Karol Gémesi

“Somehow it appeared to me that the Federal Assembly does not have any committee for human rights and minorities. I got the idea and about half a year after or a couple of months after the elections I started to organize it. Finally, the committee was approved as a common parliamentary committee of the House of People and the House of Nations. I persuaded all the respective parties and was allowed to propose it and persuade the people. In the House of Nations one MP abstained, actually he voted against, and in the House of People no-one was against. So they approved the committee almost unanimously. They also – and it wasn’t my idea – proposed myself the first chairman.”

"But then, sometime in ´73, I was sent for a business trip to one exhibition in Paris. After my return my phone rang to invite me to the passport department. When I went there it turned out they did something else than passports. They tried to persuade me to collaborate with them, invited me to various meetings, to the office or outside. When they got fed up with it, they invited me to the passport department and took me to the cellar. Three or four people were there and were quite harsh. Either I sign it or I will have to face the consequences. I keep wondering until today I had the courage to tell them no.”