Béla Takács: "We provided a radio link with the outside world"

I was born in Kiskunfélegyháza in 1931. Then came another two children: my brother in 1933 and my sister somewhat later, in 1948. My father taught at the teachers' training college there. He came from a very poor family and had great difficulty reaching the level of graduating from training college as a teacher. His father had been a cobbler, and I gather a soldier in the Red Army in 1919. And this was out of conviction, because I heard talk and arguments on the subject at home when I was a child. On my mother's side, I come from a better-off peasant family. My maternal grandfather, Jenő Greskovics, worked on the land. There were no big financial problems there, as the land produced what was needed. My parents got married in 1930. When Northern Transylvania was reannexed during the Second World War¹ , my father, by then a teacher specializing in literature and history, was transferred to Székelykeresztúr² as director of the teachers' training college there. We'd to flee before military operations in 1944 and had no choice but to return to Csongrád, where we'd come from originally.

When Déda-Szeretfalva railway station³ suffered a huge bomber attack by the English or Americans, I found myself quite cut off from my family. I found a bicycle in the great pile of ruins and rode through the hills on that, all the way to Csongrád, in the company of the retreating German and Hungarian armies. Interestingly, I met with great kindness from the soldiers of the German army-they always gave me something to eat. They'd look at the map and explain which way to go home.

I had the most terrible impressions of the victorious army. When the first tank units arrived in Csongrád, we were in the cellar, and only my father went up from time to time to see what was happening. My father was really convinced that if the Russians came in there would be political developments. When the fighting was over and the remaining German troops had been driven out of Csongrád, all hell broke loose. Like a mob bereft of all humanity, the Russian soldiers went all through the houses robbing, plundering, and taking everything that took their fancy, and they pretty well made a sport of abusing the women.

As this massive military vandalism was sorted out, my father was appointed deputy director of the Szeged school district directorate by the ministry of the time, as he was a man with left-wing views. Nonetheless, we were raised in a religious atmosphere, though rather a strange one as my father was Evangelical⁴ and my mother Catholic, but my father had signed letters of mutual concession, which means he had given his word we would be raised according to the Catholic religion. But I don't think that religious atmosphere made any impression at all on our childhood, let alone in adult life. In fact, that religious upbringing turned into an atheistic attitude, and I'd say that I completely excluded religion from my life for several years.

My father was considered a member of the intelligentsia and as that was our social origin, we weren't admitted to university. They didn't even enquire into whether my grandfather had been a Red Army soldier. My sister's greatest desire was to be a doctor. I left Hungary after the '56 Revolution, on 11 January 1957. My sister finished gymnasium⁵ and matriculated, but my father's background in the intelligentsia prevented her getting into the Medical University. My mother asked if I could help my sister succeed in some way. She came out to see me legally, on a passport, and applied for university in Germany. She's now an anaesthesiology specialist in Germany and very happy.

To get back to my father, he had strong left-wing leanings, but he was never a communist. He was most averse to that. And he believed strongly in the peasants and peasant movements. He was devoted to the népi writers⁶ , he lived and died for them. The year of change, 1948, brought a terrible tragedy for our family. My father was deputy director of the Szeged school district at that time, though in practice he was considered the director in Szeged. This was the period when the schools were being nationalized. My father was negotiating with the denominational schools and he gave his word as the man responsible that these schools wouldn't be nationalized, because that is what he had been told at higher levels. A couple of weeks later, they were nationalized, of course. My father was a very serious man of his word, and to prevent his honour and credibility being impaired, he committed suicide. This is definitely the reason he died. The year of change cost my father his life. After that tragic event, we'd no means of making a living any more. The bishop of Csanád provided some very simple, low-paid work for my mother, as warden of the foster home of the Piarist Gymnasium for girls. I went out to work to get the wherewithal to complete the eighth year of gymnasium. Rákosi Bridge was being built in Szeged at the time and I became a caisson welder. The caisson is welded underneath and underwater, so that they paid eight hours' wages for two hours' work, as the job was very, very difficult. In two months I was able to earn a great deal of money by the standards of the time-quite enough to cover my schooling-and I could also help my mother and my little sister, who was two years old at the time. I then studied for matriculation in Csongrád, as the Szeged Piarist Gymnasium had been closed in the meantime.

Even though my father had died under such tragic circumstances, I believed in development. I believed in that atrocious regime, certain that Rákosi, Révai and Gerő wanted the best for us. My first great disillusionment wasn't to be accepted for Technical University, under the pretext: "You're of intelligentsia origin,' or 'your father was a teacher, and that's why you can't go to university." And that just had to be accepted. I tried to resign myself, but I couldn't and didn't really want to. At that time, a relative of someone in my high school class, who was a communist by conviction but a really decent person, told me to get a job at the Almásfüzitő alumina works, where he was communist party secretary at the time. That's how I got into Almásfüzitő as a night watchman after matriculating. Two or three months later, there was a job going in the garage and I got in there as a cleaner. I have the feeling that that man was taking care of my destiny. After that, I found I really liked things to do with electricity and was always going over to where they were making or repairing car electrical systems. When I'd cleaned out the garage, I'd go over to help. After a couple of weeks, some assistant realized I could do the job better than him. So the garage foreman said, "Béla, you've had enough of being a garage rat, be a car electrics mechanic instead." I said, "Great, no problem," and I really, really loved it. I believe I even received an "outstanding worker" award. I was given very good papers and told to go to Budapest, as Budapest was the place I should be.

So in 1951, I turned up in Budapest. The plan was for me to get into the United Incandescent Lamp research laboratory, but I'd have had to wait for two months, which I couldn't do, as I hadn't any money. Someone told me there was another really good place where it was also possible to work with electronics, and that was Rafilm: the Radio and Film Technology Company. This firm came under the Interior Ministry, and we were totally dependent on and subordinate to the so-called "blue ÁVH."⁷ Rafilm was where all the communist party's and Interior Ministry's technical problems were solved.

