Magyar News, 2001. szeptember-2002. augusztus (12. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

2001-10-01 / 2. szám

A PREDICTABLE MASSACRE AT . MOSONMAGYAROVAR

A few years before the 1956 revolution I came down with a strange illness. As it turned out it was a virus, native of Korea. Since I hadn’t been to Korea or anywhere near to it, with my doctor we were investigating the possibilities. The war in Korea was still going on and my next door neighbor, an X-ray technician, was sent there with his machines. Nobody in his family was effected, nor have we found anybody in the vicinity.

This illness landed me in the hospital. The journalists, going back far before the war, had their own medical service that included a small hospital. It was called the Sanatorium Association of Journalist. In the Communist regime by the 1950s less and less journalists were able to use this hospital because conveniently the AVH, State Defense Authority, otherwise named the Secret Police, took it over. It was staffed with the best medical personnel, and had the ability to get the most rare and expensive medicine from the West overnight.

My illness was very stubborn and in a few days I was confined to the isolation room. No visitors, and the staff wore rubber gloves, mask on their face, and they had to change their robe when leaving the room. Fortunately, I thought, I had a room mate to keep company. Not having anything to do, we talked. I mean he talked. He was a borderguard officer in the area of the Fertő tó in the northwestern comer of Hungary. This lake has an extensive territory of marshland. He told me how he loved his work, and he told me how he did his work. It would be sufficient if I just recall one of his many stories.

The officer tells me that he with his men took up position in an area where most likely smugglers would come across the marsh from Austria. The guards had several dogs trained for the ambush. The wait wasn’t long. They noticed the smuggler, and the smuggler noticed them too. So he started to run back. The officer tells me that they didn’t yell to stop him because then they had a prisoner on there hand. They let him run a short distance and then had the dogs go after him. They let the dogs have “fun” and when they quieted down, meaning that the person was dead, the dogs were called back.

One of the guards noticed that there was an other smuggler, but that one got away. Unfortunately not for long, the guards caught up with him already in the populated area. So they arrested him and interrogated him for a few days. After, they took him back to the marshes. It was easy to find the remains of his buddy. He was where the birds congregated. The smuggler was told that he should had stayed in

Austria. Then they let him go so he could run across the border. He ran a couple of hundred yards, probably at that moment having the hope to escape. This is when the guards let the dogs go after him and it was business as usual.

I left the isolation room to recuperate, while the boarderguard officer was placed into a coffin.

These were my thoughts when in 1956 I heard about the massacre in the same area. These are the thoughts now when after 45 years the court is dealing with the matter.

Joseph F. Balogh

Primary Court Renders Verdicts

in 1956 Massacre. (MTI)

The Gyor-Moson-Sopron County Court of West Hungary, convening in Budapest, rendered a series of verdicts on Tuesday, ending a two-year trial and a seven-year investigation of a massacre that took place 45 years ago, on 26 October 1956.

The court found retired border police colonel István Dudás guilty of crimes against humanity for not preventing the troops under his command at a garrison from firing on an unarmed crowd, killing 50 and wounding over 200. The court did recognize that Dudás ordered an immediate cease fire, but sentenced him to three years in a penitentiary nonetheless, because of the carnage. However, it also considered the long time that has elapsed since the event, Dudas's age and poor health, and a general amnesty granted in 1993 and rendered the incarceration nonexecutable. Three other men were charged along with Dudás, but only one, Lajos Fodor, a subordinate member of the border police, was found guilty. Fodor received a two-year sentence, suspended for a threeyear probation period.

On 26 October 1956, during the days of the aborted revolution and freedom fight, a crowd of some 1,500 people gathered outside a military garrison in Mosonmagyarovar. Dudás, as commander, became alarmed and ordered an alert. One group of people broke away from the crowd and began advancing on the garrison. Their intention, the court determined, had been to remove the red star attached to the building, and they were singing as they came forward, to signify peaceful intent.

Nonetheless, the soldiers inside the building were in a heightened state of anxiety and when a shot was fired, they panicked. They fired on the crowd, and though Dudás immediately ordered them to cease, which they did. Within a minute, they had managed to kill 50 people and wound another 200.

The court agreed that Dudás had been correct to order an alert when the crowd gathered, but nonetheless, found him responsible for the massacre for not determining that their intentions were peaceful and relaying that to his troops.

Page 3