YORBA LINDA : Berlin Wall Reminder for Library

On today’s 31st anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s construction, the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace will dedicate a large intact section of the barrier and unveil a painting depicting the then-vice president’s 1956 visit to a Hungarian refugee camp.

The 12-foot-tall section of the steel-reinforced concrete wall has been on display since June after it was purchased by hamburger magnate Carl N. Karcher for the Nixon library. On the side that faced democratic West Berlin, the wall is covered with graffiti, including a red, white and blue abstract painting of a human skull, as well as a teddy bear. The side that faced communist East Berlin is a stark unpainted gray.

“That’s because if anybody had dared approach the wall from the east, they would have been shot,” said museum spokesman Kevin Cartwright. “The people who have seemed to be most affected by the wall since we began the display have been young people. . . . They walk around and around it. It’s like they can’t imagine what it would be like to live a life without freedom.”

The painting, “Nixon at Andau,” is an 11-by-8-foot rendering by Los Angeles-based Hungarian-American artist Ferenc Daday. In December, 1956, Nixon visited a refugee camp near the Austrian town, which is on the border with Hungary. It was to Austria that almost 200,000 Hungarians fled after their 3-month-old revolt against the communist government was crushed by invading troops from the Soviet Union. Thousands died in the uprising.

In the painting, Nixon, dressed in a dark blue suit and tan trench coat, touches the head of a small child who is offering him a flower.

Standing nearby is a Hungarian rebel, a rifle slung over his shoulder, pointing at a man carrying Hungary’s red, white and green flag, from which the communist hammer and sickle has been cut out. Others in the painting include a woman nursing her baby, a reporter taking notes, two bandaged young men and a black sheep dog. A man kisses the Austrian soil. The sky is a torrent of blue-grays, whites and yellow. A Hungarian city burns in the background.

Nixon’s visit “was an historical moment for Hungary,” Daday, 78, said Wednesday. “This visit was the time when the United States officially said it would give help to the refugees and allow them to flee Russian oppression.”

Daday had fled from Hungary and the communists in 1947, just as they took power.

“I had an exhibit in Stockholm, and I guess I forgot to go back,” he said.

He went first to Argentina, then came to the United States in 1955. He was just settling in Los Angeles in 1956 when he got the idea for the painting while watching news reports of Nixon’s visit to the camp. But it was not until 1971 that it was painted.

“I was a new immigrant to this country in 1956, and I did not have the equipment or the studio I have now,” he said, explaining the delay.

The painting has been in storage ever since it was finished, awaiting the opening of the Nixon library. Daday said he is proud that his picture will go on display after the communists have lost power in his homeland.

“It is really right that we are now going to celebrate the peace Hungary has,” Daday said.

The ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. at the library, 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd.