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Situation Tense in Transylvania


October, 1979
The Transylvanian Quarterly
TWF. Helsinki: Reliable sources touring Transylvania in September report that compulsory military training has been extended to all female Rumanians of certain age groups. Male and female militia has been armed with combat weapons. Military concentrations could be observed along the Hungarian border.
Any kind of book, printed matter in possessions of visitors, brought in by visitors from Hungary is being confiscated. Hungarians, male and female, called into compulsory military training are being put into labor­brigades, and used during the training period as construction workers, building roads and bridges, without pay, of course, as a "patriotic duty" for the "unreliable elements of the country."

The Transylvanian Problem Gains Worldwide Attention


July, 1980
The Transylvanian Quarterly
Professor Felix Ermacora, well­known champion of human and national rights, spoke in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Caracas and Sao Paulo during the month of May on the rights of national minorities in general, and the plight of the Transylvanian Hungarians in particular. Dr. Ermacora, professor of international law at the University of Vienna, member of the Austrian parliament, and chaiman of the International Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, was appointed last year by the United National Committee of Human Rights to report on the grievances of national minorities. and work out with a group of experts, the guidelines in dealing with these grievances. In our January issue of the Transylvanian Quarterly we published some of the proposals drafted by Dr. Ermacora and his associates which were accepted by the International Convention. based on Resolution 17, C, III of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Since the largest and most abused national minority group in Europe is the native Hungarian population of Transylvania, suffering extreme hardship under the hostile government of the Socialist Republic of Rumania, Dr. Ermacora is focusing special attention on this problem. After thorough evaluation of all the facts. the "Transylvanian Case" will be presented to the United Nations.

Worldwide Reaction


April, 1983
The Trans ylvanian Quarterly
Dictator Ceausescu"s new offensive against the 3 million strong native Hungarian population of Transylvania brought forth a strong reaction in the West during the last few months. For the lack of space we are listing here only the more important articles dealing with the oppression of the minorities in Rumania.
Nov.20, 1982, THE ECONOMIST: Transylvania, Echo in the Conch.
Dec. 6, 1982, FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: The fate of Hungarian poet in Transylvania uncertain.

Dec.11, 1982, DIE WELT: Transylvanians worry about their culture.
Dec.11, 1982 DIE PRESSE, Wien, Austria: Ceausescu"s Second Class Subjects, the Hungarians.

Dec.19, 1982, THE TRANSYLVANIAN OBSERVER, Australia: The eyes of the world are on Transylvania!

Dec.24, 1982, THE WASHINGTON TIMES: In Rumanian the angels must sing underground.
Jan. 2, 1983, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL: Life getting harder in Rumanian. Stalinist regime is most repressive in Soviet block (Robert D. Kaplan).
Jan. 3,1983, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: US versus Rumania (Eric Bourne).
Jan. 13, 1983, NEUE ZURICHER ZEITUNG: The Hungarian Minority in Rumania the former Citadel of the West.
Jan. 14, 1983, LE NOUVEL OBSERVATE UR: When Ceausescu hunts for Hungarians..." (Antoine de Gerando).

Jan. 20,1983, THE WASHINGTON TIMES: Erasing a people's history.
Jan.23, 1983, VALEURS ACTUELLES, Paris: Tension in Transylvania (Gilles Mermoz).
Feb. 28,1983, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Hungarians restive in the East Bloc (Victoria Pope).

March 8.1983, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Education tax was only one of the many Rumanian human rights abuses ­ but it was the last straw (Eric Bourne).

Playwright Ionesco Calls for Boycott


October, 1979
The Transylvanian Quarterly
The Carpathian Observer reports: Rumanian­born playwright Eugene lonesco called on the world's artists and intellectuals to boycott Rumania in protest of that government's treatment of minorities.
"Communist Rumania is becoming the center of repression, hypocrisy and persecution in Europe", lonesco said in a statement on behalf of the Committee of Intellectuals for Rights in Europe (CIEL) of which he is the chairman.
The well­known Rumanian playwright, living in Paris called on "all intellectuals, scientists, artists and creators to boycott Rumania's official institutions, and not to visit this country as long as repression and the disappearances (of dissidents) continue.
We hope that the Academic Community of the United States will heed lonesco's appeal, and will stay away from the 1980 World Historical Congress planned in Bucharest, in spite of the red carpet treatment offered by the Ceausescu government.
The year 1980 was declared by Mr. Ceausescu as the "two­thousandth anniversary of Rumanian statehood between the Dnieper and the Tisza Rivers.'' Everybody knows that the forefathers of the Rumanians, the Vlachs, migrated from the Balkan peninsula into their present location during the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, and Rumania as such became an independent country only one­hundred years ago.
This new Rumanian megalomania reminds us of the ''Herrenrasse­theory" of Hitler, and seems to be the main source of Rumania's ultra­chauvinistic treatment of the national minorities.
The truth is that Hungarians and Germans established culture and civilization in Transylvania long before the first Vlach migrants appeared on the slopes of the Carpathians.

