Szabadságunkat köszünjük nektek, 56-os hõsök”

“For Our Freedom We Thank You, Heroes of 1956”

These are the words engraved on the stone monument on the grounds of the Philadelphia & Vicinity Hungarian Sports Club. The Club’s membership dedicated it on the 40th anniversary of the Revolution.

The Club was founded by Hungarian refugees from 1956. It is commonly referred to as the “Magyar Tanya,” or “Hungarian Farm.” It is located on a 120 acre-large piece of land that resembles the hilly, wooded regions of Dunántúl in Hungary. We purchased it for $20,000, but its value has grown to several million dollars.

We built the Clubhouse out of a ramshackle, abandoned 125 year-old farm house. Next to the building that holds our ballroom and fully equipped kitchen we have a large swimming pool. Every July we hold a big Hungarian Day, which is an important event for East Coast Hungarians, and draws a thousand participants! We have spots for 30 camping trailers with hook-up for water, electricity and sewage. We built all this from sheer willpower, 95% of it with our own hands, and, without a dissenting voice in our midst.

A group of young Hungarians grew up here: we had a Hungarian Scout troup, a Hungarian School, and a Hungarian dance group. We preserved our heritage. The commemoration of national holidays, March 15, the Heroes’ Day, the 1956 anniversary, etc. are still important and inspiring events for us.

One of the founders of the Magyar Tanya and its president for over 40 years was my husband, József Szodfridt (1922-2003). Through his leadership he played a major role in this organization from its origins in the 1960’s until his death in 2003. He saw this project as his life’s work in America.

One cannot fully appreciate the inspiring stories about the 1956 Revolution, without first learning about the tragic consequences of communist rule on individual lives in Hungary. That is why I would like to share a letter with you that my husband wrote to a good friend and former fellow prisoner who asked him to document his terrible experiences of time spent in Russian and Hungarian prisons between 1945 and 1956. His fate, along with those of thousands of others, was tragically typical of those years. It served as precursor to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, when even the youth shouted “Enough!”

József’s letter to his friend:

Mária Szodfridt
Mária Szodfridt was also born in Gyõr, and attended the College of Physical Education in Budapest. After graduation she returned to Gyõr, where she taught physical education to high school students for 8 years.

After their arrival in the United States she worked as a quality control laboratory technician at Merck Pharmaceuticals. She taught in the Hungarian School, worked with the Hungarian Scouts, and supported her husband’s work at the Magyar Tanya in every possible way. She and József have two children.


József Szodfridt
József Szodfridt was born in Gyõr in 1922. His university studies in Budapest were interrupted by World War II. After serving 11 years in several communist prisons, in 1956 he escaped with his bride, Kiki, and three close friends and former prison-mates to Eisenstadt, Austria. In April, 1957, after they realized it was hopeless to wait to return to Hungary, the Szodfridts and the group of friends from Gyõr decided to immigrate to the United States. They started their American life together in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.

József held many jobs, working his way up in each position, first as an electrician, vacuum plater, and plant manager, and finally, as a consultant. In the early 1960’s along with others, he began decades of hard work actually building the facilities of the “Magyar Tanya,” the “Hungarian Farm.” He served as President of the Hungarian Sports Association of Philadelphia for 38 years, until his death in 2003

When I was growing up, it seemed to me that all of my parents’ friends had done time in jail in the old country. For political crimes, not theft or burglary. They didn’t all do time, of course, it just seemed that way to me, but a majority of them did, and all were discriminated against by the communist authorities in one way or another. I can distinctly remember dinner parties (I must have been ten years old or so) where they discussed Hungarian politics and literature with inserted comments here and there about their own forced-labor camp experiences in Hungary.
My dad, for example, had been a second-class citizen under the communist system because of his family background, and thus was banned from attending college. In fact, he did 15 months time for inciting a weekend work stoppage in his army unit. And my mom told me about how her father had spent a night at the police station, and was only released in the morning when he signed the bottom of a blank sheet of paper; that signature haunted him for years.

GROWING UP HUNGARIAN IN CLEVELAND
Having fled their homeland in 1956, my parents still maintained a close grip on their heritage, and did their best to give us, their children, a firm grounding in Hungarianness. We spoke only Hungarian at home, they sent us to Hungarian church, we attended Hungarian scouts, and on Monday evenings we went to Hungarian school, just like in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Actually, that film has many parallels with what it was like growing up Hungarian in Cleveland. And later, when as a teenager I joined the Hungarian dance group, I met other Eastern Europeans at dance festivals and realized that I had much in common with the Ukranians, Croats, Serbs, Polish, and other nationalities maintaining their heritage in the USA.

OUR ETHNIC COMMUNITY LEADERS
My Sunday-school teachers, scout leaders, and Hungarian school teachers shared some common traits. Whether from the DP generation (Displaced Persons: refugees from WWII) or refugees from 1956, they didn’t hold the Soviets in particularly high regard. I once asked my dad why he didn’t stay in Germany or Austria or France after he fled Hungary, and his matter-of-fact reply was something like, “son, those Russians overran my country twice in the 20th century; I’d rather have an ocean between us.” The people who formed my life, having lived under oppression, appreciated freedom and opportunity more than my American friends, it seemed to me. The literature they had us read and the personal recollections they told us were rife with tales of adversity: getting hauled off to Siberia, government collectivization of family businesses, incarceration for religious activities, these were the anecdotes I heard. My heroes became not so much American baseball players and movie stars, but rather Hungarians like Bishop Vilmos Apor, who helped save Jews during the war and then was killed protecting girls and women from the brutality of occupying Soviet soldiers, or Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty, who was jailed and tortured before 1956, but still maintained his dignity and peaceful resolve. I think the events of 1956 had a lot to do with the way I was raised.

