Mária Schmidt: The communist idea was built on the basest instincts

Communism, the communist idea, was built on the basest instincts of people - stated the director general of the House of Terror Museum and the Institute for Communism Research, "A great crime requires a great idea!" at the award ceremony of the video competition named after the temporary exhibition on Monday in Budapest. At the event held at the House of Terror Museum, Mária Schmidt spoke about how she disagrees with the fact that today's young people have no ambition, they are indifferent, they have no interest in the past, since this application - for which more than 30 young people mobilized their brain cells, created a creative and educational videos - also proof that today's people also want to know where they came from, where they are going, that they have talent and ambition.

he said. Mária Schmidt, and added: communism as an idea is not just a political project, it is much more.

- In addition to the political idea, Communism also implemented cultural, linguistic and social organization principles and built a wide-ranging institutional system, because they were aware of it: they need all of these in order to be able to operate their ideas on a large scale and in the long term - he emphasized. - In addition to the fact that the communist idea was based on the basest instincts of people - among others, envy, selfishness and hatred - it even strengthened this. This is the main sin of communism, in addition to causing the death, maiming and suffering of hundreds of millions, as well as poisoning people's thinking, he declared.

Communism caused damage and suffering

The director-general called it a serious problem that when we talk about communism, we have to think not only of the past, but also of the present, since the thinking of many young people is still poisoned by the idea of ​​communism, especially in the West.

said the director general.

He thanked everyone for their work, especially highlighting Rajmund Fekete, who had the idea of ​​the application and who carried the entire program to his heart. Mária Schmidt expressed her joy that they can show together the damage and suffering caused by communism. He drew attention to the fact that even though he had great ideas, only evil deeds remain in our memory today.

Rajmund Fekete, director of the Communism Research Institute, expressed his joy at the creation of the competition and the fact that so many young people participated in it. As he said, the House of Terror Museum, XX. It is important for both the Század Institute and the Communism Research Institute that today's young people know exactly what their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents went through, and that they understand that freedom was not given for free, that there were such destructive ideas in the last century that, in the hope of a false promise they were able to sacrifice everything, where the deaths of millions were merely boring statistics.

he said.

He announced that not only the first three authors of the submitted entries will be awarded, but all applicants will receive a gift, a book package, and a special prize will be awarded, the winner of which will be able to take his entire class to the House of Terror Museum.

Applications came from all over the country

It was said at the ceremony that the competition encouraged the students to narrate the crimes of Communism in a video, to tell the stories of the perpetrators or of the resisting heroes, and the exhibition that opened in September last year and held a bold, grotesque and crooked mirror at the same time gave the students the opportunity to do so. inspiration for him. Applicants could participate in the competition with videos of up to one minute, without genre restriction. The recordings came from secondary schools all over the country - Budapest, Dunavecse, Érd, Hajdúnánás, Inárcs, Máza, Nagykanizsa, Rákóczifalva, Sopron, Székesfehérvár, Vecsés and Veresegyház.

The students also chose nationally known persons and stories related to their own local settlements as their topics, according to the background material published for the event. In addition to Mária Schmidt and Rajmund Fekete, Szilvia Géczi, communications director of the House of Terror Museum, Sam Havadtoy, visual artist, painter, creator of the works of art of the temporary exhibition, Endre Botka, defender of Ferencváros and the Hungarian national football team, Péter Egri, rockabilly of the Mystery Gang, presented the band singer, creative producer and director Roland Mák and communications specialist László Szabó. The first prize was won by Péter Seungu Csoma, who presented the story of nine-year-old Li Szüng-bok, "the Korean Peter Mansfeld", in his project. In 1968, as a South Korean, the boy bravely told the attacking North Korean commandos that he hated the Communist Party, for which he was brutally murdered, thus becoming a martyr of Communist terror. A statue erected in Seoul preserves the memory of Li Szüng-bok.

MTI

Front page image: Mária Schmidt, the director general of the House of Terror Museum and the Institute for Communism Research, gives a speech A great crime requires a great idea!
on May 13, 2024 at the award ceremony of the video competition entitled "The House of Terror". MTI/Zoltán Balogh