Refugees in Hungary

Előszó

Hungary is situated at the cross roads of Central Europe and its fate depends mostly on the immediate interests of the past and present great powers. For the past 11 centuries its shear existence was constantly in the balance. From its greatness under the Renaissance king Matthias Corvinus in the 15th century, the road was downhill. Today on only one third of its former territory, with millions of Hungarians under foreign rule, Hungary by and large, still menaged to cling to medieval ideas of chivalry and devotion to help the innocents victims of despots and dictators.
Starting with the victimized and persecuted Hungarians under the new Czechoslovakian, Rumanian and Yugoslavian rulers right after WW I., continuing with thousands of our brethren chased out by Serbs from Vojvodina in 1935, hundreds of thousands of refugees and P.O.W."s of many nationalities found safe heaven on Hungárián soil during WW II.
Starting with thousands of Jews from Austria and Czechoslovakia, continuing with the great masses of Polish refugees, and with a lot of other nationalities, mostly French, Italian, Russian, Serb, Dutch, British etc. escapees from Germán P.O.W. camps and ended with American and British airmen shot down over the country. The epoch ended partially with the Germán military occupation of Hungary on the 19th day of March, 1944. Even after this date, most members of the Hungárián armed forces, authorities and civilians defied the Germán efforts of rounding up all foreigners on Hungárián soil. Thousands of refugees survived the hostilities and were repatriated after the war.
It should be emphasized, that the Hungárián governments of the period were under extreme pressure by the Germans to hand over the escapees, refugees and the POW's to them. Even governments under the Germán occupation resisted this constant demand to surrender these people, with various degree of success. Especially irksome was to the Germans, when with the tacit approval of the Hungárián government, tens of thousands of mostly Polish soldiers left the country to jóin the Allied Forces.
We are willing to compare our record of handling the refugees with the record of any European nation under Germán occupation or influence. Vissza