‘Traitors in every family’: Hungary to unmask communist-era informants and confront past
Summary
Hungary’s government plans to publish a searchable online database of communist-era state informant files on November 4. The release is intended to give the public access to records that remained largely restricted for decades, though many files are incomplete and some people named in them may still be alive.Key Facts
- Hungary’s communist state-security services used informants from 1945 to 1989 to monitor society and suppress dissent.
- Informants included people who were coerced or blackmailed, as well as people recruited with promises of advantages.
- Péter Magyar promised during his election campaign to make the files public.
- The government passed a law in September to allow the files to be released.
- The release was first scheduled for the anniversary of the 1956 anti-Soviet revolution, then postponed to November 4.
- Historians estimate that 50,000 to 60,000 people are named in the records and that about 10% of them are still alive.
- Researchers say the searchable database will make Hungary’s former state-security records especially accessible compared with those in other former Eastern Bloc countries.
- Many files are incomplete, and records were destroyed or lost during the 1956 uprising and the 1989 transition.
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