Now that the 50th anniversary of the Revolution and Freedom Fight of 1956 approaches, I reread the relevant books that through the years have found their way onto my bookshelves. I consider myself lucky to have lived to see the regime change in 1989, and am glad to see that Hungary finally has a chance to control its own destiny.

Unfortunately, my father was not able to have rejoiced in this. As he lay gravely ill with dementia in a Pennsylvania hospital in 1986, during my visit, he pointed outside the window, where he could just see a small, red weather flag fluttering in the wind and said, “Commies,” disgustedly. I was shocked as I realized how deep a humiliating experience can be.

I thought of the time in Mosonmagyaróvár where I was born, when, in 1956 the Russian tanks ground the asphalt with their monotone rumbling in the streets around the city block where we lived. When my father came home from work he said to my mother, “Ibi, pack the children’s things; we’re going to the West.” “Lajos, have you gone mad? With three children, no language skills, no useful profession, what are we going to do there?” replied my mother. “I don’t care, I am doomed to manual labor for the rest of my life anyway, but at least the children will have a future.” We children, who were 15, 13, and 11 at the time, understood what he was talking about. Our father, who had refused to become a member of the communist party, after 35 years as a teacher, was reduced to earning our living as a rubble-cleaner, road worker, and warehouse loader.

And so it happened. Our path led to America, where nothing stood in the way of our ambitions; we could go in any direction we desired. It just needed some hard work and perseverance. And so my father retired, and died, as a factory worker.

A flood of memories bursts forth, not only in me, but in anyone who lived through the events of 1956. A couple days ago a representative of the local Hungarian Engineers, Scholars and Technicians Friendship Society asked me to help organize the 1956 commemoration here in Berkeley.

The University of California at Berkeley excelled in helping refugee students at the time. The University provided opportunities for study for over 120 young refugees, mostly in engineering and science, and these graduates went on to become successful builders and contributors to the American economy. They value and appreciate Berkeley’s help at the beginning, and it is for this reason that we will commemorate the events of 1956 with an academic colloquium here. We want to convey to today’s students that in 1956, students of similar ages were willing to sacrifice their lives for those ideals and freedoms that we so often take for granted here in the United States.


Katalin Vörös
After fleeing Hungary, her family lived in Switzerland and she attended the Hungarian secondary school in Burg Kastl, Germany. The family moved to the United States in 1960, and settled in Pennsylvania. She studied at Philadelphia’s Drexel University and worked as an electrical engineer at Philco-Ford and at RCA. She and her husband took leading roles in the Philadelphia Hungarian community, and both lead scout troops. She moved to California in 1982 and continued her studies at UC Berkeley. Katalin is currently the manager of the microfabrication research laboratory at the University and in her spare time coordinates a listserve for the Hungarian community of the San Francisco Bay Area. All six of her grandchildren speak Hungarian.

I was a first year student at Kossuth Lajos Tudományegyetem in Debrecen, studying nuclear physics. Students from Szeged University came to our Univesity on the 21st and reported their 16 points for university autonomy and asked our support. Next day there was a university-wide meeting and a decision to demonstrate. On tIn the fall of 1956 I was a second-year student at the Petõfi High School of Buda. In those days we did not talk much about politics. It was maybe because we brought our political views from home and the politics beyond that – even in school – was just communist junk that we were trying to ignore. The Writers’ Association and the Petõfi Circle were far beyond our interest. The only place I noticed some changes was the newspaper called Free Youth (Szabad Ifjúság). This was the weekly of the communist youth association (DISZ). It was the only newspaper we could read on issues teenagers were interested in. In the fall of 1956 the newspaper was definitely opening toward Western culture. At that time I had already been an enthusiastic jazz fan. Every evening I listened to the 45-minute jazz program of the Voice of America. I was happy to suddenly read positive articles on Louis Armstrong and the rather new rock-and roll, e.g. Elvis Presley which was also of my interest at that time.

So the Revolution was totally unexpected for me. Hereinafter I am not going much into the details of the events of October and November of 1956. On the one hand, they have already been told by many, more competently and authentically. On the other hand, because my role in the events was scarcely more than „a face in the crowd.” So, I am going to deal mostly with those events that are of some special individual or general interest.

In the afternoon of 23 October, 1956, I sat down with a big sigh to do my homework in the apartment of our family in Attila Street (it had a view of the Vérmezõ park, opposite the Déli railway station). I was a smart kid, so the school, set to the average (or low) intelligence, made me immensely bored. Although I was reading books voraciously – good literature but trash as well – I did not feel any challenge to excel at school. As I was writing my homework, I looked up and saw that a group of 20-30 people with our national flags were marching through the Vérmezõ from left to right, namely towards Széll Kálmán Square. I was surprised, although I had already known that some kind of a peaceful demonstration had been planned. In those days I could get distracted from homework even by a sparrow flying by the window, so I quickly jumped up and ran downstairs to see what was going on. I wasn’t suspecting that by the time I would return home, I would become a (tiny) part of world history.

The gathering storm
We were heading toward Bem Square. Somewhere on our way I came across my classmate, Béla Leisz and we spent a few hours together. On Bem Square there was already a large crowd. What happened there has been told by many. When the soldiers displayed the Hungarian flag on the barracks behind the Bem statue (the building used to be the MDF headquarters in the early 90’s), people broke out in a huge cheer. And now a side comment: I think, usually there is not enough awareness about how splendidly the Hungarian Army and the common, so called „blue-uniformed” police performed during the Revolution. The peasant boys of the Army did not hesitate even for a moment which side to join in this fight. The same applied to the regular police. They were mainly prole bumpkins who kept intimidating the civilians as it was expected of them. But when they had to make this decision, they knew exactly where to stand. I saw blue-uniformed policemen patrolling in the streets as members of the National Guard many times during the Revolution, but no one gave them a dirty look.

One more thing about Bem Square: sometimes there is a confusion about who recited the poem “Nemzeti dal” (National Song) there. It was Ferenc Bessenyei. Our other great actor, Imre Sinkovits, later an unforgettable friend of mine, wrote his name – not the last time -into the glorious pages of Hungarian history at the Petõfi statue.

At the Parliament
From here we went to the Parliament. This is a well-known story, too. What I remember clearly is how astonished I was that when the crowd was already repeatedly shouting: „Russkies, go home!”, „Out with the Russians!”, and Imre Nagy appeared on the balcony of the Parliament, calling us „Comrades!”. Then the crowd, as if it had been trained to do it, shouted back as one: “We are not comrades!” So I thought: „Is he really that dumb? Doesn’t he understand what this is all about?” Of course Imre Nagy has to be put in his place. There was no one else. The least beastly Moscovite was demanded by the crowd, because they did not know of anyone else. And Imre Nagy was not prepared at all to lead such a revolutionary movement, he was swept along by the events. As a matter of fact, in this situation even a Winston Churchill would not have been able to avert the predictable brutal Soviet retribution. To the end of his life Imre Nagy identified with the Revolution. If he had behaved in a cowardly fashion, like others, very likely he could have saved his neck. He chose otherwise. Although I do not think much of his life, as a good Christian, I believe that he redeemed himself with his martyrdom and I bow deeply before his memory.

One more thing I remember from Kossuth Square: at some point the ÁVH goons, or who else, turned off the street lights supposing that we would be frightened in the darkness. We enjoyed an early October evening. The people in the crowd set fire to their newspapers almost simultaneously and these lit up the square for a few minutes. It was heartwarming to see so many issues of the communist daily burning.

To the Radio!
In the meanwhile the „red” working class got in motion. When somebody issued the word: „To the Radio!”, dozens of the then standard Csepel trucks appeared. (It must have been the evil CIA who organized it so well!) I was sitting on the front right fender of one of the first Csepels and kept holding hands tightly with the guy sitting on the left fender. Otherwise we would have fallen off, maybe under the wheels. People were sitting on the top of the driving cab as well, and I remember the driver shouting at them to keep their feet apart because he could not see the road. One of the most memorable moment to me, albeit very small, happened during this drive. We were driving along today’s Károly Boulevard toward the Radio. I think the Csepel I was sitting on was close to the front of the procession. Ahead of us, there was an old couple standing at a streetcar stop. By their appearance and their attitude they looked to me like old style gentlefolk, to the communists they were probably just old “reactionaries.” As we were approaching them, a truckful of howling beasts, the man was looking at us with open disgust. „What is this damned communist circus again?” – he probably thought. Then, as we got closer, the old gentleman realized that we were shouting: „Russians go home!” and „We want freedom!”, etc., and in a second a heavenly joy spread over his face. He almost started to jump up and down as he was waving to us with both hands. This small highlight is one of the most important memories that I have of 1956, showing what it was all about.

When we arrived to the Radio there had already been a huge crowd there. From the Múzeum Boulevard we could hardly get into Bródy Sándor Street. By that time the ÁVH soldiers had already been shooting tear-gas grenades. It was the first time of my life that I tasted tear gas. The second time occurred at Columbia University in 1971-72, during the anti-Vietnam demonstrations. Then, of course, I had fights only with the Ho-Ho-Ho-Shi-Minh-type hippies. At the Radio, even the Army joined in. Dozens of young soldiers were arriving, probably from the nearby Kilian barracks. They were hugging stacks of rifles, like brushwood, 6-8 together. I thought I would take one home for later use, but on second thought, I realized that it would have given the willies to my Mother. Than the bullets started their odd patter. I was holed up in a streetcar on Múzeum Boulevard opposite to Bródy Sándor Street, and we were definitely taking incoming fire.

I started to feel terribly guilty because of my Mother. My parents were divorced by then and I lived with my Mother and my little sister. I knew that my Mother was in a fright. She was convinced that where the biggest mess in the city was, that’s where her little son would be. And she was right. By that time the shooting could be heard all over the town, even on the other side of the Danube, in Buda. I also thought that to die a hero’s death would be a bit premature. This battle is not going to end here, at the Radio. One more thing: according to my Christian belief, the heroes killed there, such as István Hegedûs, the great pentathlete, are sitting at the right of the Lord. May their memory be blessed!

So I went home to reassure my mother, but I was pushing her to let me go back. She agreed only if she came with me. We did reach Kálvin Square, but there was no going further from that point, unless I wanted to drag my mother into the middle of the shootings.

Grounded for a day, then roaming all over town
For October 23 I got my reward: I was ordered not to leave our apartment. I could have snuck out, but my Mother, besides all her love and tenderness, knew exactly how to use an iron fist with her beloved son, if needed. By the 25th the fights stopped, so after a long begging my mother let me out to look around in town. I was strictly ordered to be back at a specific hour of early afternoon. This may have saved my life.

In my curiosity I covered enormous distances that day. Of course, there was no public transportation. I visited my father who then lived in Visegrádi Street. At that time, opposite to the Nyugati railway station – at the place of the underpass that is in front of the present department store, there was a row of bazaar shops with the notorious Ilkovics bar at the end – I saw dead corpses for the first time in my life. One of them was that of an elderly gentleman who even had his hat on and was shot in the middle of his forehead. The other was a young soldier who was sitting peacefully on the entrance stair of a shop, leaning to the wall. The bullet went through his chin and then his throat. I hope it does not sound too morbid, but I could not tear myself away from the sight of this young soldier. I couldn’t possibly understand that this good-looking, presumably peasant boy who must have lived, hoped and loved and certainly risked his life 1 or 2 days ago, could just pass away so easily. It was extremely hard to leave that place, though I said my prayers for both of them.

Downtown I passed the Gorkij bookstore. The store, which had been promoting the Soviet culture, was now burnt out. Books and records were thrown in the street. I am not a fan of burning books and records at all, but the „Sovietskaya cultura” much deserved this. I think the same of the lynching of the ÁVH’s murderous thugs, that was committed on Köztársaság Square. My guiding principle on this is that in a revolution, the system being overthrown reaps the fruits of its own bestiality. They’ve asked for it! Nothing happened on Köztársaság Square that came close to the brutality of the previous Rákosi regime. I accept the lynching that happened there, approve of them even today. I was not there, though.

On my way home I joined a peaceful demonstration near Károly Boulevard. It was an unarmed procession to the Parliament. I walked with them a few hundred meters, but then I remembered my mother’s strict order, so I headed home. Once again, this was Thursday, the 25th. Later on Kossuth Square this demonstration was strafed with machine guns by the ÁVH, killing some 110 people. If I had stayed with them, I might have gotten a bullet in my butt, not to mention worse places.

About Radio Free Europe
Then almost 10 days passed without any fights and we thought that everything would be all right. We were listening to the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe and hoped. Now I would like to tell off a rather generally accepted lie. Radio Free Europe never instigated anyone to fight with weapons. They gave advice, encouragement, but only to the effect that we should not be fooled by the communists, and should not give up what we already achieved that far. Anybody who says otherwise is either ignorant, or a liar. What else could they have said then from Munich? „People, don’t be silly. Go home and lay down the arms. The nice Soviets will come back and everything will be all right??” Who would have believed this bunk? To my opinion it is a profound disesteem of the heroes of ’56 to state that the reason they took up arms was that they were fooled by Radio Free Europe. Well, one more thing is that I naively believed, together with many others, in a possible U.S. intervention. The fact that it did not occur doesn’t show how cynical and deceptive the U.S was. It only shows how ignorant and uninformed we were.

During my 12-year service in the U.S. Senate, one of my most difficult tasks was to explain to my homeland compatriots what a small spot Hungary is on the map of world politics. To expect the U.S. to risk another world war for this small „real estate” was nonsense. The Red Army stayed in the country all along, although there was a temporary ceasefire. After the revolution the U.S. sent us tons of aid, tinned food, cheese, chocolate, even chewing gum and cigarettes (I smoked Chesterfields and Camels for the first time in my life, although later I wisely gave that up). I could get dressed partly from the clothes they sent. The U.S. welcomed the tens of thousands of refugees from Hungary with love, jobs, and scholarships. Anyone who expected more than that, e.g. a U.S. invasion, had no idea of the realities of world politics.

The battle of Vérmezõ
Early Sunday morning, November 4th, we were awakened by cannonfire. Although we had heard Nagy Imre’s dramatic radio address, replayed a hundred times since then, we soon realized that we had to seek shelter in the basement of our building. Vérmezõ turned into a battlefield. Some 8-10 Soviet tanks camped out there. There was infantry too; they were cowering behind the tanks. Their presence had two reasons. In the huge postal service building over Széll Kálmán Square freedom fighters had taken up positions. On the other side, the Soviets streaming in from Alkotás Street received a drastic welcome from the ramparts of the Castle Hill, above us. Two of my friends excelled at this fight, Öcsi and Dódi Kolompár. They were sons of a gypsy family who a few years before had moved to a flat in Logodi Street, above Attila Street on the hill. They had 4-5 brothers or sisters. Öcsi and Dódi were 2-3 years older than me. This is a big gap at this age, so we weren’t really close. Anyway, they were extremely friendly fellows who never made their apparent physical power felt. They fought heroically among the freedom fighters of the Castle Hill area, which taught me a new lesson. Namely, that the trustworthy and honest patriotic gypsy is just as good a Hungarian brother of mine as anybody else meeting this description. The Kolompár brothers were given heavy prison sentences. The last time I saw their mother was in 1957, when we were in line in the yard of the prison of Markó Street to pass in „cleaning packages.” I was there for my father, who was also jailed there at that time.

