Wittner, Mária: 'I have pangs of conscience at still being alive'

I was born in Budapest on June 9, 1937. I wasn’t raised in a family, I was placed with foster parents until I was two years old. Family was only a distant concept in my imagination until my own second son was born. Before that, I just had a few vague ideas about what a family could be like. I was then placed in a convent, with the Carmelites on Maglódi utca. Later I was taken to the country, where the order had another school. In 1948, nationalization year, I was taken to my grandmother’s place for the first time in one of the school breaks. That was the first time I’d left the convent. Up to that point, I’d thought my mother was dead, but that spring, at the age of 12, I found out under rather strange circumstances that she was alive after all. I was playing outside in the courtyard, when a woman arrived with a little girl. I said hello, and so did they. The little girl stayed outside in the courtyard with me to play, and then she said she would tell me something, but I mustn’t give her away. That woman was my mother, and she was my little sister. I probably failed to grasp this at the time. Then when Mothers’ Day came round, it finally sank in that for the first time in my life, I could write a card to someone.

My first thought was joy at having a mother as well. I thought a lot about this later, even though I might never have known that she was still alive. She’d never loved me, I’d never felt the warmth of a mother’s love. Later, when I received a death sentence, I wrote to her asking that if I were hanged, could she at least forgive her grandchild and take him in. Of course, I don’t know what there was for her to forgive. Perhaps me, for being born? But I never got a reply! There was I in the most appalling situation, suspended between life and death, all hope lost, and my mother wouldn’t come to see me.

I sometimes think about her, she must be very old by now. I could have forgiven everything, if I could have just felt once, just a little bit, that she loved me. There are moments when I’m not angry with her that I’d always been an embarrassment and a burden to her, who had to be denied, whose existence was inconvenient, whose father wasn’t even Hungarian, but a Persian carpet maker and trader of Iranian origin. Not one of my brothers and sisters was born in legal wedlock, so perhaps that’s why she had to be ashamed of us, why we were an embarrassment to her.

My life in the convent was relatively carefree. I learnt a great deal, I did handicrafts – I suppose they instilled a love of work into me as well. We were always being drummed up for some kind of light work, especially in the summer break. Somehow everything was in order there, everything was in its place. It’s a period I still think fondly back on. After all, those were the years when I was given a foundation for life. They also taught me faith there, although I’m not very religious. I believe because everyone has to; I believe in God. On the other hand, I prefer to go to church by myself and pray in my own way.

Then in the 1950s, I was taken into state care instead, into an institution in Ikervár. I completed the seventh and eighth years of school there. By that time, I adored painting and drawing and I was showing some talent for them as well. My teachers encouraged me too, so I applied to go to the fine-arts secondary school. I became really excited by the prospect and all my teachers said there was no way I was going to be rejected. I was rejected... So I was hastily pushed into the Sárvár secondary school for languages and science, although I’d have preferred to go in for arts subjects, those were my strong points, whereas I couldn’t cope with the sciences. I didn’t like mathematics or physics and I dropped out of school after the second year. Then I was taken down to Szolnok, to the Children and Youth Protection Institute there.

There in Szolnok I got to know Patkós, he was the principal of the institute. I’m still in touch with him today. That man continually visited me in prison for 13 years and brought my child to see me too. After my release, he was the one who set me up in life and helped me wherever and whenever he could. I probably couldn’t have coped at all without his help. Because I had to relearn how to move about freely – of course I mean “freely” in the sense as it was understood at that time – I had to learn to live, I had to learn how to handle money, I even had to learn how to breathe again. For example, when I came out, I was quite incapable of finding my way round a self-service store. I had to learn everything. As I walked down the street, I felt I had it written in big letters on my forehead that I’d just come out of prison. I felt ill at ease all the time and the feeling’s hardly ever left me. I had to get over all that. That man and his wife helped me a great deal. This is what he told me, “Now listen you, kindly keep your mouth shut from now on, because if they lock you up again for any reason, I can’t run around after you next time, because up to now I always had that child of yours to think of. But if you hadn’t been the sort of person you are, I wouldn’t have lifted a finger for you.” I’ll never forget that as long as I live, because the rest of the world wasn’t as good as him. I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. It’ll always stay in me like a splinter, like a thorn in the flesh, how we were actually treated, and what we were put through morally. We were the dregs, we were worse than the ones who’d killed their mothers or fathers, because they were people who’d gone astray, who’d just sinned against one person, whereas we were against the whole of society. We were made aware of that almost everywhere, particularly in prison.

I saw and experienced one or two things after that. I’d always compare. Well, we’re the dregs, they said, and we’re the thieves, but it’s amazing what the comrades get up to, isn’t it? Whilst I was on the sick list, they even stole materials from the stock I’d bought from the suppliers with my own money. I had materials bought with my own money and the boss simply had them taken off to his place! They stole things from under my nose and then they’d try to blame me, because Mária Wittner, she had a record and that meant thieving...

My first son was born in 1955. After I became a guest of the state, he was taken into state care as well. I knew he’d stay in state care for the time being. I just never thought it would be for so long.

