OPINION: We must defend democratic principles

My family came to this country 68 years ago as immigrants escaping communism.

The Hungarian uprising in October 1956 had failed, but for a brief moment in time, the door was pushed open and this small nation stood up defiantly against the oppressive might of the Soviet Union to establish sovereignty as a nation. I grew up listening to these stories about the old country, about my parents’ past life in Hungary, living under fascism, and then again under communism, with barely a moment of freedom in between. When my parents recounted their experiences, they spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, absent of any bitterness or anger about the historical events that transpired and shaped their early lives.

I guess time has a way of tempering the past as well as emotions, but a few times I did remember seeing tears well up in my mother’s eyes and heard a tremble in her voice when certain moments were recalled from the past. She could still visualize the body of a Russian soldier, beaten and hung from a hook in an abandoned butcher shop my mother had sought refuge in from the street-to-street fighting in Budapest during the 1956 uprising. She and many others risked their lives to take food from the countryside to the freedom fighters. Scariest of all, though, was the day my father was arrested in 1957, accused as a conspirator against the communist government for the crime of refusing to stay silent about the injustice and oppression he witnessed.

Her greatest fear was not knowing if he was dead or alive, where he was taken and what would happen to us next. My mother was now left alone with three babies to care for, not knowing if my father would ever return home. There was no lawyer to plead your case or even a way to make a complaint against the government’s actions. The secret police had no fear of retribution for their actions because the laws weren’t meant to protect the citizens; they were meant to protect the government and its authority.

After the failed uprising, my father was eventually released from jail under the condition he would provide information by spying on neighbors and friends. It was then in 1957 my parents made the fateful decision to escape from Hungary and totalitarianism. I had the privilege of hearing these stories first hand, of knowing and learning about authoritarianism not as some obscure passage to gloss over in a history book to pass an exam, but as something real that was played out in harrowing detail affecting ordinary people in their everyday lives.

I wonder what my parents would think if they were still alive to see the events unfolding in our country today. I think I know what my father would say — “What has happened to the leadership in this country, have they forgotten their legacy? Has their thirst for power smothered their courage and the conviction to do what is right? This cannot be the same country that defeated fascism in Europe and won the Cold War?”

Sadly, I’m afraid it is. We should not forget today’s Americans are the children of the greatest generation and their legacy is carried with us. It is not in our history to shrink from duty and obligation. We have to stand for the Democratic principles and institutions that previous generations fought and died to preserve. If we are not the bulwark against the tyranny of those that seek to tear down our Democracy, then who?