A street or square in Budapest should be given the name of Béla Puczi, leader of a group of Roma protecting ethnic Hungarians during an anti-Hungarian pogrom in Targu Mures (Marosvásárhely) in 1990, according to a proposal by the mayor of Budapest published on Friday.
Gergely Karácsony said on Facebook that the idea had come from several Roma organisations. The mayor said that “when ruling powers seek to divide a country it always leads to terrible acts and ramifications”. “We must learn the lesson of mistakes made in the past through facing those mistakes,” he added.
Referring to developments in 1990, Karácsony said that
some 10,000 ethnic Hungarians gathered for a peaceful demonstration in the centre of Targu Mures on March 20, after a mob attacked the headquarters of ethnic Hungarian party RMDSZ and brutally beat up several Hungarians, including well-known author András Sütő, the day before.
The protesters were again being threatened by violent groups, when Puczi’s people appeared chanting the slogan “Hungarians, don’t worry, here come the Gypsies”.
Puczi was arrested and held in prison for several months. He then fled to Hungary from persecution by the Romanian police.
He died impoverished in Budapest, in 2009.
thanks to the people of the central Romanian village that a bigger tragedy had been averted.
Three of the anti-Hungarian pogrom’s six local victims were ethnic Hungarians and three of them Roma, Semjén wrote, adding that three were Catholic and three Calvinist. The deputy PM said the monument in the village proved that
“Hungarians or Roma, Catholics or Calvinists, we are all human, with a shared fate and shared lives.”
“By respecting each other’s faith and identity, we can also have a common future,” Semjén wrote.
On March 19, 1990, a group of Romanian men armed with spears and axes were transported to Targu Mures to “protect” the city from ethnic Hungarians. The mob attacked the headquarters of ethnic Hungarian party RMDSZ and brutally beat up several Hungarians, including well-known author András Sütő.
Source: MTI
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