Friendship for 31 years

The connection to Hungary is maintained by Wolfgang Wagner, chairman of NAVIS e.V. (LINK to website NAVIS e.V.  since 1989. In that year, a total of 55,000 GDR citizens fled to West Germany via the German embassy in Budapest. Wolfgang Wagner, who is from Moosburg an der Isar, also helped the refugees together with Hungarian aid workers. "Since then, this trusting friendship has lived on," he recounts. The NAVIS association has not existed as long as this friendship, but it has set itself the goal of organizing the transport and distribution of relief supplies such as hospital beds, medicine, and firefighting equipment in Hungary and other countries. NAVIS is not an abbreviation, but the Latin word for "ship" and that is what the organization wants to be: a rescue ship.

16 garments from FRM II

The newly established fire station in Páty, a suburb of Budapest, Hungary, was not yet ready for operations. The training of the new firefighters was provided by the Hungarian professional fire department, but there was a lack of equipment. Therefore NAVIS e.V. called for a donation campaign. FRM II fire safety officer Manfred Danner was thus able to contribute 16 outfits that were not needed at the FRM II anymore. "The equipment was hardly worn and will still serve the Hungarian fire department well," says Manfred Danner, reactor operator at FRM II and district fire chief in Freising. In total, Wolfgang Wagner and Manfred Danner, together with other helpers, gathered the personal protective equipment for 60 firefighters for the fire department in Páty.

Consul General thankful

The joy of the Hungarian firefighters about the 60 outfits was enormous. As a thank you, there was Hungarian wine with its own thank you label. "I am deeply touched by your charity," wrote the Consul General of Hungary in Munich, Gábor Tordai-Lejkó, in a personal letter to organizer Wolfgang Wagner. "We are pleased to be able to play our part in this sign of friendship and support," Manfred Danner also said.