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Anyone who judges me for joining the Communist Party might as well mind his own business. As a party member, I never did anything harmful that I should be ashamed of. I even kept my faith, as I had been raised in a religious spirit that was neither devout, nor nationalistic, being proud to be a Jew.
You mustn’t be ashamed of your identity, you must have faith, but you mustn’t hate or insult your neighbor for being a Christian. This may have been the way I was raised, but this wasn’t the way I was treated in life. They humiliated me, and they had me wear a yellow star so that they could recognize at once that I belonged to the lowest race.
As a student, I went to the Christian church every week. But I kept my faith. I can recite ‘Our Father’ better than a Christian in Hungarian, French and Romanian – I learned it from my schoolmates. You can either respect the other’s religion, or you can hate him for it. The man stays the same.
Why should I be ashamed for joining the Party when they had those points in their program? I didn’t have a Party activist’s career. What I did at the beginning of my professional life, I also did at its end, so I don’t feel ashamed at all. Others threw away their party membership card, or tore it to pieces, as if that were a miracle. These were not people of strong character. You can’t just erase certain periods from your life – people will still remember them.
I’ve already stated my case: I joined the Party out of conviction. Nobody forced me and I didn’t do it out of interest. And I’m telling you now that the Party was not responsible because things went wrong. The party leaders were to blame, because they didn’t stay loyal to the Party’s beliefs. Had they guided themselves after the original principles, things would have turned out fine.
You mustn’t be ashamed of your identity, you must have faith, but you mustn’t hate or insult your neighbor for being a Christian. This may have been the way I was raised, but this wasn’t the way I was treated in life. They humiliated me, and they had me wear a yellow star so that they could recognize at once that I belonged to the lowest race.
As a student, I went to the Christian church every week. But I kept my faith. I can recite ‘Our Father’ better than a Christian in Hungarian, French and Romanian – I learned it from my schoolmates. You can either respect the other’s religion, or you can hate him for it. The man stays the same.
Why should I be ashamed for joining the Party when they had those points in their program? I didn’t have a Party activist’s career. What I did at the beginning of my professional life, I also did at its end, so I don’t feel ashamed at all. Others threw away their party membership card, or tore it to pieces, as if that were a miracle. These were not people of strong character. You can’t just erase certain periods from your life – people will still remember them.
I’ve already stated my case: I joined the Party out of conviction. Nobody forced me and I didn’t do it out of interest. And I’m telling you now that the Party was not responsible because things went wrong. The party leaders were to blame, because they didn’t stay loyal to the Party’s beliefs. Had they guided themselves after the original principles, things would have turned out fine.
Period
Location
Romania
Interview
Elza Fulop