During the battle of Vérmezõ, the “liberating” Red Army set our clothing closet on fire by a phosphorous incendiary bullet, shooting through the apartment next to ours. I always wanted to ask Nikita Sergeyevich Khruschev why that was necessary, but I never had a chance. Fortunately, we were regularly patrolling in the house so the fire was soon noticed and put out. By then all of our winter clothes, coats, scarves, hats had been burnt and become useless. The burnt smell had been biting our noses for months, even after cleaning up the ruins. Also at night, when the gunfire largely ceased, we were peeking out at the Russkies. We saw that this rabble called the Red Army broke into all the shops around Alkotás Street, on the other side of Vérmezõ. They broke into the sweet-shop (liqueurs), the flower shop, the bar (of course!) and even the stationery store. The one shop they did not touch was selling watches and jewelry. Obviously they couldn’t read the sign-board and the employees had previously taken out every giveaway item from the store windows, so the place looked rather poor and shoddy. Also it may have had better locks.

Ceasefire and breadline
In the morning of November 7th we woke up to total silence. The Soviets seemed to have ordered a ceasefire in honor of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Along with 2-3 men we decided to get some bread. Somehow we learned that the bakery at the corner of Kékgolyó and Ráth György Streets was working. I did not dare to tell my mother that I was leaving, I just sent word to her to the basement that I left for bread. We did not dare to cross Vérmezõ because of the Soviets. We rather got around it toward Krisztina Boulevard. I was really scared that we would get shot, but fortunately we managed to reach the bakery. There was already a very long line standing there, almost half of Buda. We had to stand in line for almost 8 hours, but we passed the time talking. I went home triumphantly carrying two loaves of bread, 2-kilo each, still warm, under my arms.. Although I think my Mother was much more happy to see me than the bread. I gave a half kilo each to two friendly families, but I did not even think of sharing the rest. “Just let your stomachs rumble. I was the one risking my skin, and waiting for 8 hours,” – I thought.

Lastly, I want to recall one more episode. In the days of November, the city was still occupied physically by the Soviets. By the Nyugati railway station at a street identity check a Soviet soldier gave my father a giant kick with his boot, where it hurts the most. Though he did not live far from there, he could hardly drag himself home, almost crawling. After that, for several days I went to his place in Visegrádi Street by bicycle to start the fire in his stove, to get him food, etc. One day I was riding home along Szent István Boulevard toward the Margaret Bridge. By that time a few of the buses were running, but not the streetcars because the rails had been torn up. I was passing by a crowded bus, on the back stair of which the actor Imre Sinkovits was standing. At that time the back platforms of the buses were still open. One could travel on the steps if the bus was too crowded. At both sides of the bridgehead Soviet tanks were posted. On our side a Soviet soldier was standing in front of the tank. As the bus got there – I was about 5 meters behind them – Imre delivered a huge spit to the Russki’s feet. The Russki never batted an eyelid. He might have thought that in Hungary too, this was the way of greeting each other. Of course, at that time I did not know Imre personally, but many years later I shared this story with him at his great pleasure.

In 1957, in my high school, I joined an anti-communist conspiracy and later I spent time in prison. I hesitated whether to write up that story or the one above, and I chose the latter. That’s because the previous one had already been written several times, e.g. in an excellent, long interview with me and five of my co-conspirators in the March 11, 2006 issue of Magyar Nemzet. The interview entitled „A Népköztársaság nevében…” can be found in Hungarian on the Internet. It was written by István Stefka. I cannot add much to that.


Bulcsú Veresshe 23rd we marched from the University to the city center, singing the Mardeillese! I sang it in French, since I studied in a Licee Francais in Gödöllõ when I was 10 years old, run by the Norbertine Fathers. The school was closed two years later and the buildings later became the Agricultural University where my mother worked in 1956 as a laboratory assistant and where I participated in gymmnastics and skiing university sports while still in high-school at Petõfi Gimnázium in the village of Aszod. I graduated in June of 1956 and was admitted to Debrecen, where I joined the new nuclear physics program, being one of 16 admitted from over 200 applicants.

After the demonstration on the 23rd, news came that in Budapest shots were fired that same evening, so we regrouped and defended our university with the armory of the ROTC corps that we were all members of. We had, however, no ammunition and hoped that whoever would attack us would not know this! At the same time the student council contacted the Hungarian Army barracks in the city and they decided to support us. News came that in Budapest the revolution succeeded — we thought we were the only ones doing a revolution, as a postcard I wrote to my parents would have testified. However, they never received the postcard.

TOWN MEETINGS
I volunteered to the student council with a friend from the same dormitory, Zoltán Bódy (may he rest in peace; he died about 10 years ago after becoming a professor at our alma mater in Debrecen that I visited again some 5 years ago…). A bus picked us up in the morning at the student dorm and at each village around Debrecen 2 students and a soldier (whom we picked up at the barracks, similarly volunteers but with official Hungarian Army approval) were dropped to organize a town meeting, inform the people of events in Budapest, disarm the police, and organize the national guard with their help. As young and enthusiastic eighteen year-olds we did this without a hitch and even without any sense of danger, ending up with the whole village singing the Hungarian National anthem, then they invited us to a wedding where the bus on its return picked us up around 10 . p,m. to take all 36 of us back to Debrecen.

My village was Görbeháza where I visited again last year after 49 years and hardly recognized the town — the church and the Cultural Hall where I held the meeting were still there, but the deep mud was gone, all paved roads, many new buildings. The other 11 teams of soldiers and students were in other surrounding villages of the district, were similarly tired but succesful.

GDYE SUEZ?
The next day (Thursday) I decided to hitch-hike to Budapest to find my parents in Gödöllõ. As I hitched a ride on food-trucks carrying pigs and wheat to feed the capital, at night convoys of Russian Army trucks passed us. Someone shouted at us: GDYE SUEZ? [Where is the Suez Canal?] This was supposed to be the withdrawal of the Soviet troops agreed with the new Hungarian Government… I arrived about 10 o’clock at night to Budapest to Üllõi út where the food was offloaded. I started to walk, then heard some shots in the distance. A patrol stopped me : who are you? A student from Debrecen — I showed my student ID. They were revolutionaries patrolling the streets, trying to capture any secret police in hiding or trying to escape. This happened to me about three times in the dark streets before reaching my cousin’s house near Kálvin Tér. My pants were completely wet when I climbed the stairs to the third floor and they let me in…

Next day was the 1st of November and I took the electric train to Gödöllõ, picking up all the free newspapers on the way to the Keleti train station. It was euphoria… we had finally won! My mother and father were happy to see me. In fact, my father had gone by motorcycle to my dorm to try to pick me up — only to be told that I had left! He could at least bring back my clothes and books! I could not, however, forget the ominous Russian convoys coming towards Budapest that passed us: Will this last? I thought to myself, Imre Nagy just declared Hungary’s neutrality — will they respect it?

The Revolution really threw me into the world at 18 to fend for myself. I believe it is perhaps the single most important event in the 20th century that turned the tide on communism.

WALKING TO AUSTRIA
We decided with a high school friend to go into hiding at the state farm where my father worked, in Balatonfenyves, near the lake Balaton, after the Russian invasion on November 4th., Around the 10th of November, when we saw that no help was forthcoming, we feared for our safety. Then, on the 23rd, we started walking toward the border, after my father went there on a motorcycle the day before to see that if it was still possible to cross. From Keszthely it was a walk of some 120 km, however we could hitch some bus rides as far as Zalaegerszeg. There the driver told us to get out and walk around the hills towards Zalalövõ since Zalaegerszeg was already controlled by the Russians This we did and the evening w arrived to a house where my father had been the previous day and where they put us up for the night. It was a wedding feast that night; we drank and danced and the people who knew where we were going told us “Go and tell them: we are very disappointed!”. I still remember the face of the little old lady who could have been my grandmother who told me this.

The next day we started walking early through the fields and reached the river Mura in the afternoon that we had to cross to get to the border. Incidentally, there was fresh snow and fog and we got lost — my father thought we could only cross out towards Yugoslavia but we wound up by the river, highway, forest and railway line near the Austrian border. There was a patrol on the bridge, so we walked a bit downriver where a man with a boat took us across and hid us in a barn. The highway and rail line were already guarded so he suggested we wait till night when he would try to take us across. By the time midnight came instead of the 2 of us there were a dozen of us hiding in the barn, similarly picked up by the man with the boat during the day as they were coming across the fields. Some were Hungarian soldiers, some students, some families.

At midnight we filed in a single file towards the border. First a patrol vehicle passed the highway and we rushed across after it left. On the railway two Russian soldiers were patrolling on foot. However, we were 12 and they did not know whether we were armed (we were not) so they turned back and let us pass. Then in the forest in the snow we walked towards the border. The guide with us turned back, we gave him all the Hungarian currency we had with us as our gratitude. He warned us to turn west and not north, since then we might cross back to Hungary. We crossed the border at Deutshcbillings near Csáktornya on the night of the 24th of November. W reached an Austrian border post, I greeted them in German, and they took us to a schoolhouse where there were already about a hundred people they gathered during the night. They showed us a movie that I still remember: “Ferien in Tyrol…” They then took us to a makeshift quarter at the school where I started the cheese my father had packed for me… I was safe!

Dr. Steven Julius Török
Born in 1938, he took part in the events in Debrecen and Budapest. After escaping to the West via Austria, he lived in Japan, where this story was published in his 1963 high school magazine, Koni Course. He became a friend of the bestselling author Shiba Ryotaro in Osaka, who modeled the hero of his novel “Ryomaga Yuku” about Dr. Török. Shiba only told him this later, after the novel had sold 17 million copies in Japan. His friend passed away 10 years ago, but he is now writing a historical novel about the 13th century in Hungary dedicated to Shiba’s memory. The novel features Prince Kálmán of the Árpád Dynasty and will be published this year, possibly in China, in English. Dr. Török also lived in the United States, attending Stanford University in California and earning a PhD from Columbia University in 1976. After his retirement from the United Nations in 1998 he repatriated to Hungary, where he now lives in his ancestral home.

The Start of the Revolution
I was 9 yrs. old and my sister Kathy was 8. We were doing our school homework on Oct. 23, 1956. My Mom came home from work, very excited, telling my grandfather, who was babysitting us, to turn on the radio. She told us about the exciting march and happenings on the Buda side of the Danube that afternoon. She worked downtown on Dorottya street., near the famous Gerbeaud Pastry Shop. She and other fellow colleagues went to the top of the high office building to see university students from the “Müegyetem,” marching with Hungarian flags, singing patriotic songs and yelling for others to join in. They were marching to the statue of General Bem (a Polish national hero) to show sympathy for the recent striking marchers in Poland and to lay a wreath there.

My father came home from his office and my Mom was trying to explain to him that something important had happened. He calmed her down and said let’s have dinner and we are going to the Madács Theatre, downtown. The play started on time at 8 pm. You could already notice some excitement in the crowd, but no one knew what was happening on the other side of the city. After an hour into the play, gunshots were heard outside from a distance. The play was stopped and one actor, Bárdi György came out on stage and recited a poem by the famous Hungarian poet, Ady Endre. This was a surprise and not part of the program. Everyone was told to go home. Outside, on the streets, people everywhere were excited and yelling “There is a revolution. Let’s go to Brody Sándor street to take over Radio Budapest and announce to the country and to the world that the Revolution has begun.” This was around 10 pm. They also wanted to announce over the radio the demands of the Hungarian people, which had already been announced earlier that afternoon at the Bem statue. The university students had outlined the 16 demands. Some of the highlights of the 16 demands were that the Soviet troops leave Hungary; a new government be formed; institute free elections; remove the red star, hammer and sickle from the Hungarian flag and bring back the Hungarian Kossuth emblem; remove the gigantic statue of Stalin form the city park (Városliget); and reinstate March 15th as a national holiday.

Walking down Rákoczy street, which is parallel to Brody Sándor street, my parents could hear gunshots and people were shouting ”Let’s go to the Stalin statue in the Városliget.” At this late hour there was no public transportation, so people had to walk. Trying to get home, my parents had to walk to the Keleti train station, from where transportation was still available. Once they arrived home and listened to the radio, the Communists called this a counter-revolution. In their eyes, a counter-revolution is one that opposes the Soviet Revolution of 1918, which was to impose and spread communism to the world.

Glorious Days of Freedom Crushed
During the few days of freedom, I remember going with my parents to visit my widowed aunt and her two sons. We had to cross the Köztársaság Square, where the AVO headquarters was located. It was from here that the AVO had shot into the demonstrating crowds of innocent people, including the Red Cross rescuers. After the freedom fighters took over the AVO/Communist Party Headquarters, they were so angry at the AVO police that they hanged some of them outside, with heads facing down, from the limbs of trees. Walking across the square, we could see the aftereffects of this tragic fighting. In my memory today, I can still see the hanging bodies from the trees, of the AVO police, and on the ground, the fallen bodies of the brave freedom fighters, covered with flowers and burning candles surrounding them. During our walk, I remember seeing broken shop windows, some of them displaying a box with the sign that read “Please Contribute to the Families of Our Dead Heroes.” It was striking and memorable that no one would think of removing even one paper bill from there, but just to donate.

We had no school during this time. My parents continued going to work each day, on foot, because public transportation had been disrupted. At their work, not much was accomplished, since everybody was exchanging the latest happenings from the previous day, and discussing what they heard on the Radio Free Europe, to which not everyone had access. My parents strictly advised my grandfather, who was our babysitter, not to take us outside, because intermittent shots were heard on the streets and fighting could erupt at any time.

As days went by, the hope and spirit of the country was drastically diminishing. I remember seeing that hopelessness and sadness in the faces of my parents, relatives and their friends. The most tragic moment came when the Prime Minister of Hungary, Imre Nagy, cried out to the western world, via the radio, pleading for S.O.S. help for the last time. No help came. We all knew that this was the end and that revenge would follow.

The glorious days of freedom ended by November 4th, when Hungary had to realize that help from the Western Nations, the U.S. and the United Nations were not forthcoming. Upon seeing this, the Soviets took the opportunity to invade Hungary once again. Hundreds of Soviet tanks showed up in Budapest, and airstrikes bombed the city. Both my sister and I distinctly remember the scary feeling we had seeing a huge Soviet tank parked underneath our first floor balcony. The turret of the tank was facing the district city hall across our street. When the shootings got heavier on the streets, I remember having to run down to the basement of our apartment building for safety. Even our living room window shattered. In the basement, we were prepared with cots, blankets and food, in case we would have to spend days or nights there.