Horror in Transylvania!


(Excerpts from Tom Kennedy's article, published in the Calgary Sun, Canada, September 8, 1981.)
Today, this former part of Hungary is a wretched corner of poverty, ignorance, spiritual degradation and human tribulations on a scale hard to contemplate outside the realm of Third World despotism.
The rural population, mostly ethnic Hungarians, living under Rumanian rule, are without the basic foodstuffs, and everything is fast going from bad to worse,
There has been no flour, sugar, meat or coffee available since last spring. Bread is obtained only seldom and in lumps of about a pound of gritty, gooey matter of uncertain coloring.
Each night, we pray to the Almighty that we wouldn't have to wakeup in the morning, a wizened old woman of 75 years said, She wept as she accepted bread and fruits brought from Hungary, less than 100 miles away, where the markets are full of summer produce.
Meanwhile, Rumanian state­owned trucks, freight trains and ships are hauling practically all that grew this year abroad to be sold for hard currency. Ironically, this year­ Transylvania had a bumper crop. But most of the grain and practically all the livestock had been pledged at rock bottom prices in advance to the Arab countries in exchange for crude oil, and to Western Europe for money.
Rumania is the personal kingdom of president Nicholae Ceausescu who rules this tragic land of immense natural beauty and resources with an iron fist. The rest of the presidential family occupies all the high offices of state and party machinery.
Flanked by his wife, the vice­president and head of the national women's organization, officially known as the Great Mother, Ceausescu recently opened the world university games in Bucharest, the Rumanian capital.
Enthroned in the style of the Roman emperors atop the many­tiered stadium, the divine couple got as much television coverage as the scores of athletes parading below. Books, pamphlets, speeches, ostensibly written by Ceausescu himself, together with larger­than­life­size posters, abound in shops and offices.
The cult of personality obviously encouraged and enjoyed by the president, rivals that lavished on his idol, Joseph Stalin, in the post­war­years.

Will the United States Endorse Cultural Genocide in Rumania?


May 7 1976
The New York Times
Reprinted in the Transylvanian Quarterly
"Two hundred years ago the United States of America was founded on strong moral principles. The fashionable view today holds that those principles have largely eroded since 1776. We Hungarian­Americans do not adhere to this view.
The United States of America is still the champion of human rights and fundamental freedoms around the globe. It leads the fight for these high ideals in the United Nations. It is the hope of oppressed minorities all over the world.
There is now an opportunity to take a further step in the spirit of this noble tradition. Rumania's dictator, Nicholae Ceausescu, is pursuing an increasingly brazen program amounting to CULTURAL GENOCIDE against that country's Hungarian, German and other minorities. The six major elements of this program are:
1. Elimination of minority educational institutions.
Taking full advantage of the state monopoly of education, the Rumanian government eliminates, merges and reorganizes schools at will. As a result, from 1956 to 1974 the number of Hungarian elementary schools dropped from 1515 to 776. (Today, as of September1981, there are only 182 Hungarian elementary schools left in Transylvania, while all Hungarian Middle Schools, High Schools and Colleges were liquidated. Editor.)
2. Suppression of minority languages.
In addition to manipulating the educational system, the Rumanian government employs other methods to suppress the use of minority languages. Rumanian is the exclusive language used at every level of government bureaucracy. This policy encourages chauvinism even in strictly private social situations. Members of minorities often have to put up with derision and threats for using their mother tongue. (Since the publication of this article in the New York Times we have proof of S7 cases when Hungarians were beaten to death by the Rumanian police for the use of the Hungarian language. Those standing in line for hours in front of a bakery or other supply house are sent home empty handed if they dare to utter one single whispered word in Hungarian. Editor.)

