My name is Tibor Sarkady, or if you wish, Sarkady Tibor. I was born in 1936 and as we near the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, I am approaching my 70th birthday.

As I was growing up in Budapest, my Father always told me, “My son, we are here for just a short time, but every human being has a purpose in his or her life. But more importantly, there is a moment in your life, like a shooting star in the sky that represents your moment in history. You might not know it at the time, but by the end of your life you will.”

I now know that October 23rd through early November 1956 was my shooting star moment in history. How young we were – full of life, dreams, ambitions and patriotism.
Yes, I was there, from day one to the very end of the fighting. Yes, I was, and still am a Freedom Fighter.

But, let us stop for a moment. Who was a Freedom Fighter? Yes, I was, with a weapon in my hand (and for this and other reasons, I was sentenced to death by hanging in absente reo in July, 1957).

But, so was that Hungarian policeman who was directing traffic three blocks from the radio station where we were killed by the hundreds on the night of October 23rd when I had nothing to fight with. I went to him with tears in my eyes and said, “What are you doing? Don’t you know we are being slaughtered and here you are with a weapon by your side. What kind of Hungarian are you?” He told me that he was married with two children and couldn’t risk being part of the fighting. So I told him, “If you are not going to use your gun then give it to me!” He looked me in the eyes and said, “Here it is, my son,” and handed me his weapon. He was a Freedom Fighter.

But so was the old lady who gave me a cup of hot chocolate to keep me warm. She was a Freedom Fighter.

Or the gentleman who told us, “Boys, don’t go that way. There are Russians coming.” He was a Freedom Fighter.

Or my friend and schoolmate who died in my place, by virtue of the fact that we had just changed places operating a machine gun ten seconds earlier. He was a Freedom Fighter.

Or the Hungarian tank commander and his crew who refused to kill us on the night of October 23rd, 1956, and paid with their lives for disobeying a direct order. They were all Freedom Fighters.

Or the Ukranian soldiers who were stationed next to the Astoria Hotel with their guns pointing towards the sky saying, “If you don’t shoot us, we won’t shoot you.” They were Freedom Fighters.

Or the citizens of Budapest, who on the evening of November 1st, All Saints Day, lit over 100,000 candles and placed them on every window sill and street corner in memory of fallen heroes and loved ones. I was on patrol that night and it was the most mystical sight I ever beheld. My friends, that night, everyone in the whole city of Budapest and indeed, the entire country, was a Freedom Fighter.

Or the Hungarian border guards who told us which way to go so we could escape. They were Freedom Fighters.

Or later on, after we managed to make it to Vienna, a lady who saw that we had nothing but canvas sneakers on our feet, bought new boots for the three of us and paid for them saying, “Magyar is free.” She was a Freedom Fighter.

Or when, as 4,000 of us were leaving Bremerhaven in January 1957, aboard a troop carrier bound for the US, every ship in port blasted its horn and dock workers stood at attention and saluted as a band played the Hungarian National Anthem. Yes, they too were Freedom Fighters.

Or when during the 12 long miserable days that it took to cross the North Atlantic, with most of us suffering varying degrees of seasickness, that black sailor who came to us every day saying the only Hungarian he knew, “Enni menni” which means “Go to eat.” He was my first contact with America and his care and concern was like a warm welcome hug to our new home. Yes, he was a Freedom Fighter.

So, my friends, as you can see, I have been blessed by many whom I choose to call Freedom Fighters, and they have enriched my life, one and all.

Later generations may ask, “Why did you do it?” So much loss of life. 25,000 died. So much sacrifice and destruction. The answer is simple. On that one day, the entire nation, young and old alike, stood together as one and said, “By my God Almighty, we have had enough.”

Next year is the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution. My wife and I will be there as we are most every year. I will take back the little Hungarian flag that I brought out in 1956. After 50 years, I will place it on the gravesite of my fallen friends and comrades and tell them, “until we meet again.”

Isten, áldd meg a Magyart. God Bless the Magyars.

Tibor Sarkady
Tibor Sarkady, born in 1936, is an electrical engineer and the owner and founder of Elmeco Engineering, a 35 year old company. He has been married to his wife Linda for 42 years and is the proud Father of 3 children – Steven, Darren and Kim – and Grandfather to Amanda and Katie. He currently resides in Rockville, Maryland.

I was not into politics
As a student of steel structures in my final year at the Eötvös Loránt Technical School, I was not interested in politics. I knew what you could and could not say outside the home, and adhering to these rules, I became the school’s cultural attaché. I was focused on the theater and the film world and spent all my free time buying theater tickets and distributing them to the students and teachers at the school. Often I took the entire school, all twelve grades at once, (during school hours, of course,) to the Tátra Movie house for special films. The theater was only a few hundred meters from the school. School itself did not interest me, but that was the only school that accepted me since my father had been intelligentsia.

I hadn’t heard of any plans ahead of time; neither had any of my brothers. At home everything was fine and I kept busy with school and the theater. On October 23rd I went to school and the day passed without incident. In the afternoon I went to the Opera House to account for some tickets and pick up new ones. When I came out of the opera’s administrative office it could have been about four o’clock. Suddenly, I saw a paper pasted on the exterior wall of the Opera House. I stopped to see what it said. To my greatest surprise, it was the typewritten 12 (that’s how I remember it) points of the students. Several times I looked around to see who might catch me reading these words. I was overwhelmed by wonder, something like, this can happen in this country? I read it four, five times and just shook my head, almost in fear. I started toward home in Soroksár, and on the outer Ring Road I climbed onto the back step of the trolley, balancing on one leg. When the trolley passed the National Theater, I saw a gathering of people in the square behind it. I jumped off the train as it was moving to go and see what was happening.

In the midst of the crowd
In the small square in front of the department store there stood a statue. From that statue’s pedestal college students were reciting patriotic poems and reading aloud the same 12 points that I had read on the Opera wall. At this point I, too, got mixed in with the growing crowd. I listened and cheered the proceedings. There, in those minutes, we decided to go and topple Stalin’s statue. The statue was the symbol of the hatred of the Russians and the Communists; we believed then that its toppling would be Communism’s toppling (it’s possible that this same idea occurred to others elsewhere.) Arm in arm with complete strangers and with a great clamor, we started toward the inner Ring Road, from there onto Kossuth Lajos Street toward the park. Because there were so many of us, and the crowd was increasing minute by minute, we had to walk in the street because the sidewalks were too narrow. Since we were blocking the trucks from getting through, the drivers asked us with great curiosity what was going on. When we told them our mission, they joined in the spirit and immediately offered to drive us in their trucks. In many many trucks, loaded with people, we arrived at Heroes’ Square. There the crowd grew and grew and grew. It was as if the same thing had happened in many parts of the city, (I just know where I was) the crowd just grew and grew.

By Truck
Our plan sounded good, but making it happen was not child’s play. Just climbing onto the giant hulk of a statue was hard enough, let alone moving it. But we were a young, clever, determined crowd and we did not know the word impossible. We needed a solution to carry out our plan. It turned out to be good that all the trucks that had brought us here were there, so that we could be used them place of our hands. Hanging on the back of one truck was a long length of cable, which seemed ideal. Since the statue was so big that it was impossible to climb to its shoulder, we had to throw a lasso onto his head, and climb up that rope in order to tie the cable around his neck. At that is how it happened. Now we tied these cables to several different trucks and tried to pull him off his pedestal, but the statue did not budge. Four, five trucks still could not move him; their wheels just spun. First we all tried climbing onto the trucks for weight, but that yielded no results, plus it was too dangerous and we didn’t want to cause bodily harm to anyone. One of our biggest problems was how to keep the crowd at a distance, out of harm’s way. There were so many of us and everyone wanted to help, but we could only accomplish something if we proceeded thoughtfully and carefully.

So the wheels were spinning, and we were getting nowhere. One boy says that close to here they are doing road construction and there are lots of cobblestones there. In minutes they loaded up four trucks, but we feared that the rubber would strip off the tires under the huge weight. Now the tires would definitely not be spinning. We began to tie the cables behind the loaded trucks. Our biggest problem was still persuading the crowd to stand back, so that there would be room for the trucks to move, and if the cable snapped, someone could be killed. Finally, somehow we made enough room and the truck engaged on our signal. And now! Pull down the despised, hulking portrait, strangled with metal cable. Over and over, Now! Pull! Watch out! But the statue did not even shudder. The cables snapped one after the other and we, in our anger and powerlessness stood on the verge of tears. We encouraged each other, “man has put it there, so man can take it down.” We had to be smarter. One of the boys who went to Technical School, like me, said his school was relatively close and they had some welding torches. Immediately he left with five other boys and in a short time returned with the equipment. The crowd was excited that we were persevering, and instead of thinning out it just kept growing. Much help was offered, there were many of us with substantial knowledge either from school or factory work, so within minutes we had cut the statue under his knees and again the greatest problem was holding back the eager crowd. No one there was foreman or line-worker, student or teacher. There everyone was equal and everyone wanted to help. That’s how it happened; we succeeded in getting the crowd backed up and then the trucks succeeding in pulling down the now weakened statue amidst a great roar of crunching and snapping.