When the communist party held a meeting or activity, we'd to go and provide amplification for gatherings, processions or parades by supplying loudspeakers and microphones, and wiring everything up. It was important that we made no mistakes, because it would have been a disaster if Rákosi or Gerő or Révai, for instance, were standing there in the midst of a huge gathering on Heroes' Square and the sound went just as they were speaking. The crowd that had been herded out there would have gone home again, as they wouldn't have heard a thing. Technical precision was so important to us that we'd three sources of electrical power, for instance. If the mains should fail, we'd start up a military generator, and if the military generator should also break down, there'd be a reserve. It was announced that technical failures were never to happen. But no failures of any kind ever did occur. If something had happened, then the one who'd made the error would have risked his life, that's a fact.

We were all young professionals at Rafilm, and we totally enjoyed and loved the job. And I think we more or less believed in those ideas, because I for one applied to join the communist party at that time. As I was a very good worker, I was even accepted as a candidate, but at the members' meeting later, I wasn't accepted as a party member after all, because some man called Sándor Körös or Körösi (a district party secretary) stood up and said in front of my colleagues, who knew me and were fond of me, that someone like me, with such a shady family background as mine and being of intelligentsia origin, couldn't be allowed to join their ranks, and he would recommend that I not be accepted into the party. Up to then, everyone had been proposing me, but now everyone voted against me, with one or two exceptions. I was still very young at the time and I couldn't see how this could be, everyone voting for me one minute and trusting I could really be a good communist, then everyone voted against me the next, because my family circumstances had been what they were. They didn't look at my work, they weren't interested in whether I was a good worker or not. My boss, who'd proposed me, was sitting next to me and nudged me in the ribs and whispered, "Béla, not a word, just be happy if we get out of here alive." No one could say a word for me. This whole thing didn't shatter me too much, as I was accepted as an extension student at the Technical University on the low-current studies course, and that was more important than party membership. I was very tired sometimes, but I attended university in the evenings and studied as much as I could.

By the time the summer of '53 came round, a lot of despair had built up in people. We lived pretty well isolated lives at Rafilm. Practically, we were providing technical support for the leadership stratum of the party. If Rákosi wanted to watch a film, then we'd to jump, grab a portable film projector which had been bought for him in Holland, and go down to the party holiday home in Balatonaliga. The security backup was one thousand per cent there as well, so nothing could conk out if there were a power cut. We only showed Rákosi films from the West, which weren't banned from being shown in Hungary. But we started to see there was terrible trouble brewing below stairs. We began to get indifferent and feel things weren't right, and there was going to be trouble.

Our bosses were trained by the ÁVH, but they didn't dare interfere with us too much in case they ruined something, and then their heads would have rolled, not just ours. Though I must say Rafilm did have a very high standard of technology. We were always having visits from America or Switzerland; we worked with Brown-Bovery and the BVC Corporation microwave appliances, and we'd the most up-to-date technical equipment available. Another reason I loved to be there was that it was the one place I could have access to that extraordinarily high-standard technology. We could hold it in our hands and work with it. It was the most highly developed technology of the day, unknown even in the Soviet Union. We were highly enthusiastic and greatly relieved when Imre Nagy became prime minister. I was at the party holiday home many times over the years, I was at every reception in Parliament, and at the military parades. I saw the totally good-for-nothing lifestyle of those villains, but I never saw Imre Nagy among them. Nagy somehow managed to be different from the rogues.

Imre Nagy didn't bring much change in my day-to-day life, though. We couldn't talk about things like that in Rafilm, we'd to work just as hard and precisely, without making any mistake, but we could breathe just a little more freely. The changes were probably behind the fact that the company was shut down. One section was merged into the Post Office and the other into the Mining Industry Research Institute. I ended up at the latter as an electronics engineer, involved with a great many things, but the one I'm most proud of was the rescue monitor. If a mine gallery caved in and the miners were cut off from the outside world, then they could signal they were alive using special, high-performance microphones we installed.

I got married in 1952. I fell deeply in love, and falling in love had to be followed by marriage according to the views of the day. We lived in Lövőház utca, in a bombed-out ruin of a building, whose first floor had fallen into disrepair during the war. My father-in-law, my mother-in-law, my wife's brother and his wife and little child, myself, my wife and our baby, born at that time, all lived in one room. And there was absolutely no hope of solving our housing problem. So the marriage very quickly fell apart.

When Mátyás Rákosi was replaced in July 1956 by Gerő, we thought things would be half a degree better. We hated Rákosi so much that if the devil had been put in his place, it would have been an improvement. Of course we didn't like Gerő either, but we didn't have such a bad opinion of him as we'd of Rákosi. We liked Imre Nagy a lot, but we somehow never thought that decent, principled communist would ever try to put things in order. We didn't dare assume that Imre Nagy would be able to solve the appalling complex of economic and moral disasters, but somehow-rightly or wrongly-a great deal of good became attached to Nagy's name. His presence, speech and writings were very attractive-especially his speech, as he spoke with a good Hungarian style. But Rákosi and that bunch of gangsters and villains were so disagreeable and spoke with such self-confidence that I can't think they even believed in themselves. We felt so strongly that they were lying, they were deceiving the people! When Imre Nagy spoke, or Imre Nagy wrote for the newspaper, somehow everyone trusted what he said, everyone believed it, though Imre Nagy always declared himself to be a communist. We crossed ourselves at the communists, just because they were communists, and that was a very dismissive gesture, but Imre Nagy was different.

So despondency and hatred were general, because the country was in the grasp of such a bunch of villains. And a link was made between them and the concept of communism. It's not the concept of communism that's at fault, because as with any other concept, it's a matter of dispute whether it's good or bad. Perhaps it could have been done nicely, but those villains fouled up that controversial concept. Taking action against them was inconceivable. A friend of mine was sent to prison just for telling a joke on the tram. The point of it was that there was no coal for the winter and "We have won the coal war, we've closed the schools, so on to Lipótmező⁸ with Rákosi to the fore!" He was imprisoned for six years for that. As far as I could see, taking action against them was impossible. Technically, there was one thousand per cent security everywhere, so there couldn't be any action, or rebellion, or sabotage, or if there was, all the technology was in place to prevent it.

It was a totally unexpected and awe-inspiring experience for me to fined that this wonderfully constructed technological terror machine collapsed in effect within a couple of hours.

