James Michener, in “The Bridge at Andau,” criticized the United States for being slow to act on behalf of the freedom fighters of the Hungarian Revolution, and on behalf of the 200,000 refugees who poured into Austria. Other countries–France, Britain, Switzerland, and other nations–immediately leaped into the breach to welcome and care for refugees. But America did very little…initially.
But finally, we got our act together and entered the fray with unbounded generosity and compassion. By the middle of March 1957, just four months after the Russian invasion, the United States had accepted over 30,000 Hungarian refugees. Again: 30,000. Some voices objected–we should take care of our own needs first, and besides, there could be communist infiltrators among those refugees. But we responded not to fear or self-interest, but to human need.
Michener wrote about America’s response:
- We lifted or ignored restrictions on bringing refugees into the US.
- The US embassy in Vienna, Austria, sped up the flow of paperwork.
- Our emergency relief organizations–Catholic, Jewish, Protestant–stopped squabbling and began working around the clock to reunite refugee families and get them cleared to come to America.
- US aid groups flooded Austria with blankets, medicine, food, and money.
- Educational foundations provided scholarships to American colleges.
Michener continued, “Then, when it seemed as if the United States had done all it could, there occurred the Christmas [1956] visit of Vice President Nixon, who cut additional red tape, reassured the Austrians of our continued support of their efforts, and spurred our own government to further generosity in accepting refugees. A massive airlift was organized….And across America, thousands of families who had never seen a Hungarian before suddenly opened their doors and welcomed strangers to whom they could not speak a single word.”
I’m supremely proud of THAT America, the America into which I was born on the day the Hungarian Revolution started on October 23, 1956. THAT is a country I believe God chose to bless. I think we had our thumb on God’s pulse–helping people who were needy, damaged, vulnerable, homeless, and helpless. People who needed a place to start anew, and we said, “Come to America. We’ll treat you well.”
Consider the similarities to Syria. Like Hungary, Syria was a Russia-aligned country whose people rose up against an oppressive regime, but were put down with help from Russia. As with Hungary, hundreds of thousands of refugees poured into Europe, which largely embraced them. But this time, America has been mostly silent.
Michener wrote 61 years ago, prophetically, “When the patriots in Budapest struck, we were unprepared. We neither knew what to do, nor had the will to do it. We stood before the world in very shabby moral clothes, and should this happen again, we might have to surrender our position of world leadership.”
