Disappearing secret service files in Hungary

In Hungary only the secret service itself is allowed access to the secret files which originated during communist times. Ulrich Schmidt describes this as a serious problem, as the security service network of those times has never been broken and hundreds of files have been destroyed. "The fact that Hungary is years behind Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland in confronting its communist past has a lot to do with the comparatively lenient Kadar regime and the equally peaceful fall of communism in 1989/1990… The philologist Janos Kenedi, a former dissident and one of the founders of the Charter 77 [a petition launched by Czech celebrities opposed to the communist 'normalisation' project], points out that Hungary exchanged 'soft' Kadar communism for 'hard' democracy. He explains that as the Soviet Union's headquarters for money laundering, Hungary had a special status which among other things allowed it to deliberately violate the law. This is an attitude that still has a profound impact today. ... Blackmailed and compromised by an old elite, Hungary is paralysed and refuses to confront its past."

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