Perhaps the greatest moment of joy in my life, up to that point at least, was when that universally hated symbol fell with a tremendous clamor and then lay there as if dead. Ritualistically we climbed on top of if; feeling as if we had just toppled all of communism. We swam in joy and embraced one another. I turned to a uniformed policeman, whose pistol was hanging, holstered, at his side and asked perhaps cynically, but really more amicably “What do you think of this?” If you think about it, he could have pulled out his pistol and there would have been a bloodbath, with his own blood included. But far from that, he said “Well, son, it’s about time that bandit came down from there. And besides, even if I wanted to, what could I do against all these people?”

To the Radio
Time was passing quickly. Since four o’clock when I jumped off the trolley, I felt as if I had lived an entire life there at Heroes’ Square. It could have been close to ten o’clock when we heard the news that the AVO was firing on the crowd at the Radio. This meant that there was ‘trouble’ there as well, and that matters were taking a serious turn in ways I couldn’t have dreamed of a few hours before. We all agreed to go to the Radio and see what was happening.

The crowd took up the entire width of Andrássy Avenue and there in the crowd I met one of my teachers from the technical school (he was the shop teacher; if only he knew how his teaching had come in handy during the last few hours). I said to him “Sir, what are you doing here?” He said, “Son, things here are getting serious. Since the AVO is shooting at the Radio, we must respond.” To my great surprise he said, “Before going to the Radio, I have to stop at home and get something that I’ll be needing.” He didn’t say it but I understood he was going home to get a weapon to take to the Radio. That’s when I saw him last; I don’t know what happened to him since. What he told me filled me with fear, since I knew what a serious crime it was in our “people’s democracy” for someone to own a weapon.

I remembered that my job in the family as youngest boy and being rather small was hiding my brothers’ yearly-cleaned and oiled guns underneath the eaves of the hay loft. No grown adult could fit in there and thus would not be found in the event of a house search. So I said to myself, things here are definitely getting serious. I was moving with the big crown toward the Radio, and when I got there I heard the gunshots and saw that there were already some dead. We had no weapons, we just stood and shouted angrily that these rat Avosok are hiding behind walls as they shoot into the crowd. I went out to the Museum Street and saw that they had called out the army, and young soldiers were marching with bayonets at the ends of their guns.

We ran to them in disbelief and said, “What are you doing, surely you can’t think of firing at your brothers and parents here?” One young soldier replied, “Of course we’re not firing; they drove us out here to scare the people. We don’t even have ammo, and besides, if you find me some civilian clothes I’ll come and join you.” I took off my sweater and gave it to him. He took off his uniform jacket, threw it in a bush in the garden of the National Museum, put on my sweater and joined our group.

It was getting very late and I remembered how much my poor mother worried about me, especially since I was supposed to be home between five and six. I found a phone and called home, and just as I suspected, I got a long lecture from my mother, and she ordered me to go home immediately. Well, it took a long time but by the middle of the night I made it home.

The Tanks are Coming
On October 24th I awoke to the news that the Russian troops were heading for Pest and that they were advancing right through our neighborhood of Soroksár on their way to the city. Well, somehow, we had to stop them. Several of us got together in the main square, and brainstormed about how we could stop the Russian troops from entering the city, at least through Soroksár. Thinking about it now and for some time, I realize how naïve we were, but then we felt that whatever it was, we had to do whatever we could.

We decided to build a barricade in the middle of the street, but one so big that the tanks couldn’t cross it. We started grabbing anything we could find and piling it in the middle of the street. There were stones, bricks, sofas, sewing machine, doorjambs, wagons (in working condition and not) and anything else you can imagine finding in a house in Soroksár. We thought that since there was a ditch on one side of the street and the rail tracks on the other, we could stop the Russians. We were proud of ourselves when we looked at the mountain that we had built in a couple of hours.

And the Russians did come, but with such a rumbling from the tank tracks that we heard them long before we saw them. We hid in the bushes and the ditches and waited. “Dear Lord, what would happen now?” They came closer and closer, your ears could hardly stand the noise. We watched as the trucks that were leading the convoy stopped at the ditch, but the tanks came from behind and went around the barrier by going onto the train tracks and simply returning to the road on the other side, and simply went on, creating a road for the trucks. In our anger and humiliation we jumped out of our hiding places and threw whatever we could get our hands on at the tanks. We had no weapons, but even if we had they wouldn’t have made a mark on those tanks.

Fire
As soon as the tank convoy passed, the soldiers began arriving by truckfuls and we started pelting them with half bricks and fist-sized rocks. We had broken a good few windows before the soldiers started firing at us and they didn’t stop firing until they crossed the main square of Soroksár. We all tried to take cover wherever we could. I lay flat by the sidewalk and just prayed that I make it through this alive. A half a meter away there was a small tree and I inched myself over to it so that I could put my head behind it, thinking that if my body is shot up at least my head won’t be. The 15-20 minutes I spent there was the longest wait of my life. When the Russians left and we got up, sadly we found lots of dead among us. When I got up, I looked in the gate of the house right next to me, and found the body of one of my classmate’s 11 or 12 year old little brother. He received a shot in the head with by a dum-dum bullet, because the poor little kid’s brain matter was splattered all over the gateway. I went home very sad that we could not hold back the Russians, and instead they killed and wounded our neighbors. But these were among the first Russian troops to enter the city and perhaps these were among the ones that perished, burned in their tanks or shot at Corvin Köz, because they were the Russian troops over whom we, “Kids of Pest,” were victorious in October 1956.

András Pongrátz
Youngest of the renowned six Pongrátz brothers who fought in Corvin Köz, he was 17 when he left Hungary. He currently resides in Phoenix, Arizona, and is blessed with fours sons, a daughter, and nine grandchildren. He raised his children as a businessman, but in the last ten years has been sponsoring performers and artists from Hungary. He has organized over a hundred concerts for American, Canadian, and Austrialian Hungarians; he enjoys the company of Hungarians worldwide.

Remembrance of the Cold War given on Veterans Day, November 11, 2005 at Rutgers University

By the time the Radio had broadcast at two o’clock on October 23 the Government’s decree forbidding any demonstrations, the column of marching students from the Technical University had already passed the Freedom Bridge and Calvin Square. Groups of students from the Eötvös University also joined in. As the crowd reached the Museum Ring the rows of marchers were wide abreast.

Our office, the Design Institute for Residential and Urban Development, was at Madach Square, above the large brick arch that was intended to be the beginning of a never-completed major boulevard through the slums of the 7th district. The secretaries of the office were cranking out leaflets of the demands, the 16 points that was passed to us from the students. The secretaries worked tirelessly on the usually restricted copy machines without any interference from the authorities.

Naturally many of the office workers joined the march. The marchers chanted slogans for freedom, independence, and removal of the Soviet military from our land. People showed support for the marchers, waving to them both from the sidewalks and from the windows. One of the greatest moments came when we reached Bem Square and saw the first Hungarian flag without the hated emblem of the Communist regime.

16 POINTS AND BLOODY CONFLICT
Later on the evening, after having heard Imre Nagy at the Parliament, I was one of a delegation chosen to present the “16 Points of the students” at the “white house,” the Communist Party headquarters near the Margaret Bridge. The people there accepted the leaflet without comment and our crowd left satisfied, believing that they succeeded. As I returned home to be with my pregnant wife, I left with a sense of hope and jubilation, but my joy proved to be short-lived.

In the meantime others brought the 16 points to the radio station to be broadcast around the country, but the situation there did not succeed as peacefully as at the “white house.” The secret police received the people’s request with bullets, then the Russian troops were called in, and the peaceful demonstration turned into a bloody conflict. My wife and I were understandably shocked and confused when we woke up the next morning hearing the sound of gunfire from the radio.

It was past 11 o’clock in the morning by the time I crossed the river to Calvin Square. By that time the combat at the nearby radio station had subsided; however, occasional gunfire continued to burst through the air. Several people were injured and a few of us pulled them back into a nearby house entrance. For a moment the street appeared quiet and normal (except, of course, for the burned-out streetcars).

Then we saw a Russian armoured car with a young Russian soldier lumped forward in the driver seat. It appeared that he was hit through the car door and apparently died instantly. “Poor boy, you had to come here to die,” murmured an older man in the crowd.

THE REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL
As I arrived at the office we were all so charged up excitedly talking about what was happening, so no one worked all day. Suddenly there was a call for assembly in the large dining hall that accommodated all 600 workers. Someone suggested that we form a “Revolutionary Council” to replace the office’s former “triumvirate” management: the principal, the Party secretary and the personnel director. Each section of the office elected a delegate to the Council, and then much to my surprise I was elected to be the chairman of the entire Council.

The Council’s first order of business was to distribute the hated “dossiers ” kept by the personnel office on each of us. This was symbolically significant because the Council wanted to express that the old regime no longer had power. Ours was not the only such council. Spontaneously and without any direction similar “Revolutionary Worker’s Councils” were formed throughout the City. We sent a delegation to the Greater Budapest Worker’s Assembly. In addition, since we had architects and engineers, we created an advisory group to assist reconstruction work once the fight and destruction subsided. Finally we also established a schedule for providing security to our building. All in all, we felt good about our progress and hoped that freedom and order would prevail.