When I was released, my old principal, Patkós, provided me with a certificate saying I’d been born in Budapest and I was a resident of Budapest, so as to make it easier for me to settle there. In those days, outsiders couldn’t settle permanently in Budapest, but at the same time, you needed a permanent address to find a job.. My mother wouldn’t register me at her place, even though I begged her to. I was just wasting my breath telling her that I only needed to register with her until I’d found a job. So I found lodgings, although I could only register there as a temporary resident. This meant that every day, when they looked at my identity papers in the labour exchange, they’d say they couldn’t deal with me. So I took casual work, shovelling snow, cleaning, washing. One day I was doing some washing when I was taken ill. I thought I had stomach cramps, but it wasn’t stomach cramps, it was hepatitis. I was in hospital with it for more than two months. When I was discharged, I asked my mother to let me stay, at least for a night, but she chucked me out. I was taken in by the people at the place I’d been at when the ambulance took me in. I kept house for them in exchange for bed and board. I was still at their place when I was swept up by 1956. From there the road led straight to the barricades.

What took me there along with all those other people? I don’t believe I had any conscious political image firmly established in my mind about the system we were living under, but I had impressions about the past and the future, and about the misery that surrounded us. I was certainly dissatisfied somewhere deep down. But there wasn’t any conscious feeling of being a revolutionary when I went out there. Of course, if I’d been quite satisfied with my life, if I’d been really pleased with things the way they were, I probably wouldn’t have ended up on the barricades. There’s a lot of things people can store up in themselves.

I once worked for a short time as a clerk at Kunhegyes district council, in the farm produce collection department. That was the critical department, gathering reports from the countryside on quota deliveries from eight villages under our care and sending up to the county. I witnessed the things that went on in that office. I was too low down the pecking order to say anything, but I didn’t like what was going on. I felt sorry for those people, but I couldn’t help them. The quotas were a dreadful business. Our instructor was only in on Mondays. That day we made up the totals. The rest of the week we swept the floor.

I saw how there was no mercy even when floods came and swept everything away. No concessions even then. There wasn’t any point in them pleading. I’ll never forget one man coming in and asking them to cancel his quota as the flood had taken everything away. They wouldn’t. It was a terribly cruel, inhuman thing. They dictated things to me and I typed them, but I had my own opinion of it all. These things stay with you and build up inside.

No, I didn’t go out there as a conscious revolutionary, but somehow my feet took me and my enthusiasm, as part of the process. By the afternoon of the 23rd I’d seen the procession and the crowds – they were marching alongside the cars and lorries. Things were being announced from the backs of lorries. In the evening, I went round to the offices of Szabad Nép in Blaha Lujza tér, where an enormous crowd had gathered, and we waited for the 16 Points. Then the crowd began to surge over to the Radio as news spread that a young man who’d wanted to read out the 16 Points had been killed nearby. There really was a dead body there. I was there throughout the siege of the Radio, right up until it was taken. I also saw the incident when the ambulance was stopped. It was suspicious because there was an ambulance going to and fro a little too often. When they opened the doors, it turned out the ambulance had been taking weapons in through the back gate of the Radio.

The insurgents took up positions on the roof of the building opposite and I went up there later as well. There were already two lads up there each with a cartridge-drum machinegun. I took the magazines to the base of the chimney, and set about filling them. It was pretty light by the time we occupied the Radio. The gate was already open when we went in. There was scaffolding all round the building, I remember, and a lot of people tried to get in that way. The courtyard looked more like the courtyard of a weapons factory than of a radio station, with weapons lying around all over the place. The only people who didn’t pick up a weapon here were people who didn’t want to. There we stood in the courtyard and listened to the speech by Imre Nagy.¹ We knew then that they hadn’t been allowed to broadcast the 16 Points. Nonetheless, the demands in them had inspired us.

	The damaged building of the Hungarian Radio

After that, several of us set off towards the Boulevard. We were stopped on the way by a man dressed in Budapest Transport uniform, who asked us to give him a weapon too. I told him to go to the Radio, but in the end I gave him mine, so I went back to the Radio with some companions to get another. Then we set off for the Corvin Cinema.

When we reached the Boulevard, we saw two tanks standing at the intersection of the Boulevard and Üllői út. I remember the scene precisely even today. We were standing quite a way off, but we could see clearly that there was a really young lad sneaking round the back of one of the tanks. I remember we all held our breath, watching intently to see if he’d manage it. When he got there, he lit a bottle of petrol and threw it into the tank. The tank burst into flames. Fortunately, the guy got back unhurt. That was the first tank I saw being burnt out.

By the time we arrived, there were a good few people gathered in Corvin köz, and a start had been made on forming a unit. There I first met Kati Sticker, Mrs Béla Havrila, an “accomplice” of mine. I was with her after that all the time until I was wounded. Kati was divorced. After 4 November, she defected, but her fiancé called her back home from Switzerland, assuring her she wouldn’t come to any harm. Kádár had promised. Then she was executed...