MY AUNT
In fact, my father’s younger sister, Klára, was killed in the fighting on November 4th, 1956. She was 20 at the time, studying to be a nurse, and had been part of a volunteer medical team treating and transporting wounded freedom fighters to hospitals. I later found out she had gotten engaged a day earlier, on November 3rd. Then vicious fighting erupted on Sunday the 4th, and she was tending to the wounded on Üll_i street, right near the Corvin movie and the military barracks where Colonel Pál Maléter had been headquartered, when machine gun fire from a tank hit her. The fighting was so fierce that she could not be buried for another three days, and even then only in a makeshift grave off Rádai street. Then later in the springtime, when she was given a proper burial, the minister who gave her eulogy, as well as several others from the crowd were arrested going home from the funeral, according to a letter my grandmother wrote from Budapest to my dad. My parents never publicized this story, and only answered questions about it when asked, but I think that merely knowing that my aunt had died in 1956 had given me an extremely personal connection to the events and had made me study and appreciate the events that much more.

CONCLUSION
Growing up and seeing the grainy black and white photographs of the freedom fighters and Soviet tanks, hearing the experiences of my parents and their friends living in a totalitarian regime, knowing my parents had been there and that 1956 was the reason I was born in America, all these reasons made me consciously choose to keep my Hungarian identity, more so than had my parents come to America for economic reasons. Instead of assimilating into American society as many children of immigrants do, I, my wife, and many of our friends were able to completely fit into American society while nevertheless maintaining a very strong sense of Hungarian identity. We consider ourselves both 100% American and 100% Hungarian. Both cultures, including their historical pasts and everyday ways of thinking and acting, have influenced us and in fact are integral parts of our identity, and I believe that the events of 1956 caused this strong tie, a bond so strong I wish to pass it on to my own children. And when events of fifty years ago cause someone to impart a certain set of values to people two generations remote, that adds significance to the events of 1956.


Endre Szentkiralyi
Born and raised in and near Cleveland, Ohio, he grew up speaking Hungarian in the household. He earned a BA from Cleveland State University, then an MA from the University of Akron. He teaches English and German at the middle school and high school level. Also active in the Boy Scouts, he lives with his wife Eszti in the Cleveland area. All four of their children speak Hungarian.

After the Second World War, the Communist regime in Hungary banned, among many other institutions, the scouting movement. Hungarian scouts reorganized in exile, first in Western Europe, then in other countries where Hungarians fled. Since 1951, Hungarian scout troops have been meeting and camping in the Cleveland area.

Scout meetings and campouts often feature a storyline, such as about King Stephen of Hungary, or the Turkish occupation of Hungary, to help the second- and third-generation Hungarian-American children to better understand their heritage. (Role-playing, costumes, and active involvement by every scout make history come alive.) The 1956 storyline detailed below was developed to help young Hungarian-American scouts to better fathom what many of their grandparents experienced. Each scout meeting and outdoor activity planned for 2006 features a situation or game – detailed below – to help the scouts understand the oppression of everyday life in a Communist country. — [ed.]



The goal is not for the scouts to learn every fact and detail about the Revolution, but rather for them to understand the causes. We will somewhat live under oppression.
February 10

Zsuzsa Daróczy, who, it later turns out, will be the informant / party secretary, takes mug shot photos of each scout for their personal identity cards. She hands out a booklet about 1956 and in a boring fashion drones on about the events.

February 17

Continuation of photos, dry background historical info. Send an email to parents and other adults warning them that we are experiencing the events in an unorthodox way and not to be surprised if they see some unscoutlike activities going on.

February 24

Indoor campfire. As each scout enters the room, they find a communist functionary (Andrea Mészáros) sitting at a table with a red-starred flag displayed prominently behind her. She stamps their identity cards and hands them over in a hostile manner. Zsuzsa Daroczy obediently helps and gives each scout a red star to pin on their uniforms. Scoutmaster Pigniczky expresses reservations but obeys. During the campfire the communist functionary tells the girls what they can and cannot sing, e.g. no songs mentioning God, church, or country, no national pride.

The entire storyline does not apply to the younger age group (6-9 yr olds) because they are not yet mature enough to discern and comprehend.

Campfire topic: „What is a Scout?” Sing patriotic songs so the communist functionary can interject with something like, „Comrades should not sing such songs because they don’t fit the ideology of the international socialist movement.” Campfire leader is surprised, looks at Scoutmaster, then obeys. Later, after being stopped multiple times, she starts a patriotic song and immediately stops it on her own. She looks over to the communist functionary, who nods approvingly. Shortly later the functionary leaves, saying that the campfire leader now knows and understands. The functionary then goes on to inspect a different scout activity, and the campfire is concluded. Afterwards, the Scoutmaster furtively signals for the scouts to gather in close, then, in tears, tells them what a horrible experience it is to find out that your best friend is an informant. She asks the scouts to be very careful about whom they talk to and what they talk about, because even innocent conversations can get them into big trouble.

After the campfire, the scouts return to the Scout Home to see a video about 1956, followed by informal discussion.

March 3

Before the meeting begins, a poster is placed outside the entrances of the Scout Home: „1956 Storyline In Progress”.

At the end of the usual leaders’ meeting, the Party Secretary takes out the offical Party ledger and demands that all comrades sign it. Anyone who does not sign will not be allowed to participate in any of the upcoming scout events (intramural scout competition, summer camp, leadership camp, European tour). The Scoutmaster, with a heavy heart, signs it, followed by the other leaders. Meanwhile, the Scoutmaster whispers to each leader in turn that she does not like this at all.

March 10

Before the meeting begins, a poster is placed outside the entrances of the Scout Home: „1956 Storyline In Progress”.

The doorbell rings. Secret Police agents, in pairs, enter the patrol meeting rooms, demanding IDs. One or two scouts from each patrol are „arrested” and forcibly led onto the stage (where the curtain is drawn and it’s dark), but they aren’t told why. The rest of the patrol remain in their room. When all the detainees are on the stage, the Party Secretary announces that they are guilty by virtue of having parents who are landowners, and so they’re being sent away for forced labor. The detainees are led away. The remaining scouts are told that they can stay put, because their parents are „reliable.” Forced labor is cleaning the bathrooms in the church basement.

March 31

Meeting takes place outdoors, at Cottonwood Park. During the meeting, it is announced that private property is being nationalized. A Party official (bearing the Communist version of the Hungarian flag, with a red star in the middle) proceeds to confiscate the scouts’ property – their neckerchiefs. The scout meeting continues, and includes a uniform inspection, whereby patrols receive demerits because their members are not wearing their neckerchiefs. Later, following the campfire, one scout leader will notice the confiscated pile of neckerchiefs and sneak them back to their owners, but no one puts them on again for the rest of the day.