The following day, however, turned out to be the notorious “bloody Thursday” when Soviet tanks and secret police were firing on the crowd at Parliament Square. Fortunately I was somewhat behind the crowd so the sortie hitting the nearby Ministry of Agriculture building area missed me. The entire plaza was covered with wounded and dead people. My best friend Ferenc Callmeyer, was right up front but he also got away without injury. Later he placed bronze balls in each of the bullet holes of the building as a memorial for the fallen heroes.

FEARS FROM THE PAST
Two days later hysteria took over the crowd that assembled by the central headquarters of the Communist Party at Köztársaság (Republic) Square. The Secret Police guard resisted demands to yield to the Revolutionary Council. This resulted in the bloody lynching of four AVO officers that received so much publicity in the world media. Even though many reporters noted with awe the absence of looting or violence, this is what was put on the spreads of LIFE Magazine.

The assembled crowd started to hallucinate. They heard sounds from buried prisoners in secret cellars of the Party Headquarters. Bulldozers were summoned and they started to dig up the square.

Not finding anything, a broadcast was sent through the radio, asking anyone who may have knowledge about the building to come forward. A former member of our firm called in, with the information that the building was designed by us. So, a soldier was sent to Madach Square asking for information. I was on watch in our office and responded to the request by reviewing the building plans. I found nothing, so I called the architect and structural engineer; they confirmed that there was no secret jail or cellar.

Actually, I myself had experience with secret construction which was directed by the Internal Ministry’s design division. While I did not work on the Party Headquarters, I was part of the team designing the three residences for the top Party officials at the Béla Király (King Bela) Road. There we did get the profiles connecting to the secret areas, as it was provided by the Ministry’s staff. No such connections were given at the Party building. The whole thing proved to be nothing but mass hysteria.

Interesting to note, that while I, as an “untrustworthy class alien” had an opportunity to work on one of the most sensitive secret projects for the Party leaders in Hungary, a few years later as a refugee architect working for the most prestigious architectural firm in New York, I had the assignment to design the office for the director of the CIA.

THE SEEDS OF THE REVOLUTION
Even though the revolution was spontaneous and surprising to the world, its seeds were planted a decade earlier. After the war, as the “old world” collapsed and the fascist dictatorship was defeated, there was an expectation of a free and democratic future for Hungary. This was not to be. While the first democratic election brought a ray of hope in 1946, the “year of the turn” in 1948 marshalled in the most brutal and oppressive communist dictatorship.

The youth of the country who believed in the promise of the “shining waves” found bitter disillusionment. Even those communists who idealistically hoped for a just socialism found only betrayal. Actually they became the most vocal critics of the Rákosi regime. However paradoxical this may seem, the communist-dominated Hungarian Writers’ Union became a state within a state. Their audience had been continually increasing, and the Literary Gazette reached 450,000 circulation in a country of only 10 million. The PetŒfi Circle’s debates, voicing critical opinion, pulled together most of the leading intelligentsia.

The truth of the matter is that the collapse of Stalinism had created a political vacuum in Hungary. When the ruling classes were no longer able to govern and the oppressed classes were unwilling to live as before, the recipe for the revolution was written. Within three days the dictatorial system collapsed; even most of the privileged Party members sided with the revolution.

THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE AND THE ATTACK
For four days – from October 31 to November 3, 1956 – Hungary was free. Although Soviet forces were still in the country, they had withdrawn from the cities and the fighting had stopped. A reformist politician, Imre Nagy, was called to form a new government. The entire nation immediately recognized the Imre Nagy Government, which, knowing it had no other alternative, was ready to carry out the will of the people. And the Hungarians showed clearly what they wanted.

In his address of November 1 Imre Nagy was only repeating the desire of the people: “The revolutionary struggle fought by the Hungarian people and its heroes has at last carried the cause of freedom and independence to victory,” he said. In the spontaneously formed Revolutionary Worker’s Councils and national committees people started to develop the process of democratic self-determination. When we in the American Hungarian Student Association (ÉMEFESZ) polled our members in 1958 about their aspirations during the revolution, seventy percent agreed: “Our aim was threefold – national independence, a Hungarian socialist structure instead of Communism, and democracy.”

The glorious days of victory ended in deceit and brutal attack by overwhelming Soviet forces. Imre Nagy’s call to arms was heard at the wee hours of November 4. The next day a few of us, mostly students from the nearby Technical University, kept vigil in a third floor apartment facing one of Budapest’s major thoroughfares, Moricz Zsigmond Plaza, in the building that now houses McDonald’s. It was a mild fall day; all windows were open. “Molotov cocktails” were lined up on the windowsills. And we waited….

We were waiting for the Russians and for the Americans. Russian tanks and American diplomats. While watching the streets, our ears were glued to the shortwave radio broadcast of the Voice of America transmitting directly from the U.N. headquarters in New York. The debate of the “Hungarian situation” was going on.

We were convinced that if we could delay the Soviet’s “final solution” for a few days, the international community would prevent the destruction of our newly gained freedom. Help did not come. The Russians did come, and our building, along with most of the city, was destroyed. I am still in awe when I think of those people who lived in that apartment. They let us set up our post there even though they must have known that their home could become a target of Russian shells. As it indeed did…

CONSEQUENCES
The defeat of the revolution had tragic long-term consequences. The “compromise” which was forced by the post-revolutionary Kádár regime upon a beaten society created the often quoted “Gulyás Communism”: we let you live a little if you behave and stop resistance. Instead of national solidarity, society began to show signs of alienation, disorientation, corruption and selfishness.

Failed revolutions can, however, become historically potent forces. The Hungarian revolution proved to be the first nail in the Soviet’s coffin. It took 35 years, but the decline of the Soviet Union, a deepening economic crisis and increasing pressure by reformist groups demanding freedom, democracy and national autonomy finally prevailed. The last occupying Soviet troops left Hungary on June 19, 1991.

“The blood of the Hungarians has re-emerged too precious to Europe and to freedom for us not to be jealous of it to the last drop,” wrote the French writer Albert Camus. The thirteen days that shook the Kremlin finally triumphed.


László Papp
Earning a degree in architectural engineering in 1955, László Papp worked at the Design Institute for Residential and Urban Development when he was elected president of its Revolutionary Workers’ Council in 1956. Upon emigrating to the United States, he earned first a Master’s, then a Doctor of Liberal Arts. He founded and was the first president of the United Federation of Hungarian Students, an international refugee organization. Upon retirement from his architectural firm, he beczme the executive director of the Urban Development Commission for Stamford, Connecticut. He has published in numerous professional journals, as well as writing for Hungarian-American publications.

I remember it as if it were happening today. On October 23, I was on my way home from work at Budapest’s Central Physics Research Institute. From the window of the tram I saw many people hurrying along the streets carrying posters and flyers, pasting them up on walls and kiosks. As soon as I got off the tram, I read one of them: it was the demands of the Hungarian nation, summarized in 16 points.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Oh my heavens, I thought, if even half of those demands were to come true, how great that would be. Occupied by these thoughts, I walked home toward my rented room on Puskin Street. Then I caught sight of the crowds on Rákóczi Avenue, making their way toward the Parliament. I joined them. We chanted in unison – 4,000 of us at the top of our lungs – “Whoever is Hungarian is with us!” “Russians go home!” and so forth. The crowd kept growing. Once we reached the Parliament, I saw that more demonstrators were joining us from different directions, all calling out the same slogans. By nightfall, there were more than 100,000 of us on the square.

Imre Nagy
One group of demonstrators was demanding that Imre Nagy come out and speak to us. Imre Nagy did appear and addressed the crowd over the loudspeakers in that resounding microphone voice of his. He began his speech: “Comrades!” At this, the crowd booed – we were not comrades! He tried saying “comrades” twice more, but we didn’t let him continue. Finally he changed his tack: “My esteemed Hungarian fellow citizens!” This we accepted with great delight. As he spoke, we felt that his words were heartfelt, and gave us hope that we might be liberated from the system of communist terror.

Suddenly, about a hundred people called out that we should go at once to the Radio building, because Ernõ Gerõ was speaking, and we had to stop him. Together with the crowd, I proceeded to the Hungarian Radio, where the events sped up. A Secret Policeman fired into the crowd. By the time we got there, several people were dead and more were injured. Soldiers on a military truck at the corner of Bródy Street were passing out weapons. I got a 9mm-s Frommer revolver, which I then put in my pocket, because I was asked to help transport the wounded. Thus I ended up at the freedom fighter unit at the Péterfy Sándor Street Hospital, where I held out until I was injured on November 6.