	Mrs. Béla Havrila and Mária Wittner at the end of October in front of Vajdahunyad street No. 41

There were a lot of people by Corvin Cinema. I don’t know their names, of course. I just knew Gergely Pongrátz, for instance, as Moustache at the time, or Hush, or The Saint. The guy was executed along with his father. They are buried side by side, father and son. Also there was Chocs, Bijou, Fluffy, then City Transport and someone called Railwayman. I still don’t know most of their real names! I still can’t say who was who. For instance, I don’t even know whether City Transport was the same chap as the one in uniform who’d asked me for my weapon after we left the Radio. I can see Jura’s face in my mind’s eye. He’d come home from the Soviet Union on the 23rd, to his aunt’s place in Práter utca. He was in the river forces. He’s also in our group picture, along with Kati and the underage Jancsi Varga. The lad was 16 years old at the time. Later he was shot in the head during the fighting, but he survived and got sentenced to 13 years. Then there was Tivadar Neumann, who was a driver. The army garage for the Bem Barracks was at Vajdahunyad utca 35 and guarded by I. Kovács, the footballer, along with two young soldiers. Their commander was Karcsi Kiss. Two brothers, Laci and Attila Jánoki, also belonged there.

There were so many of us in Corvin köz that another unit was formed later at the Práter utca school, where the prisoners were taken. Then a smaller unit was set up under the command of Corvin köz, in the garage of Vajdahunyad utca 35. We got a vehicle and some petrol from there. The garage opened onto the Práter utca school. If it was dangerous to enter the school from the front, so the boys set up a ladder at the back, climbed up onto the flat roof of the garage and got round like that. Later Kovács issued national-guard papers from there as well. They were probably the ones who said there was a cellar at Vajdahunyad utca 45 that could be fitted out. After Kati Sticker put forward the idea, we brought beds and quilted jackets from the Home Office store. We fitted ourselves out, as there were a great many of us at Corvin köz even then. The cinema was swarming with people! At night, we’d go out on patrol. There was a workers’ hostel by Corvin köz, and each night we kept an eye on the area from regular positions. There was always someone on duty at night, keeping watch from the windows to see if the tanks were coming. We also had positions above the Gallery,² but we were shot down from there.

During the day, we packed food lorries. Bread would be brought from somewhere and we’d unload it. On the 26th, there was a pretty serious clash in Tűzoltó utca. It was near Corvin köz, but I don’t know how I got there. I remember being sent to Corvin köz for reinforcements, but by the time I got back with them, everything was pretty well over. I’ll never forget how I rushed across Üllői út. You had to be careful, as you could easily have been shot from Kilián Barracks.

	The building of the Museum of Applied Arts on devastated Üllői street

	Kilián barracks demolished in street-fights

When the fighting was underway, we’d fill bottles with petrol. Later, when the fighting had ceased and there was a ceasefire, we did armed patrol duties. Then we kept order when food was being distributed to the public, or distributed stock from shops damaged in the fighting. All this distributing from food shops was later classed in court as stealing. Only one thing mattered: convicting someone of as much as possible, whether he’d done what he was accused of or not. This stealing business is a good example. Never in my stinking life have I been able to forgive being accused of stealing and I’ve never been able to figure it out either. I didn’t even have a flat where I could have taken the “stolen” goods. They even shot to bits the building I was lodging in. If the charge had been true, I would’ve been able to live well off the stolen goods after the revolution. In fact I had so little money my doctor gave me 100 forints for medicines, which I had to pay back in 10-forint instalments. Before I was in any financial position to do so, I was arrested. It always bothered me what this doctor would think about me for not paying my debts. Only in '60 or '61 was I able to send the money back to him from prison. He replied saying that the money had given him unexpected pleasure, not the money itself, but the fact that I’d repaid it. That letter was a big recompense for me.

I specifically remember on the 30th how a man named Kerekes came to us, I think from the police station of the 8th District, and he said that Police Chief Sándor Kopácsi had given orders for the police to hand over their weapons. They’d already distributed them in the central districts, but if we went to the outer districts, we’d be sure to get some weapons. This date’s stuck in my memory, because the 30th was the day of the siege of the party headquarters. So we went to get some weapons on the 30th. I’ll never forget, when we got off the lorry in front of the 9th District police station and went in to ask for weapons, there was a big burly staff sergeant, who simply unbuckled his gun and said, “My dear people, you have just freed us from our duties.” That was very important, because they wanted to implicate us in the Köztársaság tér business, saying we’d taken part in the fighting there. It was thanks to this staff sergeant that the charge didn’t stick, because he remembered the date. He was an honest witness. Originally, I just had one gun and national-guard papers for it. We learnt to shoot on a vacant lot, but the gun hit me on the cheek, so I said I’d give it up before it knocked a tooth out.

While we were on patrol – the Corvin köz and Práter utca units together – one of the lads from Práter utca asked me for this gun, as he only had a bren-gun, and he didn’t want to drag that around everywhere, but he didn’t want to be without a weapon either. I gave it to him. I told them in court, that in spite of the photograph, where I’m standing with a weapon in my hand, I only had one gun, and I lent that to someone, but they wouldn’t believe me. At that point, Accused No. 9 stood up and said I was telling the truth, because he was the one who’d asked for the gun, but they took no notice. The court wasn’t particularly interested in the truth. Jóska Tóth was still in Monor on the 30th. That night he came up with a food-transport truck and only after that was he with our group in Budapest. There were witnesses to this, but they weren’t questioned at the hearing. He was condemned to death on false evidence, on the grounds that he’d been there in Köztársaság tér.