3­ Falsification of historical data and population statistics.
The Rumanian Communist Party produces and disseminates its own version of history. Their semi­fictional version of Rumanian history dismisses the significance of the indigenous Hungarian culture which predates the emergence of the first Rumanian state by three centuries.
Through the notorious Communist method of manipulating statistics, the population of minority groups is constantly falsified in government records. (Mr Jonel Margineanu, former supervisor to a census­unit in Transylvania prior to 1977 testified that his written orders were to register every household as Rumanian, unless otherwise demanded by the subject and to hand over a list of those who insisted on being registered as Hungarians to the chiefs of police.
See.­ Documented Facts and Figures on Transylvania, Danubian Press 1977 page 57 Editor.)

4. Confiscation of cultural archives.
This despicable act of the Rumanian government constitutes in itself the crime of cultural genocide. The State appropriated all historic documents, relics, manuscripts, maps, photos, diaries, posters, engravings, imprints and other material in the possession of church archives, private organizations or individuals. Uncompensated confiscation of this kind was reported by the Swiss daily Neue Zuricher Zeitung on February 1 and 2, 1975, page 6: "The material was loaded onto trucks and carted away. The Rumanian government has openly embarked on an escalated campaign against the Reformed (Calvinist) Church and the Hungarian nationality."
(Since then we have proof that most of the confiscated material was burned, including the historical archives of the Trans ylvanian Museum at Kolozsvar (Cluj­Napoca). We also have proof of nine instances when books in Hungarian language published before 1946 were found in Hungarian homes and the owners of those books were beaten, tortured and sent to prison. Editor.)

5. Obstructing contacts with relatives abroad.
Decree­Law 225/1975 prohibits the accomodation of non­Rumanian citizens in private homes in Rumania. Visiting relatives from Hungary or America must be lodged in stateappointed hotels, where they are under police control (and their belongings are examined and their conversations taped. Editor.)
6. Dissolution of ethnic communities.
As in all Communist States, the Rumanian government has complete control over the labor market. Rumania utilizes this control to break up homogeneous ethnic groups. University and vocational school graduates of Hungarian origin are routinely assigned jobs outside their own communities. Rumanians are encouraged to replace them through offers of attractive income and housing opportunities in Hungarian communities. (Since this article appeared in the New York Times, more than 130,000 Hungarians were evacuated by force from their towns or cornmunities, moved into Old­Rumania, and replaced by Rumanians.)

Multiple violations of international law.


The above measures violate not only international standards of human rights, but the Constitution of Rumania itself. Minority populations must bear these outrages in addition to the usual intolerance and terror which affects life of every citizen of Communist states regardless of ethnic origin.
All the the above abuses continue despite Rumania's ratification of the 1966 U.N. Convenant of Civil and Political Rights. Article 27 of the covenant reads as follows
"In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right in community with the other members of their group to profess and practice their own religion or to use their own language."

What can the United States do?


As a reward for her "independence" from Moscow (7) Rumania was granted most­favored­nation status by Congress. That decision overlooked the fact that this "independence" is not founded on decency and a healthy respect for human liberty. The fact is that Rumania today is guilty of the most blatant internal oppression of all the Soviet satellites.
The only condition upon which most­favored­nation status was granted was the requirement of free emigration. This may solve the problem of a handful of people, but the 2.5 million Hungarians want to live, work and prosper in a land which they have inhabited for over one thousand years.
We urge the American Government to exert pressure on Rumania in any possible manner to conform to enlightened standards in its treatment of minorities.
We urge the American public to show the same sympathy and concern toward these people as it has toward so many other victims of political and cultural persecution over the last two hundred years."
Since the above article appeared in the New York Times on May 7, 1976, the situation in Transylvania deteriorated to unbearable proportions.
There is no doubt about the fact that a well planned and brutally executed GENOCIDE is taking place in that country.
We, Americans of Transylvanian­Hungarian descent, urge our Government and the good people of this great country to do something before it is too late!

The "Rumanization" of the Hungarian University School of Marosvasarhely (Tirgu­Mures)


