Day of Remembrance Honors the Victims of Communist Repression

The main characteristic of the communist dictatorship was that vulnerability became widespread, and anyone could become a victim, said the president of the Committee of National Remembrance (NEB) at a memorial service held on Wednesday at the Monument of National Martyrs in Budapest. The commemoration event was organized by the Rákóczi Association, the Office of the National Assembly, and the NEB on the Memorial Day for the Victims of Communism.

Réka Földváryné Kiss recalled that on February 27, 1947, Soviet authorities arrested Béla Kovács, secretary-general of the Kisgazdapárt (Smallholders’ Party), who was “the most courageous of the politicians of the time in opposing the Soviet occupation.” She said that

this day was not only a personal tragedy for a politician, but also a symbol of the unfolding of the violent communist takeover.

She recalled that the political police had been preparing the show trials for months, accompanied by a coordinated propaganda and press campaign. The key concepts of this campaign, the tools of escalating verbal terror, were the fight against resistance, to which they added the accusation of fascism.

The National Guard at the commemoration ceremony held on the Memorial Day for the Victims of Communism at the Monument of National Martyrs in Budapest on February 25, 2026. Photo: MTI/Lakatos Péter

It was impossible to defend oneself against these accusations in the communist-controlled public sphere.

The deportation of Béla Kovács marked a clear turning point for all those who hoped for the establishment of a democratic system and the restoration of national sovereignty,

she added.

The speaker then recalled the absurdity of the communist dictatorship through personal examples of ordinary people at the commemoration also attended by high school students.

She recounted, for instance, that after the suppression of the 1956 revolution and war of independence, in December 1956, a group of young people between the ages of 14 and 17 found an unusable machine gun in a canal in a village in the Great Plain, and then after one of them was seen with the ineffective weapon on the main street of the village, the members of the group were sentenced to a total of 35 years in prison.

She emphasized that

in 1956, the hope for freedom was crushed by Soviet tanks and Hungarian communists, who claimed that the revolution was a fascist conspiracy.

At the end of the ceremony, Réka Földváryné Kiss, János Latorcai, Vice-President of the National Assembly, Rákóczi Association President Csongor Csáky, and Zoltán Szalay, member of the board of trustees of the Public Foundation for Freedom Fighters, laid wreaths at the memorial.

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