	Tóth, József

Corvin köz also fell eventually in the face of the superior forces. We were able to defend it fairly easily at first, at it was in a very good position from a strategic point of view. Direct shots could only come from Kilián Barracks or from the Gallery opposite. To deliver them, a tank would’ve had to turn and face us. On the other hand, we had a cannon by the cinema steps, and people were in the buildings all round. They could shoot at these tanks – and they did so; there were a good number of hits. Corvin köz wasn’t really hit until they attacked with trench mortars after 4 November. I was also wounded in the mortar fire on 4 November.

	A Hungarian flag with a hole in Corvin street

The attack began at half past four in the morning. We walked around all over, I don’t even know where any more, but somehow we came to Futó utca, where the fighting had started that day. Kati and I were sent off for ammunition. As we were going in through the gate – Kati on the inside, myself on the outside – the garage under Vajdahunyad utca 35 was hit. That’s when I was hit by the mine. I was wounded in three places: on my thigh, on my leg, and one centimetre away from my spine. At first I collapsed, but I jumped up at once and we escaped into the garage. From there, I was taken to the hospital in Péterfy Sándor utca, and after that, I didn’t play any further part. When I got out on 9 November, I went back to Corvin köz, but there was no unit of any kind there any more. That’s where the story of my part in the revolution comes to an end.

As I think back on the days of the revolution and the way we behaved then, it’s interesting how we weren’t afraid at all. We moved around on the roofs of buildings, sometimes from one street to another. Somehow we didn’t think of the dangers; somehow we didn’t even think of the fact that we could die if we were hit by a bullet. We were just eager. Yes, I think we somehow felt at the time that everyone who wanted change should definitely be out there on the barricades. There’s no denying that we wanted change.

We trusted in Imre Nagy, because after all, he wanted changes as well, but he wasn’t entirely accepted among the fighters in Corvin köz. I was appalled by Imre Nagy’s execution! I remember very clearly when the newspaper reporting this was handed into the Markó. There was such a surge of bewilderment through all of us that the screws were afraid of a revolt. We never would’ve thought they could execute Imre Nagy, he’d been a communist after all.

I remember things coming up in prison over all those years. How the armed fighters hadn’t really wanted to accept the government completely, without any protest or comment of any kind. But a change came over people on 16 June 1989. The fact that Imre Nagy was left in Parcel 301, because his daughter wouldn’t let them move his body to the honorary grave, by the fact that he stayed out there with the armed fighters, that meant he really became the prime minister of 1956 – accepted by us too. We can now say that Imre Nagy was also the prime minister of the armed fighters. I believe that Imre Nagy really became a martyr on 16 June, consciously and recognizedly a martyr. At that time, there were some voices saying well, so what, Rajk was also executed, but I don’t believe anyone nowadays is saying things like that about Imre Nagy any more. If anyone says anything to the contrary, it’s unjust. Our executioners were the same, our graves were the same, and unnamed, and the form of execution was the same. The rope.

There are a great many people sizing up the revolution nowadays, so many sizing it up that they outnumber the ones who took part in it. But we size up the revolution as well. Of course, not necessarily reaching the same value judgement as those who never took part in the armed conflict. I don’t know how you go about sizing up revolutionary conditions from behind a desk. It’s true that the intellectuals formed a Petőfi Circle, I don’t dispute that. Maybe they didn’t like what Rákosi was doing, in fact, I’m sure they didn’t, but we didn’t like it either. Strangely enough, we didn’t like it either!

The revolution wasn’t started by the reform communists or the revisionists. The revolution was started by the people themselves. It had very little to do with what was being discussed in Petőfi Circle. That was a separate matter. The two were independent of each other. The two can’t be merged as people are trying to do today. In fact, they’re mixing things up so much, they’re now putting the revolution down to the reform communists, just because Pista Angyal and other communists were there with us on the barricades. But these communists didn’t want the same things as those communists did. Just as no two of our fingers are the same, so no comrades are the same, in mentality or in attitude. Some would never have dreamt of going on the barricades, while others, like István Angyal, went. So the two weren’t identical, even though both were communists.

	Angyal, István

When I went to Corvin köz on 9 November and found nobody there, I decided to defect. I set off for Székesfehervár with a group of people, but we were caught there and taken to the police. From there, the road led straight to Jászai Mari tér and National Police Headquarters. Strangely enough, we were taken down for questioning after only a couple of hours. We went down somewhere, but I don’t know what level we were on. We were definitely underground, because the air came in through a ventilator. The truth is I thought I’d never get out of there alive. I was interrogated by two men. One sat opposite and the other walked around. They asked me what I’d been doing since 23 October. So I told them where I’d been. To my great amazement, all at once they telephoned somewhere for my stuff to be brought, shoe laces and other things. I asked them if they were letting me go. One of them said yes, because the first part – which I’d taken part in – was a revolution, while only the second part – after 4 November– had turned into a counterrevolution, after the Russians came in. That’s why they let me go. But in the end, I decided to defect anyway. I got as far as Mödling. I was abroad for about a month before I came back, because I thought that if the first part had been a revolution, then I wasn’t going to have any problems, otherwise they’d have to lock up half of Budapest.

