Monument of Hope

"In 1994, we commemorated the 2nd anniversary of the "Dorog Declaration" (the sister settlement of Dorog and Zsére). Our village also responded to this declaration with the "Zsére Declaration." In this spirit, we initiated the early start of the majority-minority dialogue in Slovakia, and in this spirit, the ceremonial inauguration of the Hope Monument took place on September 10, 1994, on the square of the St. Nicholas Church in Zsére. The monument proclaims Slovak-Hungarian reconciliation. The organizers of the event were Dr. László Bezányi, engineer, and Ferenc Maga, engineer. The new Zsére symbols were consecrated at the festive mass. ; In 1995, there were two wreath-laying ceremonies at the monument. The first one was held in July by participants of the Homeland Knowledge Bicycle Tour after the Sunday festive mass, combined with a short cultural program. The second occasion was on the first anniversary, September 10. Among the guests I would like to mention Jenő Baros, the Hungarian Ambassador to Slovakia, Edit Bauer, a member of parliament, and Győző Bauer, the president of the Csemadok OB. From Hungary, the delegation of the town of Dorog was led by the mayor of the town, and the mayors of the villages around Lake Balaton were present, who planted a tree near the monument as a sign of their friendship. ; In September 1998, we received the delegations of Papkeszi and Dorog at the wreath-laying ceremony of the Reménység monument, where they presented letters of thanks to those citizens of our village who had done much for its development and the preservation of its traditions. On this first occasion, two of the three certificates presented were posthumous, and these were received by the family members of the deceased. First, the late cantor teacher Vilmos Simek, then the former secretary of the Csemadok, Károly Bencz, were awarded for their many years of cultural activities, then Uncle Gergely Vanyo received the certificate of recognition as the founding member and former leader of the Zsér choir. ; On September 11, 1999, the wreath-laying ceremony was held in honor of the 5th anniversary of the erection of the Monument of Hope. Continuing the beautiful tradition that began, within the framework of the ceremony, we commemorate those of our residents who in some way contributed to the development of our village. This year, three teachers were awarded certificates of recognition. Our first awardee was Márta Kozla, for her many years of work as the principal of the kindergarten and for her voluntary cultural activities (name-giving, anniversaries, ...). The other two awardees came to our village as young married couples. László Kovács and his wife Zsuzsanna organized the cultural life of our village in the 70s. ; The 3rd Zoboralja Regional Days were organized between August 9 and 11, 2002. This year, our village had the honor of organizing the final part of the event series after Kolon and Nyitragerencsér. After the mass, the Reconciliation Day celebration began, within the framework of which a commemorative plaque was presented to László Gál, the former mayor of our village who retired, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. ; Ten years have passed since our village joined the Dorog Appeal, according to which we honor the Victory Day that ended World War II as the Day of Reconciliation. The wreath-laying ceremony at the Hope Monument was held on September 12, 2004. Among others, the Dorogi and Papkeszi delegations also participated in the ceremony. On this occasion, we also presented three commemorative plaques. In memoriam, we awarded György Bencz for his work in the Csemadok organization, the choir and the tradition-preserving group. Our next awardee was engineer Ferenc Maga, who brought to life and popularized the slowly forgotten customs of our village. He was the leader of the folklore group for several years. Our third awardee was Dr. Viktor Simek, conductor and painter, who greatly contributed to the introduction and popularization of not only our village, but also the entire Zoboralja. The choirs he leads achieve remarkable rankings and qualifications. He has been artistically depicting the folk costumes of Zoboralja for more than 30 years. His pictures have been appearing at various exhibitions with great success since 1976. ; In 2009, on the 15th anniversary of the monument, a wreath-laying ceremony took place after the mass, where the mayor presented commemorative plaques to György Gonda - for creating the monument, to Lajos Kovács - for building and maintaining relations between the settlements, and to Veronika Simek and László Bezáni - for their many years of active activity in our village."