Fáklyaláng, 1964. június-október (5. évfolyam, 1-10. szám)
1964-10-23 / 10. szám
8 FÁKLYALÁNG they should immediately go to the Political Committee and demand the acceptance and implementation of the 16 points in the students’ resolution. It was then, resolved to send a committee of ten to the studio while the others will await their return inside the Parliament building. I was selected one of the ten members. White napkins were raised high before the studio as we walked two abreast behind each other. We have already seen nine dead before the building who were shot by the AVH- men. It was very difficult to quiet down the crowd. We were risking our lives when we tried to convince the mass of people outside the building that everything will be solved peacefully. We informed the people that detailed discussions were already in progress in the Parliament with the representatives of the Government. Our actions were misinterpreted and we were suspected of collaborating with the secret police. It was at that time that Colonel Solymosi arrived to the studio with his armored formation and shouted at us: “You dirty revolutionists, I shall take care of you! Load your guns, fire!” Everybody fell flat in the streets. And we were in the middle and could not go anywhere to hide. I decided to creep toward Colonel Solymosi and told him why we had come from the Parliament. It was, however, too late and the deterioration of conditions could not be prevented. When, finally, we had returned to the Parliament no light was visible from the outside and we were not let in. Q: How did you, Kristóf Pongratz, join the revolution? Where did you get arms and ammunition? A: It was about eight o’clock in the evening when my brother Erno called us at home and told us that he is negotiating with the government in the Parliament in the name of the demonstrators. Hardly did we finish our conversation when my youngest brother, Andris, called us telling that he is in the vicinity of the Stalin statue. He mentioned that he had climbed up on the statue, put a sling of wire cable around the neck and trucks pulled the statue off the base. Kossuth Radio began broadcasting a speech by Erno Gero who succeeded Mátyás Rákosi as First Secretary of the Communist Party a few months before. We listened to the speech while building a tile stove in the room. As Gero called the demonstrators a bunch of Fascist riff-raffs we cleaned our hands of the clay and my brother Odon said: “Let’s go. It seems to me that we, too, are needed out there!” We dressed up for the cold evening and said goodbye to our Mother. First, she implored and cried trying to stop us. I told her, however, in bitterness that this country would be lost if all the mothers thought that way. She, then, kissed us and said: “Maybe, your father would tell you, too, that your place is now out there if he were alive!” We left our home in Soroksár, a suburb of Budapest, by walking at a great pace to avoid the reinforced police patrols. We have climbed on a truck near the Ice Factory and traveled toward the Lamp Factory. Here the truck was stopped by a boy of 14 or 15, and pointing his gun at the truck he called on us to get off. He told us that he came from the studio building, where the fighting was already going on, to get arms and ammunition in the Lamp Factory but no one is let in. We all went to the factory’s gate and started to hammer on the heavy steel-plated door with a strong railing over the shoulder level. The deafening noise forced the night doorman to come out. He was about 70 years old. At our insistence to open the gate he told us that he is under strict order not to let anyone in. While he talked to us I have grabbed him through the railing and told him that unless he let us in he will, probably, be the first victim of the uprising. Frightened, he opened the gate. The crowd was flooding the entire plant. Despite our haste, it took about 30 minutes to find the arsenal. We have found the ammunition but no weapons. We have estimated the ammunition to be about ten carloads. In the meantime new groups arrived on trucks. Some of the people worked in the Lamp Factory and they were convinced that the arms are hidden someplace in the plant. They have stated that although the plant was known as a Lamp Factory it was, in fact, an ammunition plant making weapons. Finally, a young girl arrived and told us where the weapons are hidden. She was leading us into a store-room in which machine spare parts were stored in boxes and crates. She told us to remove a few cartons and then we saw a hidden door: the door to the weapons room. We had no keys so we were using draw-bars to force the door open. We saw in front of us a huge store-room which was completely concealed from the outside. It was full of arms packed in crates. As the crowd came behind us it was impossible to leave the store-room. After grabbing a gun I was raised by a few people and was handed over until I, finally, managed to get out. When I reached the main gate I saw that about 12 trucks arrived in the meantime to pick up the arms and ammunition. Things started to get organized and the trucks got loaded. Each of the trucks got specific instructions where to go. We have jumped on a truck that was ordered to go to the Boraros-ter a key point in the city close to the Killian (Corvin) Barracks. There we unloaded the truck and it was sent back to the factory. Hearing the sounds of shooting we have stopped a huge truck and ordered the driver to go toward the area of fighting. We could, however, not reach our destination as soon afterwards the truck was fired on from a passenger car bearing the license plate of the Secret Police. A chase followed but they managed to escape after crossing the Petőfi Bridge to Buda. The chase took us to the Cable Works on the Budafoki-ut. Here, we have stopped the truck, forced our way into the plant and urged the workers to join the revolutionists. The guards were disarmed and the weapons were distributed among the workers. We have, then, decided to go to the studio building of the Hungarian Radio in the Sandor-utca, in Pest. Q: Odon Pongratz, how did you get from the Gable Works to the Corvin-koz? And why did you choose this place as your headquarters? A: It was already about midnight when someone driving a motorcycle informed us that Soviet tanks are coming towards the city on the main highway, on the Fehervari-ut. We have immediately resolved to build some barricade to halt them. There was
