43rd National Táncház Festival & Fair • 5–7 April 2024
Issue:
Starting page: 4
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Gáspár Simon Antal – Master of Folk Arts – tells about his birthplace, the village of Istensegíts in Bukovina – where they always felt that as Hungarians they weren't in their mother country. When still under Austrian rule, they were more accepted, but after the war, when the region fell into Romanian hands and the parties were formed, the „Ironguard” party, that's when life became unbearbable for the Bukovina Hungarians. In 1941 they were able to leave the bad situation that had developed in Bukovina to settle in Hungary. In their „mother country” – a Hungary torn by the war and German occupation – they were not welcomed anywhere, were driven out of places, sent from village to village, then allowed to stay in a house emptied because others had been deported as a result of the war. Refecting on the trials and suff ering that he and his family survived, Gáspár's comment; „One cant really tell about these things, only give some idea. I don't even know how anyone could withstand that much.” Mrs. Illés Imre – singer, Master of Folk Arts from Hadikfalva, Bukovina – at the age of 13, in 1941 she and her family were deported to Hungary along with the other Hungarians from their town. First there were the camps, then a village in northern Serbia, then displacement to several villages in western Hungary. Since 1980, she and her husband have lived in the town of Érd (just south of Budapest). Along the way she was always one of those asked to sing – singing more than once for visiting diplomats and government officials. As told to Kóka Rozália