The Soviet and the Hungarian Communist leaders started to arrest the high-ranked sympathizers of the revolution (i.e. Nagy Imre, Maléter Pál). They were preparing list of names of the sympathizers at all work locations. At the beginning of January of 1957, my father received a verbal warning at his work from a member of the communist party that his name was also on the list. This meant that the communists would question his actions during the days of the revolution, question his political views and the possibility of arrest could follow.

My father worked for the Hungarian National Bank, dealing with authorization of foreign currencies. During the first days of the revolution, he and his colleagues organized a committee as to what they should do to stop any activity in foreign accounts of the Hungarian National Bank in foreign countries. Their goal behind this was to prevent the possibility of the Soviets getting their hands on these accounts, with the help of the Hungarian communists. My father, with one of his colleagues, accomplished this task, based on information received at the British Embassy in Budapest.

The Turning Point for Us
The fact that my father’s name was on the list of sympathizers forced my parents to find a way to leave the country. By this time strict rules were established by the government to stop the flow of refugees out of the country. During November and December of 1956, thousands of Hungarians had fled across the border with relative ease. By January and February of 1957, that was not the case. If you were caught attempting to leave the country, the sentence was 10 years in jail, without trial. If anyone assisted someone attempting to leave the country, that person received the same sentence. My father’s sister, who lived in the apartment across the hall from ours, said that if she suspected that we would attempt to leave the country, she would report us to the authorities herself. She was so worried and concerned about our safety.

It just so happened that a distant relative from Szombathely stopped by at our apartment, bringing with him falsified I.D. documents for my mother’s brother. He indicated that my mother’s brother could not use these documents for attempting to leave the country, because his 6 year-old son had suddenly come down with pneumonia. So he asked why not take this opportunity to leave the country? This came as an unexpected blessing, my parents thought. They agreed. Things happened real fast from there on. Within 24 hours, our relative had our falsified documents ready. The documents indicated that we had been residents of Szombathely since 1953. By mid-January, travel outside of Budapest was limited to the city of Györ. One could travel further only if one was a resident of a town or city beyond Györ, or if one had special permission from the authorities. As the decision my parents made to leave the country came so suddenly, they requested a week off from work to go on their annual ski vacation. Since they had taken ski vacations every year, this request would not draw any suspicion. Without telling relatives, except for my grandmother, we packed a small suitcase and headed to the Keleti train station. My father bought a sleeping coach train ticket to Szombathely. My sister and I were excited about sleeping quarters on the train, as we had never experienced this before. We did not completely understand why my grandmother was crying as we were looking out the window of the train. We only remember my mother asking her “Please don’t cry, because it can draw attention.” But she could not help herself and just kept on crying, because she loved us so and could not stand the thought of not seeing us again. The train departed. My sister and I had fallen asleep. After a few hours, the train stopped in Györ, where soldiers boarded to check everyone’s I.D. papers. When the soldier came to our compartment, my father opened the door and showed the soldier that the family was sleeping and gave him our documents. The soldier was very cordial and left. After midnight, the train stopped in Szombathely, where our relative was waiting for us. We went to his house to stay till the next day. He already had plans for us for the next day as to how we would reach the border.

The Plan and our First Attempt
The next evening our relative walked us to the train station, where our guide would recognize us without any verbal contact. The guide, a friend of our relative, was a mailman. We were not supposed to talk to each other. In case there would be an inspection on the train, we should say that we were going to a funeral. We were wearing the black bands around our arms as was the custom. As soon as we boarded the train, we sat a short distance away from our guide just so that we could see each other. The plan was that we would get off where he gets off and follow him at a distance. The train stopped. When our guide got off, so did we. The station was unusually filled with many soldiers. Our guide did not know the reason for this; neither did we. He panicked and disappeared.

My father did not panic and had to make a quick decision as to what we ought to do without arousing suspicion. From nervousness and fear, he broke out in a sweat dripping from his face. This picture has remained in our memory for a lifetime. He noticed a road sign with the name of a village about 6 km away. We headed on foot in that direction in the night. After a few kilometers, we had to cross a small bridge. Suddenly, two soldiers jumped out from underneath the bridge, flashing lights in our face, yelling to stop and asking where we were going. My father named the village, stating that the children were tired and sleepy and we had a funeral to attend the next day. They let us go. Further along, we came upon a small wooded park, close to the village. My father decided that we should stay in the park, and not try to enter anyone’s house for fear that we may be reported. This village was close to the border, and thus not reporting non-resident folks was more seriously punished. We would stay here till daybreak, when the soldier guards by the bridge we crossed would be changed. In the morning, we walked back to the station crossing the same bridge without anyone stopping us and we boarded the train back to Szombathely. Our relatives were shocked to see us, because our guide already informed them during the night that we were captured. They were expecting that the police would be showing up to arrest them, instead of us. We had to rest. All of us had to calm our nerves. We were discussing the abandonment decision our guide had made, along with his false assumption that we were captured. Further discussions ensued about us giving up the whole idea of leaving the country and that we should return to Budapest, because the danger and risks were too high. Meanwhile, we found out that the border had been closed, the so-called Iron Curtain was set up, and tighter controls were in place. The nearby villages were filled with Soviet tanks and soldiers.

Our Second Attempt
Our relatives encouraged us that we should try again and they almost guaranteed a success for us. Two days later, in the early evening hours, our relative took us to the same train station as before. We boarded the train ourselves. A short time later, we got off at Egyházasrádoc. We were to meet a woman standing next to the red-colored mailbox located on the exterior wall of the station building. She would then lead us to a nearby small house, where we had to wait for a farmer boy to take us to the border village of Kiskölked.

It was dark by the time the boy arrived on his bicycle. The date was February 17, 1957, and the rain outside was pouring in buckets. For this type of weather, the Hungarian saying goes “One does not even let the dogs out.” The boy instructed us not to talk, walking ahead of us about 10 feet, as he was pushing his bicycle by his side. To our surprise he did not take the road, but led us across the tilled farmland toward the border village. From the heavy rain, the ground was thoroughly soaked by now, the mud knee deep. With our regular shoes, each step we took was extremely difficult. In fact, my Mom lost one of her shoes in the mud, but there was no time to stop. She was crying out “My homeland does not want me to leave, but is pulling me back.” The farmer boy had no problems with his steps, because he was wearing heavy rubber boots up to the knee. After trudging through the deep mud for about 2 hours, we arrived at the farmer boy’s parents’ farmhouse. Needless to say, we were soaking wet. They insisted that we remove all of our wet clothing and place them by the fire to dry. Meanwhile, my father had asked the farmer to sell a pair of boots to us for my Mom to use, as she could not continue on with just one shoe. Then we went to bed. Barely getting an hour of sleep, we were awakened by the farmer that the Hungarian soldier, who was to lead us to the border, had arrived. He insisted that we leave right away to take advantage of the particularly dark night, the thick clouds in the sky, implying that for a while there would be no moonlight. This would be to our advantage. We had to put our half-dried clothes back on. This was not a pleasant feeling. We started to walk, my father holding my hand, my Mom holding my sister’s hand, and the soldier with his rifle in front of us. My sister remembers to this day how my Mom’s hand was shaking. The soldier instructed us that if we saw flares light up the sky, we needed to get down on the ground. If we were caught, the soldier would say that he found us trying to escape. We walked about 6-7 kilometers. At one point we had to cross a ditch that was waist-deep with rainwater. I specifically remember the soldier having to raise his arm to keep his rifle out of the water. My father carried me across, and the soldier helped carry my sister across.

After midnight, from a distance we could hear dogs barking. The barking came from the direction of a lookout tower. Our soldier knew the exact schedule of the patrol guards between the two towers and the best time for us to cross. Between the Hungarian and Austrian border, the soil is tilled differently with about a 3 meter width, which is to indicate the border, called “határsáv.” Here, the soldier shook hands with my father and wished us good luck. He pointed toward small light in the distance and a church steeple, indicating the nearest Austrian village. He also warned us that the border is wavy in this area, and it is easy to make the mistake of ending up back in Hungary. My father gave him one of his shirt cufflinks to return to our relative, who had the other. This was our signal code that our escape was accomplished.

Though Refugees, but Free at Last
We crossed the border and continued walking a short distance. We had to take a rest, since us kids were especially tired by now. We took a rest in the bushes, so as not to be seen. My father made us drink some schnapps to prevent the chance of pneumonia, as we were still in wet clothes on a cold February night. We started walking again and came upon a small wooden hut, probably used by the border patrol guards. Inside, there was barely enough room to fit two persons sitting on the bench next to a wood fire stove. My sister and I sat down on the bench and were asleep within minutes. My parents, however, had to stand. My father lit the cigarette lighter and noticed that the inside walls of the hut were covered with German language newspaper from top to bottom. Therefore, we positively knew now that we were, in fact, in Austria. To dry our clothes, my father collected a few branches from nearby, tore down the newspapers from the wall, and tried to start a fire. Since the branches were wet, this created more smoke than warmth. In a few hours, daybreak came and my father looked out from the small 5 X 7 inch glass on the door. He noticed two border patrol soldiers in the far distance, but could not distinguish whether they were Austrian or Hungarian. My Dad said that we have to give a sign no matter what happens. So he stepped outside the hut and started waving his arms. When the soldiers changed direction to head toward us, and got closer we thanked God that they were Austrians. When they reached us, both my parents started to cry. Since they both spoke German, they explained to the soldiers that we were refugees, asking for help. Very politely they led us to the village of Moschendorf, where we met with officials and the Red Cross. As we were walking through the village, we must have been an awful sight to behold as the villagers were staring at us, at our dried, muddy clothes, peasant boots and smoky smell.

The officials registered us as refugees. At first they doubted us, because not many refugees made it over the border at this time in February 1957, due to the strict border controls. Because both my parents spoke German, the officials suspected that we might be spies. We had to wait a few hours for a military officer, who asked information about our escape. What he wanted to know most was what we saw at the border villages, how many Soviet tanks, Soviet soldiers, and how we made our escape. This was important to them because they were worried that the Soviets could easily invade Austria again, as they did during World War II. My father asked for information on how he could notify a friend, living in Vienna, of our escape. A memorable event occurred, when one of the Austrian border patrol soldiers gave him 20 schillings for a telegram, telling him “Go ahead and do it.” We regretted years later that we could not repay him because we did not ask him for his name. The next day we were transferred to Wollensdorf Lager (refugee camp), which was sponsored by the British.

Life in the Refugee Camps
After a month at the Wollensdorf Lager, we were transferred again, with the assistance of the Charitas help organization, to Klosterneuburg Lager, outside Vienna. The help organization (Rettet das Kind) aided us in enrolling my sister and me in the Sacre Coeur School for Girls, in Pressbaum, located in the Vienna Woods. This was about one and a half hour from Vienna.

My grandmother in Hungary tried to help us out financially. We later found out that she sold all of our furniture that we left behind, donated some items to family members and our washing machine was given to our relative in Szombathely. She exchanged the money into foreign currency (British pounds) on the black market. Then she had a seamstress sew the money into the shoulder of my father’s suit jacket. She gave the jacket to a mutual friend, who was on an official business trip to Austria. This friend delivered the jacket to us. Unbeknown to him, the message to us was to let her know if the shoulder of the jacket fit properly. This is how she got the money to us.

During our Lager life, we had mail contact with our grandparents. The exception was my Dad’s father, who could never forgive our leaving the homeland. He never wrote or signed his name on a letter to us. At that time we did not realize his reason until many years later; we were told of this by family members. Unfortunately, he passed away in 1958.

In the summer of 1958, my sister and I took a trip sponsored by the Rettet das Kind organization to Chelmsford, England, with a group of other refugee children. Each child was taken in by various British families for a period of two months. By this time, we spoke fluent German, but no English. Mind you, we were totally without our parents at 9 and 10 years of age, in the home of a British family, and we could not speak or understand a word of the British language. My sister cried many times and wanted to go back to our parents.

Back in Austria, my parents had applied at the U.S. Embassy to immigrate to the United States, but it was denied, since the refugee quota was closed and we had no sponsors. The political atmosphere and instability in Europe and the cold war gave us a scary feeling, with the thought that the Soviets could invade Austria as they had done before. Therefore we had to select from the countries that were still receiving a reduced number of refugees. These were England, Canada, Australia and countries in South America. My Mom’s brother was already living in Canada. My family escaped from Hungary before them, but they had made it to Canada (through Yugoslavia) before us. They insisted that we come to Canada. Canada was taking two more groups of refugees, so we decided to apply and very quickly we were accepted. Our thoughts, hopes and dreams were that someday, somehow, we would make it to the United States.

After a 12-day boat trip across the ocean, we embarked in Montreal, Canada. The Canadian government took care of our temporary accommodations and expenses by putting us up at the local jailhouse. This was an extremely disappointing shock to us, not to mention highly discouraging. My parents had to apply at the Immigration Office to select available employment possibilities. They suggested a job as a cook for my Mom and chauffeur for my Dad. My sister and I were placed into a boarding school in the city of Ottawa. Because of the separation of our family and having seen our crying faces, after 3 days my Dad came to get us and took us back to Montreal. He argued with the immigration authorities about separating our family, when we had been together all this time. Both my parents found jobs, and after 2 weeks we left the jailhouse to start a life of our own. My sister and I were enrolled in school, though not in our proper grades, but first grade, until we learned the English language. Eventually, my Dad became a draftsman and my Mom a bookkeeper. After 5 years, we received our Canadian citizenship.

The Dream Comes True
One day, my Dad noticed an advertisement in the newspaper of a U.S. company looking for technically experienced personnel. My Dad passed the application test with excellent results. The company representative shook my father’s hand and said to him, “Welcome to the United State.” My father was extremely happy to say the least. Within 5-6 months, we received out first preference quotas to immigrate to the United States. The company moved us to Beloit, Wisconsin. This was a booming time in the U.S. for technically experienced people. After two years, my father obtained a better job offer and promotion as design draftsman in Cleveland, Ohio. The new company moved our family to Cleveland in 1966. We were happy about coming to settle in Cleveland, because of its good location and its Hungarian ethnic population. This has been our home ever since. It was here that we had the memorable occasion of receiving our U.S. citizenship. By coincidence, that day happened to be the same day that we had crossed the Hungarian-Austrian border.

Every year the Cleveland Hungarians commemorate October 23, 1956. The Takács family participates to keep the memories alive and to never forget.


Martha and Kathy Takács
Martha graduated from Cleveland State University with a B.S. degree in chemistry. She began her career as a chemist at the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, and held various positions such as chemistry supervisor, licensing engineer/environmentalist, and QA auditor at the Company’s Perry Nuclear Plant. After 23 years of service, she took early retirement. Since then, she has continued working for chemical and pharmaceutical companies and has done other contracting work. In the 1970’s she took part in ethnic programs at the annual Cleveland Nationality Festivals as a folk dancer with a local Hungarian folk dancing group, and also performed as a solo pianist playing Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.

