This year, Hungary celebrates the 30th anniversary of the change of the Socialist regime. The Hungarian National Museum will be organizing events throughout the whole year to showcase the most important personalities and material world of the era under the title "Our Times - 1989".
Over the past six months, many events have taken place in the museum to commemorate the change of the political system: roundtable discussions, pop-up exhibitions, calls for collecting objects from the given era and online social media actions. However, a big-scale exhibition presenting one of the most important, life-changing events of the end of the Socialist regime: the reception of the GDR refugees and the related opening of the border, the demolition of the Iron Curtain is yet to be opened this August.
This exhibition is the result of a joint work of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta and the Hungarian National Museum. The event also marks the birthday of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta, since this charitable organization was officially formed on February 4th in 1989. At that time even the founders could not foresee that the Charity Service would undertake the historic task of providing and caring for East German refugees within its first year of existence and with this charitable act it would become an important contributor to the demolition of the Iron Curtain and to the process of German reunification.
Here is the motto of Father Imre Kozma, head of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta, from his speech he delivered on the 25th anniversary of the organization:
“... We gave the only possible answer to what was happening at the time, and that answer was acceptance. Then we learned something, the most important truth: one human is the brother of another human, and prejudices and counter interests cannot separate people from one another.”
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