[Table of Contents] [Previous] [Next] [Bibliography] [HMK Home] Genocide in Transylvania

Increasing Terror in Rumania


March, 1981
Amnesty International London
The Amnesty International reports from London: An increasing number of dissidents are being presently arrested in Rumania, and held in prisons without trial or locked up in mental hospitals. Though statistics recently published by the Rumanian government show a slight decrease in the number of those imprisoned throughout the country, the reason for this decrease can be found in the mass release of thieves and other petty criminals from the overcrowded Rumanian jails.
During the months of December 1980 and January 1981 an increased number of dissidents, mostly Hungarians, were arrested under the pretexts of "homosexuality" and "idle lifestyle". The latter definition is being frequently used against Hungarian workers who are first fired from their jobs under some pretext, then arrested for "loafing".
Leaders of ethnic cultural institutions, church elders as well as other members of diehard congregations, and all those who dare to criticize oppressive government practices are exposed to intensive persecution.

Answer to Those Who Maintain that Rumania Furnished Proof of her Anti­Russian Attitude by Refusing to Send Troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968


March, 1981
The Transylvanian Quarterly
The reason for not taking part in the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia was the very fact that the Rumanian government was afraid of a similar revolt within its own borders spearheaded by the Hungarians in Transylvania. Rumanian troops concentrated along the Hungarian border as well as in the central and eastern parts of Transylvania. The same drastic measures of intimidation were used against the Transylvanian Hungarians as in 1956, during the Hungarian Uprising, which was squelched by the Russians with Rumanian aid.

The Following Acts and/or Intentions of the Rumanian Socialist Republic, both in Transylvania and Moldavia, have been proven:


October, 1981
The Transylvanian Quarterly
1. The Rumanian Socialist Republic wants to annihilate 20 to 25 percent of the Hungarians of the world by a fixed date. The Hungarians and Germans in Moldavia, who settled there well before the Rumanians and composed a 42 percent majority among the more than twenty nationalities living there, have been almost completely annihilated by the Rumanian Socialist Republic;
2. In Moldavia, all of the schools have been confiscated from the approximately 250,000 Hungarians who live there today;
3. Hungarian schools in Transylvania are being gradually closed according to planned procedures;
4. The Autonomous Hungarian Territory has been abolished:
5. In Rumania, Hungarian churches are razed on the pretext of "urbanization," and Rumanian churches are built to ensure the Rumanian character of the cities:
6. Epitaphs in Hungarian graveyards are "Rumanized";
7. In the death camps of the Danube Delta,
70 to 75 percent of the prisoners are Hungarians even though the number of Hungarians presently in Great Rumania amounts to only 15 to 17 percent of the population:
8. The leaders of the Hungarian nationalities are being annihilated by police or subjected to psychological terror. (According to Amnesty International, several have been barbarously murdered.);
9. A total of 1.5 million Rumanians have settled in Transylvania since the end of World War II, and the settlement continues to this day;
10. Connections between Hungary and Transylvania have been made increasingly difficult;
11. Hungarians are limited to one travel permit every two years if they wish to visit relatives in Moldavia;
12. Hungarian tourists or tourists of other nationalities visiting relatives may not board with Hungarian families, and those Hungarians who talk to foreign tourists are branded, persecuted, threatened and harrassed;
13. The 500,000 Hungarians in Szatmarnemeti, Nagykaroly, Nagyvarad, Arad and Temesvar are excluded from the recently signed Hungarian­Rumanian small­border traffic treaty in order to safeguard the interests of Rumanization;
14. The works of Hungarian writers are censored by Rumanians or Hungarian traitors:
15. Road and street signs are written in Rumanian only;
16. Transylvanian Hungarian books are published in Bucharest in Rumanian surroundings, effectively isolating Hungarian writers and editors from a Hungarian environment;
17. All Hungarian universities have been closed in Rumania;
18. It is forbidden to speak Hungarian in factories and offices;
19. In Rumania not a single Hungarian is a military officer or pilot, and only Rumanians may be members of the police force (militia);
20. The Communist Party rejects Hungarians who are true to their nationality;
21. In the interests of rumanization, the program of the Rumanian Communist Party regarding nationality affairs is identical to that of the "National Socialist Iron Guard" or the Hungarian­killer Maniu Guard;
22. Doctors may not speak Hungarian;
23. Children in school are taught that:
A. Hungarians and their ancestors were animalistic, raw meat­eating barbarians who threatened the lives of the peaceful Rumanians,
B. Transylvania was never Hungarian,
C. Szekler Hungarians were Thraks of obscure ancestry who were taught to write and cook by the Rumanians,
D.Transylvania, the cradle of "Romanismus," was one of the "three Rumanian" lands during the last 2,000 years, and
E. Janos Hunyadi and Gyorgy D6zsa were Rumanians;
24. The Rumanian Government has declared that the destiny of Hungarians in Rumania, since they are merely Hungarian­speaking Rumanians, is an "internal" affair;
25. Hungarian Jews were stripped of all of their property and compelled to leave their country. A similar fate awaits the Germans of Rumania,
26. The Rumanian State plans to completely eliminate all Hungarian kindergartens and elementary schools within twenty years;
27. The Rumanian State (on an unlimited budget) floods the world with hundreds of thousands of books and encyclopedias which falsify the history of the Hungarians and Europe:
28. All the intentions of the Rumanian Socialist Republic are governed by the nationalistic and reactionary theory known as the Daco­Roman Theory;
29. The Rumanian Socialist Republic proclaims its frontiers from the "Dnyester as far as the Tisza", based on the fact that Transylvania was conquered and looted by the Romans for 1.5 centuries.
An end to the enumerated complaints had been requested in the past in various memorandums not only by the Transylvanian World Federation, but by a faithful communist Karoly Kiraly, in Rumania, a non­party man, Sandor Zolcsak and other Hungarian, German and Jewish nationality leaders.
The Rumanian Socialist Republic is obliged by the Peace Treaties of Trianon and Paris to respect the national and human rights of the nationalities who are the original inhabitants of that territory.

