Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Hungarian Uprising

eCouncillor was honoured to attended the Church service at St Mary's cathedral organised by the Australian Hungarian community to mark the 50th anniversary of the anti-Soviet popular uprising in Budapest. It was a very moving service conducted in the presence of community and civic leaders including the Governor of NSW, the Hungarian ambassador to Australia and the HOn. Don Harwin MLC. An amazing choir of 60 people traveled to Australia to sing at the service.

The uprising (a decade before eCouncillor was born) was the brief flowering of democracy that was brutally crushed by a Soviet invasion. 33 years later the one party communists state would be dismantled in 1989. Australia was to benefit from the exodus of the intelligentsia escaping retribution and oppression under the communist return in 1956. One such refugee was the family of former Liberal Premier and business leader Nick Greiner AO.

Sadly the celebrations overnight in Budapest were not as united as Sydney's church service including the extraordinary scene when radical protesters seized a museum piece soviet era tank in the picture below.

Hungary police tackle protesters

Hungarian police faced protesters in a Soviet-era tank Hungarian police are tackling the remnants of a group of violent protesters who disrupted celebrations marking the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising.
Tear gas and rubber bullets were used to quell anti-government protests in Budapest, where officials laid flowers to mark the uprising 50 years ago.
Some protesters commandeered a tank taken from an uprising exhibition. Read more at BBC here