Living Memorial
Living Memorial is a counter-memorial initiated by the public and a grassroots social movement. It is a series of demonstrations since March 2014 based on participation and public discussions in the public space, organised by civilians against the Memorial for the Victims of the German Occupation of Hungary.
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- Our point of departure was the governmental decision,00:00:26.100
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- which was unexpectedly made public on 19 March 2014,00:00:33.138
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- a memorial of the 70th anniversary of the German occupation of Hungary was00:00:37.992
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- to be unveiled on Szabadság Square. A huge public scandal broke out in00:00:46.322
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- connection with this for a number of reasons. One was that no one understood00:00:54.914
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- why the 70th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of Hungary deserved00:01:02.026
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- a memorial. Secondly, all this happened without anything leading up to it,00:01:06.565
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- the public didn’t know anything about it. By way of an insinuation,00:01:13.638
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- a secret governmental decision was unexpectedly revealed to the public.00:01:20.414
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- What we found was a jumbled mess of a description, a distorted, Xerox image of00:01:26.119
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- very poor quality, and a foggy background story about why this event had to be00:01:31.387
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- commemorated in Hungary.00:01:35.287
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- The debate that was sparked was, of course, primarily of a political and00:01:36.869
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- memory-political debate. Obviously the loudest protest came from Jewish00:01:42.908
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- organizations and groups that didn’t regard the German occupation00:01:50.354
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- on 19 March 1944 an event deserving of celebration in Hungary.00:01:57.434
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- Nobody understood why this should happen.00:02:04.135
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- To this, the government in its discomposure, re-qualified the memorial00:02:06.352
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- of the occupation as a memorial for the innocent victims of the occupation00:02:13.190
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- which was not originally part of the government decision. This elicited an even00:02:18.543
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- greater uproar, because if we are talking about all Hungarian victims, then we blur00:02:24.232
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- together the 430,000 Hungarian Jews and Roma who fell victim to the holocaust00:02:32.898
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- with the non-Jewish Hungarians who, albeit few in numbers,00:02:41.371
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- suffered from the German occupation.00:02:49.013
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- So this sparked a political debate. This was just before the elections, the whole thing00:02:56.923
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- was coloured by the back and forth between feuding political parties.00:03:04.276
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- And in this great chaos and cacophony, I thought along with a few sculptors and00:03:12.099
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- artist friends that we need to do something about this memorial.00:03:21.412
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- When the idea first came up, of the 'Free Artists', Csaba Nemes, Szabolcs KissPál,00:03:34.636
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- Balázs Kicsiny, György Jovánovics and myself were present, and we came up00:03:45.408
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- with the concept. Then we were joined by sociologists, professors from00:03:53.763
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- the Sociology Department at ELTE. We should also mention the significance00:04:01.186
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- of the Human Platform, which provided an organizational background:00:04:07.461
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- we could meet in their offices, we organized the actions with their00:04:11.657
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- logistical help. I could also mention András Lukács, who played an important00:04:17.404
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- role in all this. These colleagues are all artists working in the public eye, and all of00:04:25.044
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- them had worked with the topics of memorials, remembering and memory.00:04:31.724
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- We began to think about it and had the idea that we somehow had to00:04:42.981
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- appropriate Szabadság Square – the venue being one of the most00:04:50.560
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- debated points of this whole plan. No one could understand how such a00:04:57.005
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- historicizing memorial could be designed to be placed above a garage entrance.00:05:03.091
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- This was an unsuitable location for raising a memorial from every possible00:05:11.311
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- perspective. A road passes right in front of it, there is a large, cascading fountain00:05:17.627
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- in front of it. It’s unsuitable in every respect in terms of approaching it00:05:24.729
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- and viewing it. Nobody could understand the reason behind the haste and00:05:29.487
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- behind choosing this location. As a result of the debate, the government00:05:36.508
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- abandoned its plans to adhere to this prompt deadline and the Prime Minister00:05:43.543
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- appeared ready to only return to this question after the elections,00:05:50.295
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- to remove this matter from the themes and topics of the political campaign and00:05:54.943
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- the election process. Which was false justification, as a historical lie is00:05:59.000
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- a lie regardless of whether it’s articulated before or after the elections.00:06:05.922
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- So they shouldn’t have referred to this as a reason. Nevertheless, everyone thought00:06:11.000
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- that the date for erecting the memorial was postponed for a while, so we would00:06:16.661
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- have time for proper discussion. We were all the more surprised when,00:06:21.480
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- on the day following the election, having secured two-thirds of the votes,00:06:27.366
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- without a word, the governing party began construction. This resulted in more00:06:32.030
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- forceful civil opposition, various civic organizations appeared on the square.00:06:37.392
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- Political parties were, of course, following this as well. The cordons were regularly00:06:41.513
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- taken down and the matter was dragged out for weeks.00:06:46.281
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- I think it’s important to stress that our initiative, from the first moment on,00:06:50.493
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- aimed to remove this from the conflict field of governing party vs. opposition,00:06:58.637
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- and party politics in general. Not that this field is not a natural part of everyday life,00:07:07.085
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- but because memory politics – the matter of social memory – in our eyes, is more00:07:15.522
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- important, or at least of a different dimension, than political strife.00:07:24.066
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- We decided that we would time our action to take place before the election,00:07:30.776
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- on 23 March. This was a location-specific, artistically oriented – but not art or00:07:36.594
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- artist-related – reflection. We came up with the idea that this space should00:07:41.681
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- somehow be sanctified and transformed into a place of reverence before they00:07:50.104
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- could start construction, so that it would be more difficult – or impossible –00:07:56.233
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- to gain access to it for construction. We wanted to occupy this place.00:08:02.067
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- So we had the idea to ask the residents of Pest to come to this place00:08:10.377
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- in flash mob style. There was nothing there yet aside from the garage entrance.00:08:16.544
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- We asked them to bring personal objects with them and place it on the spot where00:08:24.165
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- the memorial was to be built. In parallel with this, we also came up with00:08:31.167
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- another idea – and this was how created the title “Living Memorial”, which is what00:08:37.011
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- we called it from the start. The idea was to initiate conversations on this site that00:08:44.515
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- were befitting of the nature of memory. The basic notion behind this was that00:08:50.963
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- remembering is always human communication.00:08:56.669
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- I think it’s important to emphasize that this was not a Jewish matter – although00:09:00.863
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- remembering the Holocaust was, of course, the most substantial part00:09:07.965
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- of the whole thing. Jewish trauma is not the only trauma that exists in this country:00:09:13.114
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- there is Trianon trauma, displacement trauma, as well as the trauma of the00:09:17.817
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- victims of the communist regime. So there are a lot of different historical traumas00:09:23.163
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- that society has to process through speaking about it, people need to share00:09:28.877
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- these stories with one another. The way to do this is through00:09:35.307
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- conversation, which became the main, central metaphor of our action. Let us00:09:40.353
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- talk, in other words, remember, in other words, think, in other words, exchange00:09:44.886
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- ideas and open up to one another.00:09:52.319
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- It was the idea of György Jovánovics, Kossuth Prize-winning sculptor,00:09:56.152
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- to make the two white chairs facing one another the visual emblem of this00:09:59.970
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- „conversation-memorial”. We placed the chairs in the place of the memorial.00:10:06.004
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- It symbolized the people that would sit down on these chairs facing each other00:10:11.448
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- and began their discussion. It was when the construction began and these00:10:15.649
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- cordon-removing actions and political demonstrations were taking place00:10:21.298
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- that we begin, in April, our action with the chairs. We bought some white chairs and00:10:27.559
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