[ART]_CONnected

Hungary 1989 and now...

THE FREEDOM GATE

It was in the summer of 1989 when thousands of East German "tourists" had been making their way to Hungary, looking for a way to cross into Austria. What drew them was a bold decision taken earlier that year by the reformist prime minister Miklos Nemeth to start dismantling the security system along the border. None of them where looking to leave their country because there was a civil war in which overt he last five years more than 250.000 civilians had been killed. All they wanted was a better life. In today's terminology most of them where "economic migrants", most of them where not refugees according to the Geneva Convention. On  August 19, 1989, Hungary was opening the border to Austria. By the end of that day, more than 600 East Germans had crossed over to the West. Three weeks later, when Hungary fully opened its borders, 60,000 flooded out. On the very place where this happend there was errected a memorial called "The Gate to Freedom". Today, as a member of the EU, Hungary is errecting barbed wire fences to keep refugees out, teargassing them, seperating children from their parents. Somebody didn't learn from history...

The "Gate to Freedom" at the Hungarian-Austrian border