Magyar News, 1999. szeptember-2000. augusztus (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1999-10-01 / 2. szám

With good humor St. Emery’s monument was included in the demonstration for Hungarian freedom. People at the Parliament Square walk around freely and gather for the demonstration that ended in a bloodshed.

erated by the buUetts breaking the windows and impacting on the apartment walls.

Every apartment in our building had broken windows and holes in the walls caused by the machine guns during this attack. One of the Legation staff officers (Anton Nyerges), who fortunately was not in his apartment at the time of this attack, later found several of his shirts, which were stored in his clothes dresser, riddled with bullet holes.

This explosion set into motion the catastrophic event known historically to the world as the “Massacre in Parliament Square.” It was reported that an estimated 1,000 people were in Parliament Square when the ordnance charge detonated and the Soviets started firing their weapons. No official statistics were published regarding the number of people killed or wounded, but survivors stated the majority did not survive this attack.

The city was relatively calm Friday morning, October 26th, and we were evacuated from the apartment building to the

Legation where we lived until the "Five Days of Freedom" began on Monday, October 29th. It was during those "quiet" days that Legation wives and families with young children were transported in a caravan of cars to Vienna and lodged in homes there in order to protect them from stray gunfire and potential harm.

During the Five Days of Freedom we (Marine Security Guards) were allowed to roam the city in pairs or three's for no more than two hours at a time. The devastation of Budapest was near total, but electric, telephone and water services continued to operate. There were no reports of looting of goods from stores that suffered window damage. If there was a store with broken windows and goods were missing, there was a large note explaining where the goods were stored for safe keeping. There were also unattended ammunition boxes filled with Forints to be used by charity organizations. Although I had lived in Budapest for a year, I had never heard church bells ring until the Five Days of Freedom! The church bells had a wonderful sound, the sound of Hope for Hungary.

Unfortunately on Saturday, November 4th the Soviets returned to Budapest at 4:00 am, and by 6:00 am they had captured all vital government buildings, communication media, and some of the insurgents. At approximately 6.45 am, while preparing to assume my duties at 700 am, 1 looked out the second floor comer window of the Vice Consul's office toward the government office buildings opposite the Legation on Szabadság tér and noticed in the early morning twilight and light fog, two groups of people, consisting of men, women and children in each group, being marched north on Szabadság tér by armed guards (most likely AVH guards because the Hungarian Army was operating with the insurgents, and the Soviet troops like to operate near their armored vehicles and tanks and there were no armored vehicles or tanks in the area at this point in time) towards the dismantled Soviet monument. I estimated a total of 150 people in the two groups. As the two groups were marched past the monument they changed direction

Two scarred buildings in Budapest. On the left the Hungarian Radio, on the right the Kilian military barrack.