By the autumn of 1944, about one-twelfth of Hungary’s population, 800,000 people, were taken from Hungary as prisoners of war or as interns for several years of forced labor for almost a quarter-century exile to the Soviet Union.Continue reading
Commemorations were held in Nagymaros, north of Budapest, on Sunday, marking the anniversary of the deportation of Hungarians to forced labour camps in the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the second world war.
“Seventy-seven years ago the Soviet Red Army wanted to destroy everything that was considered valuable before then” and deported almost 800,000 Hungarians to the forced labour camps in the Soviet Union, said Bence Rétvári, a Fidesz-KDNP lawmaker representing the region in parliament.
“But 77 years later we’re still here, we are united and we remember those who never returned home,” he said.
Rétvári said it was the survivors’ belonging to their families, their faith and their nation that had allowed them to return from the labour camps.
The deportations started in the autumn of 1944 and took place over a period of several months. The first survivors did not return to Hungary until nearly a decade later, in November 1953.
Featured photo illustration by Márton Mónus/MTI