Ceremony marks 65th anniversary of forced relocation of Budapest middle class

Budapest, May 21 (MTI) – A ceremony to mark the 65th anniversary of the forced relocation of middle class citizens of Budapest under communism took place at the Budafok Lutheran church on Saturday.

The forced relocation was intended to intimidate the middle class at least, and to eradicate them at most, pushing them to the periphery for the long term, Zsolt Németh, the chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said at the ceremony.

Today, the goal is to elevate the middle class, because they are the backbone of society, he said. Part of this is uncovering the past, naming the crimes and the perpetrators, and reaching a kind of reconciliation, he added.

Because there was no catharsis, this reconciliation may only take place if the middle class and the intelligentsia return to a place befitting them, but this process is “painfully slow”, Németh said.

The dignity of the intelligentsia and the middle class must be restored, he said, adding that the necessary economic foundations had already started to take shape.

The government of Imre Nagy brought an end to the practice of forced relocation in 1953, but those who returned were not given back their homes.

A monument to the hundreds of thousands who were forced to relocate stands at the church in Budafok, in the south of the capital.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters