William Penn Life, 2016 (51. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

2016-10-01 / 10. szám

an engrossing tale of that pivotal time. Some people know that if they could reach the Bridge at Andau, on the Austrian border, they might escape to freedom. This book is a documentary account of the Hungarian revolt against the Communists in 1956 and is virulently anti-Russian. Some consider this true story by Michener to be his finest work, and in a New York Times book review, John MacCormac wrote: "In so far as he has limited himself to describing actual events, Michener has performed a service for which today's historians may be grateful, but today's readers will be even more grateful now." This book was my first introduction to a far-away event that I would someday view more intimately.

After meeting and marrying my husband, we began our regular visits to Budapest to visit family and friends. Invariably, we walked past the Killian Barracks and the Corvin theater where major fighting occurred and where Pál Maiéter, the first deputy of defense and later brigadier general, was commander.

I also remember from my early visits to Hungary in the late '60s that people frequently whispered to each other, a hold-over habit from the days when citizens were forced to celebrate Nov. 7, the day of the Bolshevik take-over, and April 4, the "Day of Liberation."

Those who did not show sufficient enthusiasm were promptly denounced by the informers, so people whispered because they lived in constant fear that their conversations were being intercepted. One of the joys of more recent visits was that normal conversations took place in lieu of whispering to each other as confidence and optimism replaced fear and suspicion.

My husband and I have often toured Parliament, and he always shows me the place where the Secret Police fired upon him and other peaceful demonstrators, some of whom were killed. We also walk by the Radio Budapest building where the first student demonstration started and where police fired upon the crowd.

As we walk on the Pest side of the Danube, close to the New York Café, we usually tour the National Museum where I vividly remember seeing the Hungarian crown on display before it was moved to the Parliament building. Then we cross to the Buda side to see the Bern Statue of the Polish general from 1848. At this point, my husband recalls that he and other Hungarian students went there to show their support for the Polish freedom movement.

One of my favorite sites in Budapest is Statue Park (part of Memento Park), a graveyard for the old Communist statues that used to line the city streets. The old Stalin statue which was pulled down during the revolution now stands lonely, damaged and abandoned in Statue Park, a fitting ending for such a feared symbol.

Of course, no visit is complete without traveling to Esztergom to see the Basilica where Cardinal Mindszenty is buried. A few years ago, we visited the U.S. Embassy and were escorted to the office which the Cardinal occupied.

It was important for us both to see this since Cardinal Mindszenty took refuge there for 15 years in self-imposed confinement. In 1971, under pressure from the Holy See and the Hungarian government, Mindszenty consented to emigrate. Four years later, he died, and his ashes lie in the Esztergom Basilica. However, it wasn't until August 1991 when Pope John Paul II visited Hungary that the real end of 40 years of religious persecution was commemorated.

During my last visit to Hungary, I spent three days photographing the finest cemetery art and statuary I've ever seen. Section 21 of the Kerepesi Cemetery holds the remains of Pál Maiéter and János Kádár. It reminds visitors of the impact of the revolution in sheer numbers: the thousands of dead, wounded and arrested, many of whom were mere children; the hundreds executed; the hundreds of thousands who fled.

But, without a doubt, it is the Terror Háza on Andrássy út 60 that draws us back each visit and holds our attention.

Formerly the headquarters of AVO and the AVH, the museum commemorates the victims of terror and reminds us of the dreadful acts of torture that occurred in Hungary and of the tremendous repercussions for the rest of the world in these days of worldwide terrorism and fear.

In the cellar of the Terror Museum is the reconstructed subterranean prison that includes detention cells for solitary confinement, wet cells where detainees were forced to sit in water, fox-holes where prisoners could not straighten up, treatment rooms that contain instruments of torture, and pictures of those who died in the gallows from fatal beatings and, more often, suicide. The guard rooms hold ventilation equipment which ensured air-flow through conduits that traversed the cells, but individual cells were cut off from the airflow as a means of punishment. People's hands and feet were bound with chains and weights were attached to their feet. Electric currents, burnings with cigarettes, and rusty pliers were instruments of torture. Prisoners were even forced to lie on the bare floors with no toilet facilities.

The point I'm trying to make by recounting all this is that the '56 Revolution doesn't just belong to Hungarians. It holds meaning for the rest of us who know, love and consider Hungarians so integral to our lives. There's a lesson here for all — that no people can be subjugated forever, and that one can and must fight against a power thought to be invincible when oppression and terror become so unbearable that a nation's identity and its very existence are in danger. □

The '56 revolution doesn't just belong to Hungarians. It holds meaning for the rest of us who know, love and consider Hungarians so integral to our lives.

WILLIAM PENN LIFE ° October 2016 0 17