Getting hold of a car
I became good friends with a 23-year-old architect named Karcsi Bede. He lived right next door to the hospital, but he never went home because we were so busy transporting the wounded. With the first lull in the fighting, a group came over to me and asked whether I knew anything about cars. Not much, I said, but a little. They told me they’d found a few hundred brand-new Russian passenger cars, the “Pobeda” model, but they couldn’t start them – could I help? Of course, I replied, and off we went in an old black American Buick to the lot. I determined that the distributor of each car was missing the so-called “pipe” and that’s why there was no ignition. They fetched the warehouse supervisor and I drew a picture of the missing part. He led us to a box that was filled with the missing parts. That very day we took five cars to the hospital. Two days later, not a single Pobjeda car remained on the lot. I got one too – naturally for hospital purposes. We used it to run official errands; we used it to take captured secret police to the former Népszava newspaper building for interrogation by Jozsef Dudás and his associates.

One night I was asked to take a group of journalists out to the northern part of Budapest, and as I turned onto the boulevard leading out of the city center, we were suddenly attacked by a volley of gunfire. I pulled over and stopped, then – revolver in hand – walked over to the nearby square to find out who was shooting at us. I was wearing a tricolor armband. In the dim light I made out about eight shadowy figures. I asked them: “Why did you shoot, boys?” They replied: “Because you didn’t stop. You have to understand: if you don’t stop, we’ll shoot your eyes out.” Then I countered: “There are plenty of you guys, yet you didn’t even hit the car.” As it turned out, on earlier occasions, when the freedom fighters stopped cars for identification, some of the passengers were Secret Police, who then proceeded to shoot them. That’s why the freedom fighters were stopping cars by yelling at them – but I hadn’t heard them. The next morning I noticed three bullets in the rear bumper on the driver’s side, but no one had been hurt.

Transporting the wounded
One day I was sent to Mária Street to retrieve the wounded. We proceeded amid gunfire all around. Suddenly, two Russian soldiers jumped in front of us, aimed their machine guns and ordered us to stop. They forced us out of the car and into a doorway.

Well, Karcsi, I told my friend, this is it. These guys are going to shoot us. My pistol was in my belt, hidden under my coat. Luckily, the soldiers did not search us. About eight Russian soldiers, who had been shot, lay in the courtyard; two were still alive. The Russian indicated with his machine gun that we were to take the two wounded soldiers. I was suddenly relieved, realizing that our lives were safe, and could soon return to the hospital. However, in the meantime freedom fighters had started taking up cobblestones from the street to make barricades, and so we could not drive out to Üllõi Street. The freedom fighters approached us and asked what we were up to. I explained that we were out on the orders of the Péterfy Hospital and taking in the wounded. But you have Russian soldiers, they said; why is that? I said that I had no choice in the matter; two Russians had blocked our way and forced us… Yes, we saw all that, said one freedom fighter. So what happens now? There are Hungarian wounded here too. Well, what else – I replied – we’ll unload the Russians and take the Hungarians in. And that’s what we did. We managed to roll our way out to Üllõi Street on planks laid out over the ditches, and so returned to the hospital.

A few days later, when the guns were quiet and the fighting over, we were ordered to gather up the bodies of the Russian soldiers killed on Üllõi Street. Some of these Russians had been shot so intensively that when we tried to toss their bodies up onto the truck, they literally fell apart, and we were slipping and falling in the puddles of blood on the blood-soaked street.

Attack on party headquarters
I was there, on Köztársaság Square, at the attack on the communist party headquarters. The treacherous Secret Police let the freedom fighers close to the building. When there were about 200 of the demonstrators standing about 50 meters from the building, the Secret Police let loose with a volley of gunfire. There were many dead and wounded. One of my colleagues was shot dead here, even though he was carrying a stretcher and wearing a white coat with a red cross. The Secret Police repeated this base maneuver three times. But it did not last, because two more tanks joined the first one, which started firing into the windows of the headquarters. At this, the Secret Police surrendered. The rightfully outraged crowd, however, began literally taking apart the Secret Police emerging from the building, who had outfitted themselves in new blue police uniforms and army boots. Three such dead “policemen” were hung upside down on trees and spat at. The crowd had indeed lost its head – this was because the Secret Police, those criminals, had lured our freedom fighters into a deathtrap. And so the people brought down their judgment…

We caught one Secret Policeman, who was still alive, and about 10 of us surrounded him. I shouted: We’ll leave him alone! At this, a revolutionary stuck a gun in my side, he wanted to kill me, saying that I must be Secret Police too, since I was defending this guy. Come with me to Dudás, I told him, he’ll be interrogated there! At this, my accuser calmed down. Meanwhile, another revolutionary took his rifle by the barrel and smashed the handle into the Secret Policeman’s head with such force that his brains spilled out among us. He died immediately. The reason I had insisted that we interrogate him was the following: we had learned that arrested college students were being held underground, beneath the headquarters building. The party denied this and continues to deny it to this day! I will never forget standing in front of the headquarters on November 3 and feeling a strong pounding coming from underground. We did not know what it could be.
Apparently the arrested students and revolutionaries were being held there. They were trying to break out and were probably hitting the ceiling with some heavy object. This was a question worth pursuing! At the time, a bulldozer was brought in, but began digging in the wrong place. The next day they would have continued digging, but by then it was no longer possible – the Red hordes had returned. This issue remains a mystery to this day. Many people have talked about the underground labyrinths and the fact that truckloads of cement were brought in after the Revolution and poured into a hole. What could have been there underneath? This should be investigated, for our sakes and for the sake of history.

At dawn on November 4, I awoke to the sound of thundering cannons. I suspected the worst. The Russians had returned to attack Budapest. The fighting flared up; there were many wounded; and we had no respite. We transported the injured day and night, surrounded by shooting on all sides.

Wounded
On November 6, the hospital asked me to take a Mother and her newborn baby home to the “House of Lords,” which was actually a poorhouse. Driving along Dohány Street, I suddenly heard a volley of gunfire. “Drop down!” I shouted, and I ducked underneath the steering wheel, keeping my left hand on the wheel and pressing the brake pedal with my right. Then came the second round of gunfire. The car stopped. I waited to see what would happen next. Then I felt something dripping down my face. I touched it and then saw it was blood. They shot me, I thought. Then I wondered if I were alive. I started pinching myself to see if I felt anything, and I did. Then I looked at my partner, Karcsi Bede, who was pouring blood. It was his blood on my face. I pushed the door open with my foot, jumped out and ran into a building entrance where about 15 young freedom fighters were standing. I glanced back at the car, but no one was moving there. I asked the boys to bring my bleeding friend inside. No way, they say, they’ll shoot us! At this I ran over to the car and tried to open the door with my left hand, but couldn’t because my left arm hurt so much I was incapable of opening the door. I looked at my left arm and saw that the sleeve of my sweater was ragged and covered with blood. (I still have this sweater, a cherished memento.) So I too had been shot, but had felt nothing more than two light taps as the bullet and 18 pieces of shrapnel entered my arm. The boys saw that the shoooting had stopped, so they came over to help remove the wounded Karcsi from the car. They pulled him out and brought both of us into a nearby apartment. They brought me a large mug of hot tea: Drink up! they said. As I swallowed the last gulp, I realized it was rum, not tea. I soon fell asleep and awoke in the Péterfy Hospital. Karcsi lay beside me, his head bandaged. His parents were at his bedside, talking to him, but he remained silent. I told his parents what had happened; a while later they went home. Then Karcsi, who could not speak and was paralyzed on his left side, turned to me with what seemed to me a slight smile at the corner of his mouth. I asked the doctor why he had not responded to his parents, yet had seemed to smile at me. Yes, replied the doctor, his injury affected the part of his brain with memories of long ago, but I was a recent friend, so he remembered me.

Karcsi took three bullets – two in the shoulder and one in the back of his skull. After three brain surgeries he died. Karcsi (Károly) Bede died a hero of our Revolution. May he rest in peace! His brother László Bede was imprisoned for 15 years for his part in the Revolution. I was one of the lucky ones. When I picked up something with my left hand, I could not let it go, but the doctor said this was due to a radial nerve having been severed by a piece of shrapnel. He said that in time, the nerve endings would reconnect themselves. After six months, this came to pass, but to this day I still have 18 pieces of shrapnel in my arm, causing me various problems from time to time.

Flight
After a few days, we were informed that the Russians, together with the Secret Police, were rounding up the wounded and taking them away in tanks, and that we should immediately go into hiding. I left the hospital and went to the countryside. I did not dare return to my parents’ home in the village of Ukk, because I’d received word that the authorities had been there looking for me. One night after Christmas I went home, but my parents asked me to go away immediately, because the postman had told them that the authorities were still searching for me.

I went to the town of Dudár and from there I started on my journey West. I crossed the border in the first week of January 1957. Once I reached Austria, the Red Cross took me to Vienna for medical treatment, then to the refugee camp run by the Austrian Ministry for the Interior. I came to America in 1959. I worked at Rutgers University as associate head of the engineering staff, retiring in 1995. In 1996, I had a heart operation. In 1998, I enrolled in the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Jersey. I was ordained a minister on May 11, 2004, but by the grace of God I have served the congregation at the Hungarian Presbyterian Church in Wharton, NJ, since 2000.