I went into work as usual on the morning of 23 October 1956. My colleagues were very restless, as there'd been some meeting at the university the previous evening.⁹ They asked me if I'd been there and I said I hadn't. And then they told me, "Well, things were talked about there that would have been unimaginable before." At that, one of my friends said there'd be a rally at the Bem statue¹⁰ in the afternoon. I was some sort of under-boss at that time, because they asked me, "Béla, how can we get out of the Mining Elec," because we'd to get a chit to leave. I said, "Why do you want to get out?" "Because we definitely have to." So I said, "Well then, let's figure something out." I remember well it was written on the chit that we'd to go to the Precision Engineering Loan Enterprise for some electronic instrument or other. That's how we got out.

There was already a big crowd by the Bem statue which really amazed me at first, because there was a ban on assemblies¹¹ , and it was forbidden for as many people as that to gather. I was amazed to see so many people there and wondered why the ÁVH hadn't broken up the crowd. But they hadn't come! After the speeches, word spread that we should move in procession along Szent István körút, so we crossed Margaret Bridge. One of the divisions of Rafilm had been based there-the ones that had joined the Post Office-and there was a Hungarian flag hanging from their balcony. That was the first time I'd seen a flag with the red star cut out from the middle. Once again, I was amazed: where were the ÁVH, weren't they going to come and break up this crowd? Not that I was looking forward to seeing them, because they would have broken me up along with the crowd. In fact, I would have lost my job and everything else with it. With this crowd, I ended up near the Radio station towards the evening. At that point, people were saying that they wanted a speech broadcast from Bródy Sándor Street, and the crowd had to go there to swell the numbers, so that Valéria Benke, chairman of the Radio at the time, would see how big the crowd was and allow them to read out their demands¹² .

	The damaged building of the Hungarian Radio

I didn't know the people walking on my left and right; my colleagues and I had lost sight of each other. I was talking to people I didn't know. It was a quiet procession. Perhaps things like Russians out and down with Rákosi were said, but there wasn't a great deal of yelling. People were talking to each other, even if they weren't acquainted, and everyone talked about their own problems, cares and worries: no flat, or impossible norms at their factory. Dissatisfaction was general. They held the Russians responsible for it all and they wanted the Russian troops withdrawn because the Russians were at fault.

From the Radio in Bródy Sándor utca we ended up back at Parliament, I can't remember how. Imre Nagy came out onto one of the balconies of Parliament for a very short time, and I was winding myself up over the fact that there wasn't a microphone. His voice could hardly be heard, and the crowd certainly didn't hear what he was saying. It really bothered me that there was no microphone, or else everyone would have heard Nagy's voice. We could see him, but we could hear practically nothing, and I would have been able to provide amplification in that Parliament square. After all, I did it at least five times a year. Somehow it then spread through the crowd that the radio hadn't broadcast the 16-point demands¹³ , so some of the crowd set off back to the Radio in Bródy Sándor utca. It was already getting dark as the crowd streamed up a side street leading into Bródy Sándor utca. We covered the road and both pavements. All at once, we heard shots. We couldn't believe they were shooting at us. I just noticed that the cartridges were cracking very hard onto the tarmac. A young man next to me got a wound in his leg. A shot ripped his trousers, but it didn't bleed much. And the crowd weren't alarmed and just kept on going. We didn't really believe we could die from a bullet in the heart or the body. Then they started shooting even more from somewhere above us. But they were just individual shots, not a burst from an automatic machine gun. Then people formed into a large group on the right hand side of the road, because someone was either killed there or very seriously injured. When we realized that, we suddenly ran for the walls of the buildings. I saw with my own eyes how the blue ÁVH arrived in a white ambulance. Uniformed, armed blue ÁVH were sitting in the back where the stretcher would usually be. The man sitting in the driving seat had a white coat on, but everyone could see from his neck that he had a uniform on underneath. The collar insignia were showing. The people were enraged by the fact that they'd used an ambulance to get there. They hadn't come in the ambulance to rescue people, they'd come to kill them. By then, I could see the crowd threatening them with fists and yelling, "Down with the ÁVH!" At that point, they started shooting so much that we were gripped with fear. The ÁVH existed after all! The next thing was that we would have to occupy the Radio. I, as a technician, knew that occupying the Radio was totally pointless, because we wouldn't achieve anything; there was no microphone there anyway, it was somewhere else. It turned out later that that there was one in the Parliament, and at the Lakihegy transmitter. It was the intention of the crowd, though, to occupy the Radio. Up till then, I hadn't seen anyone with weapons by the Radio. I saw the armed troops for the first time when we were returning in little groups from Bródy Sándor utca, because the situation had become so hazardous due to the shooting.

In front of the headquarters of Szabad Nép¹⁴ , Hungarian soldiers with red, white and green armbands were distributing guns from a Hungarian military vehicle. That was when I saw civilians with guns for the first time.

By the time we arrived in front of the Szabad Nép offices, it had already got dark. Ernő Gerő made a speech on the radio that evening, which I didn't hear, but all those in the crowd who heard it said with was something atrocious! It was just as appalling as Rákosi.

By then, there was a very big crowd by the National Theatre. I set off with the crowd towards the City Park, from where we wouldn't budge until we'd knocked down the statue of Stalin. That was another thing that spread through the crowd. All at once someone said, "Let's go," and off we went. When we got out there, the statue was still standing, but the base was already being cut. They were trying to pull the bronze apart and somehow knock the thing down. They were hitting the side of the boot of the statue with mallets. Then they finally knocked it over, thank God! It fell down right in front of me. Everyone just prayed that the rogue wouldn't crush anyone to death. But the way they managed to knock it over was to bring big vehicles and steel ropes; they tied ship's cables round its neck and pulled it down that way. This really pleased the crowd, as they hated Stalin. I saw how dangerous this was, because several steel cables had sparked and split. Then they tied even more ropes round the neck, and more vehicles joined in the pulling. The crowd started saying they wouldn't leave until they'd knocked Stalin down. We were having a laugh, we were in good spirits. We were convinced we had to achieve this, and checked our watches to see when Stalin's statue fell. It was such a wonderful feeling! I'm happy to have seen it.

