"1956 marked the beginning of the end. The revolt was the starting point of the great will for freedom and announced the fall of the wall". With these words, the secretary general of the Council of Europe (CoE), Terry Davis, hailed the fiftieth anniversary of the 1956 revolution of Budapest, which falls today. "Historians stated Davis have discussed for half a century of this revolution that bore its fruit too late for the thousands of Hungarians who lost their lives in the insurrection. But their sacrifice was necessary to give freedom to their children and to the other oppressed Europeans in an ideologically-divided Europe". "I have but one word to say to my Hungarian friends he concluded and this is: thank you from the bottom of my heart".
