On this Friday morning I must have entered the MEFESZ office with my usual grin, because Pista (Colonel Marián) winked at me. He was in the middle of some discussion. The full-bosomed young professor Kati Sz_ke offered me a French roll. The big bear Gyurka Vereczkey mockingly bowed, implying that I must be too refined for early rising. As a peace offering, I gave him half of my roll and proceeded to join the group around Pista. I felt completely at ease in this warm, friendly atmosphere, where the well-focused yet frenzied activity never stopped.
Pista stood at the window. His eyes were bloodshot; he must have been up all night. He was lighting one cigarette after another while talking to three students, Sándor Varga, Imi Mécs, and Jancsi Danner. He was constantly moving, and the students moved with him like planets around the sun. Outside this inner core were his officers, a captain and a lieutenant. They followed this inner group on an outer orbit. Beyond the officers’ ring were the messengers. They too circled the core. The smoke rose, the identities of the participants changed, but this slow waltz, this hypnotic dance, went on from morning to night, day after day. There was something harrowing yet also splendid in this whirling and swirling activity, in this process that just might give birth to a new world, a better society.
After swallowing my half of the roll, I moved to the core of this human whirlpool. Pista immediately turned to me: “Öcsi, you go to Kopácsi’s headquarters and bring us his spare guns. Take one of the trucks from the university garage. Vereczkey will be your driver. From now on you and he are a team. Tell Kopácsi that we need arms. I soon expect a couple of thousand students here. I also invited the cadets of the Pet_fi Academy, so we need lots of small arms. Oh yes, and tell him that I am forming a national guard division here.”
“It’s done, Pista, but now go, take a nap. You must! Your hands are shaking. Please!” I pled, but the process was unstoppable; a new face, a new problem, and the swirling dance continued around the red-eyed little colonel.
Gyurka Vereczkey heard what Pista said. He bowed deeply and opened the door for me. From then on, whenever there were people around, Gyurka stayed behind me. He also let me speak first, but when we were alone, all the theatrics ended, and he treated me as if he were my older brother. He was about five years older than I. Five years is a lot when you are twenty. He was smart, experienced, and brave, and I loved and respected him.
Gyurka was to graduate from medical school, but the Communists kicked him out. “Politics, you know,” he said, but I did not know, and he did not tell me any more.1 He got this driver’s job through the influence of Endre Sík, the father-in-law of his sister. The story of the Sík family is a typical Jewish-Hungarian story. One brother, Sándor Sík, was Hungary’s best-known Catholic poet, a converted Jew and an anticommunist. The other brother, Endre Sík, was a Communist and a Russian collaborator. He was Hungary’s ambassador to Moscow, and after the Revolution he became Hungary’s foreign minister. Gyurka’s brother-in-law Igor Sík was Endre’s son. He was born in Moscow and spoke fluent Russian, yet, as I was to learn later, he was a Hungarian patriot.
We got the truck from the garage on Budafoki Street. As we made the turn at the corner of Bertalan and Bartók Streets, I saw a crowd. Because it was our job to maintain order in this district, I asked Gyurka to stop. Some twenty people were listening to a man who was sitting on his bicycle with one foot on the ground for support. As we got closer, I began to hear fragments of his repulsive oration: “We the real Hungarians . . . Jewish ÁVH renegades . . . they are the inner enemy.” When we got even closer, it became obvious that he was trying to incite his listeners against Jewish-Hungarians. This was the first (and only!) anti-Semitic incident I witnessed during the Revolution. I knew that I had to be firm and decisive, but I had no idea how to do that. The people saw my tricolored armband, so they opened a path. As I walked toward the cyclist, I sensed that the people expected me to take care of this situation. I also knew that we could not tolerate such disgusting provocation.
“I guess I have to arrest him,” I whispered to Gyurka, but I had no idea how one went about that. And once arrested, what should I do with him? Should we take him back to the university? Where would we put him there? I had no answers for any of these questions, but I did know that the honor of the Revolution was at stake and that it was my duty to act. Now the cyclist had noticed me, so he shut up. The people were all looking at me; I had only a second or two to decide what to do. At that instant I saw the movement of the bearlike figure of Gyurka, who seemed even bigger in his quilted driver’s parka. He was passing me on my right. He did not speak, just lifted his arm and smacked the man backhanded in the face. The man’s mouth was open as he fell over his bike. Gyurka did not even look at him. Instead, he cast his eyes on the people gathered around and said, “Now you know how it’s done. Next time you do it yourself!”
“You don’t waste too many words, do you?” I complimented him as we walked back to the truck.
“I despise these hatemongers. Look at what they did to the Sík family. They scared one brother into becoming a Catholic poet and the other into becoming a Communist traitor, while their kids don’t even know who they are. These racist fanatics did that not only to the Síks but to most Jewish-Hungarians!”