April 7

In preparation for Easter, the scouts meet for a discussion with Reverend Eva Tamassy. Twenty minutes later, Secret Police agents „raid” the meeting, arrest the pastor and take her away. Each Scout receives a demerit in her ID passbook for violating regulations against organized religious activity.

April 14: Easter week – No meeting.

April 21

The Party Secretary is off on a State-sponsored spa holiday. The Scoutmaster announces quietly to the scouts that she has begun, in secret, to organize a strike. The Scouts are asked to write letters (using their secret writing) (paper and envelopes should be on hand) to any scouts not present to alert them that a strike will occur on April 28. The Scoutmaster emphasizes that they are not to telephone their fellow scouts, because all telephone conversations are being taped.

April 28

Meeting and campfire at Cottonwood Park. Following the patrol meetings, all scouts take part in „active learning” activity familiarizing them with the events leading up to the revolution (October 16-22, 1956). Each of the four learning stations represents a city (not Budapest) in which university students were organizing protest activities. – Another game combines traditional knot-tying practice with the 16-point demands of the Hungarian students of 1956, in which each of the demands is written onto two sticks, then mixed up; the scouts have to unscramble the phrases, then tie the sticks together using lashing knots.

The next activity is to construct signs and torches for the upcoming street demonstrations (need wood, hammer, nails, posterboard, paint). Each patrol must construct one sign and one torch (and demonstrate correct use of construction tools).
Campfire and demonstration: each patrol arrives at the campfire from a different direction, carrying their torch and sign. Patriotic poems, folk songs and patriotic slogans keep revolutionary spirits high. The campfire concludes with the Hungarian national anthem.

May 5: Scout leader meeting.

May 12: Reenactment of the students’ gathering on October 23 in Budapest, at statue of Joseph Bem.

During the scout meeting, the singing of the Hungarian Scout fight song is interrupted by the Party Secretary, who comes rushing in (bearing her usual red-star version of the Hungarian flag), demanding that the scouts never sing that song again, and they should now learn a new Communist hymn. The Party Secretary starts to teach the new song, but the Scoutmaster can’t take it, and dramatically tears the red star off of her uniform, then tells the Party Secretary to leave – she will not endure this persecution any longer. The Scoutmaster grabs the flag and, using her pocketknife, slashes the Communist symbol out of the Hungarian flag. With that, the scouts all proceed to the Bem Statue (represented by a scout leader dressed as Bem and standing motionless), where others are already gathered. There, the scouts read the 16 points/demands aloud.

May 19-20: (a two-day meeting beginning at the Scout Home, and continuing to a nearby campground for an overnighter.) Reenactment of the events of October 23, 9 p.m., when unarmed student protesters in Budapest proceed to the building of the Hungarian Radio to demand that the radio broadcast their 16-point demands, whereupon the Secret Police fires upon them.

The Scoutmaster calls the scouts together, saying she has received word that many protesters have gone to the Radio building. The scouts all come out of their rooms, bearing their signs, and proceed to the „Radio headquarters” (the neighboring church garage), where they try to enter, but a Secret Police agent, from the roof of the garage, drops a smoke bomb onto the crowd. At the same time, a car drives up, screeches to a halt and disgorges additional secret policemen, who push and shove the protesters (scouts), trying to get them to leave. Two scout leaders courageously stand up to the secret police, who then proceed to „beat” them. A third scout leader is „shot,” then stuffed into the car and driven away. The Scoutmaster tells the rest of the scouts to return to the Scout Home, where they hold a meeting and decide to go to the Csepel factory to get themselves some weapons. The scout troop leaves for Csepel (the campground.)

May 26-28: Annual intramural Scout competition at Hungarian Scout Camp in Fillmore, New York, with participation of Hungarian Scouts from Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Washington, Toronto and Montreal. At this competition, patrols compete with each other in using their teamwork, scouting skills and knowledge of Hungarian to react and resolve unexpected situations – all this in the context of an elaborate storyline, with plenty of costumes, physical and mental challenges. This year’s storyline is the 1956 Revolution, and concludes with the emigration of thousands of Hungarian refugees after the revolution is crushed.

June 3-4 End-of-year campout and picnic.

September – October: During the first meetings of the school year, scouts invite their parents/grandparents who are „56-ers” to take part in oral history interviews. Based on these interviews, the Scouts prepare poster presentations to be displayed at the Cleveland exhibit being organized for the 50th anniversary of 1956.
Scouts will learn about the aftermath of 1956: crackdown, executions, escape and flight.

Eszti Pigniczky
Born in 1968 in Lansdale, PA, her parents left Hungary as refugees in 1956. She grew up in the Hungarian community near Philadelphia, then continued her Hungarian scouting activities in New Brunswick, NJ, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Since 1995 she has lived in the Cleveland area. In 2001, she organized and led 40 Hungarian-American teenagers from the Cleveland Hungarian Scout Folk Ensemble on a 3-week research tour of villages in Hungary and Transylvania. She researches and collects Hungarian folk songs and customs, and since 2005 has been Scoutmaster of the Ilona Zrínyi Hungarian Girl Scout Troop #34 of Cleveland. With her husband, Endre Szentkirályi (also an active scout leader), she has four children: Keve, Bendegúz, Vajk and Enese.

Whenever the kids at school teased us about our funny names and our parents’ accents, we shot back: “Leave me alone, my dad was a freedom fighter.” That shut them up, at least for a while. My sister and I want our children to inherit this attitude and to know their grandfather’s story; but I need to know what’s fact and what’s fiction.

The story of his past in Hungary is not a straightforward one, mainly because he was the only one telling it, at least while we were growing up in the U.S. He also had quite a dramatic flare; he was known to exaggerate a story for effect, and his approach to names, dates and specific detail was liberal, to say the least. He was entertaining, and when you’re funny, specifics bog you down. Children loved him, but as an adult you were never quite sure how much of the facts he was embellishing.