Job Discrimination and Discrimination on the Job


January, 1981
Wherever new industrial plants are established by the Rumanian government, Hungarians are hired only when there are not enough Rumanian applicants. Those who are allowed to work are constantly harassed by their Rumanian superiors. Hungarians are called "bozgore" meaning "homeless stranger" or "vagabond"', and are forbidden to use their mother tongue. Hungarian children, though native to the land, are exposed to the same humiliation and persecution in the schools.

Baptist Church in Bujac Confiscated


October, 1979
Romania (EWNS)
President Nicolae Ceausescu announced during a special telecast in Romania, that all premises built without government approval will either be confiscated or demolished.
On March 28, the Baptist Church in Bujac., Romania was confiscated and two other churches in the town of Oradea are now awaiting the same fate.
Due to the present oil crisis which weighs heavily on the Romanian economy, President Ceausescu also introduced a new rule concerning travel on Sunday by private transportation. In the future, travel by car will be permitted only on alternate Sundays depending upon the odd and even registration numbers of the cars. This hits very hard at pastors who have to travel great distances to minister to their congregation. Several pastors have requested the government to provide a special exemption for them, saying they would be willing to surrender two other days of non­travel in exchange for being allowed to travel on Sundays. The Romanian government answered with a loud "No."

New Attempt to Strangulate the Churches


The number of divinity students authorized to prepare for the ministry is strictly limited today in Rumania by an ever decreasing quota. In 1980 sixty­five Hungarian protestant students applied for permission to enroll in the Theology, but only seven received authorization from Bucharest.

Hungarian Cities Closed to Hungarians


Into such ancient Hungarian cultural centers as Kolozsvar (Cluj), Marosvasarhely (Tirgu Mures), Nagyvarad (Oradea) and Szatmar (Satumare) only Rumanians are allowed to settle today, Hungarians not. Those native Hungarians on the other hand who are still living there, are being gradually evacuated street by street and moved across the Carpathians into old­Rumania.