I never regretted my actions. I was no hero, because the heroes are those who gave their lives for their country. If I had to serve the Revolution today, I’d do the same again for my country. It pains me to think of my country of birth, which I can only visit now as a tourist, but cannot return home for good. I suffer from homesickness, but my wife Ágnes’ work ties her to the United States, and it would be difficult for me to establish myself all over again in Hungary now, at the age of 76. My heart aches for my abandoned homeland. I cannot change my heart. The wise old proverb is indeed true: “He who changes homelands should change his heart!”

If I reflect upon everything that has happened, it comforts me to realize that those of us who participated in the 1956 Revolution and Freedom Fight can rightfully say: We did what our country demanded of us. God be with you, Hungary, my dear Motherland.

I don’t know how much longer I will be able to hum the old folk song, but I will do it as long as I am alive:

We left our beautiful country,
Famous little Hungary,
Then turned back for just one more look
And the tears came to our eyes.

Preface and postscript
It is a difficult task, after 49 years, to talk about the glorious Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Countless writings on this topic have already been published. It is difficult indeed to write or say anything new and worthwhile. As even the fingers of our own hands are unique, so the experiences and tragedies of the individuals who participated in the Revolution are all different from each other. So I can write only that which I saw with my own eyes, that which happened to me and around me, in 1956 and thereafter.

I was just an ordinary participant in the Revolution. I did what was asked of me, as long as I could and as long as I had to.

Each year in October a strange feeling comes over me, and grows stronger as October 23 approaches… I become sad on these October anniversaries, I cry when I think of past events… for decades now I am very often reminded of a beautiful Hungarian folk song, and feel as though I am humming it together with everyone who was with me during the fighting, with whom I had to leave my homeland, who rejoiced in our victory and who died a heroic death by my side, a smile on their faces, for they knew they were giving their lives for the freedom of Hungary.

Now, too, I hear the song in my head… once again, I am there, we are all there, on the streets of Budapest. I am 27 years old and going off to save the lives of Hungarians… then it is all over… it is over, and we have to flee.

Sometimes, at night, tears come to my eyes because I see the fallen warriors, the blood of my comrades, as they die in my arms, smiling in the belief that victory is ours, and their heart beats for the last time.

Then we’re off toward the border, we had to leave, we had to come, we had to flee for our lives from the ruthless Red hordes and their servants intent on crushing our freedom with their tanks. Two hundred thousand of us fled to to the West.

I ask myself, and many of today’s young people ask: How did all this begin? I recall the events in my mind, and I can tell the story.

As with the Treaty of Trianon after the First World War, the Great Powers convened after the Second World War to sentence Hungary, once again, to death and to the loss of its freedom. At first, the Bolshevists, under the aegis of communism, began their advance using the tactic of two steps forward – one step back. The political show trials began, innocent Hungarian leaders were executed, the best of our citizens were imprisoned on false charges. Cardinal Mindszenty was imprisoned… the sound of the doorbell struck terror into our hearts, as we waited for them to come and get us. The ruthless terror of the Secret Police was decimating the Hungarian nation. And the discontent in the country grew ever greater, for the Hungarian nation has always been – and hopefully will always be – a freedom-loving, God-fearing nation of patriots.

The oppression continued until the nation’s patience finally ran out in October 1956. Hungarians old and young participated. In those days, I felt that something would happen, but did not dare believe that it would be a Revolution and fight for freedom.

I remember it as if it were happening today. On October 23, I was on my way home from work…


Károly Oláh
After fleeing Hungary, Károly Oláh lived for a few years in Austria, then immigrated to the United States and settled in New Jersey, in 1959. At Rutgers University he worked as an engineer, then – after retirement – completed a degree in Theology. Since 2000, Oláh has been a minister of the Hungarian Presbyterian Church in Wharton, New Jersey.

Liberty, democracy, human rights are like health. Servitude, oppression, discrimination are like sickness. Totalitarian tyranny is death. A revolution that overthrows tyranny and achieves liberty is a resurrection. During the last week of October and the first few days of November, 1956, most of us in Hungary felt as if we were risen from the dead.

It was euphoria — we sang our long-forbidden national anthem, embraced each other on the streets, laughed and cried with joy, we felt redeemed. We were intoxicated by hearing and saying words of truth. And it was also serious and sober determination — we were feverishly drafting proclamations, drew up lists of demands, proposals and plans to eliminate all instruments and institutions of dictatorship and to construct a new, humane society. And we were organizing autonomous local, democratic self-governing bodies to realize those plans.

It was this resurrection, this hope, this truth, this creative planning and democratic organization that was crushed by the massive armed aggression of the Soviet Union. The joyful song of freedom was silenced again by the horrifying sounds of war, the terror of prison cells, torture chambers and the gallows.

What can be learned from the drama of those twelve days? What is the legacy of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution?

Its international significance cannot be overemphasized. From the contemporary perspective it is increasingly obvious that the 1956 Hungarian Revolution was the event that began the fall of the modern Soviet Empire. Milovan Djilas wrote in Belgrade: “The revololution in Hungary means the beginning of the end of Communism.” (Milovan Djilas: “The Storm in East Europe”, The New Leader, New York; XXXIX, 47; November 19, 1956, p. 6.) The French philosopher Albert Camus remarked: “With the first shout of insurrection in free Budapest, learned and shortsighted philosophies, miles of false reasoning and deceptively beautiful doctrines were scattered like dust. And the truth, the naked truth, so long outraged, burst upon the eyes of the world.” (Király, Béla. et al. ed.: ¨The First War Between Socialist States: The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and Its Impact. Social Science Monographs, Brooklyn College Press, NY. 1984, p. 81.)

And once this truth— this naked truth —was revealed in all its powerful simplicity, no amount of subsequent propaganda— perpetrated by some to this day!— was able to reestablish the grotesque wall of Orwellian lies trying to define was a peace, oppression as freedom, defensive patriotism as belligerent nationalism, revolution as counterrevolution. We learned the truth and demonstrated it to the World, that what defines a country, what qualifies a society is not any ideology, but the presence or absence of freedom. All ideologies, all doctrines, whether they be called fascism or anti-fascism, communism, or anti-communism, racism, capitalism, socialism, ethnicism or religious fanaticism, can be used in attempts to justify violence and legitimize oppression.

Truth was an effect, just as the elemental need of truth was a cause, of the Revolution. As the United Nations’ Special Committee recorded it: “‘We wanted freedom and not a good comfortable life’, an eighteen year-old girl student told the Committee. Even though we might lack bread and other necessities of life, we wanted freedom. We, the young people were particularly hampered because we were brought up amidst lies. We continually had to lie. We could not have a healthy idea, because everything was choked in us. We wanted freedom of thought…’ It seemed to the Committee that this young student’s words expressed as concisely as any the ideal which made possible a great uprising. “(United Nations Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary, General Assembly, Official Records: Eleventh Session, Supplement No 18. A/3592; New York, 1957 p. 68.)

We wanted freedom and freedom means sovereignty, autonomy, self-determination. To realize these goals, instruments of self-governance had to be created. Spontaneously and yet almost simultaneously within a few days Revolutionary Councils, National Councils, Workers’ Councils were organized in the entire country. Many considered those Councils the singularly most remarkable, most significant achievement of the Revolution. As Hannah Arendt noted in her milestone book The Origins of Totalitarianism: “When we ponder the lesson of the Hungarian Revolution” we find that there was “no chaos, no looting, no trespassing of property. There were no crimes against life either, for the few instances of public hanging of AVH officers were conducted with remarkable restraint and discrimination. Instead of the mob rule which might have been expected, there appeared immediately, almost simultaneously with the uprising itself the Revolutionary and Workers’ Councils. The rise of the councils was the clear sign of a true upsurge of democracy against dictatorship, of freedom against tyranny. One of the most striking aspects of the Hungarian Revolution is not only that this principle of the council system reemerged, but that in twelve short days a good deal of its range of potentialities could emerge with it…” (in: Király, Op. Cit. pp. 151-156.)

The Hungarian people’s emphasis on the revolutionary councils also represented the fact that the overwhelming will of the nation was not only negation but affirmation, not only destruction but construction. The elimination of all inhuman structures was to be the prerequisite for the creation of humane structures and functions of a new society.

Twelve days are, of course, not enough to achieve democracy. But twelve days, indeed, the first few days of the Revolution proved to be enough to establish one of the most important preconditions for democracy: a state of self-confidence, a state of no longer having to be afraid. The state of paralyzing, constant and omnipresent fear was lifted from our hearts. And with that, the construction of democracy began. As one of the great Hungarian political theorists, István Bibó observed: “Being a democrat means, primarily, not to be afraid.” (Bibó, István: Democracy, Revolution, Self-Determination, Selected Writings, edited by Károly Nagy; Social Science Monographs, and Atlantic Research and Publications, NJ 1991, p. 42.)