The painful reality behind our film project was just this: if you subtract the intriguing anecdotes and heroic slogans of my father’s ’56 story, we had no idea what he did, exactly. Now that’s pretty disturbing for a journalist who wants to write her father’s story. I mean, I’ve always believed him, and my sister has always believed him-in fact my mother has always believed him even though she divorced him over 25 years ago – but that’s not a reliable account to tell my own children, who are already asking questions, and the oldest is not even four.

While other 56’ers have written memoirs about what happened and what they did – all very heroic or tragic or both -, my dad, whom everyone respected as a legitimate ’56er’ in our community, never really spoke in detail (out of fear for those he left in Hungary and because it just wasn’t his style) and never published a word. And by the time I became a journalist and realized one of the biggest stories lurking in my neighborhood could be my own dad, he was diagnosed with cancer in 2002. He passed away within 6 months, not living long enough to see my second daughter and my sister Eszti’s fourth being born – never mind getting his ’56 story down on paper or film. He left this world so suddenly, and so early at age 73, that his personal belongings, his life, his thoughts, pictures, and his story were left in total disarray. And so were we.

That is why I am making a film about my father and his involvement in the events of 1956. Our goal is to find whatever threads of memory remain from the files, letters and photographs that turned up after his death and to find out what we can in Hungary, about what he might have done to have to flee his home so permanently. And what he, as a spontaneous participant in ’56 history, might have seen that compelled him to reinforce that message in us throughout his life.

As for us, his daughters, our upbringing in the U.S. can be characterized as a Hungarian incubator: the idea was that once the Soviets pulled out of Hungary, we could move “back” and continue our lives with minimal upheaval. The ’56 stories were part and parcel of a very determined and consistent effort by our parents, and by an entire like-minded émigré Hungarian community, to raise us as children of ’56-ers, children of refugees, Hungarian boy and girl scouts living in the U.S. My father, Pige, was, of course, a key figure in our upbringing, together with my mother, who also escaped Hungary as a teenager in 1956; they were leaders in the community.

So this journey of making a film can’t just be about our father; it is also about us: those of us whose parents left Hungary in 1956, and who therefore grew up not in Hungary, but in some other country. After the tragic crushing of the revolution, more than 200,000 people left Hungary, many of them – like our father – with no other choice but to leave or face reprisal. Beginning in the 1990’s, many of our generation, young people in our 20’s and 30’s, “returned” to Hungary (where we had never lived). Many of us “commute,” but others have settled down in Hungary, some with a Hungarian spouse. Why are we coming “back,” why are we making a (second) home here? Who are we, and why is it that sometimes our own children speak only Hungarian? Why do more of my Hungarian-American friends live in Hungary than in the States? Are they here for economic reasons, or due to some unexplainable “homesickness?” And what does all this have to do with 1956?

If he were still here, I know what my father would say about this documentary and about my musings in general: “Reka: if you listen to me, you’ll do whatever you please.” – that’s what he always said. We always knew that he loved and supported us, but he wasn’t focused on his own legend, and ultimately, the follow-up and follow-through were not his style either. He was more dramatic in deeds than words, more action than armchair intellectualizing. He was the type who woke up in the middle of the night, mid-sleep, kneeling by the side of his bed, shooting over his mattress at the enemy. He taught us to do the same, in real life, if and when necessary. His message, minus the details of his own role, was loud and clear: when someone takes your freedom away and humiliates your nation, you don’t sit by idly. You act.

And as I have found in making this documentary film, the stories that Pige told us, his daughters, were not, in fact, embellished. When my sister and I searched for his name in the Secret Service Archives in Budapest and found people who knew him in those October days, we found verification for almost every single thing he told us. As it turns out, in fact, he was modest about his deeds and his fear of going back to Hungary was well-founded. He was, in fact, one of the leaders of a group of freedom fighters in the Budapest’s 7th district – and that out of the seven or so leaders, three fled to the West after the revolution and four were hanged in 1958.


Réka Pigniczky
Réka is a television journalist and producer who has worked for the Associated Press for nearly 8 years, mostly in New York City. Before moving to New York, she lived in Budapest from 1992-1996, working as a consultant for a Hungarian political party. She also helped organize and manage new women’s NGO’s that sprang to life after the political transition to democracy in the early 1990’s. She has an MA in journalism and international relations from Columbia University and an MA in political science from the Central European University in Budapest. She’s currently based in Budapest, Hungary, where she freelances for the AP and other broadcasters, although making the film Journey Home is taking up most of her time. The film will premiere in 2006. To read more about Journey Home, see www.56films.com.

My father supported the movement, as his brother did but I don’t believe they were actually involved in the fighting. They both left their village of Inota, Hungary, in 1956 during the uprising to come to America.

My dad always recalled the turbulent time it was with everything going
on in his country in 1956. He told me how he and my uncle were shot at, crossing the border into Austria, and how they almost got on the wrong train, that was patrolled by Russian soldiers looking for defectors.

They flew to the U.S. on a military transport, and arrived at a place called Camp Kilmer in Edison N.J. where they stayed until relatives who lived in N.J. picked them up and took them to live at their home until, my dad and my uncle were able to make it out on their own. My dad had just turned 18 and my uncle 19 so
they were very young men to be in this new country so far away from their
family and everything they knew. About two years later my dad met my mom, and they married in 1959.

Born in 1960, I was the eldest; my sister was born in 1961 and my brother in 1966. Both my dad and uncle did well for themselves. They worked hard to make a life for themselves and their family in the adopted country they embraced as their new home. Later in life, they both started their own businesses.

I will always remember the stories my dad told and his efforts to come to this country, and make a new life, even at the cost of leaving his loved ones behind.
My dad worked all his life and retired in 2001 planning to return to his native country, to live out the rest of his life.

Unfortunately my dad died only 6 months after he retired due to complications from diabetes. Although my uncle has also struggled with diabetes for the last 15 years, he continues to work.


John Petocz Jr.
John Petocz Jr. lives in Waretown, N.J. and has worked for a township in Monmouth county for the past 10 years. The Petocz family is scattered throughout New Jersey, Florida, and Georgia.