Kathy attended Cleveland State University and studied English and French literature. In 1969 she went to Paris, France, where she took a one-year course of French literature and civilization at the Alliance Francaise Ecole Internationale. She married and has two daughters. She works for the City of Cleveland, at Hopkins International Airport, where she utilizes not only her knowledge of the French language, but also Hungarian. She has assisted many Hungarians, especially the elderly, who visit from Hungary and do not speak English.

It was frightening sitting in the back of the truck on the dark and rainy night. It was November, 1956, and I was four years old. I was balancing on a big green canvas knapsack. There were no seats on the back of the truck, so everyone was balancing and I didn’t even know the people I was riding with. My Mother was sitting in the cab of the truck with the baby and my Father was way up front with my two-year old brother. I had been told not to say a word. The sound of the rain was deafening and the canvas that was draped over the metal frame of the truck was flapping in the wind, so I could see the muddy road running along the side. All I could think about was that we would hit a bump and I would fall out where the canvas was not tied down. Because I was not allowed to say anything, no one would know that I had fallen and I would be left behind.

That is one of many memories that I had as a four-year-old escaping with my parents and brothers in 1956. We tried it three times before we were successful. I remember when we spent the night in jail, after one of our captures. There were only eight beds for more than 100 people, but we got one because my Mother had just given birth and the others felt sorry for her.

The Revolution of 1956 was the single most significant life-changing event in my life. It was not my decision to escape: it was my parents’ decision. And, they certainly didn’t do it for themselves; they did it for their children – the ones already born and the ones that would follow. I owe everything to my parents because they had the courage to do what so many could not do. The terror of the escape, the fear of being caught, the fear of being separated, the fear of being sent to Siberia, of being tortured, of being killed, would live with my parents for years. Nightmares and insomnia were common.

Family values
When something this monumental happens to your family, when you are uprooted from everything you know and are thrown into unknown situations, it is very helpful to have parents who considered everything an adventure. You see, it was an exciting new world we were exploring and we children were being taken along for the ride. My Father and Mother loved each other so deeply and so romantically that everything we did was
fun and educational and adventurous, even when it didn’t deserve that kind of attention. Whether it was a Sunday family drive in the car or an evening at the opera, everything was to be extremely appreciated. And, if you didn’t appreciate it, an attitude adjustment was in store!

Not all of my young Hungarian friends were so lucky. Some had parents who continued to be fearful of the unknown. Some were depressed. Some questioned their decision to leave their homeland.

My parents were very strict about many things. Education, church and faith were most important. Both were raised in high society and came from privileged backgrounds. This meant that they spoke several languages and were well-versed in history, culture, art and music. However, they both lost everything. The houses their families once owned were now properties of the Hungarian State and they lived in one or two rooms. And although my Father was a professor of Engineering, it took a while before they could afford to move into their own place, so they lived with my Grandmother and Great-Grandfather.

My parents wanted many children, which would have been prohibitive in Hungary during that time for many reasons, not the least of which was that there were no apartments available that would be big enough to accommodate a large family. The family of three children my parents escaped with was considered a big family in Hungary.

Canada
My Father’s motto was “in Rome, do as the Romans do.” So, when we first arrived in Vancouver, Canada, there were many new things to learn, including speaking English. Since both of my parents knew how to speak English, we never spoke it at home. So one day, one of the neighbors told my Mother that I had told her something and my Mother’s reaction was: “Helen speaks English???” I had managed to pick it up in the neighborhood without my parents’ help.

At home my parents spoke Hungarian and we were expected to do the same. Our traditions were Hungarian and Roman Catholic. My parents did, however, adopt Thanksgiving because they liked what it stood for. While living in Canada, we were a part of a very active Hungarian community that included scouting and church. I loved the scouts. Girls and boys were instructed together, not separately as with American scouting. I also thought that all churches had big halls where parties were regularly organized with a live band, dancing, drinks and food, and where babies and grandparents mixed with the young people. I was very surprised when we later moved to the US to a small university town that had a tiny Hungarian community, that those days were over.

Hungary was very far away. It was impossible to telephone and letters had to be carefully worded so as not to raise suspicion. The world felt huge: we were on one side of it and Hungary on the other side.

Nothing could be more illustrative of my parents embracing North America and the Northwest in particular than their many attempts at camping. Here were these two Budapest-raised sophisticated people with a big canvas tent and lots of camping gear, traveling through some of the most remote parts of Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas and the Canadian plains. We knew the stories of Deadwood and Spearfish long before they were popular. We saw ghost towns that were real, not re-created. Both of my parents reveled in the romance of the adventure. As each of the seven children came along, we kept on going. We even camped for a week at a time in Idaho with no running water or outdoor plumbing, with all of us children and the baby in a playpen in the center of the tent. And we never missed mass on Sunday.

The legacy of 1956 has been a defining moment in my family’s history, and my parents have told the story of their escape hundreds of times to schoolchildren, at conferences and seminars, in lectures and in articles.

Opportunities
Growing up in Canada and the United States definitely made me a different person than what I would have been like growing up in Hungary. The freedom I had to pursue the theater for more than 10 years would not have been possible had we stayed in Hungary. The freedom to listen to whatever music I wanted, read whatever author I wanted, to travel and explore different parts of the world would not have been afforded me. After I moved away from home, my parents took all six of their other children on two sabbaticals: one to Braunschweig, Germany; and the other to Trinidad & Tobago. One of my sisters even married a Trinidadian. A Hungarian girl would not likely have done that.

When asked to speak at a Leadership Seminar, I began by saying that while I was growing up, there were two things that I was absolutely positive about. One was that I would be married once and stay married for my whole life and the second was that the Iron Curtain would not fall within my lifetime. By the time I was 37 years old, both turned out to be wrong. I was a divorced Mother of two, and Hungary was free. I was also
living 3,000 miles away from all of my family.

When I finally had the time and money to go to Hungary, it was 1992 and my Mother had already visited twice. She was interested in helping the government to flourish and get North American investments, so she was busy! She was soon to become the Honorary Consul for the northwest region of the United States.

Heritage
For the three weeks I was in Hungary, not a day went by that my parents and I didn’t cry so hard it hurt and that we didn’t laugh so hard that we cried. The emotions were so extreme. The deep sadness I felt that I had not grown up Hungarian in Hungary was acute. The fact was that growing up I had been denied my heritage of all of the marvelous history, architecture, traditions, music, art and culture that are uniquely Hungarian. We visited all of the historic family sites all over Hungary. We visited family crypts and restaurants and houses and people. I imagined what I would be like had I grown up in a free Hungary, not a communist Hungary. I felt robbed!

It took a week or so after I returned to the United States to realize that I was very happy with the person I was, and that I had not been robbed, but rather, enriched. I had the benefit of my Hungarian, Canadian and American heritage. Both of my children, Anna and Alexander, were born and raised in the United States. It is the path we have taken.


Helen Alexandra Szablya
Helen A. Szablya has worked as a communications professional for the past 25 years including in key management positions at The Enterprise Foundation, The Fannie Mae Foundation, the Mayor’s Office in Baltimore City; the State of Maryland and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, as well as in the private sector. She has also served on numerous nonprofit boards, as a volunteer and as a mentor to young people. For her professional work and civic involvement Szablya was named one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women in 1996 and in 2001. Prior to her work in communications, she worked for 10 years in the theater, creating original theater pieces for multi-racial companies and touring the United States. For more than two years, she was a Rockefeller Fellow at the Center for New Performing Arts at the University of Iowa.

Helen was a refugee from Hungary with her family in 1956. She grew up in Vancouver, B.C. and Pullman, Washington, where her Father was a professor and her Mother a writer. She is married to E. Charles Dann, Jr., a partner in a law firm in Baltimore, MD, and has two children, Anna Meiners, 29, living in Hollywood, CA, and Alex Meiners, 24, living in Baltimore. Both are artists.

Helen A. Szablya is the daughter of Helen M. Szablya.

I had my summer vacation in the Tokaj region at my uncle’s farm in the summer of 1956 with nary a thought or whisper of anything brewing in the country. Coming back to the big city in September, I was getting settled in to restart my studies in Budapest. On October 23rd 1956, however, even to a young 10-year old observer, it became very obvious that something significant was taking place. We lived across from Eötvös Loránd Science University in Budapest located on the Pest side. A large group of university students and others congregated at the university plaza on that evening with Hungarian flags and placards stating some protest messages. Generally things were fermenting. I heard that they were all walking down to the Kossuth Radio station several blocks away from us to demand that their basic demands “points of rights” be broadcast on the radio station. By the next day, there were more and more people with Hungarian flags that had their Red Star and the Hammer & Sickle cut out. By now the Hungarian flag contained nothing but the horizontal colors of Red, White and Green stripes with a big hole in the middle. The people demanded basic freedoms and the removal of the current government and the removal of the Soviet occupying troops.

On one of the side streets adjacent to the university was an army barrack with Hungarian troops, many of who were also university students. Soon they were convinced that they needed to join the movement and guns and ammunition were apparently obtained there as well as from elsewhere.

Things got pretty noisy after a few days with lots of gunfire, and most people who were not directly involved were staying low. Soon I heard that Imre Nagy was selected as the new head of the party and that Rákosi had to step down. Things appeared to quiet down during the next weeks. People started to show the new flags and pins with the Kossuth címer (emblem). There were periodic gunfights on the street, one close to my home. In this case a man started shooting randomly at anyone moving (he was drunk) and someone took him out. They found documents on him indicating that he was a member of the secret police (AVO) and a paper from the interior ministry indicating that they would receive a very significant special bonus if they put down the “uprising.”

Looking for Berlin and the Elbe river
Demands by the new government for political recognition went unheeded in the West. On November 4th all hell broke loose in Budapest. Heavy artillery fire, airplanes flying by, bombing in certain areas and the extremely loud reverberating sound of cannon fire from the top of Szabadság Hegy (freedom mountain) located on the Buda side could be heard. I found out that the Russians claimed to withdraw their troops; however, just the opposite happened. I heard locally that about 10 armored divisions were let loose on Hungary from Russia to crush the revolution. They took over Budapest among other areas of the country. Several of the invading troops were engaged in conversation. I overheard that some came from the far-eastern sections of Russia and they spoke little Russian. Surprisingly, they were looking for Berlin. They were explaining to us that they were in Germany and what we knew to be the Danube River is the Elbe River and that they were here to fight the Germans. Many of them seemed to be Mongolians rather than the “white” Russians. In fact, earlier, most of the “white Russians” who were stationed in Hungary basically did not fight us once they understood what was going on. It took some explaining and map showing to convince some of them that they were in fact in Hungary and not Germany and that we were Hungarians, not Germans. After that they seemed to become a bit more civil and perhaps appeased.

By now there were many tanks on the streets of Budapest and often firing at things they did not like. For those who haven’t been to Budapest, many of the buildings are made of very large blocks of stone on the outside. Many shots had to be fired to do serious damage to a building. The Molotov cocktail became quite popular and the elder students and folks with the wherewithal did periodically lop one against some tanks. Complete war zones were set up with Russians and communist guards on one side and revolutionaries on the other. I often saw makeshift ambulances with large white sheets and a painted red cross on them whizzing by to take the wounded.

Things got pretty difficult for many of us in the city as most of the foodstuff gets brought in from the country and none was really coming in. Some food aid did arrive from the Austrians and the Danes (and I am sure others) and I even got a few cans of milk concentrate in cans and some chocolates. The magnitude of the problems still facing Hungary did not fully register to me.

The West did start to respond a bit by calling on the Russians to withdraw. But with the Suez crisis also in hand, the USA and the West failed to act properly and come to the aid of the Hungarians. The Russians upon hearing that a UN inspection team would be coming to Budapest, imported tons of plate glass to replace the broken windows from all the machine-gun and tank firings. I never saw so much glass in my life. There was a cease-fire called and the Russians in the tank turrets were all pale white because once in a while a potshot took them out and due to the fact that they were “officially” not allowed to fire their guns.

Nevertheless, after Imre Nagy was executed the overwhelming odds forced many Hungarians to reconsider. During the early part of the revolution many folks had their Grundig short wave radios tuned to western radio stations like Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe (RFE). It was, of course, still illegal to listen to those stations, so it had to be done quietly. They edged on the Hungarians that help was coming, but none came. I am still bitter about the failed foreign policies of America that failed to support the new government. Communist Hungary and the Iron Curtain would have fallen that much sooner.

Initially, many of the Communists escaped by going to the west, where they were welcomed as freedom fighters. It took the western governments many weeks to catch on and then they started to filter the people coming from Hungary. .

Passive resistance at home
Things got tough for many Hungarians. With the additional Russians on hand and now in control, anyone even remotely associated with the revolution got threatened or worse. Resistance was still there. There was a place on Kálvin Tér where someone managed to write in big, bold highly visible letters “Ruszki Go Home!” The response was that a several tanks came and tried to erase the slogan by shooting at the building. They were obviously angry! After some sanity was talked into them by stating that there were people living in there , they stopped. Luckily the building survived, as did most of the slogan.

Military convoys and armed soldiers with machine-guns walked in pairs on streets, especially in “troubled areas” to keep the peace. Such was the case in early December at University Plaza. During an afternoon some students tried to blow up one of those convoys by throwing some explosives at them. However, it misfired. Soon a whole bunch of the large tanks showed up, surrounded the university, and a real firefight erupted. We all had to go into the underground basement for protection. This firefight lasted for hours, as I recall.

I was in the fifth grade at the time and the study of two languages was then a requirement. One of the languages was the mandatory Russian while other was a choice. I happen to make whole sets of Cyrillic alphabet flash cards to aid my study of Russian. For some unknown reason, I decided to place both Russian and Hungarian flags with my Cyrillic alphabet that said, “Welcome” in my room.

Searching for a shooter
After the firefight was over, the Russians banged on the main gated door and the superintendent of the building had to open the gate. The Russians came in quite angry and demanded to see who was in charge of the school in our building. We had a “Typing and Shorthand” school in the building not related to the university. The Russians were yelling skola skola (school – in Hungarian it is iskola). They kept asking who was in charge and who had the keys. Well my mother was, and so she was forcibly yanked out of the basement. Luckily there were several people there who spoke fluent Russian and interpreted. It was explained to us that one of their lieutenants was shot dead and that the shot came from our building. We kept explaining that everyone was here in the sub basement, scared, and that no one was there.

They stuck a machine-gun in my mother’s back and I was terrified, as I am sure she was, along with our neighbors. They forced her to open all the school doors and they searched all of the premises. The Russian captain was explaining that the tables and the chairs in the school in our building were moved this way and close to the window and that someone was shooting from within through the windows during the firefight. He was not going to leave until he found the shooter and whoever could shed light on the subject. We all knew what that meant! They continued to press the machine-gun into my mother’s back while questions were raised and answered. Meanwhile one of the neighbors held me back as much as he could, as I was really worried and crying about my mom. They eventually got a tour of our apartment and kept poking her with the machine-gun, having found no one to blame. It was at this time when they came into my room and saw the little Russian and Hungarian flags with the Cyrillic word “Welcome”. One soldier pointed it out to the Mongol pointing the machine-gun into my mother’s side and said something to him. This was the first time that the machine-gun was taken out of my mom’s back. This episode was very traumatic for me, but thank God it passed without any apparent repercussions.