It was this same István Bibó, whose personal courage became symbolic when the Soviet forces crushed the Revolution. As the sole member of the new revolutionary government of Imre Nagy present in the Parliament building on November 4th, Sunday morning, when Soviet artillery, tanks and airplanes unleashed their fire-power against Budapest, Bibó sat down at a desk to type a proclamation. A typewriter confronting tanks. Reason facing treacherous terror. Words and thoughts battling bullets…

Wrote Bibó that morning: “Hungary’s fullest intention is to live in the community of those free Eastern European nations which want to organize their societies on the principles of liberty, justice, and freedom from exploitation. The people of Hungary have sacrificed enough of their blood to show the world their devotion for freedom and truth. (Bibó, Op. Cit., pp. 325-326.)

Amidst the roar and rattle of guns he finished typing his proclamation with this foreboding sentence: “May God protect Hungary!”

So: what is the legacy of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution? Among other possible important elements, perhaps that legacy is the significance of the fundamental human need for truth, for self-determination, for freedom from fear, for democracy, for the achievement of which no sacrifice seems to be too great.

And this legacy, this message is certainly not just Hungarian and, of course, no mere museum-piece, relevant only to a frozen moment in the distant past. This legacy is not just there and then, but here and now, and let us hope: everywhere and tomorrow as well. As, again, István Bibó expressed it in 1957, just before his imprisonment: “It is the Hungarian people’s task to honor and safeguard— against slander, forgetting and fading —the banner of their Revolution, which is also the banner of a freer future for mankind.” (Bibó, Op. Cit., p. 352.)


Notes

* In Károly Nagy and Peter Pastor, eds., The Legacy of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Five Participants forty Years Later (New Brunswick, NJ 1996), pp. 31-36.

1. Milovan Djilas, “The Storm in East Europe” in The New Leader 39. (1956) 47:6.
2. Béla K. Király et al., ed., The First War between Socialist States: the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and Its Impact (Highland Lakes, NJ 1984), p. 81.
3. United Nations, Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary, General Assembly, Official Records: Eleventh Session, Supplement no. 18 A/3592 (New York, 1957), p. 68.
4. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1958), pp. 151-156.
5. Károly Nagy, ed., István Bibó, Democracy, Revolution, Self-Determination, Selected Writings (Highland Lakes, NJ, 1991), p. 42.
6. Ibid., pp. 325-326.
7. Ibid., p. 352.

THE IDEAS OF THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION, SUPPRESSED AND VICTORIOUS 1956-1999

Edited by
Lee w. Congdon and Béla K. Király

Social Science Monographs, Boulder, Colorado
Atlantic Research and Publications, Inc.
Highland Lakes, New Jersey

________________________________________________________
Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York
2002


Károly Nagy
He was elected president of a revolutionary council in Erdõsmecske in 1956, and consequently fled to the United States. Trained as a sociologist at Rutgers and the New School, he currently teaches at the college level in New Jersey. He has published extensively in both English and Hungarian, and is extremely active both in the New Brunswick, NJ Hungarian community as well as in Hungarian linguistic circles.

In January 2005, the Hungarian daily newspaper, Népszabadság, published an article by Katalin Jánosi, Imre Nagy’s granddaughter, who described her reaction to a recent film by Márta Mészáros, “The Unburied Dead.”

Katalin Jánosi was a small child when she witnessed the tragedies which befell her Grandfather and Father, and looks back onto those years which affected her greatly and which impelled her to follow an “inward oriented life.” In the article, she expresses her firm objections to the film, because it approaches the sufferings of Imre Nagy between 1956-58 not as a documentary, but as a feature film; also, because there is practically no mention of the sufferings endured by Imre Nagy’s associates who suffered a common fate. “I would have liked the bells to toll not just for my Grandfather, Imre Nagy, but for his companions too,” writes Katalin Jánosi.

In this writing, Béla Lipták reflects upon Katalin Jánosi’s thoughts and opinions.

On the statement by Imre Nagy’s granddaughter...
It’s hard to begin writing this, because for me it is still very strange to to consider Népszabadság as a forum for my writings. The last time I held an issue of this newspaper’s forerunner was on the night of October 23, 1956, while waiting for Imre Nagy to appear. Then, too, I needed the newspaper only to serve as a torch on the darkened square in front of the Parliament.

But the deeply affecting statement by Imre Nagy’s granddaughter, Katalin Jánosi, impels me to write. I could imagine, and it is a disturbing picture indeed, how a 4-year-old little girl must have felt as she learned about life – not playing with dolls, but rather having to see her Mother cry for days on end, and seeeing the snarling guard dogs of the Romanian soldiers. I can well understand that after such a childhood, she chose a life of internal exile, a solitary existence for a lifetime. I hope that every small Hungarian Katalin will learn to understand that their Fathers were told to remain silent about anything they cannot talk about without crying. Ferenc Jánosi, Katalin’s Father, was only obeying this rule when he remained silent about his own and his Father-in-law’s torture, and remained silent about the fact that the blackmailers could force a ”confession” from them only by threatening to murder their wives and children.

But I want to say something else, too, which little girls who were only 4 years old in 1956 could not have seen or understood: that people like Imre Nagy, Ferenc Jánosi, Mr. Szabó and István Angyal – with their heroic stance and at the cost of their lives – dealt a death blow to the communist behemoth, and it was they who launched the most important trend of the 20th century: humanity’s common fight for the freedom of each individual human being.

35 days
Like Katalin’s Father, I did not talk about certain things – not even to my children. For example, about Marika, who died of wounds from a Soviet tank in the Revolution’s defense of Móricz Zsigmond Square. Marika, just before she lost consciousness, whispered into my ear, which I had moved next to her mouth: “I have a little candy in my pocket, help yourself!” Or about Jancsi Danner, whose life I could have saved, if I had known how to shoot a gun, but I didn’t know how – I didn’t tell my children about that, either. The first time in my life that I really had an inkling of what death means was when Jancsi’s shoes had fallen off, and I tried to force them back onto his feet, which had already gone stiff, and of course I didn’t succeed. Both of them were my friends; I was next to them when they died; and they remain with me today – their memory is part of my every thought, but even today I cannot talk about them.

When your friend dies in your arms, you are changed for good. In my case, I have carried the memory of Jancsi and Marika since the age of 20. And with this memory I carry a feeling of guilt – after all, we all had the same dream, yet only they died for it. I survived the fighting, and fled. I mention this guilt not to complain – for me, it is sometimes a source of energy, which is often useful because it is combined with optimism. It is this optimism which I want to share with the Katalins of Hungary, who feel that our nation is living in an era of pessimism and self-destruction, a nation incapable of finding strength in the memory of the heroic days of 1956 – that we are incapable of finally coming to terms with our common past. But I do not believe this is the case.

During those dramatic days in 1956, I ate at the table of perfect strangers, slept as a guest in the homes of perfect strangers without ever having to spend the 20 forints in my pocket, because no one would accept any payment. I crossed the border into Austria with that 20-forint note in my pocket, because during the 35 days of the Revolution, no one would accept a penny! In every Hungarian house in the country, my tricolored armband was enough payment, and enough to make me a member of the family.

The memory of those 35 days made me an optimist for life. That experience showed me how brave, self-sacrificing and patriotic the average Hungarian person could be. In a healthy society, the average person is capable of serving as an excellent resource, an excellent building block if he believes in the country’s leaders and in the goal toward which the nation is striving. Even today – despite recent setbacks in Hungary’s political life – I am an optimist, because I know that the blood of Jancsi, of Marika, of those families who hosted me a half-century ago, could not have turned to water in their children and grandchildren! I know that the spiritual destruction that my homeland has undergone can be healed. I know that the communist system attempted to exterminate community spirit, self-confidence and patriotism from our children and grandchildren, but they attempted this in vain, because statements such as those by Katalin Jánosi do not allow, cannot allow them to succeed!

Yes, it is true that still missing from our textbooks are not just the spirit of 1956, but also the writings of such great philosophers and statesmen as István Bibó and Ferenc Deák. I know that Hungary has yet to come to terms with its past, has yet to complete a true change in the system. But I also know that Rome was not built in a day, either, and that the United States has not always followed John F. Kennedy’s wise advice: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country!” I believe that the Hungarian nation, as it stands today, will indeed be able to come to terms with its past, will be capable of healing the spiritual wounds inflicted by the communist past – after all, their forebearers were capable of much more.

Donations at the Writers’ Association
How many nations can say that boxes filled with donated money stood unguarded on the streets of their capital at the Writers’ Association headquarters? Is there any other city in the world where such a thing is imaginable? Is there any other city where the widow counted out the cost of a coffin and removed that amount, 600 or 800 forints, from the donation boxes without anyone to oversee the transaction, even as the donated banknotes continued to fall into the boxes like falling autumn leaves? No, only the people of Budapest can say this, only the Katalin Jánosis of this world can say this about the capital city of their Fathers!

At the same time, there is a genuine need for reconciliation! There is a real need for the grandchildren of prisoners sent to Romania and to the forced labor camp of Recsk, and for the grandchildren of their prison guards, for the descendents of those tortured and of those who tortured them, to finally leave the past behind and work together in peace to build a better Hungarian future. The Katalin Jánosis of this world have good reason for optimism, because this reconciliation is easily attained, but it does have some conditions. In order for society to forgive the prison guards and the Secret Police, we don’t need revenge; we need no Nuremberg trials or public hangings; we only need that the perpetrators ask pardon of the nation. That, however, is an absolute necessity.

