Fraternity-Testvériség, 1957 (35. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1957-05-01 / 5. szám
6 FRATERNITY single child out of Hungary on these terms. Thus Austria and the U. N. can say that until Hungary carries out its part of the bargain they won’t compel any child of any age to go back against his will. What Is "Proof" In principle — an important phrase — Austria cannot help agreeing to send back to Hungary children under 14 after “positive and genuine proof” that their parents really want them back. But what constitutes “positive and genuine proof”? Is a letter from a parent in Hungary enough? Not always, for these can be faked or written under official pressure. Frequently parents have followed an official demand for their children with a second message: “Pay no attention to what I write. Don’t return under any circumstances.” Recently a boy of 16 received a wire: “Return immediately. Father dying.” A few hours later came a second: “Father not ill. Remain there.” A 15-year-old boy had a telephone call straight from Budapest, allegedly from his father, insisting he return home. The boy said it didn’t sound like his father, but he wasn’t certain. Then he had a bright idea. “What are the nicknames of the other children?” he asked the voice from Budapest — and the “father” didn’t know. Was he an imposter? Or was he really the father subtly warning his son not to come back? Behavior Problem There are still in Austria today about 2,500 boys and girls between 14 and 18 — plus about 180 more under 14. They are problem children in not only a legal sense. As nation after nation declines to take more refugees, they have become sullen and badly behaved. “They don’t care what they do”, says an Austrian social worker. “They think nobody in the world wants them. They’re scared; they don’t know what will happen to them from one moment to the next.” They are continually being shifted from camp to camp, with no roots, and with fading hopes for the future. One untidy 14-year-old boy, scolded for being “the pig of the room”, decided to get even — and announced he was going back to Hungary. “Do you take him seriously”, sighs the Austrian camp director, “or do you treat him as a child? After all, he was one of the kids that destroyed two Russian tanks.” (They talked him out of leaving.) Change of Heart A group of three boys — 14, 16 and 18 — also decided to go back home, hurt and embittered by the West’s lack of interest. They even spoke up for seats on the yellow Hungarian repatriation buses. It was the youngest of the trio who decided they were making a mistake. As he later told the camp director, “Why go back to beatings and prison there, just because we were having a hard time at first in the West?” He took the other two on a long walk the morning the bus was to leave
