English

Museum Presented Gift of Danish Photographs of '56

Archív 2008. november 4.

The gift of the dozen photographs started with the curiosity of Henning Schultz, a geographer who lives in Copenhagen, about the identity of a 15-year-old Hungarian freedom fighter, identified only as "Erika", who appeared on the front page of Billed Bladet, with a machine gun in hand, on November 13, 1956. Schultz tried to find the girl in the picture, but instead found the 94-year-old Hansen and his other photographs of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Schultz contacted the Hungarian National Museum about the photographs, but it was short funding and could not purchase them. Schultz intervened, organising the photographs' purchase by two Danish foundations and their presentation to the Hungarian National Museum as a donation.

 

In the course of the arrangement, Schultz learnt that the young girl with the machine gun - one of the twelve photographs presented to the Hungarian National Museum - had been shot and killed by a Soviet machine gunner on November 7 or 8.

 
Hungarian National Museum deputy director Ferenc Szikossy said the museum had few photographs of the 1956 Revolution that were not taken by Hungarians, which made the gift special.
 
Danish ambassador to Hungary Mads Sandau-Jensen recalled at the opening of the exhibition that the Danes had collected several million crowns for the Hungarian cause in just three weeks in 1986. The Danish government also took in the first thousand refugees during the 1956 Revolution.
 
Source: Múlt-kor / Photo: Imre Földi (MTI)