The Hungarian Student, 1957 (1. évfolyam, 2-8. szám)
1957 / 4. szám
9 The Hungarian Student SPEECH OF ALEXANDER KISS, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE NATIONAL REPRESENTATION OF HUNGARY iirr A HE day before yesterday we learned that Laszlo Kardos, a leader of the Revolutionary Council of Intellectuals, has been arrested. At the same time we learned of Attila Szigety’s death. Szigety, the leader of the Gyor Revolutionary Council first attempted suicide in his jail cell. When this attempt failed, he jumped from a third-floor window' of the jail hospital, and died instantly. Only yesterday we received the news that the other leaders of the Trans-Danubian Revolutionaries, Árpád Tihanyi, Gabor Szász Földes and Lajos Gulyas, have been condemned to death. “It was I who escorted Árpád Tihanyi back to the Hungarian border from Austria. I pleaded with him not to return, but he replied that two weeks of emigration had been enough for him. As we parted he said, T am going back to my students.’ Now he is to be executed. “Gyula Illyés, one of our greatest living poets, is presently lying in a hospital for the insane, his condition a result of the AVH’s brutal treatment during a three-week ‘interrogation.’ Every member of the revolutionary MEFESZ Committee has disappeared. To date it is reported that seventeen Budapest Institute of Technology students have been executed. We are also certain of the executions of Pista Pozsar and György Incze. Many of you knew them personally. Already executed are Assistant Professors József Pergel and Edith Molnár, Associate Professor Varga and Professor Zoltán Itto; Professor György Adam, President of the Revolutionary Council of Intellectuals, has been in jail for months. “I could continue this list almost indefinitely. As I see you sitting before me I am chained to a terrible vision : sitting beside each of you I see a dead companion. And who knows how many are suffering in Russian camps? The loss of our youth, the nation’s greatest hope and strength, is appalling. Can a people survive a blow like this? “What kind of curse has fate put on this people, who never had a chance to live its life in liberty and independence? History has decimated Hungary ; taken from her the ability to distribute her beautiful spiritual treasures to mankind throughout the world. “The nation’s loss has been made even more devastatingly tragic as a result of the world-wide scattering of multitudes of Hungarian youth. The number of young Hungarians in the United States alone is 1,400. If “Do not forget the heroic people of Budapest.” we add the 6,000 in other parts of the globe, we realize that their loss to the country would be irreparable. And it is a personal tragedy for each one of this 7,400 to have left the motherland. He who loses his country ceases to live. “There is no such thing as an individual Hungarian youth, neither at home nor on foreign soil, neither in Europe nor in America. There is only one body of Hungarian youths to which you belong no matter where you are, and you must remain a part of that great body. Remain Hungarians! Nurture every thread that binds you to your mother-country! Never forget that he who departs from the place he belongs will fall and lose the value of life. “The world is opening for you, but you should enter it with the same spirit and aim as Janos Apaczai Csere. His aim was to gather the West’s most useful ideas and knowledge for his motherland, that land in which the oppressor’s strength is still unbroken, that land which needs us and is still counting on us. “It is possible that the nation, split asunder, will accuse itself. You have already tremblingly asked yourselves whether you thought soberly and realistically when you daringly took the road dictated by your sense. How much more terrible would this selfaccusation be if the nation were also to suffer through the loss of you? No! It is not easy to carry the burden of the Hungarian fate. Being a Hungarian has meant exile, it has meant bleeding in battles between two worlds for the motherland. Our tragic fate has recently been the sacrifice of 30,000 lives. Our history has shown that we could not wait for Europe. We can only depend on the Lord God and on our own sons’ intellect and ability. “My friends! You alone are the anchors of hope of the motherland. And throughout the next three days, you must feel and act with the responsibility of that hope. You must discount every illusion! No others will bleed for our liberation. Hungarian brains must find methods through which Hungarian problems can be
