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Wolicki, Krysztof: People opened up to me at once "When the events began, I went into the offices of Trybuna Ludu and told the editors I'd be glad to travel to Hungary. That was on October 26 or 27, I remember, and the plane left on Sunday, October 28. This was the last Polish aid plane of the first intervention period, filled mainly with blood donations, to land successfully in Budapest. I was on the plane too. We struggled to Budapest with great difficulty. We were met at the airport and I was taken to the Polish Embassy by car.
"What were you expecting when you arrived in Hungary?"
"I didn't have great expectations. I knew that something was happening in Hungary resembling what had just happened in Warsaw. We were familiar with the world press response to the events in Hungary and from there we knew you had great sympathy with Poland and the resonance from the Polish events had been very strong."
"How did you set to work in Budapest?"
"I first spoke with my colleagues, some of whom I'd met personally. I spoke most with Roman Kornecki, of course. Then I set off round the city. I tried to engage people in conversation and find out their views on events. It was very easy to make contact, I just had to introduce myself as a Polish journalist and they'd open up at once. That basically was my first source of information. The second was Endre Gömöri. He took me into Parliament to the political circles there. I met the government members. I made especially close contact with Géza Losonczy and Pál Maléter, but I also spoke with Imre Nagy and György Lukács. That was my second source of information. The third was an artists' club. There I mainly met film people, but there were a few writers. I can't remember every detail. They haven't remained with me as individuals, but as a whole, as representatives of Hungarian society.
"The technology wasn't at the level it is today, the scope was much narrower. We would file our reports by phone in those days, but the lines between Budapest and Warsaw were broken. So we could hardly file anything. It was only possible through Embassy diplomatic channels to send a line or two to our families, to say we were alive.
"I managed to file a couple of articles to Przeglad Kulturalny and Trybuna Ludu in October 1956, although that happened under a new, Gomulka-style censorship, of course. Gomulka-style censorship meant they weren't calling on journalists to write bad things about Hungary, on the contrary, they could describe what deep sympathy they felt for them and their efforts. But heed also had to be paid to the interests of the Polish state. This was a defensive stance by Gomulka and his party apparatus at the time. You could explain to the Poles why we could do nothing else to help the Hungarians. The stance was effective, because it very soon turned the sympathy for the Hungarians felt in Poland into something harmless. There remained a kind feeling, but nothing else besides, although Poland could certainly not have done any more than it did in any case.
"After my return home, I once managed to appear on Polish Television. I had a friend working there, Staszek Rutkiewicz, who knew he was gambling his job, because I'd warned him what I was going to say, he replied that I could just go ahead. I stood before the cameras and the broadcast lasted 35 minutes instead of the five minutes planned. Comrade Gomulka phoned in, the Soviet ambassador phoned it, and Comrade Zenon Kliszko phoned in, all yelling into the phone that the broadcast should be interrupted immediately. The engineers weren't prepared to interrupt it and the broadcast went on. That was the only time, right up to the Solidarity period, when I managed to describe my experiences in Hungary.
The life-interview made by János Tischler in 1991 is No. 469 in the Oral History Archive.
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