Ambassador Zanathy,

State Secretary,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Sometimes we forget how much and how quickly the world can change. To some school children, the events of 1989 seem like ancient history.

For most of us they are a vivid memory of a Europe that was liberating itself from a dark period in its history – forty years of a divided continent, frozen by the Cold War.

I am sure you remember well, Madame Ambassador, when the foreign ministers of Austria and Hungary cut through the barbed wire on the border in the summer of 1989 – to millions around the world watching on TV, it felt like the Iron Curtain was being opened before our eyes.

In Hungary, that curtain had been pulled shut in 1956 when it became clear that democratization would not be tolerated. As the world’s attention was focused on the Suez Crisis, Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary to quash a popular uprising, the Hungarian Revolution.

Many Hungarians fled West, to Austria and beyond.

The story of those refugees is shown in the photographs on display here at the Vienna International Centre. This exhibit is a fitting commemoration to that turbulent period fifty years ago when tens of thousands of Hungarians quickly packed their belongings and left in search of freedom.

I thank the Government of Hungary for organizing this event. In reminds us of a defining period not only in the history of Hungary, but also in the history of Europe and the yearning of mankind for freedom and democracy.

These photographs by Ata Kando, as well as archive material from UNHCR, show us how it must have been for the thousands of Hungarian refugees who came to Austria and their everyday lives once they settled here.

Now, fifty years later, Hungary is a member of the European Union and NATO, and an active Member of the United Nations, contributing, for example, to multilateral efforts to help refugees around the world.

Your Excellency,

Belated congratulations on your national day and thank you again for inviting us to join with you in this commemoration of the 50^{th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution.}