After that, the crowd calmed down, but it didn't disperse. On the evening of the 23rd, I even went to the Hungarian Defence League¹⁵ radio transmitter, which had been made available for amateur radio contacts, because I was curious to know whether the world knew anything about the uprising. I tried to find a few wavelengths, Free Europe, this and that, but I couldn't find anything. I'd just established contact with a Czechoslovak radio ham, whom I'd talked to before, and asked him if he knew that there was a revolt underway in Hungary. He said no, he didn't know anything. There was another man in there, who wrote down on a bit of paper that there was a revolution in Hungary, and he asked me if it would go out on the radio if we read it. I said it would get through-this was a pretty powerful transmitter. We read that text continuously until around two or three o'clock in the morning, on 40-metre shortwave, if I remember rightly. Our transmission could have been received by radio amateurs abroad, and as things turned out, the transmission was heard in a lot of places. It was definitely heard in Czechoslovakia, because I asked later if the ham could hear it. He could, but he didn't dare comment, or didn't know what to say about it. I was sure the transmission had reached the antenna.

We stopped early in the morning on October 24. At two o'clock, on the same transmitter, we broadcast the text composed by the Technical University students, in Hungarian and English, and Russian too, I think. The approximate content of the text was that we wished to inform the neighbouring peoples and the nations of the world, that if they were unaware of the events in Hungary, then we would inform then on this radio channel that large crowds in Hungary had rebelled against the Soviet Union, and we were afraid that the official Hungarian Radio would provide a false report, or no report at all. The name of the station was HA 5 KBK. I later learnt that the transmission had been heard in the West, and as far as I know, Radio Free Europe also received it.

It was getting light, and although I was very tired, I didn't dare go home to my flat, as I was afraid that as one who'd worked so much for the Interior Ministry, the ÁVH and the party headquarters, I'd be held accountable. I was simply afraid of being caught by the ÁVH. I didn't need to be wary of any insurgents. I went off with my friends to have a sleep in the Law Faculty of Péter Pázmány University¹⁶ , where there were large dormitories and young Hungarian soldiers had brought in a heap of straw sacks. We slept there a lot, with others who were also afraid to go home.

On the morning of the 24th, we heard that Soviet troops were coming into the boulevard. We'd hardly slept at all before we were woken up and told we had to get hold of weapons and fight the Soviet troops. We weren't at all surprised at this, in fact we were surprised they hadn't come before then. I met a few acquaintances there and we tried to think where we could get some weapons. Someone suggested the central police station in Deák tér¹⁷ , saying they were distributing weapons there to all young people. So off we went there, to find very amiable soldiers and young policemen distributing weapons at a side entrance¹⁸ . They made a note of the weapon's serial number and then gave us a little white card with our name written on it and a red, white and green stripe across¹⁹ . I think the card said "National Guard Identity Card". I kept mine for a long time, but when I escaped into Yugoslavia, I threw all my documents away, so I would have no compromising papers on me. Anyway, I was given a brand new Russian cartridge-drum submachine gun. We then went up into some room, and the soldiers showed us how to use the weapon.

Our group went back from there to the university, where someone spoke to me. He may have been a writer or someone who was a communist on principle. I didn't know him, but he knew me from somewhere. He said, "Béla, you here and with a weapon? What are you doing here?" I said, "What am I doing here? The same as you." He then said, "Béla, don't even think about going around shooting in the streets. Your duty is to organize technical support for the revolution, together with your friends." This man spoke very persuasively. He explained that it would be a pity for me to be wounded or killed in the street fighting, because I knew the places where "we"--that's how he put it--could strike with the greatest effect. He knew the places I had worked in, and he also knew which important places I was familiar with. To this day I don't know who that man was. He said, "Let's see what's happening in the big telephone exchanges and in Petőfi Sándor utca, because there's a room there where even telephonists aren't not allowed in, guarded by the ÁVH, and only plain-clothes ÁVH can enter.

So we went into the big telephone exchange in Petőfi Sándor utca. It sort of emerged that I was in unofficial command of this little detachment of five or six men, but I didn't want to play any kind of boss. A full-time student from the Technical University was with me, studying law, because he could speak Russian very well, so if we somehow came into contact with Russians, we'd always have an interpreter on hand. Also there was a very good friend of mine, a very good technician and a convinced communist. There was a girl with us who was a wire telephone expert, and who constructed telephone exchanges. Someone was needed who could put on a very decisive appearance. I said we wanted to get into the room that forwarded the telephone lines of the diplomatic corps to Buda Castle, where we could tap in and listen to them. Our aim was to disconnect the Petőfi Sándor utca telephone exchange, so that the ÁVH wouldn't be able to eavesdrop on telephone conversations any more.

The postal workers were very much afraid of opening that door for us. I can't remember how they addressed me, whether as comrade or sir, but they said no one was allowed in there, and would we go in on our own responsibility? I said I would accept full responsibility and if they didn't open up that instant we'd shoot the lock off. At that, some locksmith turned up from somewhere and opened up the rooms. Inside, there were texts of tapped telephone conversations and copies of telexes exchanged between diplomats, foreign representatives and their mother countries, piled up to the ceiling. There were cables too, from which all the conversations could be tapped in Petőfi Sándor utca via the monitoring centre. Every conversation could be passed on to the recording room. The postal workers had never set foot in there in their lives. The postal employees said that people would come and go from time to time, but when the door was opened, they weren't even allowed to be present.

What we did was to cut through the mass of cables leading to the tapping centre, so there'd be no connection. This was our first technical action, and I think, considering the matter in hindsight too, we did more for the revolution with this, than if we'd been on some street corner shooting at the Russians. I didn't like people being killed, even if they were attacking. It took us a good half day to cut through the cable connections - there were thousands and tens of thousands of cables leading to the monitoring centre. When we came out of there, the postal workers were pretty well scared to death. They locked the rooms up again, and we came away as those who had done a good job.

We heard on the street there was a lot of shooting on the Boulevard. We didn't want to get involved in the fighting, so we went back to the Law Faculty. Once there, we asked for that particular member to be told that the matter had been dealt with. The man sent a message back to us that the Russians were receiving a lot of news broadcasts from the Március 15. tér building of the Hungarian-Soviet Shipping Enterprise, where there was a radio transmitter. We should go there and shut that radio transmitter down. I said, "All right, we'll go."