“It turns my stomach!” I replied. “Although I never thought that much about it. I have never seen a thug like your punching bag here. The only Jew in our family was the mother of my godmother. I was eight when Eichmann’s thugs took her away after the Germans occupied Hungary in 1944. My father tried to free her, but failed. Nobody else even tried. Nobody ever explained to me why there was so little resistance to the deportations.”
“Why? How much resistance have you seen to the Communist’s deportations a few years ago? This lack of resistance has nothing to do with the Jews. This has to do with human nature; people are simply scared; all people are always scared. In times of trouble, they look the other way to save their own skin!” Gyurka added.
I also remembered that in Sopron, in the fall of 1944, my grandfather took a long walk every afternoon. He was always wearing his much-decorated army uniform. By that time he was retired, but if we was not, he would have refused to take the oath of loyalty to the Nazi government installed by the occupying Germans. During his long walks he would stop every person who was wearing a yellow star and ask for the time. He did not need this information; his gold pocket watch kept the best time in the city. What he needed was to let them know that they were not outcasts but fellow Hungarians. It was his way of trying to protect his countrymen from the heinous humiliation of being marked as outcasts. Gyurka smiled; I could tell that he liked my grandfather, and I know I liked Gyurka.
On our way to the police headquarters on Deák Square, I tried to fix my disintegrating sandal. The sole by now had completely separated, and I was using a piece of wire to reattach it. By the time I was done, we had arrived. Gyurka stayed with the truck, and I entered the building. It was almost empty.
Sándor Kopácsi, the police chief of the capital, was alone in his office. In many ways, he reminded me of Colonel Marián; he was also dark, short, and young. On the other hand, he seemed to be a stronger leader, a tougher person. His handshake was firm, and while talking he looked me straight in the eye. I felt completely at ease. My eyes wandered around the big office and settled on a portrait of Louis Kossuth. This was unusual. In the offices of Communist leaders one expected to see the portraits of Stalin and his Hungarian henchman Rákosi, but not Hungarian patriots. I wondered when that Kossuth portrait got on the wall. He seems to read my mind: “In my village, every family had a portrait of Kossuth and another one of the Blessed Virgin. They were like husband and wife, the two sides of the same coin. A home wasn’t a home without them. Well, I am a son of my village I would not feel at home without Kossuth. It would be only an office—it would not be my office without him.”
He told me about the previous day, when the survivors of the bloodbath at the parliament had marched on his headquarters: “Even their flags were bloody. Their leader was a kid like you, a worker in an open shirt, named István Angyal. He asked for the release of all political prisoners and for cooperation with the regular police. He had a bad cold and was coughing all the time. Ibolya, my wife, gave him hot tea and some medication. He told me that he was an Auschwitz survivor. I gave him a pistol. You know, you all should have at least a pistol! Do you have one?” he asked.
I shook my head. Since my rifle had disappeared when I left Duduke’s apartment on Wednesday, I had not had a gun. Now he handed me one. It was a silvery, tiny little pistol, not much larger than a big cigarette lighter. “A lady’s pistol. I got it in Prague,” he said. I slipped it into my pocket and forgot it. I told him about Colonel Marián’s plan to arm a couple thousand students and to form a national guard regiment that could defend the triangle made by the Freedom and Pet_fi Bridges and Móricz Square. He got on the phone, and while he was talking, a dark and attractive lady walked in. “I am Ibolya Kopácsi,” she said and offered me some crackling cake. I introduced myself only as Öcsi. The offer of the cake was perfectly timed, as the half of a bun I had gotten from Kati Sz_ke was less than a breakfast, and now it was past noon. I took two. She smiled a warm, motherly smile and said, “Take one more.”
I looked out the window and saw that the police officers were already loading some handguns onto our truck. Now Kopácsi got off the phone: “My people will give you our spare guns, but we don’t have too many in this building. Tomorrow, you can get a few thousand guns for your students from the Zrinyi Military Academy. They will be waiting for you in the morning. Bring a receipt from Colonel Marián. Be careful, because Russian tanks are still stationed at the bridgeheads!”
I left with the same warm feeling toward the Kopácsis that I had for our own group at the university. I trusted them fully. I do not know why, but I was positive that they deserved my trust. I felt so lucky to be working with such decent and brave people. I was proud to be part of the effort; I was proud to be Hungarian.
On the way out of Kopácsi’s office, I called Ágnes. The phone rang and rang, but nobody picked it up. When I got back to the truck, I saw that we had received some fifty guns. Gyurka was ready to go. On the way back, we stopped at his apartment, just to say hello to his family. His sister was so beautiful that I could not take my eyes off her. She was the ex-wife of Igor Sík, the son of Hungary’s ambassador to Moscow. She smiled at me, and that embarrassed me.
