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.

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 the 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.

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

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

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

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

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


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

EXPECTATIONS
The summer and fall of 1956 were full of excitement and expectations in Hungary. Matyas Rakosi, “Stalin’s Best Disciple” resigned from the Central Committee of the Hungarian Communist Party, euphemistically named the “Hungarian Workers’ Party,” in July .The month of August was hot and sunny ,and it was relatively unproductive of significant news.
During September, on the other hand, we experienced the renewal of exciting political developments. The press began to expose the crimes and atrocities of the Rakosi-regime.
Gyula Hay , a well-known and popular writer, had written a widely circulated article and enumerated the “natural” rights of the literary creator, including the responsibility of telling the truth, the right of criticizing anybody or anything, to be sad or ecstatically in love., to believe in God or to deny God’s existence among others.
The Petõfi Kör (Petofi Circle) initiated a movement of establishing intellectual forums throughout Hungary; with increasing openness; these examined the problems the country and the nation had faced. On the 6th of October, the remains of Laszlo Rajk , Gyorgy Palffy, Tibor Szonyi and Andras Szalai were reinterred ,with military pomp and circumstance. In the middle of October, Imre Nagy’s membership in the Party (MDF) was restored. .On the 16th of October,the demands, voiced during a well-attended meeting of university students of Szeged, included the elimination of the compulsory teaching of the Russian language and significant reforms of university life .The students declared DISZ (Democratic Youth Society) to be irrelevant and re-established MEFESZ (Union of Hungarian University and Academy Students). Within days, the student bodies of Pecs, Miskolc and Sopron followed suit; finally, on October 22nd, the university students of Budapest joined in the movement and voiced their grave dissatisfaction with life in the universities. These were exciting, heady times, indeed, – only an incendiary spark was needed!

STUDENTS ON THE 23RD
23rd of October 1956 fell on a Tuesday, with warm, unusually pleasant and mild weather. The excitement was palpable throughout Budapest; students, workers, office employees openly discussed the developments in groups. The assembly at the Polytechnic Faculty (Muegyetem) produced the famous 14 points – these contained significant demands of reforms, related to the establishment a system of human rights, national independence and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary. The medical students of the Semmelweis University of Budapest (I was in my first year at that time) were definitely not in the forefront of activities and decision-making on that fateful day, but our enthusiasm and willingness to join in the demands for reforms was unquestionable.
A well-organized and enthusiastic demonstration started at the Statue of Petofi; from here the demonstrators marched to the statue of Bem on the Buda side of the capitol; here they listened to a speech by Peter Veres, writer and one-time Minister of Defense, sang the Hungarian anthem, the “Marseilles” and the “Kossuth Song.” One of the students read the “Fourteen Points.”
Imre Nagy spoke to the crowd at the Parliament – his address, recommending calm, restoration of the peace and return to home, was a source of disappointment. When he started to sing the Hungarian anthem, however, the crowd started to disperse. But many of those in the square did not return to their homes immediately. Instead, they walked to Dozsa Gyorgy ut in order to participate in or, at least, witness the toppling of the Statue of Stalin. Others proceeded to the building of the Hungarian Radio at Brody Sandor Street. The demonstrators demanded access to the airwaves, in order to broadcast their demands, including a reading of the “Fourteen Ponts.” A military force of 300-350, members of the ÁVO (the infamous State Security Authority) and soldiers had occupied the building in order to defend it. The standoff soon developed into a siege: the demonstrators hurled pieces of materials from a nearby construction site, while the defenders used teargas canisters or their bayonets. Finally after the use of preliminary warning shots, rounds of live volleys rang out repeatedly, and a number of demonstrators were wounded or died. The Revolution of October 23rd had become a historical fact.
Erno Gero, the newly and hastily appointed Secretary General of MDP, requested the military intervention of the Soviet Army, and the leadership in Moscow promptly complied. Contingents of the Soviet army reached Budapest in the early hours of October 24th – as a result, the Hungarian capitol had become a war zone.

GLORIOUS DAYS
Twelve glorious days followed: Hungarians, students, workers, children,-poorly armed and only occasionally reinforced- participated in a fierce combat in the streets of Budapest; they consistently exhibited remarkable heroism against overwhelming military odds, against a superior military force, and, at the end, miraculously, they were victorious.
In scenes reminiscent of the battle of Budapest during World War II the streets and squares of the capital were littered with derailed and disabled street cars, burned-out tanks and other military vehicles; while the victims of the combat- Hungarian fighters and Russian soldiers- were lying dead and, frequently, unattended for days. The stench at Nagykorut was overwhelming in those days. I saw when Stalin’s metallic head (previously part of the fallen statue in Varosliget) was hacked apart by angrily dedicated Hungarians at the corner of Rakoczi ut and Nagykorut. I also had the pleasure of warming my hands at the bonfire built from Soviet periodicals that had been heaved out of the Russian language bookstore, close to Oktogon.
As a medical student, I was called upon to work in a hospital, administering to the wounded; we were providing care to Hungarians and Russians alike. Using our rudimentary knowledge of Russian, we had repeatedly attempted to obtain information from the wounded soldiers regarding their conceived role in the fighting. The soldiers, most of them merely young boys, were frightened and confused. Some of them believed that they had been in battle at the Suez Canal.
The misery the military conflict had caused in human lives was frequently heart-rending. I shall never forget the sense of devastated horror of a beautiful sixteen-year old girl, upon learning that her left leg had to be amputated above her knee.