Another couple of days later, when things calmed down, kids being kids, we played outside on the street as much as possible. Across the street, we happened to see one of our neighbors, an old lady in her 70’s, walking close to one of those garbage containers typically found in Budapest. Apparently it had a stash of unexploded bullets and as it just happens she was there at the time that it ignited from a tossed cigarette butt. The bullets started to explode making a lot noise and flew every which way. The old lady almost died, as she had no clue which direction she should run and hide. We, of course, thought this was really funny and laughed quite aloud at this scene from behind the big wooden doors of our building.

Pretty soon thereafter the secret police arrived demanding to see us by name. Apparently one of the students in our school, with whom we refused to play, had reported us as being seen laughing. The AVO wanted to take us “downtown” but the neighbors surrounded them and insisted that they leave us alone. They left, but stated that their investigation was not over and that they would be back.

Decision to go
Meanwhile, one of my uncles came to us one late evening and stated that he had managed to go to Austria and leave his son there. He had come back for his wife and daughter in-law. He explained that he would take us across the border if we were interested. Soon the decision was made to go. Certain items were given to a special friend; the kind you could trust with your life, and I recall taking my good violin to their house. A letter was written to indicate to my mom’s workplace that we went to a wedding in the western part of Hungary and that she would be a few days late. Another letter was also written that was to be delivered in a week that my mom broke her leg and could not come back for about another week if our friend did not hear from us. We thought this would cover our collective behinds so they wouldn’t look for us. During this timeframe everyone had to carry identification cards known as the “passport” at all times. It had your name, workplace, birthplace, etc. in it. So at any point any police or soldier could demand to see where you belonged. On the big day in December, we went to the Déli Pályaudvar (Southern Railway Station) to take a train to Sopron, a major city closest to the Austrian border. My uncle showed up at the station and stated that his wife had a nervous breakdown and that he could not leave her so he was not coming. However, he insisted that his daughter-in-law come with us and that he would follow us in a week or so.

He also suggested that we meet up with his friend who already knew the track and that he would guide us. We stayed in a hotel overnight and early in the morning we were going to leave. Unbeknown to us at that time, my uncle’s friend and wife did not want to risk taking a whole crew. So they dumped us. We said that wherever you go, we would follow. This cat and mouse game lasted for a while but they managed to lose us. We knew that by taking the trolley line to the end, the border was only a few kilometers away. So we decided to continue on our own. Soon while we were walking on the road; a horse and buggy with two guys came up next to us. The driver said, hey you guys leaving the country? Who, we? No, we are just out for an afternoon stroll. Yeah sure, he said, well in about another kilometer that way you will run into the Russian camp and they will surely catch you. He said, my friend here could take you across. We realized that there was no other choice so we accepted their offer. We started to go into the woods. Soon it got to be dusk. After a while he said that this is as far as he could take us, because if they catch him here he would be shot. We could surely claim that we were really lost or something.

He now wanted to collect his fee. We gave him lots of cash money and some gold jewelry. He gave us directions indicating that we were only about 1 to 1.5 kilometers from the border and that we could go across an unmonitored wooden bridge and be in Austria. Well it was sure getting late and really cold. We are walking on a very hard (frozen) surface. There were woods on one side and a clearing on the other. All of a sudden, I heard what sounded like a car. I told them that I heard something, but they did not listen to me. I had to start crying before my mom believed me. By this time I could periodically see lights coming toward us. We had only a few seconds to meld with the bushes next to the road as an all-terrain military vehicle zipped past us. Wow, that was close! We then decided to go into the woods for safety, as it was a moonlit night. Again, I heard some sounds and we quickly ducked and held our breath. We heard Russian soldiers talking and smoking their cigarettes. One of them threw his cigarette butt in our direction. Now we were terrified. Luckily, they left. We finally figured out that either our “guide” was sending us to the Russian barracks or he was dyslexic. We decided to reverse his lefts with rights and continued on our way. It must have been midnight when we found this nice road-like section that was unpaved yet freshly raked and we were wondering what would they be planting in the middle of December.

Red/white/red flags
We decided to walk on this for maybe another half an hour. On our right we saw some railroad ties stacked and finally we were so exhausted and cold that we decided to climb on top of one to rest and perhaps sleep a bit. My mom gave me some rum, as I was really very cold. They threw all kinds of clothes and coats and sweaters on top of me. Next, I remember being awakened by shhhhh! I opened my eyes and I saw this light on top of us. The light then moved and was later turned off. Back to sleep again when I was again awakened by one of the friends: “Hey, I found some flags just down there, red-white-red, we must be at the border.” So all right but which side are we on, as I don’t remember going over a bridge. Soon one of the women suggests that we walk parallel to the flags until we figure out where we are. Then someone else says, yeah, but they can shoot at us from either side so what do we do then? Well, we better go across and see what there is to see. We went up this hill about a few hundred yards. Dawn was just breaking out. I noticed this electric utility pole with “Achtung Hoch Spannung” (Warning – High Voltage) I said well, we must be in Austria ’cause that is in German! A few seconds later, a man with a horsedrawn carriage happens to come by. He addresses us in Hungarian. It’s all right you are on the good side, you are in Austria. Then he says where did you come from? We say well back there, behind us. He says well you better take a look! By now there is enough light to see that there was a guardhouse only a few hundred yards from where we were sleeping on the railroad ties. There was a changing of the guards just taking place. He said they would have seen you for sure! He said he would take us to the nearest post office where they pick up refugees. Soon a postal bus arrived and we were told to get on there. I was somewhat nauseous and threw up my food from my earlier attempts at eating. The bus driver was really nice about it. He actually stopped the bus and cleaned it up. He then ran into some store and got me a bar of chocolate (gee, just what I needed then, I felt so sick). However, I will never forget that nice gesture. We then wound up in a large castle converted into a camp and staging area for Hungarian refugees. Soon all strange kids became instant friends and we went exploring this great castle that was located in Eisenstadt.

We were there for about a week when they sorted people into groups. Families with and without children and single people were sent on to different camps. It took us two years of various camps and schools before we finally got our visas for the big trip to fly over the ocean to come to America. I still remember that “old” propeller-driven 4-engine DC-6B airplane that took us from Munich, Germany, to Shannon, Ireland, then over to Gander, Newfoundland, then to New York. Arriving into New York was a really bumpy ride at the time. My mother was at the window and she kept saying oh look Peter. those houses look like little matchboxes. It took us 18 hours of flying to get across to the States.

After we were safely out of Hungary I found out that there was a person in the attic that fired the shot that killed the Russian lieutenant, but no one would give him up.


Péter A. Soltész
Now the President of PAS-COM, Inc. a company consults for international clients in telecommunications, computers and high technology matters including related litigation consulting. He has held several senior executive positions with various high tech and wireless communications companies. He holds degrees in electrical engineering from New York University and the City University of New York. He is currently the Secretary and member of the Board of Directors of the Hungarian American Coalition in Washington, DC.

I was just 9 1/2 years old when the revolution took place. I was living with my mother and grandmother in a flat in Angyalföld. My grandfather had passed away 2 years earlier. My father had divorced my mother shortly after I was born and my stepfather of 18 months was driving a truck somewhere in the country.

The first I knew of my mother’s intention to escape from Hungary was one evening in November when she announced that János (my stepfather) had fled the country. A friend of his told us that he took the truck he was driving and instead of cross-country to Debrecen, he headed south towards Italy via Yugoslavia and that we shouldn’t expect him back. That’s all he knew but it bothered him that János didn’t even tell his wife and family so he informed us as it seemed the right thing to do.

My mother couldn’t decide whether we should try to escape too or not….my grandmother was quite old, in her 70’s and I was too young for her to handle the both of us on her own, not to mention leaving behind everything we had managed to accumulate over the years and leave with virtually what we were wearing. My grandfather provided well for us over the years; he was the secretary of the Budapest Stock Exchange before the war and hoarded shares of quite generous value. But when war broke out in 1939 most of the shares became worthless and he lost everything he invested. We didn’t own the flat we lived in, nobody did; the government took them over and charged everyone rent. So there was little to stay for and in the end mum decided to try for a new life while we had the chance.

But she couldn’t risk telling me what we were up to and all she said was that we were going on a short holiday and taking only some spare socks and change of underwear. I didn’t argue, just dressed and packed. Meantime she asked a close friend who had a car to give us a lift to the Keleti railway station.

STARTING OUT
Keleti in Hungarian means Eastern of course and I was starting to wonder where we may be headed. I assumed the Eastern station sent trains to the east and the Western to the west whereas it’s exactly the opposite, although to this day I’ve never figured out the reason for this. So actually the train we caught was heading west, towards the Austrian border. What I did figure out was what we were up to and asked my mother about it. She nodded but asked me not to say anything further on the subject, in case someone overheard us and reported us. Although I was just 9 1/2 years old, I knew all about the AVO (the dreaded Hungarian Secret Police) and their treatment of even innocent people, based on little more than suspicion.

Although the events of the next 48 hours are as vivid in my mind as if they had taken place yesterday, two points need to remain blank in this narrative: the name of the town where we disembarked from the train and the name of the guide who guided us to the Austrian border. Over time I have forgotten the name of the small town and the guide was introduced to me simply as “Pista bácsi.” I wish I knew who he was, I would love to look him up or his family but alas, I do not.

We were greeted at the railway station by a stranger (to me) who seemed to know my mother and he escorted us to a house where “Pista bácsi” and his family lived. Mum said we would only be staying there a short while, when I enquired about where we would all be sleeping. I was allowed to look around outside and on the street as long as I didn’t stray far from the house and would be back by 5.30 for an early dinner.

By dinnertime the number of guests in the house had grown by at least a dozen people, mostly around the 25-40 age group. Dinner was served at 6pm for the guests (Pista’s family would eat later, we were told) but there wasn’t enough room for everyone at the dinner table and my mother, grandmother and I ate separately in our allocated room. After dinner Pista said I should get some sleep immediately as we would need to be up around midnight and needed the rest for what was going to be a long, arduous night. Mum and granny lay down on a double bed whilst I curled up in a comfortable arm chair and went to sleep after a while.

A WICKEDLY COLD NIGHT
Pista woke us just after 11pm and told us to dress as warmly as possible as it was going to be an extremely cold night and heavy snow was expected. When we were finished there was going to be a meeting in the dining room. When we arrived, all the other guests were there also, the number now around 20. Mrs. Pista was handing out cups of lemon tea and biscuits to everyone with a friendly smile that put you at ease, despite the concerns of the coming few hours.

Pista, our guide spoke to the group and explained the necessities of the trip, the need to be ultra quiet, no smoking, etc. As I was the only child (at least in this group), he came to me at the end, sat down with me and spoke to me separately from the adults. He said I behaved very adult-like in the circumstances and was very proud of me but it was imperative that I understood how important it was that no one spoke loudly, shouted or made any noise on the trip because the whole group would be jeopardised and possibly caught. To me, he added that in the extremely unlikely event that I got lost, I should not sit down or rest for more than 2 minutes but should keep moving otherwise I would lose the circulation of my blood; that I should avoid at all costs any haystacks as that’s where the AVO were likely to be hiding in watch for escapees and to keep an eye out for men wearing uniforms or carrying guns, as well as long, tall towers where the border patrols were stationed. He said he knew how to avoid all those and none of this would happen, but “just in case.” His smile was reassuring.

Just before midnight he led the group to the edge of town and counted heads. One more reassuring smile and we started our expedition through the forests and fields. The route was barely a track, almost invisible (certainly at night) but the guide knew his way. We were fortunate that it was a cloudy night with little moon, good for us.

SPLIT GROUPS
We spread out evenly into a long, thin column headed by Pista who occasionally halted the leaders as he went back to the rear to check everyone kept up and was ok. The first half hour or so was fairly steady but then the column split into two groups: the younger ones who walked faster than the elderly who started to lag behind a little. We were in the latter group as my grandmother in her 70’s was the oldest person in the column. But despite her age and health problems (she was diabetic among other things) she kept up, never asked for a rest break and was a real trooper, just couldn’t quite match the speed of the younger brigade.

As my mother had her hands full with my grandmother, Pista suggested that I stay with him so I wouldn’t get lost. I didn’t mind, leading the column most of the time but occasionally going to the rear to make sure everyone was still following. Moving about helped in the extremely cold conditions. After a while, it started snowing again, which slowed down the column, especially the second group, the “oldies.” By now my grandmother was starting to feel the pinch a bit and asked if we could halt for a while. Pista only allowed 5 minutes, explaining in whispers that it was very dangerous to stop for longer; a few days ago the AVO had come across a band of refugees not far from here and were always searching for refugees. Besides, the border was only about an hour or so away and once we crossed, we would be met by the Red Cross with hot food, shelter and beds and even a hospital should it be needed. This gave us the needed adrenalin to start up again with renewed determination to get to the border.

I stayed behind this time, helping my grandmother and holding her hand. By now we were the very last trio in the group but with every step the border was closer, and with it, freedom. We made a valiant effort to keep up with at least the last people in the second group who very kindly slowed down a little to allow us to keep up and not lose touch. Although we all knew what would happen if we were discovered by the AVO patrols, this was not something to think about. If it happened, it happened; meantime, better to think about the liberty waiting for us about an hour’s walk away to the west.

Maybe 10 minutes later, my grandmother stopped and said she needed to sit for a couple of minutes as her legs just couldn’t go on without a break. Mum told me to go to the front and tell Pista we had to stop for a minute. I took off and went past the second group as well as some of the stragglers from the first group. But these were the last people I would see.

LOST ON THE FRONTIER
The snow was getting heavy now and I had trouble following the footsteps in the snow. It was covering it up too quickly. I bent down to search but could barely see anything in the dark. I decided to retrace my steps and rejoin the group under the circumstances. But the problem was that my own footsteps behind me were getting covered up with snow as well. I took my best shot as to the direction I had come from and headed back, expecting to see some of the people I had passed not long ago, but saw no one. I stopped to listen, but all I heard was the wind whistling, scattering the freshly fallen snow. It was at that moment in time I knew I was lost.

Panic hit me momentarily, not for my safety but for what my mother would be going through when she discovered her only son was lost on the vast frontier.

I quickly tracked what I assumed was north, hoping to come across foot tracks a few meters away, then turned around and headed south, hoping for the same thing, but there were no tracks in the snow. So I tried east, back to where the 2nd group should be, hoping to hear some movement, although I knew deep inside this was very unlikely with the wind whistling. But I knew that I had to keep moving as standing still meant freezing to death. So I tracked east for about 5 minutes and when I saw no tracks or people, I turned back west again. Or what I thought was west. Without a compass, I only had my memory to rely on for direction.