The Kiraly Case


October. 1979
The Transylvanian Quarterly
On September 10, 1977, Karoly Kiraly, a native Hungarian of Transylvania and member of the Central Committee of the Rumanian Communist Party, wrote an historic letter to Ilie Verde, chairman of that Central Committee. He accused the Ceausescu government of breach of the Constitution, and acts committed against the basic principles of the Marxist doctrine in their treatment of the Hungarian minority. Kiraly also charged the Rumanian government with cultural genocide, intimidation, brutality, as well as political, economical and social discrimination against the native Hungarian population of Transylvania.
Within 24 hours after the public release of that letter in one of the Hungarian party publications in Bucharest, Mr. Kiraly, his wife and children, were arrested, disciplined and deported into another part of the country. The editor responsible for the publication of the letter was also arrested. On January 24, 1978, The Times, The Guardian, The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and on January 25 the Le Monde, February 1 The New York Times carried the story, focusing world­wide attention on the Kiraly case. A short time later the complete English, French and German translations of the Kiraly letter was published here and abroad also.
Those familiar with the situation in Rumania agree that the publicity might have saved Kiraly's life. Ceausescu, in an attempt to show his tolerance to the Western World, from where substantial aid is flowing these days into Rumania, did not retaliate. Kiraly was not beaten to death like the high school teachers Szikszai and Kuthy or thrown into prison like hundreds of other less outstanding dissenters. After all, Kiraly was one of the "founding fathers" of the Rumanian Communist Party. He was simply "banished from public life", as a disciplinary measure, and "relocated for his own safety" into a distant place where "he could freely move about but was not allowed to leave the city limits, temporarily." The location had to be kept secret", inquirers were told.
For quite a long time nobody knew for certain what had really happened to the courageous Hungarian who dared to raise his voice against the brutal and oppressive Nazi­like minority policies of "Fuhrer" Ceausescu. Nevertheless, the Kiraly­letter became an important cornerstone in the evaluation of Rumania's internal affairs. Not only throughout the Western Hemisphere, but within the Socialist camp as well. The complaint concerning the total disregard of minority rights came this time from a leading Communist, thus furnishing concrete proof that protests, appeals and demonstrations carried out during recent years in Washington, and elsewhere, by Transylvanian exile organizations in America, were not motivated by bigoted propaganda but were truly deploring an intolerable situation, a genocide in progress, and rightfully pleading with the government of the United States to intervene on behalf of the three­million Hungarians of Transylvania before it would be too late.
After more than a year of complete silence, a message has reached the Free World again concerning the fate of Mr. Kiraly and his family. The message came directly from Transylvania, in March 1979, through a visiting tourist whose name cannot be released for well known reasons. This tourist, a highly reliable person living in the West and visiting relatives in Transylvania, had the opportunity to meet face­to­face with Karoly Kiraly and his best friend, Sandor Zolcsak. He was told that the house in which Mr. Kiraly and his family are forced to live is being exposed night after night to nuclear radiation.
Two months later, after complaining of strange spells, a visiting Hungarian doctor by the name of Hadnagy, an expert in radiation, examined the entire Kiraly family and detected distinct symptoms of radiation. Four unexposed films inside the house also showed signs of radiation.
Knowing well that in Rumania he cannot officially obtain a fair diagnosis, Mr. Kiraly petitioned the Rumanian authorities in May to be allowed to visit another Socialist country, preferably Hungary or Czechoslovakia, for treatment. Permission was denied. According to Hungarian medical opinions, the Rumanian government was trying to drag out the time until radiation as such cannot be indisputably proven, though the damage caused by radiation is fatal.
It was observed by reliable witnesses, among them medical experts with hidden instruments in their pockets, that night after night some kind of armored truck pulled up across from the building where Kiraly and his family were kept, and parked there five to six hours. Driving along the lonely street, between the Kiraly house and the parked vehicle, the instruments showed strong radiation.
The newest reports indicate that from July on, the Zolcsak family is also being exposed to the same radiation. The two men, Kiraly and Zolcsak, see no other hope for themselves and their families than to be subjected as soon as possible to an unbiased investigation by some sort of international committee of medical experts. Last week in July they sent again a message to Hungary, and an international committee of Polish­Hungarian­Czechoslovak medical experts asked permission to enter the country and examine the two families. Rumanian authorities denied the permission.
The last report received by the Transylvanian World Federation in mid­September stated that Mr. Kiraly, his wife and his children were taken to a hospital for treatment, location unknown. The Zolcsak family disappeared at the same time.
We must seriously wonder: just how long will the world tolerate outrageous crimes of such proportions against humanity?

New Assault Against the Relics of the Hungarian Past


During the months of July and August 1981 the Rumanian Communist government sent several "pioneer units"' recruited from among high school and college students into the purely Hungarian regions of Transylvania, known as the Szekelyland, to seek out the old mountain­cemeteries and burn every "kopjafa" they could find. The "kopjafa" (meaning javelin­shaft) was in the olden days the grave marker of brave men. They were handcarved and hand­painted in special and individual ways, telling the family­line and the deeds accomplished by the dead, very similar to the Indian totem­poles.