After that, we stopped at the Péterfy Street hospital, because Kopácsi had asked us to check if they had any shortages of medical supplies. It turned out that they were low on blood. I asked them to call us at the university if their blood shortage got critical.
As we were about to leave, I saw a young man in an open shirt carrying a large kettle of coffee to a truck, which was parked next to ours. A Red Cross flag covered his truck. Inside I saw some food and bandages. Just to say something, I asked, “You plan to stay up late?” pointing at the coffee. He looked at me, coughed, blew his nose, and said, “This is for the boys at the Tüzoltó Street garage.” I had the strange feeling that I knew this guy. “Did you get a pistol from Kopácsi yesterday?” I asked. Now he was surprised: “How do you know about that?” I showed him my little pistol and said, “When he gave me one today, he also mentioned you and your cold. It was your cough that made me wonder.”
He held out his hand: “István Angyal,” he said. His handshake was firm, his eyes penetrating. “My name is Öcsi; I’m taking some guns from Kopácsi to the Technical University.”
“Was there much fighting in Buda?” he asked.
“No, nothing like in your district! But we are getting ready, just in case!”
“Well, we are at 36 Tüzoltó Street. Maybe I will see you again?” he said while lifting the coffee kettle onto his truck. I waved, got into our truck, and told Gyurka, “Kopácsi said that this guy was in Auschwitz, and now he is leading the Tüzoltó Street freedom fighters. He is yet another reason why that cyclist deserved your punch.”
We passed some scary but passive Russian tanks at the Pest side of Freedom Bridge. It was dark by the time we got back to the university and unloaded the guns in the gymnasium. I gave myself a submachine gun. From that point on, that gun became a permanent part of my wardrobe, together with my not completely beautiful but still smart corduroy jacket and my strange wired sandals. By now there were about as many students at the university as the number of guns we had obtained. So in a few minutes everybody was armed. After that, Jancsi Danner organized our regular armed patrols. He scheduled twelve patrols a day, one every two hours.
There were heaps of food in the gym sent by the nearby villages. A lorry was unloading a dozen millstone-sized, home-baked country breads. The smell of the fresh bread, the sight of the circular, gigantic loafs, made the gym feel like home. There were also boxes of fruit, cheese, and cookies, cans of milk, and even a wine basket. We sat down, Gyurka and I, on some gymnastics mats and had a gourmand dinner of fresh bread, cheese, and watermelon. Pinned to the cheese, I found a slip of paper with a message in childish handwriting. It read, “We love you!”
Somehow, the bicyclist that morning and now the watermelon reminded me of Petik Bácsi, my father’s melon farmer. He cultivated ten acres of our rented land until forced collectivization put an end to our farming. He lived in a hut dug in the middle of the field. He lived in that hut with his family from spring to fall. He worked from sunrise to sunset, every day except Saturday. On that day he dressed up in his black suit and spent most of his time reading the Bible. While reading, he also sang. The tunes were different from any other I ever heard. On Saturdays, the otherwise reserved Petik Bácsi became talkative.
He explained to me that he was a Sabbatarian and a Székely. The Székelys (also known as Szeklers or Siculi) are probably of Turkic, possibly Avar, stock. They settled in Transylvania possibly before even the Hungarians, but in any case by the eleventh century they had adopted the Hungarian language. Under the Hungarian Crown all Szeklers were regarded as of noble birth and were exempt from taxation. They formed one of the three privileged nations of Transylvania, the others being the Hungarians (Magyars) and the Saxons. They enjoyed full autonomy under the Hungarian Crown. Some Székely-Sabbatarians believed that they were descendents of the Kabar tribe, one of the ten Hungarian tribes that settled the Danubian basin in 996 A.D. The Kabars were of Turkic stock and of Jewish religion. Today, Transylvania is part of Romania, and the autonomy of all Transylvanian Hungarians, including the half million or so Szeklers, has been taken away, and their ancient culture is threatened by systematic forced assimilation.
When I told Gyurka about Petik Bácsi, he interrupted, “I bet that cyclist didn’t get here in nine-ninety-six A.D.!”
“Yeah! I wouldn’t be surprised if he called his mother ‘Mutter,'” I added in agreement.
When I finally got back to the MEFESZ office, Kati Sz_ke hugged me. This I did not mind at all, but it made me blush all the same. There was silence in the room as I gave my report to Pista. Everybody was listening. Pista wrote out an advance receipt for so many rifles, submachine guns, pistols, light and heavy machine guns, but used a pencil to write in the numbers so that I could ink them over with the actual numbers when we picked them up.
