11/14/2018 – AHF co- sponsored the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s Triumph of Liberty Gala Dinner in Washington DC on November 14th. The Foundation presented its Truman Reagan Medal awards to those who made significant contributions helping the Victims of Communism. The 2018 recipients were: His Excellency Valdas Adamkus, former President of Lithuania, Her Excellency Sandra Kalniete, Member of the European Parliament for Latvia, and Tunne Kelam, Member of the European Parliament for Estonia. AHF Co-President Gyula E Balogh, Vice President Dr. Imre Nemeth, General Counsel Paul Kamenar and Board Member Zsuzsanna Dreisziger attended this sad remembrance. The keynote speaker was General Peter Pace, USMC (Ret.) Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (2005-2007). Hungarian Ambassador to the US, H.E. László Szabó was one of the honored guests.
The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, but communism didn’t. One hundred years after the Bolshevik Revolution, one fifth of the world’s population still lives under single-party communist regimes in China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam.
From the famines, purges, and gulags of Soviet Union to Mao’s Great Leap Forward and the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge, to the atrocities committed in Hungary by the Kun Bela, Mátyás Rákosi, and Soviet regimes communists have killed more than 100 million people over the past century. Countless more suffer still. AHF honors those who opposed this horror, including the 1956 Hungarian Freedom Fighters and those who still resist.
Sad statistics: studies consistently reveal that America’s high school and college students do not know basic facts about the history of communism. One fifth of millennials do not know that Joseph Stalin killed more than 30 million people. 40% of millenials have never heard of Mao Zedong of China who killed more than 40 million people.
Valdas Adamkus fought as a Lithuanian partisan, worked as an engineer, and served twice as president of Lithuania. During World War II, Adamkus fought with the partisans against Soviet rule, published an underground newspaper during the Nazi occupation, and then resumed the fight against the returning Soviet army.
Sandra Kalniete is a Latvian politician, author, diplomat and independence movement leader. She served as Foreign Minister of Latvia from 2002-2004 and as European Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries in 2004.
Tunne Kelam is an Estonian politician and Member of the European Parliament from Estonia. In 1972, Kelam prepared a memorandum to the UN on behalf of two underground citizens’ groups, which asked for assistance to end Soviet occupation and organize free elections.
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation web site www.VictimsofCommunism.org
P.Kamenar, Amb. László Szabó, Dr I.Nemeth, Magor Ernyei
General Peter Pace and Paul Kamenar
Gyula Balogh, Dr. Nemeth,P. Kamenar, S. Gorka, M.Ernyei
Join and Support Us Online!