So we went. I still remember that the ground floor premises were full of Russians in civilian clothes. Those poor plain-clothes Russians-I suppose they must have been employed there. They were so terrified to death when they saw us, it was bad to look at them. The weapon we took was necessary, because it gave us authority. Because if someone went in there in plain clothes, with nothing, he'd just get a thick ear or-excuse the expression-get his arse kicked. We needed the weapon to give the impression we had some power. We didn't want to do any shooting at all.

I immediately said through the Russian interpreter from the Law Faculty that we wouldn't hurt them, they could do what they wanted, I just wanted to go up to the top floor where their shortwave transmitter was, which as far as I knew was being used by the Soviet army. And we couldn't tolerate having that transmitter in the Soviet Army's hands. I have a feeling that by the time we got up to the transmitter room, the ones who'd been working there had escaped. We found the equipment as good as switched on, but there wasn't a soul about. We felt we shouldn't be destructive. I could have shot the whole thing to bits with the submachine gun and left it a wreck, but no, we somehow didn't like destroying things. We took out the power valves-the soul of a shortwave transmitter like that-put them in big boxes and took them all away. We left them a paper saying we'd taken 12 or 13 Swiss Brown-Bovery power valves, because the Russian civilians were very distressed about what might happen to them, because they'd be in really big trouble, and asked us for a paper. What we took away from there was very valuable in those days. The paper really didn't cost anything, so I signed it.

We were almost always on the move during the revolution days. We didn't listen to the radio, there wasn't anything on anyway, there was just music playing all the time, and speeches like, "Rabble, lay down your weapons, because this or that's going to happen."

A few days later we got hold of a bus. It had been a blue bus²⁰ originally, running on the Boulevard, but it wasn't working by then; traffic was at a standstill. We really needed that bus as we always had to be going somewhere. The driver was a nice, elderly man. He asked, "What do you want lads? I'll take you where you want to go!" I said, "All right, so this'll be our bus." After that, our little technical team always got around on that bus."

After we'd knocked out the transmitter at the Hungarian-Soviet Shipping Enterprise, we went off to the Technical University. They knew I was familiar with receivers and telecommunications equipment based on American technology. We set up a receiver centre for the students, on the top floor of the university, with a separate antenna for each radio, so we could receive all the news sources in parallel and not have to be switching constantly between the major radio stations. So we tuned each receiver to a different station, so they'd receive the news separately; for instance, you could listen to the BBC all the time, or on another one to the Vatican. This was just a receiver centre, there were no transmitters. Once we'd got these receivers at the Technical University working, we moved on.

Radio transmission in Hungary was achieved over a so-called modulation line running from Bródy Sándor utca to the transmitter at Lakihegy. The broadcast passed along this line to a large transmission tower, and there was a similar modulation line running from Parliament. I was told to try and solve the problem of tapping into this modulation line somewhere, so that broadcasts could be made to the Lakihegy transmitter from either the Technical University or the Law Faculty. The particular person who'd given us the tips at the Law Faculty then asked me to look for this modulation-line system, as it had to be underneath Budapest somewhere. After all, the modulations didn't reach the transmitter through the air, but along a line. It was a pretty impossible request, and unfortunately it couldn't be carried out. We did put a lot of work into it, we did a lot of looking and speculating, but we didn't manage it. First of all, we'd have had to find the line, then link into it with large amplifying stages, as there were at Rafilm, so that the Lakihegy transmitter would also send out our broadcasts. This couldn't be done, unfortunately. We later heard that if the Russians had found out the Lakihegy transmitter was broadcasting our signals, they'd have blown it up anyway. Not the antenna itself, just important technical components. There were blue ÁVH men guarding the transmitter at the time, and as far as I know, the revolutionaries couldn't get their hands on Lakihegy and occupy it until November 4. The ÁVH were guarding the Lakihegy transmitter very closely.

We were trying to do something about the modulation line for a very long time; we worked on it from October 27 to November 1. Then we gave up, because we couldn't solve the problem and we were very tired by then. It was awful to experience that we didn't succeed, and by then we knew that a great many young people had died in the city. On All Soul's Day, November 1, there were candles burning in every window. We then gave up the search in very low spirits, because we couldn't solve the task: we weren't able to get hold of the Lakihegy transmitter for the revolutionaries.

In the meantime, Imre Nagy had announced a ceasefire on the 28th and fighting finally started to died down; by November 1st there was no more shooting in the city. We were very happy that the ceasefire was announced, and two days later, that the multi-party system was to be restored and the old coalition parties reconstituted, Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact and become a neutral country. We believed that this was possible, we believed in it one thousand per cent. At the time, we weren't even afraid the Russians would come. We'd seen them retreat. We'd seen how afraid they were. We were somehow too confident in our own power, we believed the insurgents represented a major force. We believed strongly in our own strength. Yet I never saw anything like Russian soldiers being shot or killed, or anyone being lynched by a mob. On Köztársaság tér, though, where an ÁVH officer was hung up by his legs, there really was a gathering of very ugly, vindictive people. We were on our way there, but someone told us not to go, as it was awful even to watch, so we went away. I then found out that everyone coming out of the party building in Köztársaság tér was shot and killed.

We had no relations at all with the insurgent groups. One night at the Pázmány University, where we'd gone to sleep, we were asked what we did by insurgents who were also sleeping there. I said we just solved technical problems. At that, they almost shot me dead, because how come I was going against the revolution like that? There was only one important thing to do there and that was to shoot the Russians. In other words, they very rudely questioned our role and didn't want to understand at all. Luckily we had weapons too and there was a submachine gun hanging round my neck. I said, "Look, if you don't understand (everyone addressed each other in the familiar form then), perhaps you'll understand my submachine gun. He backed off at that and it was sorted out. They were very rough Hungarian labourers.