As the wife of a Hungarian Freedom Fighter, 1956 has had a profound impact on my own life. Since Budapest has been our yearly destination for as long as I can remember, I’ve become more immersed in that event than many others. Two things always strike me when we return. First, there’s a commonality established when we are introduced to others, and they ask my husband, “So, are you a ‘56’er?” Right away, he is pigeonholed into (a) one of those Hungarian political activists who no doubt had to flee the country, and (b) he must be in his mid-60’s now, which he is. With the planned celebrations scheduled for next year to commemorate the event, it seems as though many are ready to jump on the band-wagon and claim they were in Budapest in ‘56 or were closely aligned with someone who was. In other words, it’s truly a badge of honor now to be a ‘56’er. Then too, I’m always reminded of my age when I hear others speak of the event. Recently, I heard Hungarian Ambassador András Simonyi speak of the debt the country owes to the ‘56 Freedom Fighters, and the passion with which he spoke of the event brought an enthusiastic applause from the Capital Hill crowd whom he was addressing. I had to remind myself, however, that he was only four years old in l956, and still, that pivotal event meant as much to him as to most of the many listeners who felt such gratitude for his thanks and praise.

Granted, my husband’s story is probably not all that different from so many others. At fifteen years of age, Megyeri László was a serious and good student in a Kispest gymnasium. He despised the Communists for their godless ways and their distaste of Hungarian customs and traditions. He hated still more the occupying Soviet Army who terrorized the population since 1945. He feared the secret police who tortured Hungarians just because they voiced their wish to be free. He despised traveling across town to attend church on Sundays to avoid recognition by the local police and the subsequent punishment for worshipping. He read history books on the heroism of Hunyadi and Kossuth. He often recited the Petöfi poem that stated, “Stand up Hungarians—your country is calling. The question is ‘Do you want to be slave or free?’” He attended the funeral of László Rajk on October 6th, 1956 when 200,000 stood in the cold, soaking rain and shrieking winds to pay their respects for this victim of terror.

Then, on October 23rd, with many other students, he gathered in front of the Bem statute in Buda to support the Polish rebellion against the Communist regime. That same day, he demonstrated in front of the Hungarian Rádio building when police fired shots at the peaceful demonstrators. He marched to the front of Parliament on the evening of October 23rd with 200,000 others who heard the reformer, Imre Nagy, speak to the assembled crowd. He followed his father and took up arms taken from the local police station to fight the Communists and the Russian occupiers. Miraculously, the Russians withdrew, and the Hungarian Army disarmed. He was jubilant that freedom triumphed. He witnessed the complete collapse of the Hungarian Communist regime and the withdrawal of Russian occupiers. But he wondered why the Free World was focused on the closure of the Suez Canal and the British and French conflict with the Egyptians. He believed the rumors that the Russians were amassing to return and squash the newfound freedom, but he trusted Radio Free Europe when they announced that help was on the way.

He again witnessed the attacks by Soviet tanks on a foggy, damp and frosty early Sunday morning, November 4th. By firing his rifle, he tried his best to stop the tanks from rolling into the center of Budapest on the main road leading from Ferihegy, Budapest’s airport. He was among the 10,000 Freedom Fighters who had no chance of winning against the overwhelming Soviet ground troops and their tanks. But he was lucky not to be among the 3,000 dead and 20,000 wounded who had fought so desperately for independence. And, fortunately, he was not among the 20,000 individuals condemned, of whom 229 were executed by the Kádár regime. The stolen weapon he used lay buried in the family’s backyard.

Instead, he, along with his father and brother, was among the 200,000 Hungarians who fled to Austria and freedom. He was welcomed by the democratic world and thus, he found the answer to Petöfi’s question, “Do you want to be slave or free?” He came to America and found freedom and happiness but still remains bound to Hungarian language, culture, and traditions. Even though almost fifty years have elapsed, that Hungarian Freedom Fighter, my husband, is still alive, well, strong and even more committed to freedom after serving thirty years in the U.S. Army where he attained the rank of Colonel and after working most of his career in the U.S. House of Representatives as an attorney for the Judiciary Committee.

Our yearly trek back to Hungary and particularly Budapest really commemorates in some small way my husband’s early years and his reason for leaving the country he so loves. But my own story needs to be told as well, especially the reasons why 1956 means something to me, an American spouse. First, I’d read James A. Michener’s THE BRIGE AT ANDAU, an engrossing tale of a pivotal time. It’s four o’clock on the morning of Sunday, November, 1956, when the city of Budapest is awakened by the sounds of invading Russian tanks and their subsequent five, brief, glorious days of freedom that might have yielded a different future has ended. However, some people know that if they can reach the bridge at Andau, on the Austrian border, they might escape to freedom. This book is a documentary account of that Hungarian revolt against the Communists in l956 and is virulently anti-Russian. Some consider this true story by Michener to be his finest work, and in a New York Times book review, John MacCormac wrote, “In so far as he has limited himself to describing actual events, Michener has performed a service for which today’s historians may be grateful, but today’s readers will be even more grateful now.” This book was my first introduction to a far-away event that I would someday view more intimately.

After meeting and marrying my husband, we began our regular visits to Budapest to visit family and friends. Invariably, we walked past the Kilián Barracks, where major fighting occurred and where Pál Maléter, the first Deputy of Defense and later Brigadier General was commander. He, along with Imre Nagy, was executed in l958. On one visit, my husband’s mother produced his old red scarf, a remnant of his days as a Pioneer when as a youth he played chess and constructed model airplanes while he and his little friends were being indoctrinated about the benefits of Communism. His mother also produced an old worn copy of Szabad Nép, the Communist political daily and in l956, the Party’s central newspaper. My husband’s father had to attend “the Szabad Nép half hours” where important articles were discussed for propaganda purposes. The only other little souvenir which my husband brought with him out of the country is the Hungarian flag he carried while demonstrating; it now hangs over his door in his office at the Kossuth House in Washington, DC. On still another visit, we traveled to Debrecen to see where the secret police first opened lethal fire on unarmed demonstrators.