I continued “west” for 15 minutes on the trot, then changed 90 degrees again to see if I could see tracks crossing my path. I travelled about 100 meters without seeing anything so I turned around and tried in the other direction for about 200 meters. But all I saw was freshly fallen snow.

Without much choice, I decided to try and find the border myself and headed in the direction I assumed west was. I had no idea what to expect on the border….perhaps barbed wire? But then I could follow it to where there was a break. There had to be one otherwise how were we all going to cross into Austria? So I kept walking, silently, my ears always on the alert for human sounds or for any sounds but only the wind kept me company. I had no appetite so food was not a problem. I drank the snow when I was thirsty; there was no shortage of that.

THE HAYSTACK AND THE WATCHTOWER
I walked at least an hour before I came across a haystack in the distance. I was very tempted to crawl into it for the warmth it offered and rest my weary bones for a while but the lectures the guide gave me were fresh in my mind. The AVO sometimes used the haystacks to hide in especially on cold nights so I steered well clear of it and kept going. A short while later I came across a farmer’s hut, probably the owner of the haystack earlier. There were no lights on and no smoke from the chimney. Regretfully, I bypassed the hut too at a safe distance. I simply couldn’t be sure who was in the hut. And if it happened to be AVO they would know a kid wouldn’t be wandering out there by himself, there had to be a group trying to head for the border. I wasn’t going to be the one to put them in jeopardy.

Although my legs felt like lead by now, I couldn’t stop walking; in fact, I tried running for a few minutes to warm myself up. I stopped looking for tracks a long time ago and just let my legs take me where they went; it made little difference because I was totally lost. The border was only 60 minutes away when I became lost so obviously I wasn’t heading west or I would have reached the border by now. But I felt sure the group was over by this time and felt a pang of sympathy for my mother who surely would know I was lost. Also for poor Pista who was sort of responsible for us all.


I wasn’t even watching where I was going any longer as I had lost all sense of direction. As a result, I almost ran into a watchtower that sprang up from nowhere! Luckily, because of the darkness, they most likely didn’t see me either. But I quickly backtracked away from it as quietly as I could.

A watchtower also meant a border nearby. But where? I tried looking up at it to see which direction the lookout window was facing but it was too dark. It might have had windows facing all four directions anyway.

I circled the tower at a distance, trying to find a path leading to it (so I could estimate some bearings) but the snow had covered everything and gave me no clue. So I picked a random direction and headed that way. After about a half hour I knew it was the wrong direction but as I had no better ideas, I just kept going that way.

An hour later dawn was starting to shed light on the frontier and I had to make sure I walked between trees so as not to be easily spotted in case someone was looking. But at one point the trees ran out into a clearing. However, the clearing led to a road!

I felt safe enough walking along a road so I started in the direction I thought the town that we had departed from lay. There was no traffic at all. After 30 minutes, a car came along. I didn’t wave or signal to him and he just drove past. Soon another car came along but this one pulled up on the side of the road. He pulled his window down and asked me where I was headed. It seemed to be a farmer, not a soldier or military person so I told him the name of the town. He said I was walking in the opposite direction (naturally) but it wasn’t far away and he would gladly give me a lift. Not having sat down for over 6 hours, I accepted his offer and soon we entered the familiar main street of the town I had left the night before.

BACK TO SQUARE ONE
Still being a bit cautious of strangers, I asked him to drop me off a long way from Pista’s house and waited till he was out of sight before walking to it. Then came the difficult part. What would they say when I knocked on the door? Did I cause him a lot of problems searching for me last night? Did my mother kill him? Did they even make it? Maybe they got caught while searching for me. Well, only one way to find out; besides, I had nowhere else to go. I knocked on the door pensively.

Pista’s wife opened the door and immediately recognised me from last night. She was very surprised to see me there, but obviously didn’t know what had happened and went to get her husband who had gone to bed after returning from the frontier. A minute later Pista appeared and was amazed to see me alive and well. He had given up all hope of ever seeing me again. As he told me while they were pumping hot tea into me and preparing a hot bath, he didn’t even realise I was lost until the group reached the border. He thought I had stayed with my mother and she in turn thought I went forward to Pista and stayed with him. When they all arrived at the border minus me, only then did they realise the enormity of the situation. My mother collapsed and was taken into the emergency hospital (setup by the Austrian Red Cross) and treated for shock. Pista swore he would search the track on the way back and I’m sure he did but of course I was probably miles away, wandering aimlessly in the -10 degree snowstorm. He didn’t give me any chance of making it through that night alive or without getting caught.

After we exchanged stories and I had my bath, they put me to bed to sleep until evening when Pista was taking another group across the border. I would go with them but this time, he made me stick to him like glue the whole way, even though he knew that I wouldn’t even squeak loudly if lost again. He was quite proud that I chose to walk all night quietly rather than call out for help when I was still within a reasonable distance from the group the night before. But he was not going to allow me to repeat that a second time, no matter what.

The second trip was old hat for a veteran like me and there were no elderly people this trip so it went quite smoothly without hitches. Some time in the early hours of the morning we reached the border, which was not barbwired, as I had imagined, but merely 2 deep ditches to indicate where Hungary ended and Austria started. On the far side we could see the lights of the Red Cross hospital and emergency services and……..freedom. Some of the people started celebrating even before we had crossed the ditches but I could hardly blame them.

THE BORDER…..AND FREEDOM
As soon as we crossed over, Pista spoke to one of the Austrian officials in German who ran off with me to the largest tent there. My mother was still in the hospital under sedation where I was being rushed that minute. They took me to her bed and tried to wake her up from the sedatives to give her the good news. Eventually she opened her eyes, took in where she was, finally saw me sitting on her bed and then she fainted. It was the only time in my life I had seen my mother faint.

They put me into a bed as well and a doctor checked me over, but declared me 100% ok. Then, about a thousand refugees and Red Cross staff came to visit me and brought me all sorts of gifts and chocolates. Apparently everyone had heard about me the night before, and now that I had suddenly turned up, they all wanted to meet me and ask me a million questions. My grandmother was a tower of strength through all this. She never doubted for a moment that I would find my way across somehow and rejoin them soon and gave strength to my mother. And she was proved right. A real trooper, may God bless her soul.

POSTSCRIPT
The next day we left the camp, after the doctor certified my mother fit to travel and off the sedatives. We went to Vienna where we were billeted with a volunteer family until arrangements could be made to transport us to a refugee lager where we could be processed and arrangements could be made for us and other refugees to travel to the USA, England, Canada, Australia or other countries that had accepted refugees from Hungary. As we walked around in Vienna, my mother pointed to a poster showing headlines of that day’s newspaper. I spoke limited German (my grandmother had arranged private tuition for me to learn German back in Budapest). The poster decried: “Lost 9 year old boy found on the Hungarian border, 24 hours later!”

Much later, rumours abound that a movie was made of this episode, although details were very sketchy. By then we were on our way to Germany and from there, Australia. I never saw the film, if indeed it was made, nor even know its name.

We stayed in a lager in Salzburg until April of the following year at which time we were put onto a train for Bremen, to catch the Fairsea, an Italian converted refugee ship that took thousands of us to Melbourne, Australia where my aunty and her family, who had emigrated there in 1939, awaited our arrival and welcomed us to our new homeland.


Paul Sherman
Paul has been living in Sydney since his arrival in May of 1957. After a brief stint in the Australian Army, he joined the Globus Group of Companies where he was Customs and Shipping Manager from 1967 until 2000. His interests are computers and bridge (he was among the top 20 bridge players in Australia until his retirement in 2002). He has never married.
Paul’s first visit back to Hungary was in 1973 and he has made several trips back since then. His late mother also visited frequently until her passing in 1988. His grandmother sadly passed away 2 years after her arrival in Australia, but not before seeing her other daughter, Eva again and her 2 grandchildren, Christina and Wendy, whom she had never met previously.
Although Paul’s stepfather János did follow them to Australia, eventually they divorced. At that time, Paul decided to abandon his stepfather’s surname and chose Sherman for ease and convenience in his adopted English speaking country.

PRE-1956 CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
My father tried to escape to the West through the Iron Curtain in 1950, but he was shot on the Austrian border. After treatment in the hospital, the ÁVO (secret police) put him in solitary confinement in a narrow cell where he was forced to stand with his feet in cold water for 72 hours, with ice water dripping down all four walls. All this without food, of course, and it culminated in his signing a forced confession about crimes against the people, and he received a prison sentence of 3 _ years. He spent part of his incarceration in Szombathely and at a forced-labor sawmill. He escaped, however, along with seven jailmates, and went into hiding. During the ÁVO’s monthly visits, they would slap my mother and me around and ask my father’s whereabouts. At that time I did not know that he was hiding in our furniture store. Later, after our store was seized by the state, he came home one night and I saw him. Afterwards, my family told me I was dreaming, but I didn’t believe them, and finally they explained to me that he was, in fact, home.

I learned to alert my father when I was coming home with someone by rattling the keys on the stairway railing, so he could return to his hiding space. I was not allowed to tell anyone that he was home.

We lived in Budafok in an apartment building, and my father tried to work during the day making furniture, working quietly using his hand tools. Later he turned himself in to the police, served the remainder of his 3 1/2 year jail sentence, and was freed the summer of 1956.

In this time frame, I can clearly remember my mother decorating an Easter egg with a traditional Hungarian motif instead of with a hammer and sickle or a red star. In school, however, I had to say I received an Easter egg with a red star. So early on I was quasi taught to lie, because if I hadn’t, they might have arrested my mother.


OCTOBER 1956
My father fought in Pest at the ÁVO barracks. Later, when the Soviets returned in November, he organized his former gymnastics students from Budafok and fought in the outskirts of Budafok and Kamara forest.

I was a youngster and could not really do much fighting, but one day I decided I could protest against the mandatory Russian taught in schools from fifth grade on. So I hand-printed some fliers and posted them on the doors of the school. That was my contribution to the freedom fight.

Another distinct memory I have is when the Soviet tanks returned on November 4th. My mom sent me to stand in line for bread, and as I stepped out the gate, I felt the earth tremble beneath my feet. I looked up and saw a Soviet tank coming down our street. My feet froze in fear, and I could not move. Luckily, the Russian had enough humanity to go in another direction, turning off our street. This incident was the scariest yet for me.

Another memory I had was when the Soviets were shelling from the banks of the Danube. We could hear the shells whistling through the air above us in Budafok. People were talking about shrapnel raining down, and I remember being in the basement with my mother and being scared that something like that might hit me. My father was not with us because again he was fighting somewhere. He had to leave Budafok, because his name was the first on the list to get hanged if caught. Later I learned that he left Hungary through Yugoslavia because of his earlier experience in 1950 at the Austrian border. My mom and I left 2-3 weeks later than my father, riding on a milk truck from the Keleti train station. Getting to the train station, my last memories of Budapest were of Soviet tanks on street corners, and streetcar tracks mangled by tank treads on the Móricz Zsigmond square. The fighting had mostly subsided by then.

A milk-truck driver from Sopron took us to the Austrian border, and an old man guided us across. My last memory of Hungary was seeing a dried flower sticking up through the 20 cm deep snow. I leaned over and plucked it, and to this day still have it pressed between the pages of my journal. As I looked back toward my homeland and left it forever, it was as though a twenty-ton boulder had fallen from my shoulders; it was as if the cruelty of communism and the hardships it had caused my family had just been released.

I have yet to return to Hungary.

We arrived in Camp Kilmer on March 28, 1957, and I spent my eleventh birthday there. We came by train to Cleveland, and I remember remarking how much empty land and open space there was between New Jersey and Ohio.

VIETNAM
My parents had divorced, so I grew up without a father. Things were pretty tough financially, and I wanted some discipline, as I was a rather wild and unruly teenager. So I enlisted in the Marine Corps. After completing basic training, I met up with a Hungarian friend, Joe Dezsõ; and ended up in the same battalion at Camp Pendleton.

Our unit was sent to Vietnam in May of 1965. Crossing the Pacific Ocean, Joe and I, two Hungarian kids had a conversation on the ship. Our discussion centered on going to Vietnam and how it was an opportunity to return the slap in the face the communists had given us in 1956. Not fighting against the soviets, to be sure, but communists nonetheless. So we went willingly to Vietnam. I spent 13 months there, then came back and served the remainder of the military tour training Marine officers, FBI, and Secret Service members how to shoot on the rifle range at Quantico, VA. After separation from the Marine Corps, I returned to Cleveland.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF 1956
1956 personally gave me a chance at a new life in America. From a world perspective, however, what caused this tiny nation to rise up against the Soviet superpower, armed to the teeth? We Hungarians were lucky if we had a 22 or an air gun, and they had tanks, yet the people still rebelled. We had had enough, and this freedom fight was the first crack in the armor of the great Soviet Union, precisely because it was not an ordinary riot. The people who rebelled were the factory workers from the industrial areas, those same people who were glorified in the communist worker propaganda. Our freedom fight stopped the communist movements in Italy and France dead in their tracks, because it revealed the true nature of communism. And later, in 1989, when Hungary opened its borders to the West, that brought down the Berlin Wall, because East Germans went to freedom through Hungary.

I spent most of my life in Cleveland. One important thing about the Hungarian émigré community is that they continued to commemorate the events of 1956, even when it was forbidden to do so in Hungary, from 1956 to 1989. But now things have changed, and I believe Hungary was proclaimed a republic on October 23rd of 1989, so now that date is doubly etched in Hungarian history.

I owe thanks to Hungary for giving me life, and I owe thanks to the United States, my new country, for allowing me to start over and live a life of freedom and prosperity. I am now an American citizen and live my life in America, but my heart remains first and foremost Hungarian, and will always be so.


Tamás Rátoni Nagy
10 years old when he experienced the events of the freedom fight, he fled to the West with his mother. A veteran of the United States Marine Corps and of the Vietnam war, he returned to Cleveland and worked in the art framing and industrial drafting fields. He is an avid Boy Scout leader in Troop 414 and also volunteers in the Cleveland Hungarian School on Monday evenings. He is currently employed as a construction inspector.

It started like any other ordinary weekday. Tuesday we awoke to a cool autumn morning in the 8-th district of Budapest, when I started to walk to school on Prater Street, which was next to the Corvin theater. We lived on Üllõi street in the direction of Kalvin square. I didn’t have the slightest idea how this day would end.

In the preceding days, my classmates and teachers discussed the topics of the evolving conditions in unusual tones; they were freely expressing ideas regarding the removal of the Soviet occupation forces, free elections, freedom of press, those topics that in the not too distant past would have resulted in serious consequences. I was almost 13 years old, but I was fearful in hearing such conversations. The regime’s brutality was still fresh in my memory. Only three years prior, the agents of the National Security Authority (AVH) in Zalaegerszeg beat my father to death, and to this day I still don’t k now where his grave is. This occurred only because he was a gendarme prior to and during WW-II. Similarly in 1954-55, when I lived with maternal grandparents, our home was confiscated which took an entire lifetime to accumulate. This too, because my grandfather was also a gendarme, although retired, but without pension because that was also confiscated.