With that, I was done for the day. Pista was not. His eyes were even more bloodshot than they had been in the morning. This was Friday night, and he probably had not had a good night’s sleep since our historic meeting on Monday. The swirling went on endlessly around him. Now, the discussion was about sending delegations to the minister of defense and to the parliament, where Imre Nagy resided.
They also debated the conditions under which we might disarm. Jancsi Danner felt that our minimum condition should be the disbanding of the ÁVH and the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Hungarian soil. I agreed with Jancsi. Iván Szabó argued that our government had no control over the Russians; therefore, the Hungarian authorities should not be asked to promise something they could not deliver. The debate was passionate. All the while, the debaters were going through their usual swirling dance routine. Pista could barely stand up. His shaking fingers were yellow from nicotine, but his brain was still in gear. He hit the nail on the head: “The Russians claim that they were invited into the Hungarian capital by our government. If they needed a Hungarian invitation to enter, then the Hungarian government can also ask them to leave.”
It was about 2:00 A.M. when Ili Tóth (the medic who last night had invited me to sleep in the medical emergency room) declared, “Öcsike! Time for bed!”—and although she was the younger, I still obeyed her. This lovely girl had that particular look in her eyes, but I made no advances. Besides being both inexperienced and a chicken, there was also Ágnes (with whom I had maintained my inexperience for a year, now). I was also completely exhausted. So I just climbed up on that miserable single bed on wheels and slept like a baby.
On Saturday morning we took our truck and first, from Buda, inspected the Russian tanks stationed on the Pest side of the bridges. They seemed to be stationed at every bridge except the Chain Bridge. On the Buda side, there were none. “We’ll use the Chain Bridge on our return trip, when we are loaded with weapons!” suggested Gyurka, and I agreed. On our way to the Zrinyi Barracks, we heard machine-gun fire from Üll_i Street.
“That could be Mr. Coffee Man himself!” I said, referring to István Angyal, whom we had met the day before at the hospital, when he was bringing coffee to his people in a container. “Would you like to visit him?” asked Gyurka, and I admitted that I would, but not now.
At the Zrinyi Barracks they took us to the president of their Revolutionary Council, a captain.2 In just a few days every factory, office, and village had elected their own Revolutionary Councils. Nobody planned or suggested this; it occurred as naturally as leaves grow on trees. These councils were the first leaves of democracy. Aptyi was elected to the Revolutionary Council in the village of Kerepes.
The captain studied the list Colonel Marián had given me. “We have no machine guns, neither light nor heavy, but we do have hand grenades and flamethrowers. You want some of those?” he asked.
“Sure.” I said without much thinking. He also made a quick calculation of weights and suggested that we had better bring a second truck for the next round, because it would take five or six loads to deliver everything that Colonel Marián had asked for.
Our first load was forty crates of stick and egg grenades, plus some flamethrowers. It was a heavy load. The springs and the tires of the truck were both compressed. The truck was sitting down on its back wheels. As we passed Dohány Street, we saw Russian tanks.
Gyurka aimed for the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. We were already on Roosevelt Square when we noticed that the Russians had dug in at the head of the bridge. That was why we had not seen them from the other side when we planned our return route. Gyurka laid down in my lap and floored the gas. I sank down too so that all the Russians could see was a truck racing toward the bridge without a driver. Now I heard a big bang, followed by three enormous crashing sounds in quick succession. The truck was still speeding ahead; Gyurka and I were both down on the floor. But there was no blood; I felt no pain.
Now I heard Gyurka’s voice: “They did not smash the windshield!” We were at about the middle of the bridge. As we looked around, there seemed to be no damage at all.
“So, what were those explosions?” I asked.
“I think I know,” grinned Gyurka. “When I saw the Russians, I got scared and took my eyes off the road. So instead of driving on the road, we drove over their trenches, which made our crates jump. The crates taking off and falling back probably caused the big boom and those crashing sounds.”
As Gyurka was parking at the university, I saw the lanky Jancsi Danner staring at the demolished crates on our truck. He came over and hugged me. It was unusual for him to show emotion; he must have thought that we had been through a lot. I hugged him back and said, “It was nothing, just rough driving.” His fiancée, Gabi, was standing next to him. She was a tall girl but barely reached the shoulders of Jancsi’s six-foot-six frame.
While we were away, Pista had obtained a dozen Hungarian tanks. They came with their crews from Pilisvörösvár to stay at our university. He had also gotten some anti-aircraft guns, which were now parked next to the tanks behind the library. Jancsi did not know where they came from.
We took the grenades to the gymnasium and the flamethrowers to the basement of the library. By the time we had unloaded, our second truck, driven by Imre Majoross, the other driver of the university, had also arrived. As we started on our second trip, I asked Gyurka to drop me off at the Pest side of Pet_fi Bridge and pick me up there when they were returning with the next load of arms, at about 4:00 P.M. I wanted to visit István Angyal.
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