As Hungarians remembered the fallen heroes of the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, the sins of the fathers have once again surfaced, writes Hungarian conservative Gábor Bencsik on social media.
The main point of his post was the hypocrisy of former socialist prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány also being part of these commemorations. Gyurcsány was a Hungarian prime minister between 2004 and 2009 and is also a wealthy businessman, a billionaire in Hungarian forints, making him at least a millionaire in terms of dollars or euros. He is also currently the de facto leader of the leftist opposition parties.
But Bencsik’s point in his Facebook post was not so much about Gyurcsány’s current political affiliation but his inheritance, namely the fact that he lives in a splendid villa his wife inherited from her grandfather, the communist politician Antal Apró.
Apró was a prominent official of the Hungarian Communist regime serving as Speaker of the House between 1971 and 1984. He was also the one who oversaw the Communist Party’s show trial in which the prime minister of the revolution, Imre Nagy, was sentenced along with his three co-defendants. He was also the one who publicly announced their execution as “the rightful retribution on behalf of the (Hungarian) people.”
Bencsik wrote on Facebook, “Ferenc Gyurcsány woke up in his Buda villa that his wife’s grandfather received (…) for overseeing the show trial of Imre Nagy up until his execution. Gyurcsány had breakfast, did some household chores, made a few phone calls and went to Imre Nagy’s statue where he spoke about Nagy’s heritage, freedom and rule of law. Then he went home to the villa, a blood reward for Nagy’s execution, watched a good movie and went to bed with the satisfaction that he is now the leader of the Hungarian opposition. Would any foreigner believe this story? I don’t think so.”
Title image: Ferenc Gyurcsány’s villa in an upmarket Buda district (source: Facebook)