Chestnut puree
After school around two o’clock, my mother sent me down to the pastry shop on Museum Boulevard for chestnut puree, which was seldom available. When I stepped out of the building, I was greatly surprised at the sight of a seemingly endless crowd marching down in the middle of Ulloi street toward Kalvin square from the direction of Jozsef Boulevard, stopping all traffic. At first I thought it was some kind of celebration, or the usual self praising communist party event which had no interest for me. However, from within the ranks, two or three protesters ran to the front of the procession with a large green wreath, and continued the steady peaceful march.

I got excited at this sight, moreover because I did not hear the usual speeches of over-achiever worker accomplishments, praises of Stahanovist results or other similar party propaganda. They were mostly young, but older workers, white collar professionals and people of all ages marched along. I went along with them to Kalvin square, where additional crowds merged from many other directions, their numbers just grew. Climbing onto electric poles in various locations on the square, young orators loudly announced that the destination is the Joseph Bem monument, where they intend to proclaim their solidarity and support of the Polish university and labor movement of the recent past, which was silenced by the Polish Communist authorities. Stemming from this, they too had requests, which they started announcing from elevated protrusions, and passed out fliers to the people. From somewhere in the crowd a few national flags appeared complete with the regime’s hammer and sickle crest, which was shortly cut out of the flags and the crowds proudly waved the flags with holes.

As the march started again toward the city center, I realized that there is no chance for pastry shop and chestnut puree, since practically all shops and offices were closed because all their employees were on the streets. Surely my mother must have been wondering what was keeping me this long, and I thought it best to hurry home. I explained what I saw on the streets. She could hardly believe it possible without intervention by the police or the AVH (national security authority). Then she directed me to do my homework, since protest march here, protest march there, tomorrow is school and the homework must be done.

Foreign and domestic radio broadcasts
Naturally, I couldn’t concentrate on my studies. The afternoon’s events occupied my mind. As I was thinking about them, my memories took me back to the prohibited short wave radio broadcasts from the free west for years, and up to the recent past, that people quietly tuned in and huddled around behind closed windows for years. Of those that I knew who listened, took those transmissions for gospel truth. My favorite was the scout program because I was still in the seventh grade, and we had no scouting there. Aside from that, I was also keenly interested in political issues. To this day the transmitted encouragements still ring in my ear: ….don’t tolerate the tyrannical communist oppression….stand up against the oppressors….if you take the first step, we’ll be there to help you….etc.

As the neighbors and other tenants of the building started arriving home from work with various delays they brought news of gradually evolving developments. By now we turned on the local radio, but the transmissions did not coincide with the neighbors’ reports. The radio talked of counterrevolutionaries, scoundrels and system disrupters, but we knew that this was completely different. Now the people spoke in unison against the regime. The radio gave directives for the people to return home from the streets, and for all to remain within the houses.

On this first evening, out on the balcony after dark I heard what sounded like shots. I wasn’t sure, but it could have been small arms fire. I remember wondering…. Is it the police? The AVH? … Later during the night the frequency of these sounds increased. I didn’t know yet, but these first sounds probably came from the Radio building, which was only few blocks from us, on the street next to the Museum.

Next morning
On the morning of the 24th the continual rumblings of heavy armored vehicles, the sound of steady gunfire and explosions filled the air in front of the house and in the neighborhood. Under no circumstances was it possible to go out on Ulloi street. Well, I thought, there is no school today, the delight of all children, although my homework was more or less complete. Above all a strange feeling of excitement never felt before came over me. Is this possible? The people stood up against the regime? They took up arms?

Some of the bravest of the neighbors sneaked in and out, brought fresh news which immediately spread through the residential building. There is a full blown revolution raging throughout the city. People are dying in large numbers, last night they fired into the protesting crowd by the Radio building, and in front of the Parliament. The military has been activated along with other armed authorities, but at this time we didn’t know, only later, that Russian occupation forces were also called out. The radio constantly directed the freedom fighters to lay down their arms and they would receive amnesty. The government reassured the public that order has been virtually restored, but no one should go out on the street. Periodically they played the Hungarian National Anthem. I heard this for days. The days blended into each other. The sounds of constant weapons blasting, the fragmented series of automatic machine gun fire, the way bullets and projectiles sliced through the with whistling sounds around our house forever got etched in my memory. We heard as the tanks frequently rumbled past our house, stopping every so often, and with earth shaking thunder fired on some target.

My mother implored me not to set foot out on the street, because if I get killed in the gunfire she was going to give me a beating that I’ll never forget. I didn’t need to be frightened; there was plenty to be afraid of. But curiosity is also a strong motivator, and periodically I braved to stick my head out the main gate of the building to see “what the thunder is going on”. I peaked out to see better as the tanks approached from the Kalvin square, as they passed our house they stopped for a moment, each fired a shot in the direction of the Boulevard, but almost in the same moment I saw the smoke trailing fiery rain come down on them from the upper windows of the houses. And then, to get while the getting is good, those that could, immediately escaped into the side streets, others accelerated forward out of my sight into the smoke filled, foggy mist. Other times I overheard as armed freedom fighters passed the gate and were planning their next tank encounters.

Potato and cabbage rations
After about three days our food supply started to dwindle. We had only purchased enough for a day or two, because we only heard of refrigerators, but had never seen one. Now we had to carefully ration our supplies since it was uncertain how long we would have to be without. On about the fourth day, one of the residents got word that in the neighboring side street a truck had arrived from the farming regions with some food that they were passing out to the people. I didn’t need another invitation, since the sounds of battle were not in the immediate neighborhood, but came from some distance, I ran down to the street with a little satchel, and I found the TE-FU truck from which I also received a little cabbage or potatoes. I am not so sure anymore what it was, but whatever it was, we were all very grateful. Everyone expressed their gratitude for whatever they received. The farmers cheerfully passed the supplies with kindness, and did not take any money for it. I had never experienced anything like that in the past.

Promises from the West
One of the sub-renters in our building was a colonel prior to WW-II. He was most vocal declaring that the armed conflicts would soon be over; because the armed forces from western nations are due to arrive any time now, because we all heard their radio messages from the west…didn’t we…, and they said that they will be here if we only start it. The Westerners are not like the Communists, they don’t lie, we can trust in them, we can be confident we’ll see them soon. It would be ridiculous to think that little Hungary could effectively take on the Soviet Union, and no one could expect that a small country would rise up against such overwhelming power, that would be pure suicide. The Soviet Union would never tolerate any so called Soviet ally trying to use its muscle, to rebel, and to take up arms in the interest of separating. Everyone knew well the Soviet methods, since the Soviets had many opportunities to introduce the Hungarians to their methods in WW-II and the years after. This kind of armed opposition could only be conceivable with foreign assistance. And they promised. … we waited….but no one came. But no one speaks of this out loud anymore. Some say it is impolite to bring up accusations against a nation who gave us asylum and whose bread we are eating. They say it will not change the past no matter how much we bring up these issues. I could understand that no help arrived, but then why did they promise not only prior to the start of the revolution, but even during the battles they incited the freedom fighters to hold out for only one or two more days, because help was on the way. It is a lame explanation that those radios were not official representatives of the governments which they discussed, because those same governments provided the financial support for those radio stations. I didn’t know then and most likely no one over there did, that during those excruciating days the American administration had officially conveyed to Moscow that America has no intention of intervening in the Hungarian conflict, and that America does not consider any nation rebelling against Moscow its friend. Is it then possible that this is the reason that the departing Soviet occupation forces turned around and came back many times re-enforced? Would the last falling freedom fighter throw his life away in the hopeless knowledge that the western incitement to hold out was nothing but lies? Now there is silence about this. Are we the ones again that have to be ashamed for mentioning this?

Remnants of the battles
It must have been around October 28-29, when the heavy thunder of the battle seemed to subside, so my mother and I went down to the street. We started in the direction of the Great Boulevard (József and Ferenc Körút). At the intersection of Üllõi Street and the Boulevard in all directions we came upon the remains of such destruction that I am unable to describe in written word. The endless junkyard of destroyed tanks, armored vehicles, ammunition carriers, and a great variety of war machinery were scattered like broken toys revealing bitter but glorious battles. Some of the corpses have not yet been removed, some, probably Soviet solders, lay burned black and shriveled under tanks and armored vehicles, with disproportionately large steel helmets next to the small shriveled up heads. Ammunition and expended shells were scattered by the thousands throughout the city. Rows of once substantial six story residential and administrative buildings demolished from the roof to the ground. Not only in one place, but throughout the city, wherever we walked. In some places corpses, dusted with white lime to prevent the spread of disease, lay on sidewalks or in the street, a few in military uniforms more in civilian garments. In a shot-up trolley an unfortunate passenger’s body lay across the isle covered with lime and flowers. We had to step over the body, since it was impossible to go back, do to the curious line of people following from behind. We walked the city for a day or two, and could not believe our eyes, how such a beautiful city could be laid to ruin. One day in the vicinity of Koztarsasag square we were alerted by some yelling, about some AVH agents hiding out. Some shots could also be heard, and people were yelling to stay down, to keep from getting hit. We thought it better to completely back away from Koztarsasag square in order to stay out of a possible crossfire.

Next to a wall, passers by were tossing money into an unguarded box to benefit the needy. No one asked who will receive this money and no one took any out. At one place, pieces of wood were assembled in a shape of a human and dressed in Soviet uniform, complete with canteen and an unusually dark piece of bread in a mess kit. True to the reputation of Soviet solders, several stolen wrist watches were on its arm, and I noticed, some were still running. On the buildings I saw only the imprints of the torn off, despised red star, and hammer and sickle symbols. I saw painted slogans, such as “Russians go home” and “Gero where are you hiding… come out now” and many others, on walls everywhere. Everywhere the flames of joy and jubilant attitudes radiated from the faces. Everyone saw the dawn of freedom, since apparently the tyrannical regime was broken. The word on the street was that the Russian troops have started to pull out.

The days seemed to melt together. I am not sure exactly when, but a day or two later in the evening someone was knocking on our door. It was my grandfather. He came from Somogy county, traveling with the most unconventional modes, on trucks, tractors, motorcycles and any way possible since the normal methods were not operational. He was thrilled to see us unharmed, and announced right away that this is not over yet. Gather the most important belongings and start back to the safety of our home town, Segesd. The next day we took on the city for one more time, viewed all that could be seen for the last time. Then from Moricz Zsigmond square, we started our journey toward Somogy county, chasing after and jumping on trucks and using all available forms of transportation.

Journey to the country
It was already late into the night when we arrived in the vicinity of Szekesfehervar, when the small convoy of trucks we were traveling on came to a halt. It turned out we had to wait for a column of Russian heavy armor to pass, traveling in the direction of Budapest, before we were allowed to continue. Finally, when we were able to continue, we made our arduous way until we reached Marcali. There we could no longer use our resourcefulness, and resorted to telephoning for a farm tractor and trailer to take us the rest of the way.

In earlier times I went to school in Segesd, and when my old schoolmates saw me, they surrounded me for first-hand news about Budapest. I told my impassioned story, but I didn’t stop there. I got the whole school frenzied, and made our protest march through the village with flags; passing out handwritten flyers, the way I saw it in Budapest. The march culminated at the town hall, where the police unsuccessfully tried to quiet us down. By the time the news of police involvement reached the end of the village, it was distorted to imply that the police were gathering the children and turning them over to Russian captivity. The panicked parents rushed to the rescue, some with farm tools still in their hands, saying, nobody is gonna touch my kid, and each grabbed their own by the hand and with gratified joy dragged them home.

Not much later we got news that on November 4th there is renewed fighting in Budapest against fresh Soviet troops, and it’s not looking good. We started seriously looking at our options for the future. For two months we deliberated. Finally after Christmas, we sadly came to the conclusion that we should depart the country to the West. The plan evolved that my mother, grandmother and I would escape. My grandfather should stay behind to transfer real estate and other property to one of his nephews. Later the state would allow him to leave, since due to his age he was viewed as a burden to the nation.

Forbidden border crossing
My grandfather established contact with a resident near the Austrian border, who volunteered to act as guide. At this late point it was not advisable to attempt an escape without help, due to the newly reestablished and reinforced border security. We didn’t say anything to anyone, and on the evening of January 12th the three of us took a train to Zalaegerszeg, where according to the plan sometime at dawn we were to meet my grandfather and our guide. But the border patrol pegged us. At the moment my grandfather entered the waiting room with our guide, they surrounded us, announced that we are suspected with forbidden attempted border crossing and ordered us at gunpoint onto a truck. We were transported to police / AVH headquarters, most likely to the building where the trail of my father’s body vanished three years prior. They separated us from the two adult men, and after some interrogation ordered us to leave with the parting words: let us not meet again. In this we were in total agreement. Outside we said goodbye to grandfather, not knowing if we would ever see him again. The four of us took a taxi to the village of our guide to await the darkness.

On the 13th , after darkness settled on the hills, we started our hike through the fields, woods and valleys, avoiding residential areas in the dark. At one point an acquaintance of our guide allowed us into his house to get a couple hours of sleep. Before dawn we continued on in snowstorms over plowed fields. Anytime we saw what appeared to be patrolling activity, we hid beneath the bushes. Closer to the border when we met other escapees, and they learned how long we hiked the fields and woods without rest, some advised us against continuing, since the border crossing was still a long and grueling journey, and it was unlikely that we would survive. We were not deterred. If we made it this far, come hell or high water, we would not quit at this point. After darkness settled on the land, once again, with our last exertion of our depleted energy, we attempted the last segment. Next to a small ditch along the path a small Hungarian and Austrian flag marked the border. I glanced back for the last time, with a tear in my eye, and with a sigh pushed onward on that cold and snowy January night……. And we arrived half dead on the morning of the15th, in a small Austrian village, a free land.


Tibor Ország
In 1956 attended the school in Prater street, next to the Corvin theater. He is a descendent of a gendarme family. In 1957 at the age of 13 he escaped from Hungary and settled in the Cleveland area. In the 1960’s he worked at a GE research and development facility. In the1970’s he established and operated a sky diving center. In the 1980’s he worked on the US Space Shuttle program in quality systems. Since the1990’s he has been an industrial management consultant. His wife is American, his daughters read and write Hungarian.

My address in Budapest was Petõfi Sándor utca 6. In 1956 I was 14 years old and had just started high school at the Közgazdasági Technikum. On Tuesday, Oct. 23, I got home about 2 pm from school and intended to do my homework right away in order to have some free time in the evening. No one was home, but I found a note from my grandmother asking me to pick up something (I forgot what) at the grocery store. So I ran down 5 flights of steps and walked through the long, dark hallway to our building entrance and there, mesmerized, I stopped. I could not believe what I was seeing!

