Memorial in Budapest
In his honor a statue was placed in front of the US embassy in Budapest, Szabadság tér (Liberty Square) in 1936, with the following inscription in Bandholtz's own words:
I simply carried out the instruction of my government, as I understood them, as an officer and a gentleman of the United States Army.The statue made by prominent Hungarian sculptor Miklós Ligeti depicts Bandholtz with his famous riding-whip in his hand. According to the popular legend he bundled off the robbing soldiers with this whip although Bandholtz didn't mention this detail in his autobiography. Today the whip is on display in the Hungarian National Museum.
The memorial caused diplomatic troubles in the Hungarian-Romanian relationship. Romania asked the US ambassador in Budapest not to be present on the inauguration ceremony but American diplomats in lesser rank were there.
After World War II, the statue was repaired but in 1949 it was removed by the new Communist government. In 1985, at the request of Ambassador Nicolas Salgo, it was moved from a statue boneyard to the garden of the US Ambassador's residence. It was placed back on its original place before the US embassy on 6 July 1989, one day before the historic visit of President George H. W. Bush in Budapest. The inscription with the humble sentence was only restored in 1993.
Read more about this topic: Harry Hill Bandholtz
Famous quotes containing the word memorial:
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)