Political parties were organized within a few days. As the practical result of the newly instituted freedom of the press, newspapers were printed and widely circulated ; they presented a bewildering variety of opinions. We were overwhelmed,excited,almost intoxicated by the prospects of democratic change, independence and neutrality!
The Central Committee in Moscow appeared to have agreed to the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungarian soil – it appeared that the Revolution was victorious and our country was to become free and independent. A completely stunning historical development indeed!

NOVEMBER 4TH
In the early hours of November 4th, five Soviet divisions attacked the Hungarian fighting force, and the cruel reality of a tragically unavoidable defeat became much too apparent. Imre Nagy, Prime Minister of Hungary, informed the nation and the world: Hungary was being attacked by an overwhelming military force. The last message by Free Kossuth Radio was, unfortunately , quite futile in its tragic eloquence: “Help Hungary! Provide help for the Hungarian nation! Help the Hungarian writers, scientists, workers, peasants and intellectuals! Help! Help! Help!”

CONCLUSIONS
If attempting to evaluate the significance of the Revolution and Freedom Fight of 1956, my conclusions are unequivocal. The events and developments of October-November 1956 have proved to be the most significant defining experiences of my lifetime. I am truly grateful to my fate for the gift of witnessing a heroic nation, fighting for liberty and independence. I find it is inescapable to conclude that the Revolution and Freedom Fight of 1956 were triumphant historical events in their true context. They elevated Hungary’s image in the eyes of the civilized world, and the nation had truly “ascended” as the result of those glorious twelve days. The Hungarian Revolution did provide an early and significant impetus for the eventual break-up of the Soviet Empire and it had proved conclusively that the Soviet power was not invincible; as a matter of fact, it had become obvious that the Empire was highly vulnerable. I am convinced that those of us who lived in Hungary and had the opportunity to experience the miracle of 1956, had witnessed a remarkable historical moment during a most auspicious period in the life of 20th century Hungary.

Balázs B.Somogyi, MD
Currently an orthopedic surgeon, Somogyi left Hungary in December of 1956, settling in the United States in 1958. He was co-founder and director of the Hungarian Folk Ensemble of New York, is presently completing his second term as president of the Magyar Baráti Közösség (MBK), and is also president of the Hungarian Cultural Society of Connecticut (HCSC). He is the proud husband of Csilla and father of Zsuzsanna, Ilona and Judit, all three of whom are bilingual.

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.

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.

At work operating a drill
How October 23rd started I can’t recall but I imagine it must have been like any other. At the time I was employed by the Small Engine and Machinery Factory (Kismotor és Gépgyár) located in Buda. I must have put in a regular day of work there operating a drill.

Following my daily routine, after finishing work I went on to Móricz Zsigmond High School to attend an evening lecture in pursuit of my high school diploma. As soon as I reached school I became aware of a flurry of excitement. It was there that all of us students were informed that demonstrations were in progress on both sides of the city.

We heard that there were a number of points or demands that had been drafted by the university students and presented to the government. It was upon these points that the demonstrations were based. Among the points was the demand that the Soviet troops leave our country and that Imre Nagy be reinstated as our prime minister.

Classes cancelled
There was an announcement that classes were now cancelled and we were told that a group was being formed to join up with the people who were demonstrating. We students eagerly went to show our solidarity to the cause. We all started to walk across the Margaret Bridge. As we proceeded, our numbers kept growing as more and more people joined up. I most distinctly remember an incident that took place in front of the Parliament. As we stood there our numbers kept swelling and all of a sudden we all started to demand in unison that Imre Nagy present himself and talk to us. We started to chant: “We want Imre Nagy!” “To hell with Gero!”

At first it was an unknown person who came to the balcony and tried to reason with our gathering, but since we didn’t let up on our demand, Imre Nagy finally did appear on the balcony to address us.

As we stood there listening to his speech a rumor broke out about some shooting taking place in front of the Radio building. At this point I felt somewhat drained and decided to start on my long walk home. Of course the streetcars were not running, nor were the buses.

