ANTIFASCIST MUSEUM TO BE BUILT

There has been a talk of experts between the Prime Minister’s Office and the Union of Hungarian Resistance Fighters and Antifascists (MEASZ) about commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and about the establishment of an antifascist museum, Vilmos Hanti, President of MEASZ has announced.

He said the government would decide this month about commemorating the positive events of the 20th century, among them the resistance against fascism. There is planned to set up a memorial committee similar to that of the 1956 revolution to remember the resistance started in 1944. It has been also recommended to make the statue of freedom on Gellért hill the symbol of Hungarian liberty, to be put on coins of Hungarian euros, too, and declare May 9 a national holiday. They have also turned to the Speaker of parliament with the proposal to commemorate the formation of the provisional assembly in 1944 and remember the day of German occupation, too. Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy has already promised to erect an antifascist museum while István Hiller, vice chairman of the Hungarian Socialist Party finds the proposal ’remarkable’. The position of MEASZ is firm because the co-chairman of the National Council of the organization is Iván Vitányi, one of the chief ideologists of the Hungarian Socialist Party, leader of the Social Democratic platform.

Translated by Péter Szentmihályi Szabó