When the Hungarian Green Party nominated me to run against Gyula Horn as a candidate, I ran into Mr. Horn in Somogy County. He reached out his hand, but I could not bring myself to shake it. I saw in his eyes that he was offended, but I saw no sign that he understood what he owes – not to me, but to his entire nation! Whoever does not ask forgiveness, who does not admit the wrong he has done, who defends the actions of the Secret Police and would sweep the murder of Jancsi Danner and others like him under the rug of history as mere “events” – cannot be forgiven.

The other necessary step, which has already been taken in several neighboring countries, is to make public the reports of the Secret Police from years past. A healthy society must be clear on its own past; only if it knows and accepts its past can a society turn its attention to the future. Everyone must know who the informant was in his apartment building; they must know what and to whom the informant submitted his reports; and they must know also that the informant himself is responsible for his crimes – not his party, nor his religious or ethnic background, nor his children or grandchildren, but he himself. Our society as a whole must realize that spying or treason are not the acts of a right-wing or left-wing person, they are neither conservative nor liberal acts – they are simply sins, for which individuals are responsible.

I believe that the soul of the Hungarian nation will be cured of the disease with which communism infected it; that the Hungarian nation will be able to close the past chapter of its history, put an end to the finger-pointing among its members and to the partisan bickering which paralyzes any possibility for national unity. When this – genuine – change of system has taken place, and when it has become evident that the former spies and secret police are to be found in every one of the current political parties, then society will also understand that a person is not a traitor because he is conservative or liberal, but because he is a despicable human being. Only then will Hungarian young people have new role models, such as Ferenc Jánosi.

Broken store windows
Let’s consider the stores whose windows were shattered as a result of the fighting during the Revolution, and the untouched inventory which no one thought to loot. Isn’t it incredible that, during those days, no one believed that looting and stealing was more important than preserving the nobility of the revolutionary cause? Isn’t it incredible that darkness fell upon the city streets, yet when the population got up the next morning, the items in the stores were still there, untouched? Is there any other nation in the world capable of such unity and self-control? Or let’s consider the horse-carts brought in to the city from the countryside, from which farmers passed out free food to those fighting on the streets of the capital. If our Fathers could behave like that, then why would it not be possible for today’s Hungarian society to join together and heal the spiritual wounds inflicted on them by the twentieth century?

Of course it is possible. After all, the spirit of the Hungarian Revolution was not quenched even after the heroic days of 1956 were over. This spirit prevailed on June 16, 1958, when we in New York learned that Kádár and his government murdered Katalin Jánosi’s Grandfather, as well as Pál Maléter, Miklós Gimes, Géza Losonczy, József Szilágyi and Mr. Szabó, and were soon to murder István Angyal and Péter Mansfeld. In response, a group of us in New York attempted to occupy the Permanent Mission of the Soviet Union to the United Nations on Park Avenue and to establish the Free Hungarian Government there. This representative body would have been headed by Anna Kéthly, the only member of Imre Nagy’s government at the time who was in the West. The New York Police foiled our plans, and I ended up in jail.

Katalin Jánosi and today’s Hungarian youth should know that in that jail cell, along with me and my brother Péter, was Gyurka Lovas who, upon hearing the news of the execution of Imre Nagy and his associates, climbed up the Soviet Union’s flagpole in front of the United Nations building, tore the Soviet flag down with his bare hands, then fell several stories onto the cement below. In the same jail cell with us was Csanád Tóth, whose journalist Father was executed for daring to research and report on how József Mindszenty’s interrogators were able to extract a statement from him – you see, Katalin, anyone(!) can be forced to give a statement! Later, Csanád Tóth became an official of the U.S. State Department; in 1978, together with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, he brought the Crown of St. Stephen back to Hungary.

Katalin Jánosi ought also to know that not only István Angyal, executed at the same time as her Grandfather, was Jewish. Béla Fábián, who survived the labor camp at Recsk and later, as President of the Association of Hungarian Political Prisoners, posted bail for us in New York, was also Jewish. This is relevant, because the communists, though covertly, did fan the flames of anti-Semitism. One reason they let Mátyás Rákosi and Gábor Péter take power in the Hungarian Communist Party was so that the people would blame not the communists, but rather “the Jews” for the Party’s crimes. The Communists also did not fail to note that there were many “Jewish secret police” at the Recsk camp, but they did not mention that many of the Hungarian anti-communists at Recsk were also Jewish! The communist party papers were similarly silent about the fact that the Auschwitz survivor István Angyal, the heroic leader of the Tüzoltó Street freedom fighters in 1956 later executed by Kádár’s secret police, was also Jewish.

The future
I am optimistic about the future; after all, the country is now free, and today Katalin Jánosi’s generation, and their children, can read this article in the Népszabadság newspaper. Now we only need to vanquish our own selves to ensure that the Hungarian nation undergoes a healing process. For this, we must put a stop to our self-destruction and internecine fighting, and instead, use our talents the way we did for 1000 years: to be a leader in Central Europe.

I know that the Hungarian nation is capable of this – whose sons not only dealt a death blow to communism, but also brought atomic power and computers to the human race. I know that this nation will finally be capable of uniting and working for the national good. I know that the society of Katalin Jánosi is capable of this – after all, their Fathers and Grandfathers were capable of much more. I know, viewing Hungarian history in perspective, that the past 15 years represents the briefest of time periods. What are these 15 years compared to our crushing defeats at the hands of the Mongols, the Turks, and the Russian and Austrian forces in 1848? We not only survived the Mongols, Turks and Austrians, our defeats were followed by outstanding statesmen who could build upon the tremendous strength of the Hungarian nation.

I not only believe – I know – that when our consciousness has absorbed the tragedies of the twentieth century, when the spiritual wounds of communism and fascism have healed, and when the nation has reconciled with itself and again forged a unity among the spiritually and physically separated parts of the nation, then we too will follow the example of our greatest statesmen – we too can create great things. This is within reach: we ourselves need only believe that our grandchildren’s future depends upon us, and that this country really does belong to us! That is why we must take note of statements like that of Katalin Jánosi; that is why we must vote; and that is why we must, with wisdom and patience, elect as a national leader a great statesman in the best Hungarian tradition.


Béla Lipták
In 1956, Béla Lipták was one of the drafters of the Revolution’s “16 Points” (demands), and is now engaged in ensuring that a memorial to these 16 Points be erected for the Revolution’s 50th anniversary. In the U.S., he taught at Yale University and wrote 26 technical textbooks (three of the prefaces were written by Edward Teller). Today, Lipták is researching the technical requirements for an economy based on hydrogen-based energy.

Béla Lipták published his memories of the 1956 Revolution in a book whose Hungarian title is “35 Nap” (35 Days); the English edition is entitled “A Testament of Revolution.”

On September 1, 1956, I was released from the prison of the communists. As I arrived at the train station in Budapest, my friend, Erwin Baktay, was on hand to meet me. From the station I went home to Szentkirályi Street. In front of our building, I ran into our former cook, who took one look at me and fled, terrified, making the sign of the cross. I ran after her. Though she did her best, her girth and age did not allow her to outrun me. I took hold of her arm and asked why she was afraid of me. “I’m Alfonz Lengyel,” I said, “in the flesh.” The cook’s mouth turned purple; she shook with fear. Finally, she realized that I had not come to take her with me into heaven, where she wasn’t ready to go yet.

She calmed down and learned that I had not died, and I was not a ghostly spirit pursuing her. She told me that my Father had died the previous Christmas, and only my Stepmother lived alone in the apartment. She also told me the reason she had been so frightened at the sight of me: my Father had paid 1500 rubles in exchange for the information that I had been shot dead while trying to escape from prison. As it turned out, my poor Father had to pay for false information.

The next day I had to report to the police. They gave me two letters: one from the prison authorities, stating that I was obligated to pay them for the six years’ worth of housing and food they had provided during my years of imprisonment. The other was from Dr. Laci Kardos, Director of the Hungarian National Museum – he informed me that I had a job as adjunct at the museum’s folk art collection.

As soon as I got myself together, I went to the Museum, where Dr. Kardos, my former boss, greeted me with great affection. He had heard that I had not given in to my prison interrogators, and was happy to hire me in his museum. He assigned me a room full of books and said that I should, for the time being, just read and learn rather than work. While in prison, I had kept up my studies. As a way to keep myself alive, I was constantly reviewing my college and law school studies. But after the years of physical labor in the mines under horrific conditions, the respite at the museum was welcome indeed.

October 23
All of my museum co-workers – though they did not dare say the traditional “Isten hozott” (God be with you) greeting – were very gentle with me, sometimes patting my shoulder. One day, the Director telephoned me from out on the street. He told me not to leave the museum until he personally gives me the okay. The Secret Police and Ministry of the Interior had permitted the students to hold a demonstration at the Petõfi Statue, but he believed it was a trap – he expected the official policy to switch overnight from Stalinist communism to De-Stalinized communism. He reminded me that I had recently been let out of prison, and, as a former officer under Horthy, I was suspect. Even if the communists themselves are organizing their own revolutionary transformation, he said, they might still try to identify scapegoats to blame for the “Revolution.”