On that day-October 23rd-a bloody Hungarian revolution started and it seemed that we had won our freedom from the Russians. This freedom was regretfully short-lived, however. It lasted only approximately seven days. But during this time even many of the Russian soldiers who were stationed in Hungary sided with the revolutionaries. Imre Nagy became our prime minister as freedom reigned. Unfortunately it did not last long since the Soviets under the leadership of Khrushchev sent over several divisions. Its soldiers were told that they were to crush the bourgeois revolution, when in reality they were killing the workers and students of the country.

While the fighting took place the workers were on strike everywhere. Of course the factory where I worked was also closed. At this time my family lived in Budaõrs. We could not regain our right to live in Budapest even though our 1951 deportation ended in l953 shortly after Imre Nagy became prime minister for the first time. Regretfully he was soon pushed out of office by the Stalinist-oriented group of communists. On November 4th, with the onslaught of a second wave of Russian troops, the fate of the revolution was sealed. On the previous evening General Pál Maléter, the head of the Hungarian Army, was invited to Russian headquarters for a discussion but was arrested during the course of the night.

Stay or go?
Now that everybody realized that we freedom fighters would lose against the tremendous odds, people began to think of leaving the country. My oldest brother Frank was in a forced labor battalion at the time. He was working in a coal mine at Komló. As the revolution was being overturned he too decided to flee the country but not before coming back with a couple of his friends, each of them with the intention of taking others with them. In Frank’s case it was the oldest of his three younger brothers, Peter. When I heard of their escape plans, I too wanted to leave with them. Frank, on the other hand, did not want to take on the responsibility since my sister and I were even younger than Peter and girls. He said we should stay-“Just think what might happen if the Russian soldiers were to catch you at the border.” So there I was, temporarily resigned to my fate, but not for long. About five days later a neighbor’s daughter, nine years old, came over in the morning to tell my sister that by eleven a.m. that morning she was leaving her home with the intent to escape. Her companions were four young men. Now it was my sister Klára’s turn to declare that she was going to join a group and escape, whereupon I said to my mother that of course I must also join them. Now poor mother was beside herself since our father was stuck in Buda in the stable with his horses to look after and could have no say in the matter. She realized that our future would be better served if we were to leave, yet she also realized that should we fail all the blame would rest on her shoulders. She tried to persuade us to stay because of the danger involved, but seeing our determination she was powerless. Thus the saga of our escape began.

At the Budaõrs train station we hopped on the platform of a freight train carrying frozen meat. We were exposed to the rigid winter climate. As the sun set, one stop before the station of Gyõr our train came to a halt. Our companions found out that the carriages wouldn’t go any further but the engine itself would go on to Gyõr. Its engineer agreed to let us ride in the caboose by sharing the space with the coal. During this time the railroad personnel were doing everything they could to help escapees reach the border.

At Gyõr we boarded a regular train. Now we had a different challenge ahead of us. We were afraid to buy tickets since it would give away our intended destination, yet not having them was also risky. Therefore we ended up dodging the conductor by going from one car to the other. In the meantime the men from our group obtained valuable information on how we should proceed in our escape. They befriended a makeshift guide who advised us to get off the train one stop before Hegyeshalom, at Levél, and offered to be our personal guide from there on. He told us that the Russians were especially active at the Hegyeshalom train station. They regularly met the incoming trains looking for would-be escapees to catch.

Onward
Once we left the train station of Levél, our guide led us into a barn filled with cows where we hid for a while since even here the Russians did searches. About a half an hour later our guide returned for us. The first part of our journey took us through some cornfields; as we passed among their dry stalks the crunching noise took an additional heavy toll on our nerves. We also passed through open fields with haystacks, where we kept worrying that tanks might be hiding on the other side. Now and then we would stop by these haystacks for cover. We were always ready to hit the ground at a moment’s notice in case of danger. As we walked on and on in the moonlit night our guide suddenly turned to us and said that he could not go any farther with us. He told us that from now on we should just aim for the huge reflector lights far in the distance. He said that once we got there we would be in Austria! We continued on with our cautious trudging until suddenly we heard a voice. Now we were sure that we had been caught. Luckily one of our companions spoke German and, as it turned out, soon our despair gave way to tremendous joy. We stayed in camps for a couple of months, first near the border and then in Innsbruck. On January 15th we were able to fly over to the United States via a U.S. Army plane under the established special visas that were granted to Hungarian refugees.

Looking back now I cannot help wondering at times if it would not have been better if we could have stayed in Hungary, if the West could only have helped us to achieve our goal then and avoid more bloodshed and all the terror that awaited our compatriots for another thirty three years.


Edit Martha Novak
She arrived in the United States on January 15, 1957, received her high school diploma in Schenectady New York, her B.S. in Pharmacy from Southwestern State University in Oklahoma, and her M.S. in Institutional Pharmacy Practice from St. John’s University in New York. She is married to a fellow 56-er, Charles Farkas. They have four children: Evelyn, Miklos, Elizabeth, and Maria.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Notes

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

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

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

Edited by
Lee w. Congdon and Béla K. Király

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

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Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York
2002


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