January, 1980
The Transylvanian Quarterly
Owing to a previous decision of the victorious allies after World War II, Transylvania and its principal city, Kolozsvar (Cluj) was re­annexed by Rumania. In 1945 the Ferene Jozsef University, which until that time had been functioning in Kolozsvar, was phased out. Its faculty of medicine was transferred to Marosvasarhely, while its other faculties remained in Kolozsvar under the name of Bolyai University (named for a famous 18th century Hungarian mathematician) .
From that new beginning a faculty of medicine was compelled to establish itself in a small provincial town of 30,000 inhabitants with facilities to provide only a few hospital beds for the training of physicians. Looking back on the last 35 years, it can be seen that all the initial difficulties were overcome. The Ma­­osvasarhely School of Medicine emerged as the intellectual center of the Hungarian ethnic group, a position which is being increasingly contested by the ruling Rumanian majority even though the Hungarians are the second largest nationality in the country
Beginning in 1945 the Medical School afforded training to an average of 1,000 students annually. During the following 15 years (up to 1960) about 3,000 of them graduated as physicians and chemists (pharmacologists), most of them Hungarian nationals. The number of Rumanian­speaking students never exceeded 25­30 per annum during those years. In the initial five­year period most of the professors were those who had come over from the faculty at Kolozsvar, but owing to the growing impetus of "rumanization" most of them gradually left for the Hungarian motherland. One who stayed on was the illustrious ear­nose­throat specialist, Professor Vince Vendeg who died there a few years ago.
When the "Hungarian Autonomous Province" was set­up in the early fifties, the divorce from the alma mater in Kolozsvar was completed and the institution re­named "University School of Medicine and Pharmacology". It was subdivided into four sections: 1) General Medicine; 2) Pediatrics; 3) Dentistry and Stomatology; 4) Pharmacology.
During those years, the Dean, all of the professors, lecturers and assistants were Hungarian, except for two Rumanians, both of whom were bilingual, Rumanian­Hungarian. The Communist bias of the educational style had been pretty emphatic throughout that period, but the use of the Hungarian language was not impeded in the slightest. Moreover, the vast majority of Hungarian graduate physicians and pharmacists were provided jobs in Hungarian inhabited Transylvania and its periphery, in the districts of Szatmar, Nagyvarad, Arad, Nagybanya, etc.
This 'undisturbed' ',if not idyllic, state of affairs did come to an abrupt end with the Hungarian national uprising of 1956. The Communist Party and Government of Rumania were evidently apprehensive lest the revolutionary fire in Hungary would spread to Transylvania, particularly to Kolozsvar and Marosvasarhely. Hence a campaign of suppression (anti­Hungarian in nature) was set in motion with the approval and support of the Soviet authorities. Great care was taken not to give the campaign an ideological character; it was directed against everything conveyed by the Hungarian language ­ folks songs, theatrical productions, novels, but primarily at education. That was the time it became evident they were attempting to eradicate the Hungarian language by using the slogan, "Rumanian is our mother tongue". "Rumanization" became one of the principal drives of the Party, which succeeded in harnessing to it quite a few professors and students by bribing them or threatening coercion. At the same time came the demise of the University School's Hungarian Folkloristic Art Ensemble which for many years had been doing a valuable cultural work. Its leader, a linguistic teacher named Korody, was first badly defamed and subsequently jailed for several years.
Once the University Medical School's Hungarian cultural life had been stifled, the rest was dealt with quickly. During the summer holidays of 1962 an assistant professor of the Rumanian Faculty of Medicine of the University of Kolozsvar, Dr. Ion Pop D. Popa, was appointed first to deputy head surgeon of Marosvar Surgical Clinic and six weeks later to lecturing professor. Later he was appointed Assistant Dean of the University School as well as its Party secretary. This meant that he was given practically unlimited powers. During the subsequent term undergraduates turned up from the "old kingdom" (the so­called "regat") part of the country beyond the Carpathians, who spoke no other language but Rumanian. Although there were only 15­20 of these students, all practical work was thereafter to be conducted in Rumanian. All theoretical subjects were taught in both languages and the Hungarian students were compelled to attend both the Hungarian and Rumanian courses. To avoid such terrible waste of time, most Hungarian students volunteered for the Rumanian language courses. Marosvasarhely (Tirgu­Mures) soon acquired the reputation of favoring Rumanian aspirants by giving them easy entrance examinations. The result of all those trickeries just stated was that by this time up to 70% of the students at that School of Medicine originally meant to be the Hungarian section of the former Ferenc Jozsef Universitv of Kolozsvar were of Rumanian nationality.
The basic principle of "rumanization" in cases such as the Faculty of Medicine at Marosvasarhely is that the figurehead at the top, in this case the dean, must be a Hungarian (Professor Janos Laszlo at the time of this writing), while his assistant is also the Party Secretary as well as Rumanian. At present the Assistant Dean is Emilian Bancu whose brother­in­law Dorm Niculescu holdes the chair of urology. The chair of internal medicine, founded by the Hungarian professor of international fame, Professor Miskolczy, has been inherited by the Rumanian Octavian Popovici. Radiology, which has been most successfully run for 35 years by Professor Krebs, who is due to retire this year, has already been handed over to Dumitru Stanciu, and so on it goes...
This is the way the Hungarian past, present and future is being eradicated from the once famous Hungarian Medical Faculty of Kolozsvar and thereafter Marosvasarhely.
Victor de Stankovich