I also came home because my child was here. I didn’t have a job, but an acquaintance finally took me on as a model at the College of Fine Arts. Then when school was over, I went as a semi-skilled worker to a factory making vacuum flasks. I don’t even know if I got any wages here, because I’d hardly done any work at all before I was arrested. After a fortnight, perhaps, no more. I was taken in on 16 July 1957 during the second “great round-up”. I’d been on the afternoon shift that day. I was picked up at night by three or four people who had an arrest warrant and searched the house. They found my Austrian identity papers, which they wanted to use against me later, to accuse me of spying. I was taken to the Transit Prison. A great many people were brought in that night. A fortnight later, I was taken from the Transit to the Tolnai. When I was first taken up for interrogation by the detective at the Tolnai, they had me sign my arrest warrant dated for that day. So there wasn’t any point in my claiming later in court that I hadn’t been arrested on the 29th, but a fortnight earlier on the 16th. They took no notice at all. The court only took notice of what suited them. There wasn’t any need of proof.

If only I’d known what I was coming home too! I was so stupid! That was the conclusion I reached about myself several times in prison and when we were sitting in the condemned cells. And Kati as well, who came home from Switzerland because her fiancé sent her a message saying she wouldn’t be harmed in any way, because Kádár had promised everyone impunity. Lying to such an extent was extremely cruel! Lying to such an extent that it costs people their lives! To entice as many people as possible back home, just so as to string up as many people as possible! That was more than cruelty, it was villainy!

The interrogations were done at the Tolnai, where I was kept down in the cellar for three months. In the cell next to us was Iván Darvas, and we talked to him quite a lot. The cell was small with a wooden bunk and a barred window high up. We weren’t allowed to lie on the bunk during the day. We had to keep the blankets folded up, we slept on the bare bunks with the light on all night. I hardly need add that if you turned over at night and happened to put your hands under the cover because you were cold, or not because you were cold, just because you were used to pulling the covers over you while you slept, they’d kick the door in, almost giving you a heart attack from the shock. They were horrible. There have been several other occasions since then that I’ve felt like I was having a heart attack because of something suddenly happening. The toilets weren’t even screened off, just three toilet bowls side by side. You just had to get used to these things. At least there were toilets, not like later at Kalocsa Prison.

The investigation was closed in November or December and I was taken over to the Markó. Once they put an informer in with me, but I figured that out. I knew I had to get rid of the nark, so I started a quarrel. Once she’d called my mother a whore, we started to fight. Then the officers or the police came in and separated us using their rubber truncheons. They took the girl away, then they came for me at half past eleven at night, and took me up for interrogation. There were three detectives there and they told me off a bit. I given 72 hours in a dark cell and they took me down to the basement. There was a wooden bunk there too, and water dripping off the walls. I’d been arrested in a sleeveless summer dress, so I’d been given other clothes inside. They dressed me up in some cast-off police skirt and police blouse, with a letter “R” painted on it. Now I had to change back into the summer dress to go down to the dark cell. I was brought back again three days later.

One time in the Markó, Lévai, the investigator, showed me a photo taken in Köztársaság tér, showing a woman with a machine gun from the back. They were determined to make out it was me, come what may. This woman had curly hair, definitely permed. I told the investigator I’d never had my hair permed, it had always been naturally wavy. That woman wasn’t me. They took me upstairs for days on end because of that. They took my cigarettes away, everything they could. But I wouldn’t confess to it. No, no, no. That woman wasn’t me.

Apart from that, Lévai was interested in everything we’d done in '56, where we were, where we’d been, and what we hadn’t done as well. Coming and going, upstairs for interrogation, downstairs for interrogation, witness interrogation, one witness brought, then another; we denied as much as we could. Then came the confrontations. It’s a tough situation when there are three or four people talking in your face. Once, the investigator put down volume three of the White Book³ in front of me and opened it at page 77. There was a group picture that was proof enough in itself. I’ll never forget, when they started, they said I’d be the sixth accused; by the time the investigation was over, I was the principal accused, although I don’t know why that was. Conspiracy against the order of the state, plotting to overthrow the legal state order, several counts of unverifiable murder, several counts of unverifiable attempted murder, theft, unlawful crossing of the frontier on three occasions...

	The group of Vajdahunyad street

When they’d completed the investigation, they took me up to study the documents. These included the statements from the witnesses. Then I found out from the first statement by a witness, made at the end of May 1957, that two ex-national guards had ratted on me while I was still at large. They’d also been there in the revolution, but they’d done a U-turn and grassed on one or two people, or more, who knows? In return, they were still free. By the time my case came up, one of them had gone from being a civilian to a policeman with the rank of sergeant. You have to work to get that far!

I’m sure they’d tried to recruit a great many people, just as they did me. The question was, who said yes and who didn’t. I spoilt my chances with a letter in the Markó. When they thought I was really scared, they put a paper down in front of me. I read it. What it said was that in awareness of my liability to criminal proceeding, etc., in other words, they were recruiting me, and if I spoke to anyone about it, I’d be betraying state secrets and I’d get one to five years for that. Then I asked the officer what would happen if I didn’t sign. He said, “Look, you’re still waiting for your hearing.” I said, “Well, I know that without being told.” Then came the rider: “We know you are the source of a great deal.” It was obvious I’d been grassed on. I said I couldn’t agree because I thought it was disgusting to abuse the confidence of someone who trusted me. That was one thing. The other that I was still in the same boat as my cell-mates. I know that’s when I cut off my chances.