But some marvellous things happened as well. Later on, some young people from the Miklós Zrínyi Military Academy linked up with our group for a while. Their attitude was very anti-Russian. These officers' school students later went off with some resistance group either in Corvin köz or Kálvin tér²¹ , but before that, a lot of them had been with us. They gave us armed protection, although they never actually had to defend us by force of arms. It was enough to show we also had weapons and could deal with all these technical matters.

When we'd seen there was no way to tap into the modulation line and gain access to the Lakihegy transmitter, I thought the most important thing was to get the high-powered radio transmitter working at the Hungarian Defence League centre by Deák tér. The ÁVH didn't really know about that; the organization had been smashed up anyway. They'd run off in as many directions as there were people. I don't know how we thought of it, or who brought it up first.

We went to the place and I checked to see if everything was in order technically, whether the high-powered transmitter could be put into operation at a moment's notice, but it wasn't in any state to be operated. This we found out precisely on November 3. An engineer friend of mine had a commutator switch for the transformers, without which you couldn't operate the transmitter. So around midnight on the 3rd, we went out to his flat in Buda. He was really scared when he saw us. I said, "Listen, we need this transmitter, we just have to have it. Come with us," I said, "or if you don't want to come, give us the switches and tell us how to turn on the large transformer." He wavered about what to do, he was very frightened. And he had a reason to be.. This was the early morning of November 4. But he came anyway.

It was getting light on the morning of November 4 when we set off in our bus. At first we wanted to cross Kossuth Bridge, the one next to Margaret Bridge, but it had been closed by Russian soldiers. Then we saw there were big tanks on the Pest side of the Danube following each other closely, all T-54s with flat tops, modern by the standards of the time. I knew it would be very hard to fight against them technically, but I trusted-I don't know why-that America wouldn't let us down. We technicians knew that what we needed most to carry on the struggle against the Russian was anti-tank weaponry. We couldn't go into battle with light weapons. There were very few armoured cars you could knock out by throwing a bottle of petrol. I saw often that when a petrol bomb was thrown, the petrol or oil would spread out over the tank and burn on the outside, but the tank wouldn't catch fire and just went on its way. I didn't see a single tank gutted by a petrol bomb.

	Tanks in Harmat street

For some reason, God knows why, we always believed the Americans would deliver us anti-tank weapons by cargo plane. We knew the airfields were blocked, so our technical team decided to enable transports to land at Budapest Ferihegy Airport, with the help of a radio navigation beam. The task of the team would be to welcome the cargo planes at Ferihegy Airport. It was a pipe dream, but it could have happened. The whole thing remained a plan, although we had the materials for receiving the planes. I didn't listen to Radio Free Europe, but we were told we were being encouraged to persevere, as the Americans were coming. I said, "Poor things, they can't land without air control," which called for major technical equipment.

I knew this amateur radio transmitter in Budapest had to be put into operation on November 4 at all costs. And Margaret Bridge still hadn't been blocked. So I said to our good old driver, "Pista, we really have to get over to Pest." He said, "My dear boy, it's not possible, we will be shot by a tank." And sure enough, they were rolling up and down one after the other in all directions. And the floor of the bus was full of the weapons we'd chucked there. I said, "Pista, there's just one way, we line up between the barrel and the back of a tank somehow and slip through." I was very frightened, but I knew this type of tank had no view to the side. And just as I thought, we slipped through to the Pest end of Margaret Bridge between the gun barrel of one tank and the back of another. I said, "Pista, if you get shot, I'll drive on, as I can drive a bus." He said, "Fine, let's go as quick as we can." He drove very fast. At full speed across Margaret Bridge! We were pretty scared. Those T-54s were just lining up in front of Parliament. I said, "Pista, if we get across, turn right straight away." We turned to the right and I could see from the bus that one of the Russian tanks was turning after us with a lot of creaking. Maybe he wanted to shoot at us, or maybe just brush us aside. It didn't matter, we vanished from before his eyes. We managed to get into the largest amateur radio transmitter in Budapest, and get it working. It had an output of more than a kilowatt, which is pretty high power for shortwave, and suitable for communicating all round the world.

I can't remember how, but we were given the text of Imre Nagy's declaration²² . This we read out continuously from four or five in the morning until eleven o'clock on the night of November 4. We just kept repeating the text in Hungarian and above all English. There were some there from the university who spoke English and Russian well. Budapest was under attack from armed Russian troops, our units were fighting the Russians, and we were informing the world of that situation. We knew it could be heard all over the world.

Radio Kossuth was shut down around seven or half past, but our radio went on a lot longer. Then the Russians stumbled on the modulation line near Lakihegy, and somehow managed to find a technical solution for stopping us transmitting as well.

As we came through the Castle from Széna tér and saw the Russian tanks from above, we felt terribly despondent. I felt we had to keep on doing everything we could technically, but I was exasperated. I had even given up hope of American help. I saw the technological preparedness, an organized army arriving with modern armoured weaponry, tanks, I saw we couldn't fight against that. I saw it would be very hard to do anything about those T-34s just with petrol bombs.

Then on November 4 in the afternoon, we went back to the university to sleep. There were still a great many armed insurgents there, but the atmosphere was terribly despondent. Then came the question of what to do next. These university buildings had been well blown apart with some trench mortars and that depressed us as well. We saw the Russian tanks doing pointless destruction. The so-called assault guns came in, one with a barrel to the right, another to the left. They moved forward in a line and fired at regular intervals, without aiming at any target, just to destroy. This was terribly depressing for us, because we'd got used to that building. They were just demolishing the city for no purpose. During the great devastation, in the street round the back of Bródy Sándor utca, the zoological museum²³ burst into flames and a great conflagration developed. We were just fitting antennae on the roofs of nearby buildings. The young people from the Zrínyi Academy were helping us too, so there would be as many transmitters as possible: if one was destroyed, then another would still work. The most important thing for a radio is to have an aerial. The rest of the equipment can be transported here or there by car, but the antenna is very important on a city scale. In the evening, the Russians were even shooting at the firemen putting out the museum fire, from some armoured car with rubber tyres. The inhuman attitude really depressed us, but we were still aware that we must not give up these technical operations. I knew we mustn't get involved in the armed conflict. We couldn't compete with the Russians' modern weaponry. But I somehow thought that technically we could still resist effectively by providing a radio link with the outside world.