Apri4 1980
The Transylvanian Quarterly

Another Hungarian Clergyman "Exterminated"


TWF reports from Des (Dej) Transylvania: On June 8, 1980 from Reverend Istvan Andras, minister of the Calvinist Hungarian Church of Des, was arrested in his home, taken to police headquarters and beaten to death. The official police report stated that Reverend Andras refused to answer questions concerning an alleged plot to "overthrow the government" and when left alone for a few minutes he threw himself out of a third story window and then beat his head against the pavement until he died.
Reverend Andras was instrumental in organizing within his church a youth group for the purpose of singing old Hungarian folk songs and reciting poetry. Since his activity was in conflict with the aims of the Ceausescu regime to stamp out every trace of Hungarian culture in this ancient Hungarian province, Reverend Istvan Andras had to be silenced for good.
His wife and twelve year old son were put into a mental institution for "observation".

Rumania Leading in Suicide

According to recently released world­statistics, the highest suicide rate comes from Rumania. Though there is no mention made of the province leading in this tragic race, we can rightfully assume that the figures released include mostly Hungarians from Transylvania who are unable to cope with the sadistic treatment of Rumanian authorities and can't see any future in their ancient homeland taken over by a cruel Balkan nation.

Low Interest Loan to Rumania


The National Enquirer reported on March 18, 1980: "While high interest rates are burning millions of Americans, U.S. bureaucrats are giving away millions each year in low interest loans to communist countries."
Among those countries receiving recently such low interest loans, the Enquirer lists Rumania with 2.5 million at 8 percent.
The article quotes Congressman Richard Schulze, (R. Pa.), saying: "How can we give these Communists taxpayers' money at 8 percent, while Americans can not afford to buy a home at 15 percent interest?"

Russia's Executioner in 1956


After the brutal squelching of the short­lived free Hungarian Republic in November 1956, Rumania eagerly joined Russia in "rounding up" freedom­loving Hungarians by the thousands, and executing them.
Prime minister Imre Nagy, head of the free Hungarian government of October 1956, as well as the young and heroic general Paul Maleter, leader of the Hungarian Freedom Fighters, were both executed in Rumania, by Rumanians, without trial, in order to please their Russian masters. In return for this loyal and devoted service the Soviet Union agreed to pull out its troops from Rumania, since there was no need to police this most trustworthy member of the communist block any longer.
From that time on Rumania enjoys "special privileges" in Moscow, including the privilege to 'sass'' its Kremlin masters for the benefit of the gullible West and serve as a spy while doing so.
For the good of world­communism, of course.

Reports from Transylvania


October, 1982
The Transylvanian Quarterly
Szamosujvar ­ Gherla, January, 1982: Tibor Negrucz, former Hungarian merchant of Armenian descent, now garbage worker, was beaten and jailed for thirty days without a hearing for singing Hungarian folk songs while at work and refusing to quit when so ordered by the police.
Nagysarmas ­ Sarmas, January, 1982: The official census of the Rumanian government shows 1,211 Hungarians in this Transylvanian town. However the roster of the local Hungarian Calvinist Church alone lists 2,300 active members of the congregation, with street and house numbers.
Medgyes ­ Medias, December 1981: Peter Bugos and Laszlo Selmeci, workers in the city's shoe factory were overheard by their Rumanian supervisor talking Hungarian among themselves. They lost their jobs immediately and were put to work by the police with a street cleaning crew from the nearby state prison. There was no official hearing granted.
Marosvasarhely ­ Tirgu Mures, February 1982: Seventh grade teacher, Ms. Tirnaveanu, in the Papiu Ilarion liceum ­ formerly the Hungarian Calvinist school ­ tells her pupils that they are living now in Great Rumania, therefore they are not allowed to speak any other language but Rumanian. Children caught talking Hungarian on the playground during recess, receive from her 25 licks with a heavy oak stick.

Some of the Individual Cases Investigated and Reported by the Transylvanian World Federation Between 1976­1979


JENO SZIKSZAI, professor in Brasso­Brasov, was arrested in the spring of 1977 for collecting signatures against the closing down of Hungarian schools. He was severely beaten and tortured by the security police under the cornmand of Lt. Dan Nicolescu. He committed "suicide".
LAJOS KUTHY, also professor in Brasso­Brasov, was beaten and tortured for collecting signatures, and was found shot in a forest.
JAN0S SZABO protested against the harassment of the Hungarian minority in Rumania, and sent a letter to exiled dissident writer Paul Goma in the spring of 1977. He was arrested, beaten and tortured and condemned to forced labor. (Amnesty International records.)
BELA NISZLY, elderly lawyer, gave judicial assistance to Hungarians who denounced the discriminatory measures of the authorities. He was interned in the Dr. Petru Groza psychiatric hospital, his house confiscated and given to Rumanians.
JAN0S TOROK, textile technician in Kolozsvar (Cluj) publicly criticized the electorial procedures and stated that deputies elected "in advance" by the government would not represent the interests of the workers. He was beaten, tortured and interned in the same psychiatric hospital as Niszly, where he was treated for several months with massive doses of Plegomazin and Amital.
SIMA, school teacher in Fogaras was exposed to the same treatment in the same hospital for teaching in his history class that Transylvania was formerly part of Hungary.

