Part II – Part III – Part IV – Part V

I came across this great documentary which shows a few dark pages of Hungarian history. I was born in Zalau, about 8 miles from Treznea, where Hungarian troops slaughtered hundreds of civilians, and I’ve had relatives who witnessed the tragedy.

My grand-grandfather told my mother that people were impaled that day. Pregnant women were cut open, children killed with the bayonette, entire families murdered, all sorts of almost unimaginable acts of brutality. I say unimaginable because in Zalau the inter-ethnic relation between Romanians and Hungarians almost 70 years after the atrocity is excellent.

Anyway, the documentary stresses that most Hungarians felt that the Threaty of Paris was unjust. Well, if I’d loose my empire, I’d be pretty pissed too. But all their frustration was turned against the Romanians, for they were the majority in Ardeal (and in Transylvania in general) and used their self determination right to join Romania. They have forgotten the Romanian military initiative that saved Hungary from communism. In September 1919, the Romanian Royal Army took Budapest, and in consequence Bela Kun’s Hungarian Soviet Republic seized to exist. This was not a war of conquest, but one of liberation.

After the Romanian army pushed back the Horthyst and German troops in World War II, the Meses Mountain (where Treznea is located) became the front line. It is perhaps interesting to point out that there were no atrocities once the Romanian army retook lost ground and entered Hungary.

We must remember the tragedies of Ip and Treznea. I am glad that sombody has made this documentary to honor the memory of those who were murdered there. For far too long these dark episodes of history have been kept silent or ignored. But the stories of Ip and Treznea will continue, their memory will not fade, grandfathers tell the stories to their children, just like I learned this from my grand-grandfather through my mother.