The Hungarian government is to spend millions of dollars in Washington

The Hungarian government is going to give 9 million dollars to create a museum in Washington, commemorating the victims of Communism.

According to Napi, the government says that they would like to fight against Communism more effectively, that is why they would like to increase the donation to create a museum for its victims. The decision of the government empowers the minister of foreign affairs and trade to lead the necessary negotiations in the issue with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and the Centre for Democracy Public Foundation.

The minister for finance has to transfer 1/3 of the money until the end of January while the rest should be allocated by the end of 2020.

We reported in 2014 that a fundraising campaign started online for donations to construct a museum in Washington, D.C., commemorating the victims of Communism around the world. The Hungarian government then offered 1 million dollars as a contribution to the project.

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Marion Smith, leader of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, told a press conference then that the launch of buildthemuseum.org marks the 25th anniversary of the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the 20th anniversary of setting up the foundation. Representatives of 18 countries, including Hungary, and civil and diaspora organisations laid wreaths at the Victims of Communism Memorial modelled after the papier-mache statue, “Goddess of Democracy”, erected by student protesters on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Maria Schmidt, director of the Budapest House of Terror Museum, said the time had come to follow up the erection of the statue with the building of a museum. Hungary has taken the role of the initiator in this project and contributed 1 million dollars to it, she added, expressing hope that other countries would also join. Historian Lee Edwards, chairman of the foundation, told MTI that most people were not aware that 100 million lives had been lost during the Communist dictatorships of the 20th century, and people were still dying in such dictatorial regimes. He then expressed hope that the cornerstone of the museum can be placed in 2017, the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Source: napi.hu