFFICIALS
Several other high ranking officials in both left-wing and right-wing administrations have since admitted to having worked for the communist secret service. They have not had to face any consequences , as there is nothing in Hungarian law forcing resignation or court inquiries when files implicate political leaders or public figures.
“They wanted a peaceful transition,” said Schmidt. Poland, in contrast, has a law that requires a prospective politician to sign a document that states whether he or she collaborated with the former regime. It is lying at the time of pursuing power in the new order that has proved the undoing of some officials and, most recently, the speaker of parliament.
Every alleged collaborator can appeal – as parliament leader Jozef Oleksy has – through the court system. So far, the courts have sided with accounts found in the files. However media have also reported that even a representative of the anti-Communist Solidarity movement, Malgorzata Niezabitowska, was revealed through documents to be a one-time informant to communist security services.
WITCH-HUNT
Yet Schmidt believes that opening up the files in the way proposed by the government could lead to a witch-hunt against those who were forced to work for the secret service. Outside the House of Terror, at least some people share this opinion and say there is no point in opening old wounds and that it is time to move on.
"I think [opening the files] will cause a lot of pressure and tension in the society, and even within the government," said 37-year old opera singer Aniko Peter. "People will see it differently as the government is calculating it. I think we should not touch those files."
That may be easier said than done as in the words of Socialist official Burany, "the Communists just can’t keep their skeletons in the cupboard." (By: Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent, BosNewsLife News Center, Budapest).