Personally, I can also remember from my early visits to Hungary in the late ‘60’s that people so frequently whispered to each other, a hold-over habit from the days when citizens were forced to celebrate Nov. 7th, the day of the Bolshevik take-over, and April 4th, the “Day of Liberation.” Those who did not show sufficient enthusiasm were promptly denounced by the informers so people whispered because they lived in constant fear that their conversations were being intercepted. One of the joys of my more recent visits is that normal conversations take place in lieu of whispering to each other as confidence and optimism replaces fear and suspicion.

A couple of years ago, at a Hungarian dinner in Cleveland, I was pleased to be seated next to Gergely Pongrátz, a name many remember from his leadership of the armed insurgent group at Corvin Lane during the Revolution. He left the country in November of ‘56 but returned to Hungary in 1991 where he passed away on May 18th of this year. Meeting him made an impact on me because I remember walking down Üllöi Út, the street leading to Kispest and passing the Corvin Cinema. My husband and I have repeatedly toured Parliament, and he always shows me the place where the Secret Police fired on him and other peaceful demonstrators, some of whom were killed. We also walk past the Broadcast House where the first demonstration started as students demanded a declaration and where police fired upon the crowd. As we continue walking on the Pest side of the Danube, close to the New York Café, we usually tour the National Museum where I vividly remember seeing the Hungarian crown on display before it was moved to the Parliament building. And then we cross to the Buda side to see the Bem Statute of the Polish General from 1848. At this point, my husband recalls that he and other Hungarian students went there to show their support for the Polish freedom movement. One of my favorite sites lies outside Budapest in Statuary Park which is a graveyard for the old Communist statutes that used to line the city streets. The old Stalin statue which was pulled down from Heroes’ Square during the revolution now stands lonely, damaged, and abandoned in Statuary Park, a fitting ending for such a feared symbol.

Of course, no visit is complete without traveling to Esztergom to see the Basilica where Cardinal Mindszenty is buried. Last December, we visited the U.S. Embassy and were escorted into now U.S. Ambassador Walker’s main office in the Szabadság Square building, important for us both to see since for 15 years, Cardinal Mindszenty took refuge there in self-imposed confinement. In l971, under pressure from the Holy See and the Hungarian government, Mindszenty consented to emigrate. During that time, he visited St. Stephan’s church in New Brunswick, NJ, and my husband drove to see and hear him at a special mass. Four years later, he died, and his ashes lie in the Esztergom Basilica. However, it wasn’t until August of 1991, when Pope John Paul II visited Hungary, that the real end of forty years of religious persecution was symbolized.

I recall two other special moments that affected me and rekindled an affirmation of the impact of l956. When we visited the Reagan Library one year, I noted a large portrait at the bottom of the central stairwell that depicted the Hungarian Revolution. In the center of that painting is pictured László Pastor, a political prisoner who was freed in ‘56, who came to America and then became a political icon who served in the Nixon White House. On another such visit to Hungary, we had dinner at the Biaritz French Restaurant next to Parliament and seated next to us, with only one security person, was then-Prime Minister Viktór Orbán. When I approached his table to personally thank him for his support of the Terror Háza Museum, he was gracious enough to allow me to photograph him. My access to a Prime Minister seated in a public restaurant and available to speak to an inquisitive tourist like me, I found particularly notable since I’m used to the Washington, DC intenseness of high security alerts.

During my last visit to Hungary, I spent three days discovering and photographing the finest cemetery art and statuary I’ve ever seen. Section 21 of the Kerepesi Cemetery holds the remains of Pál Maletér and János Kádár, Hungary’s Prime Minister. Parcel 21 reminds visitors of the impact of the revolution in sheer numbers: 20,000 were wounded, 2,000 in Budapest alone; 200,000 left the country and the Soviets arrested 5,000, 860 of whom were carried off by the KGB to the Soviet Union as prisoners of war. Of those, a number were under-age boys and girls; 15,000 people were arrested, and 229 were executed with the help of Soviet advisors. Also not to be missed on the cemetery grounds is a fine museum dedicated to preserving the funerary traditions of Hungary.

But without a doubt, it is the Terror Háza on Andrássy út 60 that most draws us back each visit and hold our attention. Formerly the headquarters of ÁVO and the ÁVH, the museum commemorates the victims of terror and also reminds us of the dreadful acts of terror that occurred in Hungary and the tremendous repercussions for the rest of the world in these days of worldwide terrorism and fear. In the cellar of the Terror Museum is the reconstructed subterranean prison that includes detention cells for solitary confinement, wet cells where detainees were forced to sit in water, fox-holes where prisoners could not straighten up, treatment rooms that contain instruments of torture, and pictures of those who died in the gallows from fatal beatings and, more often, suicide. The guard rooms hold ventilation equipment which ensured air-flow through conduits that traversed the cells, but individual cells were cut off from the airflow as a means of punishment. People’s hands and feet were bound with chains and weights that were attached to their feet. Electric currents, burnings with cigarettes, and pliers were instruments of torture. Prisoners were forced to lie on the bare floors with no toilet facilities. What is remarkable is that during every visit, we witness young people who stand there and weep, not only for relatives they may have lost but because they feel the horror of a part of their nation’s history and have come to appreciate those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their freedom.

Interestingly, also in the museum is a tribute to the Hungarian Reformed Church. Since that church does not belong to any international church bodies, it’s considered a “nation-based, Hungarian church.” The two most respected Calvinist bishops, László Ravasz and Imre Révész, raised their voices against the atrocities of the fledging Communist dictatorship as early as in 1945. The village pastors and priests were treated as enemies, and by July, 1945, already 30 cases were recorded of detained parish pastors in the diocese east of the Tisza. Bishop Ravasz declared, “Right-wing fascism has been replaced by left-wing fascism.”

The point I’m trying to make by recounting all these highlights is that the ‘56 revolution doesn’t just belong to Hungarians. It holds meaning for the rest of us who know, love and consider Hungarians so integral to our lives. And there’s a lesson here for all—that no people can be subjugated forever, and that one can and must fight against a power thought to be invincible when oppression and terror become so unbearable that a nation’s identity and its very existence are in danger. In October of l956, the Hungarian people proved to themselves and the world that there are no small nations, only helpless ones. With their courage and self-sacrifice, the Hungarian Freedom Fighters inflicted a mortal wound on the feared Soviet empire. My luck was that I married a Freedom Fighter and in so doing personally shared in the impact of ‘56 Revolution.

