 |
Wittner, Mária (1937) |
|
|
|
|
|
Born in Budapest, she never knew her father and was put out to foster parents by her mother. She was taken to a Carmelite priory at the age of two. In 1948, she came to know her mother again, who put in state care after a short while. She broke off her secondary-school studies to become a shorthand typist in Szolnok. She had a son in 1955 and sent him to a children's home. She moved to Budapest and lived by casual work and as a domestic servant. She took part in the demonstration and joined the crowd in the Radio siege on October 23, 1956. She helped to treat the wounded, and later joined the Vajdahunyad utca detachment, being one of the armed group to occupy the 10th District Police Headquarters on October 30. She was wounded by shrapnel during the Soviet reoccupation on November 4 and treated at the Péterfy Sándor Utca Hospital. She tried to leave the country on November 9, but was arrested. Released after interrogation, she defected again and spent a few weeks in Austria. She worked as a manual worker on her return. On July 16, 1957, she was arrested again and sentenced to death on July 23, 1958. This was commuted to life imprisonment on appeal on February 24, 1959. She was freed on March 25, 1970. She then worked first in a sewing shop and then as a cleaner until her retirement on disability pension in 1980. She has been active in several organizations of 1956 veterans since the change of the political system. She received the Grand Cross of the Hungarian Republic in 1990. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wittner, Mária: 'I have pangs of conscience at still being alive'
On the events of October 23 and on the Rákosi system (1956). (Hungarian)
