Communist party members lists found at MSZP’s abandoned headquarters

The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) – which is the partial successor of the communist Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party – left more than ten thousand micro-film records at its former headquarters, at Köztársaság (now John Paul II) Square. In the ruinous building – which was sold out five years ago – there are still a plenty of brochures, studies, campaign materials, reports and studies from the former socialist era. Surprisingly, our investigative journalists have also found micro-films on party statistics and party membership records including the personal data of former party members. These documents were labelled as top-secret and are of great historical significance. Leaving them behind, raises serious legal questions from the viewpoint of data protection. Atlatszo.hu handed over the findings to the Open Society Archives.

Read atlatszo.hu’s story in Hungarian and watch our video published on 17 July 2013 here. Translation by atlatszo.hu volunteers.