Kathy Megyeri
Kathy Megyeri is married to Leslie László Megyeri of the Hungarian Reformed Federation of America (see his submission). She holds advanced degrees in English and is a writer and consultant for an international education organization. She received the Outstanding Educator Award from the Washington Post in 1999 and currently writes for the Chicken Soup series. She and her husband reside in Washington, DC.

Although I always knew that I was Hungarian-my family traveled back to Hungary every two years or so after I was born-I only really came into my Hungarian identity, the true spirit of it, much later in life. It is the same with the legacy of 1956. While I cannot recall the first time I heard the story of 1956, I always remember being aware of it and proud of my family’s role in it. But, it is only within the past decade or so that I began to dig deeper into the details of that fateful time in the country’s history and how that influenced my family’s life. Now, in retrospect, I not only see the signs of what my family members went through then and how it affected them, but I can also see how their life lessons from ’56 have had a profound effect on me.

I now recognize many things in my childhood that made my family different from the families of my friends. Nothing was ever wasted. Everything we had was savored and appreciated. For example, we were always required to clean our plate, not because of the common refrain ‘there were starving children in Africa’, but because my mother knew what it was like to exist on bread, lard, and cream of wheat for weeks at a time.

My Grandparents were adamant that we finish not just college but have advanced degrees, because they knew the power and freedom an education could provide throughout one’s life. It was due to their education that they were able to start new lives when they arrived in the U.S. in their late forties. Awareness of world affairs was another expectation in my home. And, when we came of age, it was understood that voting was a sacred duty, because they knew what it was like when your vote made no difference at all. My Aunt always inspired creativity and artistic expression in us, because as an artist who grew up under the repressive communist system, she knew all too well what stifling these freedoms meant to a creative soul.

My Grandparents, who lost everything they owned, not once but twice, now hold onto everything. It is a running joke that we need to do spring cleaning at the apartment, but are afraid what we will find from Christmases past. And finally, my Mother, who is extremely conservative in spending, will always say after a large purchase, “do you know we could restore a Hungarian church with this amount?” or “do you know how many scholarships could be funded with this in Transylvania?”

Over the years, as I grew closer to my Hungarian friends and learned the stories of my extended family members, I saw firsthand the injustice and untold suffering of communism. One of the most poignant stories is from a distant relative who in 1945 was babysitting her young niece when some Soviet soldiers got drunk and began to rampage through the town where she lived. They soon came to her house looking for “the little girl.” My relative quickly hid the girl in a kitchen cabinet and bravely met the soldiers at the door. One can only imagine what happened afterwards, but the girl was left untouched…except emotionally.

After moving to Budapest in 1990, I began to delve into the story and legacy of the Revolution of 1956. As I learned the details, I suddenly understood much more about my family’s role, their reason for leaving Hungary, and the historical significance of the Revolution. In 1991, when I attended the second ever, free commemoration of October 23, 1956, I was unbelievably moved. I remember vividly the large tricolor flag with a gaping hole cut out draped across the Parliament steps, the hundreds of candles people lit and the small flags they held. I remember hearing bits and pieces of stories being told as I passed through the crowd. And most of all, I remember one elderly gentleman sitting on the steps with his grandson in his lap, quietly telling him the story of 1956 with tears streaming down his face. I recall a feeling of deep pride at being a part of this nation, of what Hungarians stood for, and the small but significant role my family played in the 1956 events. As I lit candles in honor of each family member who participated in the 1956 Revolution, I made a solemn promise to myself to do my part in making sure this story was never forgotten. And now, 15 years later, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary, I feel that Hungarian-Americans have the opportunity and indeed the obligation to ensure that the story of 1956 continues to be shared. This is the inspiration behind the creation of the FreedomFighter56.com website and oral history project.

The Revolution
At its core, the Revolution was started by university students, who had had enough of communist oppression and demanded certain freedoms and reforms. Soon, the entire country responded to their call, including factory workers, who were expected to stay loyal to the communist leadership. Everyone was involved, from children to the elderly, and every possible tool was employed by the largely unarmed, and unprepared Hungarian people. There are wonderful stories of resourceful children turning soup bowls over in the street to look like mines. Apparently, the soup bowl trick would lure tank commanders out to take a look and the kids, who were waiting in the doorways framing the road, would throw a Molotov cocktail into the tank to disable it. I just recently learned that the Russians sent in 2,000 tanks to reclaim Budapest on November 4th. This was the same number of tanks Hitler sent into France (a country seven times the size) to take the entire country. Imagine, at its most dramatic moment, tanks fighting against kids with soup bowls.

Yet somehow, Hungary managed to bring the Soviet Union to its knees for nearly two weeks…13 days of freedom. When the Revolution was crushed, it was ended with such brutal force that it laid bare the lie of communism and pulled back the curtain on what the Soviets were trying to paint as a desirable political system for the people. Communist sympathizers all over then Western Europe – in France, Italy and England – finally saw the true face of communism with its cruelties and injustices. Years later the world would all learn that this was the first nail in the coffin of communism in the region. It was the beginning of the end.

Hungarian -American Pride / Passing the Story On…
My Mother has told me on several occasions that Hungarian émigrés who settled in the US didn’t necessarily want to talk about the Revolution, they had to talk about it, to discuss what they had gone through, and its effect on their new life in a new country. While Hungarian-Americans who left in ’56 held the flame of freedom high, it was quite a different situation in Hungary. There were years of reprisals – trials, imprisonment and executions – against those who were identified as Freedom Fighters. There was also silence imposed on the subject so that people could not talk about it, be taught about it, or commemorate it under the communist system. This is one of the main reasons, I believe, that Hungarian-Americans are so proud of what Hungarians accomplished 50 years ago, while Hungarians in Hungary seem ambivalent and much less certain how and what to commemorate this year.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal stated, “a sense of family history is linked to self-esteem and resiliency in kids…stories of grappling with sad or difficult events may give children the wisdom and perspective they need to thrive.” It went on to say that, “children gain a sense of self in relation to other family members and to the past, building confidence.” I would also add that this builds pride and helps create identity.

