A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Historica 2. (Szeged, 1999)

TAKÁCS Edit: Kilencvenhat magyar hadifogoly százharminchárom el nem küldött levele 1944 decemberéből

EDITH TAKÁCS THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE UNSENT LETTERS OF NINETY-SIX HUNGARIAN PRISONERS OF WAR FROM DECEMBER OF 1944 The highest achievement of human activity is the reflection of reality in thought. This is the reason one can learn about a certain period through the thoughts of the people who lived in it. Although this is a well known fact among historians and seen in published historical papers, studies about the history of ideology and those describing and analyzing the ways of thinking of the various elements of society are immense. We are beginning to understand the way of thinking of certain reasoning historical personalities who have formed a way of public thinking based on the writings they have left behind. Nevertheless, we hardly know anything about the world of thought of the everyday people. This is why sources (such as scribbles on calendars, diaries, autobiographies or letters) have great value since they directly reflect the way of thinking of a social stratum in a particular historical period. It is a very rare (though lucky) phenomenon when the sources make possible the reconstruction of the original events, as well as the description and analysis of the related thoughts of the participants. The 133 unsent letters noted in the title of this work is exactly such a fortunate package of primary sources. Their study is probably not worthless, but may have some value in learning about the typical way of thinking of the society of that period, that is, in gaining a deeper understanding of the events that took place in World War II Hungary. The 96 Hungarian soldiers who wrote the letters were the participants of the battles that were taking place in Hungary from the end of September, 1944. They were captured by the Russians between November 9th and 27th in Pécel, Szigetújfalu, Tököl, Makad and other locations in the Csepel Island region. All of them were taken to the Prisoner of War camp in Kecskemét, from where they were transported to Foksány, Romania, through Kiskunfélegyháza-Csongrád and Szentes on December 6th (7th?), 1944. Prior to their departure from Kecskemét, as well as on the train to Szentes, they were writing letters which they were not able to post in the traditional manner, through the post. Thus, they threw them out at the train station in Szentes, December 7th, hoping that whoever found them would mail them. The Russians collected these letters and submitted them to the head of police of the town of Szentes. From the police station, the package was given to the mayor and they remained in the archives until today. In the first section of this study, the author gives a description of the origin of the letters which were found in a single folder (of which 88 were written on postcards or papers the size of a postcard and 29 written on smaller pieces of paper). Finally, the author attempts to analyze the stylistic and content of these letters. The letters themselves are shown in the second section. We do not provide the entire text of the 133 letters partially due to the extent of the text and to the content which would be repeated frequently. The selected texts were chosen to represent the various types of letters, but we also attempted to include unique texts which were unusual in style or content. We quote the original text, from word to word, letter to letter, keeping all grammatical mistakes in place. We are convinced that in spite of these mistakes and fragmentary conditions, these letters have a great value just being on their own, thus they are educational and intellectually stimulating readings. Together, mutually supporting and complementing each other, the conclusions of this study and the sources prove that in the middle of the 20th century, average men of various ages, of diverse backgrounds, typically of minimal education, who had the least opportunity to practice writing and composition, were able to compose, write down and assess the events affecting their lives, even in highly tense circumstances.