Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1958-11-01 / 11. szám
6 FRATERNITY I telephoned my story to London. I was dead tired. It was the 11th day of the revolution and the first when not a single shot could be heard. But this was not the time for a reporter to relax. I went out again and drove carefully through the debris-littered streets to the Killian Barracks. It was almost dark. Heavy clouds gently covered the pockmarks of bullets on the walls of the old, massive building. The streets were almost deserted. A few young freedom fighters, members of Gen. Maleter’s “army”, guarded the intersection with an anti-tank gun captured from the Kussians.. There was no enemy today; they were lingering around in their shabby overcoats. Their rifles and the army belt around their waist gave them a childishly martial look. I stopped the car. Two of them approached with their guns ready. A friendly smile came to their faces when I identified myself. One of them was a girl. An American cigarette made many of the young people happy those days, and it was easy to persuade her to sit into the car. I had many exciting experiences in my profession: the war, the horrors of Nazism and of the Russian occupation, ten months in prison and the revolution. The girl’s slow narrative is one I will never forget. Her hands were dirty and so was her face. The matted blond hair hung from under her clumsy soldier’s cap. Yet she had an angelic face with innocent blue eyes looking out wearily through the car’s window. This is her story. Julia was a textile worker in one of the big factories in Újpest, the northern industrial suburb of the city. She lived with her parents, both factory workers themselves. She was the only child. “I was a member of DISZ . . . We all were . . .”, she said fidgeting with her gun. It sounded like a farce. DISZ was the monolithic Communist youth organization, one of the party’s most powerful organs supposed to train future party members. Julia was born during the war, brought up when the Communists ruled. She had to work, as her parents did. “I knew nothing else but work, but till 1953 I thought this was life”, she said.