Our narrow street was jammed with people, from one side to the other. They were marching in rows as far as I could see. Demonstrating! They were carrying signs, “RUSSKIS GO HOME!-WE WANT IMRE NAGY!-WE DEMAND INDEPENDENCE!” I stood there, numb, with goosebumps spreading over my entire body. And then an extreme feeling of pride overtook me. My handful of people, my tiny nation, my little Hungary, has the guts to do this? To demand freedom? To stand up against a SUPERPOWER? Why, the city of Moscow has more people than all of Hungary, I thought.

Huge crowd
Slowly I regained my senses and joined the demonstrators. We ended up on Petõfi Square in front of the beloved hero’s statue. At least I was lucky to end up in front, because the adjoining two squares all the way to the Danube’s shore were packed with people. All the trees were occupied; people even climbed up onto lampposts and the sills of lower windows. A well-known popular actor recited Petõfi’s fiery poem “RISE UP, HUNGARIAN!” (Talpra, Magyar!) and the crowd went wild. Every Hungarian knows this poem by heart and at the end of each stanza they thundered the refrain: “For by the Hungarians’ God above we swear, we truly swear, the tyrant’s yoke no more to bear!” It was an incredible feeling to hear thousands of voices in unison repeat each refrain. There were no loudspeakers, no amplification apparatus, yet the farthest individual knew what was being said. If they couldn’t hear it they could feel it.

Next a delegation of students from the Technical University read their “14 Points,” which dealt with demands for independence and freedom for Hungary, followed by a couple of patriotic speeches. This is when someone cut the much hated communist emblem from our tricolor flag and held it high for all to see and shortly all the flags had the symbolic hole. Someone mentioned the ongoing struggle in Poland and it was decided to go to the General Bem statue (Gen. Bem was a Polish national who fought on the side of Hungary in 1848) on the other side of the Danube. We all marched to Buda to Bem Square. There it was a repeat of what happened on Petõfi Square, but after the students’ 14 Points were read, it was decided to go next to the state controlled radio station and read them on the air for the whole nation to hear. By now it was getting dark, and I remembered that I had homework to do. So I went home without ever buying the groceries I was supposed to. Even my grandmother forgot about it.

Consumed by the event.
We were consumed by the events of the day. I didn’t go to the radio because of homework. Little did I know, that there would be no school the next day nor the day after, or for me, never again in Hungary. Around 10 pm we thought we heard gunfire coming from the direction of the radio station. At 11 my mother came home, and since she was on a streetcar that traveled by the radio station, she confirmed that indeed there was gunfire there. (A friend whom I later met here in the US. was shot in the knee there). I missed going there because of homework I never handed in.

We woke early the next day and witnessed members of the ÁVO (secret police) in their trench coats, stopping people in front of our building. They were on both sides of the street in two groups frisking people and if they found weapons on someone, one of them would hold those persons at machine-gun point. This went on until they had about a half a dozen detainees and then marched them off down on Harris Street. A few minutes later we heard automatic weapons fire. Later I found out that freedom fighters killed the ÁVO policemen and freed their prisoners.

Sporadic fighting broke out all over Budapest, but there were certain areas of sustained battles that had the all-out earmarks of a war. I spent the next two weeks walking all over the city witnessing fighting, the aftermath, and the execution of much-hated ÁVO members. I even took pictures. One memorable example of bravery I encountered was the hand-to-hand combat between a young freedom fighter and a Russian soldier at the side exit of the Ady movie theater, until a Soviet tank went by and killed both of them. Overall the revolution seemed to succeed. We were elated. Hungary reveled in its freedom. But it didn’t last long.

National anthem on the radio
On Nov. 4th. it was over. I woke up around 4 am. The radio was on and it kept playing the national anthem. And it kept playing it repeatedly, over and over. I sensed that something was wrong. It was the most sinking, depressing feeling I ever had. About 6am Prime Minister Imre Nagy made the announcement that the Russians were returning. It was over! This was the end. We were all alone. Abandoned by the rest of the world.
On Nov. 22, I left with my uncle and his wife. On Dec. 29th I arrived in Camp Kilmer, New Jersey and on Jan. 7th, in Detroit, Michigan. Nearly 50 years have passed, but the proudest day of my life is still 10/23/56, when my Hungarian people dared to make an impossible stand, and the saddest is 11/4/56, when the free world abandoned them.

I would define the spirit of 1956 as Hungary being a David against an army of Goliaths. What I would like to see taught and passed down to future generations about the Revolution is that Hungary put a huge crack in the Soviet Bloc. 1956 was the beginning, and their handling the East German situation in 1989 was the end of Soviet domination. Without a question Hungary was responsible. Let the world give us the much-deserved recognition. The Revolution altered my life inasmuch as I left and lived the rest of my life as an American.


Tamás Markovits
Born in 1942, he now lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He has been to Hungary twice since his escape He has been the owner of a floorcovering business for 30 years. He will take part in the commemoration for the 50th anniversary of the Revolution and is already raising funds for the documentary “Torn from the Flag.” He is currently president of the Hungarian Arts Club of Detroit and is also a member and past president, vice president and treasurer of the Hungarian American Cultural Center of Taylor, Michigan. For 20 years he either helped or produced the “56” and the “1848” commemorations.

Much of Hungary’s twentieth century history – both tragic and inspiring – is reflected in the complex story of the Maléter family.

Paul Maléter’s parents, Mária and Pál, came from families who knew each other well in the city of Kassa (Kosice), that was part of Hungary until 1920, then of Czechoslovakia, and today, is in Slovakia. They met in the terrible aftermath of World War II, when Mária’s family property was confiscated by communists, but she luckily managed to escape after being arrested. A friend recommended she turn for help to Pál Maléter, a young commander of the Hungarian Frontier Guards, located in Debrecen, Hungary. Upon her arrival, Pál Maléter found housing for Mária, offered her a job, and they soon fell in love. In August, 1945, they got married and started their life together in the largely destroyed city of Budapest, where inflation was rampant, food was in serious shortage, and people’s lives were in danger from marauding Soviet soldiers.

Pál was transferred to Vác, and since Mária was pregnant, he urged her to go to her Mother in the relative safety of Szeged, where she gave birth to Paul in June, 1946. They soon moved to Vác, so the family could be together. The next years were filled with happiness, as two daughters, Mária and Judit, joined the family. Pál proved to be an attentive and loving Father. With his professional advancement, however, came frequent transfers, and in 1950 the Maléter family moved back to Budapest.

Strong communist pressure
In the 1950’s the worst days of Stalinist Soviet rule descended on Hungary. The communists demanded total loyalty to the party line, and Pál Maléter’s military career and growing co-operation with the communists began to take a serious toll on the Maléters’ marriage. Mária’s Mother, who lived with the family, and who was the niece of Cardinal Lõrincz, was a special thorn in the communists’ side.

Pál’s initial attraction to communism began in 1942, when during a time of capture and injury on the Russian Front, to his great surprise, he found his Russian keepers to be unexpectedly kind. His Father, a law professor with Socialist beliefs, was strongly anti-German. Pál was subjected to propaganda lectures by Hungarian communists, and soon distinguished himself by volunteering for dangerous “partisan” missions working with the Russians to free Hungary of Nazi occupation. He believed that a better future awaited Hungary under Soviet rule than under the Nazis.

On the other hand, Mária, whose family members were conservative and deeply religious Catholics, was unable and unwilling to accept communist tenets. Consequently, in the eyes of the communist hierarchy, unless she could be “re-educated,” she was a liability for her husband’s fast-advancing career. The Maléters, as many others, were under constant surveillance, and Pál had to prove his loyalty to the party time and again.

At age five, young Paul was sent to Rábatamási, to stay on a farm for the summer. He recalls getting a series of short-lived “jobs” – with a gypsy merry-go-round operator for the price of an ice cream cone, and with the local farmer as a cow-herd and ox-cart driver.

In the spring of 1953, party pressure grew on Pál, and he left his family. After attempting a short reconciliation, Mária and Pál were divorced in 1954. The daughters stayed with their Mother, but as was customary in Hungary, Pál got custody of the first-born son, eight year-old Paul, for a short while. After a successful fight in the courts to get Paul back, Mária and the children were on their own, and they faced two years of severe hardships. Once her beloved Mother died, Mária was forced to deal with her children’s and her own serious bouts with illness, substandard living conditions, and systematic intimidation by the communist authorities, in the form of forced settlement of inappropriate strangers into the Maléter apartment.

Paul Maléter was only ten years old at the time, but he remembers October 23, 1956, quite vividly. Next door to the Maléters’ apartment, freedom fighters broke into the Marcibányi Square armory to obtain rifles and ammunition. He recalls seeing dead bodies of victims on the sidewalks, both Hungarian and Russian. He observed children first spreading jam on the window of a Russian tank, then throwing a Molotov cocktail down the hatch when the driver emerged. Because his Mother locked Paul into the apartment to keep him away from danger, he had to content himself with making leaflets with revolutionary slogans, “Drive Out the Russians,” “The Russians Are Bad, Don’t Believe Them,” and throwing them down to the street.

Pál Maléter’s true character revealed
When news spread all over Budapest of an extraordinarily brave Hungarian colonel, who refused to follow his superior’s order to fire on freedom fighters, and instead, chose to join them, Mária Maléter instinctively knew and told her children this brave colonel was surely their Father. She recalled what Pál Maléter had told her years before, when she questioned his patriotism: “Don’t worry, Mária, when the time comes, I will be where I belong.”

And Pál Maléter was a man of his words: he placed tanks inside and at the entrance of the Kilian Barracks, and repelled all Russian attempts to capture it. In the newly formed Imre Nagy government, Lt. General Pál Maléter was named the new Minister of Defense. He spoke on the radio, calling on citizens to return to work and a normal life: “We must ensure milk for our children, coal for our factories, regular transportation for our workers…” His children felt their Father was speaking directly to them. Paul wrote a letter telling his Father how proud he and his sisters were of him, “because you are a great hero and are fighting on our side.” But he also expressed the bewilderment of a child of a broken family when he wrote: “Where were you when we called you and you didn’t come?”

On November 3rd an old friend and colleague of Pál Maléter from Vác came to see Mária, with a message that Pál was well, and would come to see the family soon. But that same evening, he fell victim to an oft-used Soviet trap: invited to negotiate at Soviet military headquarters, instead, he was arrested and never returned from the meeting.

He never received his son’s letter, nor did he ever see his family again.

Escape from Hungary
After Soviet tanks re-entered Hungary on November 4th, the Maléter family was in grave danger, as their apartment was in the area of the worst fighting. The roof of the building had been destroyed by a tank. They spent days in the neighboring building’s basement to keep safe. Mária was urged by friends to leave Hungary as soon as possible, and on November 21, an opportunity for escape was offered to her. Since her daughter, Judit, was ill with the flu, she was forced to leave her with friends, and set off at dawn with Marika and Paul to reach the food truck that would take them to Yugoslavia. (Judit was able to join the family a month later).

Dressed in multiple sets of clothing, the three were hidden in the back of the truck and driven to Zalaegerszeg. Once, they came perilously close to being discovered and turned back by a road patrol, but a Hungarian soldier pretended not to see them under the tarpaulin, and they continued their journey. After taking a train to reach Sopron, at nightfall they embarked on the perilous journey crossing on foot into Austria.

Paul was first taken in by his Mother’s cousins in Germany, who wanted to adopt him.

His Mother and sisters were in a camp in Austria, and eventually Maria chose to keep the family together and settle them all in Canada. They flew to the far-away land, and Paul remembers his shock at seeing purple-haired ladies with rhinestone glasses at the airport. Once they arrived at a Canadian refugee camp, Paul saw cold cereal for the first time, and couldn’t understand why they were being fed breadcrumbs with milk on it. In Canada the Maléters lived with a French family on a lake. Paul remembers his Mother helping out with housekeeping, but also the good times with “fancy boats,” and costume parties held there.

In October 1957, Mária was invited by the International Rescue Committee to speak at the U.N. in New York on behalf of her husband and the other captured government officials. She worked tirelessly to try to get her former husband released from Soviet captivity, but to no avail.

The trip to the U.N., however, enabled her to take her children to the U.S. on a temporary visa. His sisters were put in a boarding school in Philadelphia run by Hungarian nuns, and Paul was soon enrolled in the Buffalo Hungarian Piarist School. After 1958, when his Father was executed, the school would not renew his scholarship, but, Maria had found close friends in James Finan and Walter Mahony, editors at the Reader’s Digest, which was interested in the family’s story, and who assisted them to settle in New York and arranged for the children to attend schools with their children. A special act of Congress gave the family green cards, backdated to June 16, 1958, the day of Pál Maléter’s execution. In January 1959, the Reader’s Digest published Mária’s feature story on Pál Maléter, “Hungary’s Proud Rebel.”

Paul leads an American life
The contact Paul previously had with Hungarians stopped. He attended exclusive American boarding schools, and lived a largely American life. He spent six years in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, and his studies at Columbia University led to a fine career in hospital architecture, including over 20 years with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Paul first returned to Hungary in 1983, accompanying his wife who was a U.S. delegate to an international conference in Budapest. While it would have been embarrassing for the Hungarian government to deny them visas, Paul’s was only issued at the last minute before their departure, and was loosely paper clipped in his American passport – leaving open the possibility that it could be removed at any time. At official conference functions, with his name badge highly visible, Paul found government officials’ reactions to be cool at best, and the suite they were provided in the Hyatt Hotel had some very suspicious cabling running under the bed and into the wall. When returning six years later for the dramatic ceremonies around the re-burial of his Father and the other members of the Nagy government, Paul’s visa was still on a separate piece of paper, but this time the Hungarian Embassy staff in Washington apologized profusely, and the reception in Budapest was warm and welcoming.

Paul and his wife have subsequently made numerous visits to his many family members remaining in Hungary. His Mother and two sisters live in Florida, and have also returned to Hungary in the years since 1989. He has retained his knowledge of Hungarian remarkably well, and has established friendships with the Hungarian diplomatic corps in Washington. He is immensely proud of his Father’s historic role in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and looks forward with great anticipation to participating in the upcoming 50th anniversary commemorations.
As told by Paul Maléter to Edith Lauer


Paul Béla Maléter, AIA Emeritus
Paul Maléter is an architect, recently retired after a career designing, planning and building hospitals for the Department of Veteran’s Affairs and the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Born in Szeged in 1946, raised in Budapest, he left Hungary at the age of 10 in the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution and the arrest of his Father, the Minister of Defense. After living briefly in Austria, Germany and Canada, he emigrated to the U.S. where he attended The Harvey School, The Hotchkiss School and Columbia University, obtaining a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts, a Masters Degree in Architecture, and a Master of Science in Health Services Planning and Design. Maléter served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves from 1965-1971. Paul is now retired, and lives with his wife in Central Virginia and Washington, D.C.