This account is drawn from Béla Lipták’s Testament of Revolution — read the full chapter: 11. fejezet: A vég kezdete (Magyar) / Chapter 11: Beginning of the End (English).

Footnotes

1) Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was the ambassador to Hungary and played a major role in suppressing the Revolution. Later he directed the ideological campaign against the Chinese Communists. In 1967 was appointed as head of the KGB, in 1982 he became the secretary of the Communist Party an later the premier of the USSR. He maintained a repressive, hard line policy against dissidents.

2) Attila Szigethy was a very powerful leader in the city of Győr. After the Revolution, ha was captured and in the jail he committed suicide.

3) General Béla Király escaped after the revolution and became a professor in New York City. He returned to Hungary after the collapse of Communism in 1989

4) József Mindszenty was bishop of Veszprem when he was arrested during the German occupation of Hungary in 1944. After the war, he was raised to Cardinal of Hungary in 1946, but because he not only opposed the Nazis, but also the Communists, he was arrested in 1948. In prison he was dragged and as a result admitted to treason and to illegal monetary transactions, which he did not commit. He was freed by the freedom fighters of 1956 and took refuge at the U.S. legation of Budapest after the Revolution was crushed. In 1971, under pressure of the Pope he left Hungary and in 1974 settled in Vienna, where he died in 1975, at the age of 83.

5) Colonel Marián did not take part in the defense of Buda. Still, after the Revolution, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, of which he served over 6 years, until he was pardoned as part of a general amnesty in 1963.

6) That was the last time I have seen Gyurka. In 1995 I did meet a young man with the last name: Vereczkey, but he was no relative.

Discussion/Fórum