In the charge document, I was accused of plotting to overthrow the order of state and of several counts of unverifiable murder, among other things. Of course, they couldn’t back that up; they didn’t name the victims. We’d killed people, Russians, whoever.

The dead were going to be shared out. It made no difference if we were shared out for them, or they for us. We found each other in the charge documents. Then there was the other charge, several counts of unverifiable attempted murder! That was very vague, really a trumped-up charge when there was a revolution on. After all, where does murder come in when there’s a revolution? I don’t get it – maybe we just shot at someone and they survived; does that make an attempt? Then there was theft and illegal frontier crossings. The strange thing was that I’d only been over to Austria once, but there were three defections on the charge sheet. They’d multiplied up. That I didn’t understand then and I don’t now. Nothing made sense. With some people, they waited for them to turn 18 before executing them, Péter Mansfeld for instance.⁴ With me, it was just the opposite. It was brought up in the court of the second instance that I hadn’t yet turned 20 when I committed the crimes. Who can follow that? So for a long time, I thought that although the charges were taken as proven, I’d escaped the rope because there was some clause ruling out the death penalty if you hadn’t turned 20 when you did the deed. That seemed logical. But once I’d heard about Péter Mansfeld’s case, the whole thing didn’t make sense any more. There wasn’t any sense in it at all!

	Mansfeld, Péter

The trial began at the end of May 1958 and lasted rather longer than a month. That meant I was taken up every morning, there was a lunch break, and they continued after lunch. The sentence was announced in July. It was a completely closed hearing; the accused were called one by one, first the first accused, then the second and so on, as they came up. The witnesses came the same way; then just the witnesses could leave, the accused had to stay in there. I don’t quite understand that either. If there are several accused in a trial, why couldn’t they all appear in court at once? When the trial opened, everyone was brought down, then everyone was taken up to the cells, and then just the next in line was taken down. The defence witnesses had no significance, but the witnesses for the prosecution had all the more. When they’d sent us for psychiatric tests, I knew we’d be condemned to death. The psychiatric test was nothing special. They asked us a few questions, we answered, and they decided we were sane enough to be hanged. End of story.

There were nine of us in the dock. I was the first accused in the trial, Kati, Mrs. Béla Havrila, was the second, Jóska Tóth and Jóska Sörös Kóté were the third and fourth. The first four got death sentences. Little Jancsi Varga, who’d just turned 18, was sentenced to 13 years and Tivadar Neumann, who had been a driver, got life. That sentence was changed to 15 years on appeal. I don’t know how long Pál Bertalan got. There were two boys from Práter utca lumped in with us, but I don’t even know their names.

	Kóté Sörös, József

The prosecuting attorney was an energetic young man who ranted away. He gave a ruthless indictment speech. There were no extenuating circumstances for any of us, none at all, he stressed the point: there weren’t any extenuating circumstances for any of these accused. There I heard for the first time the expression “diehard counterrevolutionary”, applied to us all and to me. We were all diehard counterrevolutionaries. There was no defence. The defence lawyers assigned were utter nonentities. And the judge was Tutsek! Unfortunately, we knew who we had for our trial, as Tutsek had a terrible reputation in the Markó. Interestingly, everyone was looking forward to knowing who was going to try us, and rather anxious about it as well, I suppose! When they took us down to study the documents, there it was written who was going to preside, be the judge in other words, the people’s judge, and then we knew we’d had it. At least as far as I was concerned, as the first accused! We felt it instinctively! We drew our fingers across our throats: that’s what the sentence was going to be. It can’t be anything else. It was common talk among the prisoners that the better-known judges only passed death sentences. And that’s the way it was. Neither the law nor anything else in the world counted. The way the trial went they paid no heed to mitigating circumstances and they wouldn’t even hear the defence witnesses. There wasn’t any point in objecting to anything, there wasn’t any point in saying that wasn’t how it happened. That’s how it was recorded because that was the way it had to be. I discussed it with Kati that if we got death sentences, there was no way we were going to move a muscle on our faces for them to be pleased about.

	Mrs. Béla Havrila Katalin Sticker

They passed four death sentences,⁵ three of which were upheld, on József Sörös Kóté, József Tóth and Kati. The appeal hearing took place on 24 and 25 February 1959. Kati and I had one defence lawyer – Szentpétery. I think there were four or five defence attorneys altogether. There was one lawyer for every two accused. They didn’t even take the trouble to find a defence lawyer for each person. The defence counsels called for clemency, they presented the plea, and the court was reconstituted as a court of reprieve, where all four death sentences were upheld. My death sentence was altered on appeal, but the others weren’t. Quite a long time passed between the two hearings. We were taken over to the Transit prison, as prisoners who’d been condemned to death. First we were taken to the Transit prison hospital and held there for a month. The windows there were relatively large. We’d already heard from the boys that the Farkas’s, Vladimir and his father and I don’t know who else, went for a walk there every day. We could see them out of the window. I was really indignant; they weren’t even treating all the prisoners the same. We could just see they were wearing watches and wearing track suits instead of prison uniforms, and their walk wasn’t just half an hour, and they didn’t have guards accompanying. They were out there at most times of day. They were free to walk about as they wanted.