If YOU were born today to Hungarian Parents in the ancient Hungarian Homeland of Transylvania:


April 1981
The Transylvanian Quarterly
1. The name chosen for you by your parents would be arbitrarily changed by the registering authorities to suit the Ceausescu­policy of Rumanization. Should your parents try to endorse you with the simple name of "Janos'", your official papers would declare you "Juon", but if they had the courage to endow you with one of the old historic names like "Arpad" or "Csaba", they would be subjected to endless harassment by the local authorities, and you would end up with the official name of "Trajan" or "Micea."
2. Your parents would hardly dare to have you bapitzed in a church. They would either abandon the idea of baptism completely in fear of reprisals, like loss of job, harassment by the police, or they would ask a minister to visit their home one day and perform the ritual in secret.
3. After reaching the age of three, your parents would be obliged by law to take you to the compulsory state­controlled nursery where you would hear nothing but Rumanian spoken, and where you are drilled to answer these two principal questions in Rumanian: why are you? and what are you? To the first question you have to state your name in Rumanian, like "Juon Sabau" instead of Szab6 Janos, while the answer to the second question is: "I am a good little Rumanian!'" Your adherence to these indoctrinations will be checked several times during your early years in your home also, by visiting authorities.
In case your parents are loyal patriotic Hungarians, and they teach you at home your own Hungarian cultural heritage, you may easily blurt out one day: "I am a good little Hungarian!" (We know of several cases.) Your parents will be ordered to report to the dreaded SECURITATE, where they will be scolded, beaten and warned that if your "defiant and unpatriotic behaviour" does not change shortly, you will be taken away from them and placed in a state­controlled orphans' home.
4. After nursery and kindergarten your parents may have the choice to enroll you into a Hungarian­language grade school if there is still one left in your immediate neighborhood. According to law, 25 Hungarian pupils are needed to justify the maintenance of a Hungarian­language class. However, the presence of one Rumanian child suffices to change the language of instruction from Hungarian to Rumanian. Due to the constant transfer of Rumanian families into the Hungarian inhabited areas, the use of the Hungarian language in the grade schools is diminishing rapidly.
Nevertheless, if you were lucky enough to enter one of the few remaining grade schools where the language of instruction is still Hungarian, you will pay a high price for this privilege after you finish the sixth grade. Rumanian­language schools will not take you in, no matter how well you speak, read and write the Rumanian language. Since there are only a very few schools left in Hungarian inhabited Transylvania still operating on the higher levels in the Hungarian language, your chance for an education ends here. You are condemned for the rest of your life to low­paid manual labor. Should you be lucky to live in a larger Hungarian city where you may still find a Hungarian high school, you can graduate there, but it will not do you too much good. You will not be able to enter college, and your diploma from the Hungarian­language high school will not qualify you for jobs usually requiring no more than high school degree. The Department of Labor of the Rumanian State will assign you to manual labor of the lowest kind, and there is no way you can ever change that. In Rumania you do not apply for jobs. The jobs are assigned to you officially.
5. If your parents enrolled you into a Rumanian language school, you may choose any profession you like, and for which you show talent. You can end up with a doctor's degree, in spite of being born Hungarian. But as soon as you finish school you will be assigned to a job far removed from home, somewhere in old Rumania, in a cornpletely Rumanian environment. You will have there a one­room housing unit allocated to you, and after you get married there you will have the privilege to lease nearby a garden­plot for your family's use.
6. Should you end up as a factory worker you will be officially retired from the job at the age of forty­five. You immediately lose your right to home and garden. While your Rumanian counterpart is assigned to another job, you as a Hungarian, are faced with a tragedy. You have no job, and no retirement pay. You have no future, unless you are able to prove to the authorities that you gave up your Hungarian heritage, you became a "good Rumanian", your children don't speak the Hungarian language anymore, and you are an ardent supporter of "Leader Ceausescu"s ideology" of Rumanian superiority from the Black Sea to the Tisza River.
THIS IS A FACT: EVERY YEAR SEVERAL HUNDRED HUNGARIANS ESCAPE THROUGH SUICIDE, BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO FUTURE IN THEIR OWN HOMELAND!
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