This account is drawn from Béla Lipták’s Testament of Revolution — read the full chapter: 2. fejezet: A MEFESZ megalakulása és a 16 pont (Magyar) / Chapter 2: Birth of MEFESZ and the Sixteen Points (English).
Footnotes
1) Rákosi was a disciple of Joseph Stalin and the person who designed and implemented the communist dictatorship in Hungary.
2) The ÁVH was the communist secret police, which served to terrorize the people and to help Rákosi in reaching his goal of destroying all democratic institutions. It was the equivalent of the German Gestapo or the Russian KGB.
3) MEFESZ was the abbreviation for the Hungarian equivalent of the name: Federation of the Association of Hungarian Universities and Colleges.
4) Military training was a regular part of our curriculum. The Military Department gave the military instructions, just as the Chemistry Department taught chemistry.
5) Today, 43 years later, István Marián is still a close and respected friend.
Postscript: The 50th Anniversary (2005)
In 2005, ahead of the revolution’s 50th anniversary, Lipták wrote to the Rector of the Budapest Technical University proposing a permanent memorial to the MEFESZ heroes — János Danner, István Marián, and the others — to stand on the university grounds, inscribed with words from Albert Camus:
“No nation on earth has done as much for human freedom and the triumph of justice as the shackled and subjugated Hungarian people. We can only remain true to Hungary if we never, anywhere, betray the idea, or give up the dream, for which the Hungarian heroes gave their lives.”
Lipták also recounted a 1957 encounter in Boston, where he and fellow MEFESZ refugee students were working to secure American university scholarships for their members. A young monk in maroon robes knocked on their door one late-winter morning — none of them knew who he was. Through a member who spoke English, the monk told them: “Don’t despair. Ideals cannot be crushed by tanks. Justice will prevail! What you did was the noblest act in 20th-century European history. God bless you and the heroic Hungarian people!” It was the Dalai Lama, then living in exile in India. Lipták later tried, without success, to invite him to the university’s 50th-anniversary commemoration.
Béla G. Lipták, President, Lipták Associates PC. “A Testament of Revolution” is available on Amazon.com.
