This year is the 25th anniversary of opening the borders between Eastern and Western Europe and there will be a range of memorial programs under the title “Közös siker” (Common Success), with the House of Terror playing a prominent role.
To attract young people, some young musicians will present their view of the political change in a song competition. The invitation goes like this: “Do you have no idea what happened in 1989? Were you not interested when it was taught at school either?” The idea is to attract those young musicians, including slammers and rappers, who only know about the communist era from films or their parents.
A professional jury will decide who wins the HUF 500,000 prize and songs can be submitted until 11 May in any genre.
Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog, who announced the series of programs, said that those people who lived through the political change had been touched by the wind of freedom. Balogh said the events at the House of Terror would be important tools to make clear to the young generation how important freedom is.
Monika Balatoni, State Secretary at the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, who is involved in the programs, recalled: “I did my final exams in 1989. We noticed immediately that the history topic about 1956 was completely deleted from the list, since no one knew if there was going to be a riot or not.”
One important date this year will be 16 June, the anniversary of reburial of the martyrs of 1956 including then-prime minister Imre Nagy, when an open-air concert will be held at Hősök tere.
The manager of the House of Terror, Mária Schmidt, said the political turn was a success for the whole region and a “real moment for being proud for all the Hungarian nation”. She said a site on Facebook presents the programs, in Hungarian under the name “25” and in English under “We made it happen”.
