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🗓️ 4 April 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
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0:00.0 | Welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. Today we're taking |
0:09.8 | you back to August 1989, when activists in Hungary and Austria planned a symbolic picnic |
0:16.8 | to protest against Soviet rule. It led to some of the first physical breaches in the Iron |
0:23.1 | Curtain. In 2011, Rob Walker spoke to one of the key organizers, Balberger Habsburg-Dogless. |
0:30.4 | It's August the 19th, 1989, and hundreds of people have gathered in the countryside close |
0:39.2 | to Hungary's border with Austria. In front of them is a metal fence and a small group |
0:44.1 | of border guards. On the surface, they're all here just for a picnic. What we were planning |
0:49.8 | to do was obviously to grill sausages and then also to drink good Hungarian wine. There |
0:55.8 | was a stage where politicians would speak about integrating Hungary into a unifying Europe. |
1:02.4 | Balberger Habsburg-Dogless was one of the organizers of what was built the Pan-European |
1:06.9 | picnic. She and the others planning the event had got permission to hold it at an unofficial |
1:11.7 | border crossing. Their aim was to show that Hungary's frontier with Austria was no longer |
1:16.4 | a part of the Cold War, Iron Curtain. The plan was that we would open the border for |
1:21.7 | one hour or so, that from both sides an official delegation with the mayor on the top should |
1:28.9 | come to the border that they should sort of shake hands, and the other thing was that |
1:33.2 | we had talked to the border guards and asked them whether this could be an official border |
1:38.7 | post for this day. At the time, Balberger Habsburg-Dogless was working for her father Otto van Habsburg, |
1:46.0 | the former crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was chairman of a group called the |
1:50.6 | Pan-European Union, which was calling for a unified Europe. Balberger had grown up in |
1:55.7 | the West, but together with local activists she had been planning the picnic in Hungary |
1:59.8 | for months. As the day got closer though, other events in Eastern Europe began to overshadow |
2:05.2 | their plans. The summer holidays started and also the holidays in the factories of Eastern |
... |
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