The FreedomFighter56.com website is about passing on not only the stories, but also the very spirit of the Revolution to the future generation. It is about providing an apolitical forum for people to share their stories and talk about how the Revolution influenced them 50 years later. It is a place to feel proud of all that ’56ers accomplished. It is a place to encourage family members to add their individual stories to be part of the great tapestry of history, so we can begin to understand how the lessons of ’56 have been passed on to the children, grandchildren and spouses of freedom fighters. It is a place to answer the question 50 years after the fact: “What is the legacy of 1956 in the Hungarian-American community?”

My Family Story of 1956
Nagymami worked in a pharmacy on Móricz Zsigmond körtér. Nagyapi worked at the Nemzeti Bank. My Mother was 14, my Aunt 17, and they all lived just off the Körtér. On October 23, 1956, my Mother and Aunt were walking home from school when, like so many others, they were suddenly swept up in the demonstrations, which ended in the huge crowd in front of the Parliament. It was the beginning of the Revolution. In a few days, as the Revolution intensified throughout the country, my mother and aunt took on a more active role by gathering papers and groceries for the neighborhood, and digging up cobblestones to make barricades for the tanks, delivering messages, gathering news and collecting bottles and alcohol from the pharmacy supply to help freedom fighters make Molotov cocktails.

My Grandfather always told me that when he heard the first reports of the Revolution, he tipped his hat to his co-workers and walked home to the Korter, where he joined others to build barricades of cobblestones, high enough to stop or at least slow down the Russian tanks. My Grandmother continued to work at the pharmacy, even though she was the only one who remained and most of the store windows had been shattered by fighting. She later set up a makeshift hospital room in the back of the pharmacy to tend to wounded freedom fighters.

Hearing these stories and imagining my Grandmother and Grandfather being in the center of the conflict shaped my commitment to keeping the memory of this extraordinary event alive. These are my images of the Revolution, along with the familiar photos we have all seen. But there are other stories that I have heard that also left an indelible mark on me. For example, one afternoon, my Grandmother watched a young farmer walk across the Körtér through the blown out windows in her pharmacy. The young man carried farm tools over his shoulder and without any fanfare, walked straight to the state building on the Körtér that held the hated red star. Using his tools, he climbed up the side of the building and worked diligently to free the supports of the star. By the time he had finished, a crowd was gathered and shouting their support. As the star finally came free, the young man became entangled in one of the support wires, and was dragged to his death along with the symbol he so despised.

In late November 1956, after the Russians crushed the Revolution, my family made the emotional decision to leave Hungary.. Following a frightening escape and stays at several refugee camps, they settled in Maryland, close to Washington, D.C. I have often heard the stories of what it was like to start their new life here, not speaking the language and with very limited resources.

My Grandfather, who held a law degree, got a job at Sears as a lamp salesman. He would laugh when he told me that story, claiming it was the darkest time in his life. My Grandmother, a fully trained pharmacist, found a job washing bottles used in experiments at a local medical lab and was later promoted to prepping monkey brains for lab work. My Mother went to high school where she was teased for wearing the same two outfits over and over again. My Aunt got married to the man who helped my family escape.

Not only did the Kiss family survive, they lived the true American dream, while at the same time honoring and never forgetting their Hungarian roots. In doing so, they passed on the lessons of history – of their proud Hungarian heritage, of the hardships endured during communism, and of the spirit of 1956 -to their children and grandchildren. I pledge to continue the tradition they set in motion, by passing on these same lessons and stories to my own children. If all children and grandchildren of ’56ers commit to this, the legacy of the Revolution will live on and the sacrifices of the freedom fighters of Hungary will never be forgotten.


Andrea Lauer Rice is the founder and CEO of Lauer Learning, a multimedia educational company that creates innovative ways to teach kids about foreign languages, historic events and culture. It is also the sponsoring organization behind the FreedomFighter56.com oral history project, “ ’56 Stories” book and the FF56! educational computer game for teens about the Revolution of 1956. She is a proud Hungarian-American and an even prouder child and grandchild of ’56ers. The Mother of a 3-year-old, Lauer Rice is also working on ways to help parents raise their children bilingually through the creation of interactive Language Learning Packets. The first in this series, “Kis Majom,” will be available in time for Christmas 2006.

Please see also Edith Lauer’s “When the impossible seemed possible” story on
this site.

I am an ancient Hungarian pagan
Thundering along on horseback, with my sword held high
With intense devotion to forgiving Mother Earth, Mother Sun
I praise the spirit of the Universe

I am a disciple of Istvan
Thundering along on horseback, with my sword at my side
Building a nation
I carve out my place in the arms of the Carpathian Mountains

I am a woman from Eger
With my sword in my hand
Fighting against Turkish invaders
I endure for one-hundred and fifty years

I am a freedom fighter of ‘48
Protecting the Hungarian crown with my sword
My enemy was once my friend
I stand alone in the vast world

I am the vanquished of World War I
My sword is shattered
My ancient homeland is dismembered
Two thirds of my spirit flows away in blood

I am a Hungarian of ‘45
My sword is useless
I see my country mutilated
Nearly swept away by Fate

I am a refugee of ‘56
My sword is now mind and energy
Scattering across new worlds
I live lives in new lands

Now, today, I am an ancient Hungarian pagan
In spirit, I am thundering along on horseback with my sword raised
I was born in a foreign land but in my blood, the blood of the ancients’ flow
And together we dance beneath the Moon

NOTE: In the Light of the Moon was translated from the original Hungarian by the author.


Erika Kisvarsányi
Erika G. Kisvarsányi was born in Rolla, Missouri, in 1964. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from the University of Missouri-Rolla, and two Master’s degrees from the University of Florida, one in physics and the other in science education. She is currently teaching physics and mathematics at a local community college in Gainesville, Florida. Her hobbies include languages, travel, sports, and attending performing arts events.

Erika Kisvarsányi is the daughter of Éva Kisvarsányi.

Photographs from her Father, Géza Kisvarsányi, can also be found throughout “56 Stories.”