We continued this work for a long time, up to December 15, but under increasingly difficult circumstances. We tried to install transmitters everywhere. Then messages were sent via these, that the Russians were destroying and murdering with great cruelty in Hungary. Messages something like this were sent, but I don't know any more details because we just provided the technical essentials, the programmes were probably put together at the university.

When we were finished with a transmitter, we notified the university that transmitter so and so was operational. As far as I know, the revolutionary committee was still functioning even after November 4 in the Pázmány University, but we returned there less and less frequently, as there were increasing numbers of Russians in the city during the day.

After November 15, I just kept a handgun on me for self-defence; we hid the larger weapons away in a good place at the university. Later I didn't even take a pistol with me, because of the identity checks. One night on the way to Munkácsy utca, I was checked by the Russians and a very suspicious Hungarian who looked like an ÁVH man. I was very scared of being shot, because my bag was full of technical drawings for shortwave transmitters; I was taking the circuit diagrams to a radio station. Even after November 4, we fitted an HA 5 KBK in the National Defence League clubhouse and an HA 5 KBA in Deák tér, and at the Technical University we installed an aerial system and a receiver centre. This was a regular receiver-transmitter system, although it was temporary.

In the specific cases I heard of transmissions being made and being received abroad, these were sent from the HA5 KBK broadcasting station, and from Deák tér from the HA 5 KBA transmitter there. This was even heard in France-I have precise information about that. In fact, the KBA transmitter calls, messages and programmes were heard all over Europe and even in South America.

By the beginning of December, arrests were being made. I got a message around November 15 from the Mining Elec where I worked, because they knew where I was, telling me not to go into the works at all, because the ÁVH had been there looking for me several times. My wife-I didn't get on that well with her, but she was still afraid for me-sent several messages via acquaintances saying I shouldn't go home. When I got those messages in the mid-November, telling me not to go home and not to go to work, I became even more despondent. I trusted in miracles, non-existent miracles, because there was no way I wanted to leave the country. Many people were leaving by then, but I didn't want to. We'd heard via Radio Free Europe from two university students in my group, reporting that they'd arrived in Vienna. I was very glad they hadn't been caught, because I think they'd have had a ruthless revenge taken on them. There was the bus, which we still had up to November 15. We could have left in that, but we didn't consider it for a moment. We didn't consider it, we just considered all the time how we might do as much as possible for the technical needs of the revolution. That's what we thought of.

I went to my mother's in Csongrád for Christmas. She'd already heard from friends what I'd got myself mixed up in, so she welcomed me by saying, "Good Lord, son, haven't you left for the West yet?" I had to promise her that I'd go. I spent Christmas there, but my mother was terrified I might be caught even in Csongrád. After Christmas, I returned to Budapest and slept in one of the student hostels at Pázmány University, but I felt increasingly that the circle was gradually tightening round me. I began to be afraid I'd be caught, so I sent them all off, so no one else would be bumped off on account of me or what I did. I told them to go, saying there was nothing more to be done. The revolution was sacred to me, but I had to admit it couldn't be continued. I felt responsible: my God, if these young people were caught because of me, they'd be cruelly tortured. Then I saw close at home what the ÁVH were up to. And somehow I kept hearing my mother's voice. Still, we weren't afraid of death. After November 4, we almost longed for it, so despondent had we become.

I still had pangs of conscience as I set off for Yugoslavia on January 11, 1957. I'd kept myself hidden up to then. I'm even amazed myself in retrospect that I hadn't been caught. They'd been looking for me at work, at my flat, and several times at my wife's. I knew they were looking for me and trying to arrest me; they'd found out there was a group that dealt with those technical matters. Fortunately, no one from my team was caught; we all made it to the West in the end. I was the last to leave. I was the biggest idiot for not leaving sooner. The western border was already known to be closed. We knew that very well. I went by train as far as Szeged, and I walked quite alone across into Yugoslavia, along the embankment in Szeged, where we'd done a lot of boating and kayaking at one time. By then, there were identity checks on the trains to the western border, but nothing at Szeged.

Later I returned to Szeged once again on foot. I knew there was a friend of mine coming on another train and he was really afraid to set out alone. I'd arranged to meet him at a tram stop in Újszeged. Come on, I told him, there's no problem.... I'd already been that way and I'd known these parts very well as a kid. You could hide in the trees and bushes if there was any danger. Come on, I said, the coast's clear. We were already pretty deep into Yugoslavia, we'd gone a good 10-11 kilometres, when suddenly some camouflaged Yugoslav border guards jumped out. They told me-I could still speak a few words of Russian then-to put my hands up and not to move. Well, I put my hands up, of course. They frisked us to see if we had any weapons on us, and then took us to a reception camp.

In the camp they first took us to, we were interrogated several times a day and everything was put down in writing. They searched us to see if we had any weapons on us. I said we hadn't. They searched through everything, but they couldn't find anything but a few clean clothes. I believe the interrogations were ordered by the Serbian political police. Nonetheless, we were very appreciative of the fact that they hadn't handed us back to the Hungarian authorities, as there were rumours that the Yugoslavs were sending people back. But only two young people were taken back: the son of a government minister and his girlfriend, who was also from some big communist family. But they'd been sent for by their parents.

I was very fond of American technology, but I was very angry with the Americans for not helping us during the revolution. I had several relatives who'd been in America since the Second World War and while I was still in the Yugoslav camp, I received guarantee papers allowing me to go to America, but I didn't use them. I didn't go because I didn't want to leave Europe; I didn't want to go to America because I was really sick of the Americans, and somehow I always believed that the Russians would leave Hungary and I'd soon be back. And that's why I didn't want to leave Europe, so I'd be as close as possible to Hungary. I really believed that sooner or later, I could continue to build up Hungary technologically. Today even I'm surprised at how idiotic I was.