Then we were taken over to the Little Jail. There were four of us to a cell: Erzsi Márton, Kati, myself and Mrs. Bakos. Four people condemned to death. The screws generally walked around in slippers; we couldn’t hear their footsteps. We were surrounded by total silence, broken only by a door being slammed somewhere or someone being moved. We didn’t get any books either for quite a while, until one day the door opened and they handed in a book. One book. I asked the screw what we were supposed to do with one book, there being four of us. Fight over it? One of us read it aloud like in nursery school? Because I didn’t like reading out loud, I liked reading to myself. There were four of us, I said, so why didn’t they give us four books? Then I kicked up a row for a while. I wound myself up again next morning, saying to Kati, I’ll knock on the door. I’ll go and see the education officer, ask what the hell we’re supposed to do with one book. So I knocked on the door. Staff Sergeant István Kovács was on duty. “I’d like an interview with the education officer,” I told him That was around eight o’clock, after breakfast. He says, “All right, come on.” So I went. He took me out of the Little Jail, in through a big door and left down a corridor. There was a door in the corridor, with a iron grille, and he opened it and pushed me into the room. On the floor opposite was a sack stuffed with straw and on the left a small table attached to the wall with something to sit on. I suddenly realized where I was. Then I started yelling. Hardly ten minutes later, three of them were back with a straitjacket. I started wrestling with the three guards, I didn’t want the straitjacket on. They finally managed to squeeze me into it and strapped me up. Then Kovács pushed me onto the sack of straw and kicked me, but as they didn’t gag me, I just kept on yelling. I don’t know if I was on the same side as our cell, or whether Kati could hear anything, but the fact is, in less than twenty minutes she was brought in after me, strapped into a straitjacket as well, and put in the other cell. Then we had a shouting match. Around noon, Szabó, the education officer arrived with two screws, and I started yelling at him that I’d asked to be taken to him and they’d put me in the condemned cell instead. The education officer had both of us released from our straitjackets, and I was taken for an education officer’s interview. I told him why I’d actually wanted the interview in the first place. We’d been told that we couldn’t talk about our case, so tell me, what were we supposed to do all day? What were four women condemned to death supposed to do? They’d given us a book, so what were we to do with one book? After that, they gave us four books and changed them for us regularly. So we had something to read. People should at least have something to read if before they snuff it.

When the death sentence was pronounced, we didn’t actually grasp it right away. I can remember as a child, I couldn’t imagine that when I’d die, everything would just carry on as if nothing had happened. I thought I was the centre of the world. Of course I’d realized since then that I wasn’t, far from it. Then after a while, it sank in that they were going to kill me. But we weren’t just grappling with that idea, we were being confronted by death almost as a daily occurrence. These weren’t thoughts or illusions, they were solid reality. Because people were being taken out and hanged every day. On some days, they’d hang seven, on some only three, on others five. It depended on how many people had been sentenced to death from how many groups.

Kati was executed on 26 February 1959. I don’t know how other people were taken out. The door opened and her name was called. We hugged each other, then two guards came in, took hold of her – took her by the arm and led her out. I just stared after them until the door slammed shut. Kati was a tiny little woman. She walked out upright, with her head held high. I’ve thought many times about that last view I had of Kati. I wonder how I’d have reacted if it had happened to me. I played around with that idea too. I don’t know how I’d have behaved, but I hope it would have been well. I mean, in a way I’d have been pleased. There’s no way they’d have seen me beg; I’d rather have rotted on my feet than beg or wail. I can’t imagine doing that. Kati was the same way.

People weren’t taken from police custody to the prison until the papers from the appeal court confirming their sentence had arrived at the holding jail. The legally binding sentence would arrive after about a month. I was in the Little Jail up to then, after which I was taken over to the Csillag. I know there was a very slight amnesty for 4 April.⁶ However could it have applied to me? I had a nervous breakdown and smashed in the windows with my fists. I was taken to the education officer’s office, where they put a basin under my hand so the blood could flow in. I sliced up my hand pretty well. The windows were made of frosted glass, and I’d smashed them all in with my fist. I cracked up completely and yelled that I wanted to go back to the Little Jail, but I don’t know why. I didn’t come to my senses again for a fortnight. Then I was taken back to the Little Jail, and soon after that, I was moved to Kalocsa. This was sometime at the end of April.

When I got to Kalocsa, they still had cells there for class aliens. The short-term prisoners were kept separate. There was no way someone serving a two-year sentence would be shut up with someone doing ten years. Anything over five years was considered long term. There were also separate cells for the ones who couldn’t work. I was put in there for a while. After just a couple of months I was allowed to work in the sewing shop, and after that, I worked two shifts, sewing and sewing and sewing... In any case, the days passed better like that, rather than doing nothing. It was tiring to start with until I got used to everything. Kalocsa had cells for four. We were allowed to wash all over once a week, but only in a basin. They gave us water in jugs. To drink, to wash from; we had to urinate at a specified time. Sometimes the slop-pail filled up and they didn’t empty it, so it sat there stinking under our noses. It was disgusting! Sometimes we preferred to hold it back for days. They only started installing toilets and washbasins in Kalocsa in '61. We suffered terribly with bedbugs. It was dreadful. By morning we were full of bites, covered all over with them as if we had some infectious disease. We tried to get rid of them in our own way, burning them with wadding, but if we lifted the bunks up, the bugs would be hanging off the legs in clusters. I’d rather not even dream about it; it was appalling. We could hardly sleep; we’d often set to work killing bedbugs in the night, then wake up exhausted in the morning. Even now, I start itching if I think about it. While they were installing toilets and washbasins in the cells, they started to get the paint off the doors with a petrol blow-lamp, and they also started exterminating the bugs systematically. The only good thing there was the books – Kalocsa had a good library. Reading took our minds off a lot of things. Later, towards the end, I got some office work too, not just sewing – I did drawing, and arranging and labelling files.