An hour later, Kardos telephoned again. But this time, he was ecstatic: “Come, Alfonz,” he said, “this is now OUR REVOLUTION!” By the time I made it from the Museum on Könyves Kálmán Avenue into the city, the student demonstrators were chanting their slogans in front of the Radio building. Since my Stepmother lived in a building just behind the Radio, I started off in that direction and saw the crowds. The first guns were fired. Those nearest the entrance of the Radio building ran inside, followed by a crowd, including me. I spent that night at my apartment on Szentkirályi Street.

I heard on the Radio that two major areas of conflict were at Corvin Köz and Moszkva tér. I started off in the direction of the communist book store, and there I saw people carrying the books out of the store and burning them in great piles. I recalled the many examples of book-burning throughout history. We had, naturally, always condemned book burning as a crime – yet now, somehow, I felt that these were not books being burnt, but rather instruments that took people’s freedoms away; these books were the ideological instruments for keeping people enslaved. So I joined the crowd in burning the books.

We heard that smaller groups at the above locations clashed with armed security forces, and that political officers in civilian clothes were on the streets to report on developments, as well as to sow confusion among the freedom fighters. But practically the entire population joined the Revolution – even those who were communists, for many had joined the party under duress; others had realized they did not want this kind of communism. Many of these were like the communist I met at the prison hospital who had become a communist out of a belief in its ideals, but found it a dead end.

Of course, there were some workers from the Csepel part of the city who had been adherents of National Socialism, then – in 1945 – switched their allegiance to international communism. These, too, were disappointed, and so on October 23, 1956, they went out onto the streets to drive out the Soviet forces and their treacherous Hungarian communist lackeys.

Freedom
During a lull in the fighting, I joined the Ervin Papp group in founding the Association of Christian Hungarian Political Prisoners. I became the interim president. The Imre Nagy government even approved the founding documents of this organization. (I later took these documents with me to the United States, and when the World Association of Former Hungarian Political Prisoners was formed, I merged our own Christian Association with that one, and became the co-President of the new organization).

Meanwhile, Pál Pálinkás, a former classmate from the Military Academy, freed Cardinal Mindszenty from his prison cell and escorted him to his Residence. (Pálinkás’ real family name was Count Pallavichini, but the communists did not approve of this title and made him change his name to Pálinkás. After the Revolution was crushed, Pálinkás was executed.)

Soon after, in connection with the show trial against Bishop Grosz, I took the Ervin Papp group up to Cardinal Mindszenty’s office. The Cardinal greeted me as an old friend (he had once administered the last rites to me after a serious military injury in Veszprém; later, in 1948, he had helped me get a job at the Ministry of Religious and Educational Affairs). Mindszenty authorized me, together with the chaplain of Budapest’s Rókus Hospital, to reorganize the Actio Catholika movement. We tried to do so over the next few days, but without success, because a collaborator priest, a remnant of the Rákosi era and head of the Actio Catholika, declared that Mindszenty is a nobody, and if we do not leave the premises immediately, he would call the State Security Police and have us removed. I told him he should call anyone he wants, but we would not leave. Then I began the job of going through the archives.

We returned to Mindszenty’s office to report on our progress. Later that afternoon, I went down to the courtyard where, to my surprise, I saw my boss, Dr. Laci Kardos. He, too, was waiting to see Mindszenty. International journalists were coming and going; the Vienna-based Caritas aid organization was also conducting extensive discussions with Mindszenty’s office. Dr. Kardos told me that Imre Nagy had sent him with a message to Mindszenty, asking him to encourage the Hungarian people to support the Imre Nagy government, which had already committed to announcing an election based on a multi-party democracy.

At that moment, I felt like I was a participant in one of Hungary’s great historic turning-points. I rushed into the office and pulled Mindszenty off to one side to give him Imre Nagy’s message. He looked at me with those knowing eyes of his and replied that he had already written his radio address, and it would be just as Imre Nagy asked, for he – Mindszenty – was fully aware of the great responsibility weighing upon him as a spiritual leader of the Hungarian nation. He added – as he did later in his radio address – that his conscience was clear with respect to his activities under both the extreme right-wing regime and the communist regime, and owed no one any apologies. (Many people at the time were making public radio announcements “regretting” their actions that had caused suffering or death to millions of people.)

November 4
The ecclesiastical leader of Actio Catholika at the time asked me to come into his office on the morning of November 4, for he had changed his mind and wanted to hand over leadership of the organization to us. Needless to say, after I heard Imre Nagy’s plea for help on the radio the next morning, I did not go to that office, for the same fate would have befallen me as befell Imre Nagy’s Parliamentarians who were summoned to negotiate with the Soviets. As members of Parliament, they were protected by international law, yet they were killed anyway.

Kádár, who had been imprisoned under Rákosi, nevertheless agreed to take on Hungary’s leadership according to the Soviet model. Initially, he was a minister in the Imre Nagy cabinet. He even announced that Hungary was now – for the first time in its history – truly free. Yet he proceeded to betray our Revolution and had his compatriots hanged.

For a little while after the Revolution was crushed, I continued to go to work at the Museum, but after learning that freedom fighters and the released political prisoners were being rounded up, I asked my boss, Dr. László Kardos, to help me escape to the West. Dr. Kardos did help; apart from his wife, no one knew that Kardos and his friend, Attila Szigeti, helped me get out to Austria.

Kardos’s wife gave me a piece of paper with the name of a man in Vienna who was smuggling Hungarians across the border, and asked me – once I got out to Vienna – to have him bring a thank-you note back to Kardos and to Attila. I tossed the paper away and never made contact with the man. Nevertheless, a “thank you note” in my name arrived – which I had never written. Based on this forged note, Kardos, Attila and many others were arrested, some of them jailed and even hanged.

More than 40 years later, when the Soviet troops left Hungary, I went to Budapest on a visit – that’s when I learned, from one of my former prisonmates, about the existence of this “thank you note.” Upon returning to the United States, I gave a declaration under oath at the Hungarian Embassy that, while in the West, I was never in any personal or written contact with any of the individuals who were arrested in connection with the forged note. I placed a copy of this declaration in the official file on these cases. The declaration included my acknowledgement that while my statement could no longer help any of those who were arrested, it might serve to let future generations know how honest Hungarians were convicted or executed based on false and forged documents.

To the West
I left Budapest on December 13, 1956, and crossed the Hungarian border at Pamhage on December 24. I fell into the water, which then froze over my entire body. Locals found me lying unconscious in the snow; they took me home and called a doctor who beat the life back into me. I went on to Vienna, to the Caritas aid society, and told them that Mindszenty had authorized me to run the Actio Catholika movement in Budapest. They immediately put me to work as long as I was waiting to be assigned my next destination as refugee.

One day, a worker came to me in despair, saying a Hungarian girl had attempted suicide, and that I should talk to her. Naturally, I agreed. The girl told me that her fiance had just arrived in Vienna from the Melbourne Olympics, and the Austrian Government would only permit them to get married if she got written permission from her parents. Her parents, however, were dead. At this, I offered to legally adopt her and give my permission for the marriage. I even organized a very nice wedding for them. The newlywed couple went on to the United States, where, after a short while, they were divorced. So much for love unto death. I never heard from them again.

One day I went to the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, where a long line of Hungarian refugees was waiting for immigration papers. While I was standing there, a tall, skinny Catholic priest called out to me: “Alfonz, don’t you recognize me? I’m Imre Domjan from Miskolc. My Mother taught at the same school as your Aunt.” Imre (now Emerico) had gone to the West in 1933, then to study at the Vatican Gregorian Institute, where he was ordained a priest, then ended up in California. In short, the little kid I remembered had become a very tall, very thin priest. He told me he’d gotten funding from Bing Crosby to help a group of refugees come to the United States, and if I wanted to come, he’d put me on the list. I said yes, then got through my offical immigration interview. The interview occurred in Hungarian, because the Consul, Dr. László Tihanyi, was born in Hungary, became an American diplomat, and was sent to Salzburg to conduct interviews with the Hungarian refugees bound for the United States (Interestingly, 16 years later he retired from the diplomatic service and became my colleague as a professor at Northern Kentucky University).

After Salzburg we were sent to Bremerhaven. From there, we boarded the military ship “General Walker” for a very long ocean journey memorable for diarrhea and vomiting. Finally we arrived, through the Port of New York, to the Promised Land…


Dr. Alfonz Lengyel, RPA
A graduate of the Ludovika Military Academy, Dr. Lengyel also earned a law degree in Hungary. He earned his doctorate at the Sorbonne Institute for Art History and Archeology (Paris). He is a retired American university professor. During the 1956 Revolution, Lengyel founded the the Association of Christian Hungarian Political Prisoners. At present, he is the U.S. Director for the Sino-American Field School of Archaeology.