Otherwise, the camp was a regular market place for people. Delegates came from several countries seeking experts in this or that field: were a candidate's teeth good, were his legs all right, had he had his appendix out, was his heart still in good order? America, for instance, was very picky at the time about who they took. I was really disgusted by that. Once a French delegation came and said if anyone felt he'd fled from Hungary because of his political views, he could go to France. It didn't matter, they wouldn't ask what his profession was or what languages he could speak. It was very important to the Americans that people could speak English or had a guarantor in America. I had a guarantee, but I didn't even take it out of my pocket. Then when the French said everyone who felt he was a political refugee could go to France, I somehow knew in a moment that was what I needed. I'd go to France, I didn't need American wealth. But for a long time, the Yugoslavs wanted me to stay there. They definitely wanted me to work at Zagreb Television, because television broadcasting was just being launched there as well. The Yugoslavs had an extremely good intelligence service. They found out that my grandmother was a Greskovits and I was half Serbian. I was given identity papers too, allowing me to travel freely by train from the camp to Belgrade. They definitely wanted me to stay there. I finally got away from them in October 1957.

When I got to France, I was sent to Combray at first. The system was that the French army put the Hungarians up in empty barracks and provided food and medical treatment as well. We also ended up in an old French barracks, but it was still quite habitable. The French army started by taking me off for a chest X-ray and it was found that I had some kind of lung infection. I'd lost weight through malnutrition and was down to 49 kilos. They hadn't starved us in Yugoslavia, that's not true, but I think we'd been given only the bare minimum. Sometimes there'd been problems with distribution, and once we'd only eaten rice for a whole month, for instance. And there wasn't any salt for the rice. Once, a friend of mine, an engineer from Széna tér who ended up in Switzerland, came over to our camp. Where they were, they'd had wagonloads of chocolate distributed to them by an American association, so they'd only eaten chocolate for a month. In another camp they'd eaten nothing but absolutely top quality Danish butter for two months. The Yugoslavs weren't being malicious. These things weren't done on purpose, as revenge on someone. It was just general lack of organization. The provisions were much better in France.

My first job was with a television repair service. I really loved repairing television sets. I didn't even need to know the language for that. In fact, they told me to write down everything in Hungarian, and the secretary bought a Hungarian dictionary, and what I wrote on the worksheet in Hungarian, they tried to translate into French.

The French state provided a free two-month language course for refugees. It was offered to me too, but I was too stupid to accept it. I liked doing the televisions so much that I begrudged spending the time. It was very stupid, and I've never been able to write French properly. I can speak French very well, with an accent of course, and I like reading it too, but I can't even write it badly. I started to work with this television service in 1957 and I was there until 1 February 1962. Then a factory owner from there somehow found out that there was an electronics expert working in the service and asked to borrow me, as his electronics engineer had left. I said I'd go, but just for a month or two, because I liked my work very much. The month or two turned into a good few years. I went there on 1 February 1962 and left on 15 March 1988. As I was well over 55, I took advantage of the chance for early retirement. The factory owner didn't ask me for any kind of papers, I didn't need papers to prove I understood my profession. I constructed all sorts of things there. I really enjoyed it, and I was always in a supervisory position. I think that the workers there were very fond of me and I built up good relations with them.

I got married again in France, to a very dear Hungarian colleague of mine. She was a girl I'd worked with all through the revolution. The relationship produced three children, but I liked working so much and I loved my profession so much that it broke down and we got a divorce.

As for Hungarians, I didn't try to make any contacts with them. I have a friend in Paris, but I hardly know any other Hungarians at all. I don't keep in touch with the Hungarian Catholic mission either. I was afraid of making Hungarian contacts, I don't know why. When my first baby was born, I thought it would be correct to clarify my citizenship status. I acquired French citizenship simply out of consideration for my children. But I still have Hungarian citizenship to this day; I have not relinquished it and I don't think I ever will.

I went home for the first time in 1978. I was in Belgrade with my wife when I had the crazy idea that I ought to visit my mother. I went to the Hungarian Embassy where I ran into a Hungarian girl I knew, we'd been at high school together. I probably wouldn't have got home if I hadn't known someone there. As it was, I rushed off home to my mother's in Csongrád with a passport and a visa, in other words, not in secret. But on the way back I felt as if I was escaping again, I hadn't enjoyed it at all. Perhaps I was still afraid. Since then, I've been back to Hungary twice. I enjoyed myself so much this year that I've become homesick for the first time in my life.

1 Northern Transylvania was returned to Hungary on 30 August 1940, under the Hitler-brokered Second Vienna Award.

2 Cristuru Secuiesc

3 probably a station on the Deda-Saratel line is meant

4 Lutheran

5 academically oriented secondary school

6 a literary movement devoting itself to rural society

7 The border guards were under the State Security Authority and known as the "green ÁVH" to distinguish them from the "blue" or internal forces (secret police etc.)

8 the main Budapest mental hospital

9 The meeting held on the night of 22-3 October 1956 in the hall of the Technical University of Transportation and the Construction Industry, where the 16 points were compiled.

10 of József Bem, a Polish general in the Hungarian army in the 1848-9 war

11 was no ban on assemblies in Hungary in force on 23 October 1956. Although an Interior Ministry statement banning demonstrations had been broadcast over Radio Kossuth at 12.53, it was announced at 14.23 that the Interior Ministry had allowed the demonstration to proceed. A ban on assemblies was then decreed in the early morning of October 24.

12 on the Radio

13 formulated at the Technical University the previous day

14 the central communist daily paper

15 The predecessor of the HDL in 1956 was the Hungarian Voluntary Defence League.

16 Already renamed the Loránd Eötvös University of Science in 1956.

17 Deák tér held the Budapest police headquarters, then known as the Main Budapest Department of the Interior Ministry.

18 Research so far has failed to confirm that weapons were being distributed to insurgents at the Budapest police headquarters as early as October 24.

19 A national guard provided with identity cards such as those described here was only set up after the ceasefire of October 28.

20 a Budapest city bus

21 After the ceasefire was announced, military officers and students were ordered to join the armed forces.

22 Imre Nagy's radio speech was first heard on Radio Kossuth at 5.20, announcing that Budapest was under attack by Soviet troops.

23 This was a department of the National Museum. The material in it was almost entirely destroyed in the fire.

Interviewer: János Rainer M.. Date: 1988.
Editor: Györgyi Bindorffer, Pál Gyenes.
Translator: Adrian Bury.