TIVADAR BUSA, artist, organized a group of protesters in Lugos. He was arrested in 1978 and disappeared.

FRANCIS HOLZ, signed an open letter in favor of human rights, was beaten, tortured, and locked up in the psychiatric hospital. No report about him since 1979.
SFERDIAN of Arad is a Baptist of Hungarian origin. In April 1978 he requested authorization to leave Rumania. He was refused, arrested, beaten and tortured for several months.

Four Hundred Year Old Hungarian School Confiscated


The Carpathian Observer reports: "The 400th anniversary of one of the first schools in Transylvania, called today the Mathematics­Physics Lycee No. 3 in Cluj­Napoca, has been recently celebrated. Addressing the attendance at the festivity, the head­mistress of the lycee recalled the century­old records of the cultural establishment where numerous personalities of Transylvania's social, cultural and scientific life had been educated." This report in the "Tribunea Romaniei", a bi­weekly paper published in Bucharest for Rumanian­Americans fails to mention that the school was established in 1579 by the Hungarian Stephen Bathory, Governor of Transylvania and later King of Poland. In 1948 the Rumanians nationalized and gradually Rumanized this originally Hungarian Catholic High School. Plans for the anniversary celebrations included invitation of former students, most of them Hungarian, now living abroad, but this was not permitted by Rumanian authorities. So this truly Hungarian cultural event in the historic Hungarian cultural capital of Transylvania, Kolozsvar (Cluj) was turned into a Rumanian one, just as many other Hungarian historic events and achievements in the past 30 years."
We must add to this that the two other ancient Hungarian educational centers of Kolozsvar, the Calvinist "Reformed Collegium", and "Unitarian Collegium" were nationalized and Rumanized the same way, with no credit given to the two Hungarian churches for past achievements.

"My Crime: I Spoke Hungarian!"


October; 1982
The Transylvanian Quarterly
Under this title a striking postal card appeared this year in France, published by the Groupement pour les Droits des Minorites, rue Honore Chevalier 12, Paris. The picture on the card shows a lonely little boy, head bent, facing a bare, dismal brick wall with a large sign on his back which reads:
"I spoke Hungarian!"
The picture was published in several newspapers telling the free world the unbelieveably sad story that there are more than 600,000 Hungarian school children today, forced into the newly established ultra­nationalistic Rumanian school system in Transylvania, who are strictly forbidden the use of their native tongue, even on the playground, during recess. Any youngster caught uttering just a few whispered words in Hungarian to one of his friends or relatives is severly punished. The punishment for such seditious behavior varies from standing in the corner for hours with a sign on the back, sometimes holding heavy cement blocks in their hands, to twenty­five strokes with a heavy stick which draws blood and leaves serious bruises.

Condemned to Starvation


October 1982
The Transylvanian Quarterly
To several observers it seems that the Ceausescu government of Rumania is introducing a new method to rid Transylvania from its native Hungarian population. Beside deportations into forced labor camps, hospitals where the unfortunate inmates are being used for experimental purposes or simple acts of murder perpetrated by the hated Securitate, the Hungarians are facing now a new terror: hunger.
Travelers returning from Rumania verify the news that while the entire country suffers from certain food shortages due to the mismanagement of the Ceausescu regime, authorities in charge of food distribution keep the needed supplies away from Hungarian inhabited regions.
Hungarian villagers, whose farms were "nationalized"" are not even allowed to use their own backyard ovens for baking their own bread. Once a week they have to stand in long lines in front of the police station waiting for a certain truck which brings their bread from distant factories. The bread they are forced to buy is not only poor quality but is handed out to them in such small quantities that it hardly lasts for two or three days. Since they are not allowed to raise their own beef, pork or even poultry, the Hungarian diet in Transylvania consists mostly of greens gathered from the hillside and potatoes and cabbages grown in their small gardens. With winter coming and the food supply cut shorter and shorter by government agencies, the death toll among the elderly and the young will certainly rise. Which is exactly what Dictator Ceausescu is trying to accomplish in his quest of exterminating the Hungarian population.
[Table of Contents] [Previous] [Next] [Bibliography] [HMK Home] Genocide in Transylvania