Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1958-10-01 / 10. szám
10 FRATERNITY A WORD FOR KOSSUTH Not to the swift, nor to the strong The battles of the right belong. For he who strikes for Freedom wears The armor of the captive’s prayers, And nature proffers to his cause The strength of the eternal laws; While he, whose arm essays to bind And herd with common brutes his kind, Strives evermore of fearful odds With Nature and the jealous gods, And dares the dread recoil which late Or soon, their right shall vindicate. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER In: Boston Evening Transcript — May 5, 1852 BOY ON THE ROOFTOP On October 23, 1956, Tamas Szabó was a fifteen-year-old schoolboy walking along Brody Sándor Street in Budapest with his father. Then, suddenly, he was holding a Sten gun in his hands for the first time in his life, and he was shooting to kill. In the next three weeks he, along with his schoolmates, endured a maelstrom of fighting, bloodshed and horror which ended on the day Tamas walked across the border into Austria. Little, Brown and Company (34 Beacon Street, Boston 6, Mass.) has published this boy’s authentic eye-witness account of his participation in the Hungarian revolution in a book called BOY ON THE ROOFTOP. Tamas Szabó is a pseudonym. His real name cannot be revealed, his face cannot be pictured because his family is still inside Communist Hungary. But his story, told simply and honestly, brings down to the level of immediate personal experience those agonizing days when a brave people struggled desperately for freedom. It has nothing in common with the journalistic and fictional books which have described the political and military aspects of the revolt. We have found that the BOY ON THE ROOFTOP is an amazing and convincing record conveying the courage and tragedy of the Hungarian uprising to the world. W. WALKER COWEN