The bigwigs were let out in the 1963 amnesty, then a load of narks and a few other people at the same time. When the amnesty was published, an operations officer came round, I asked him, “Tell me, Captain, are we going home?” Gazdik said, “Look, Wittner, whether you’ve killed, robbed, murdered or bonked a party secretary on the head, it all comes under point (c).” And we got quite used to the idea that we were going home. However I read it, forwards, backwards, sideways or crosswise, point (c) didn’t contain any reasons for disqualifying us.

When they began to carry out the amnesty and the short-term prisoners were released, at the end it was the turn of Erzsi Márton, who’d been with me in the death cell in the Little Jail. Although she said she’d got 15 years, I remember she’d also got life, she’d been sentenced under 349, just as I had. But still, she was released after a third of her sentence, under the same charge as me, Point 349. Some people were released at first then brought back again – all a mistake, if you please. Then the attorney came down from Budapest and said whoever felt the amnesty applied to them should step forward, so I stepped forward. The attorney sent me back, saying it didn’t apply to me, as I hadn’t been re-educated yet by the prison. I retorted, “I’m sure you knew what educational effect the prison had. It means doing the dirty and grassing on people to get a third or a quarter off your sentence.” That was all I had to say.

I once had to see Mrs Szele, the chief education officer, about something. I couldn’t take the 1963 amnesty, the fact that we were still inside, and I once found myself saying to the chief education officer that I’d filed the '63 amnesty away as evidence of the eloquent lies our Hungarian government could tell. She jumped up from the table like she’d been bitten by a snake, hit me and said if I ever dared to open my mouth again, I’d never get out at all.

In 1970, Mrs Szvétek from the sewing shop, our work instructor, said to me, “You know, Wittner, I’ve never said anything to any of you, I’ve never held out any hopes to you, but now you can believe me: you’ll be going home.” This gave me such a sudden boost that I started to believe it because Mrs Szvétek really hadn’t ever said anything before. We were expecting an amnesty, although there’s no denying we were always expecting an amnesty. In the end, it didn’t come as an amnesty. In reality, we were called into the that very day, around an hour later, we were called into the control room, three of us: myself, Erzsi Hrozova and Margit L. Kiss. They told us to fetch our coats and go down to see the governor. We couldn’t leave the cells without a striped coat. I was in the sewing shop, so I went back to the machine room for the coats. When we got to the governor’s office, we were told we were being released under a special pardon, with five years’ suspended, but if any of us came back within five years, we’d receive a new sentence on top of what we’d left behind.

	Hrozova, Erzsébet

Yes, we were let out, but not with an amnesty. Fifty-sixers couldn’t be given amnesties any more in 1970, because everyone thought there weren’t any more fifty-sixers inside. There’d been an interview with Kádár by an American journalist that appeared in the autumn of 1969, and one of his questions was whether there were any political prisoners left in Hungary. Kádár lied that there weren’t, saying everyone had been released in 1963. The ones still inside had gone back in again since. Well, we three were the living disproof of that!

I had my earnings transferred to Patkós in Szolnok by post. I only took enough money with me to live on until the money arrived in Szolnok. I took out identity papers in Budapest, and then I went back to Szolnok. By then, Patkós had found me a job, in a tailor’s. I think I was the only one working in the men’s tailor’s who didn’t have a skilled worker’s certificate, but I dare claim I worked as well as the professionals did. Patkós was a big support. He suggested that instead of going go back to Budapest to live, I should go down to their place, because he couldn’t give me protection in Budapest. So I moved to Szolnok. I lived in the sickroom of the children’s home he ran whilst I was looking for a place to rent. I was at their place almost every day, I had dinner with them every evening and their door was always open. I got married two years later, and we moved up to Dunakeszi, as my husband had been working there for 13 years. My second son was born from that marriage, but in the end I got divorced after eight years.

I worked in a sewing shop there at first, but I had to leave because of my spine. I asked them to excuse me from serving my notice because I couldn’t work any more due to my back. They wouldn’t excuse the notice period. I resigned from the sewing shop voluntarily when I was told there was a job for me in some warehouse at the Göd Agricultural Cooperative. When I got my work-record book, I was amazed to find a paper in there with the information that I’d been in Kalocsa from the twenty-something of April 1959 until the twenty-something of March 1970, but that period didn’t count as employment. So the sewing shop had checked up on me with the prison. My criminal record meant I could only sweep up in the warehouse at Göd. Mind you, they didn’t want to take me on at all to start with.

What can I say? It wasn’t an easy life. I often said it might have been easier to stay in prison. The conditions were no better than they had been inside, except for the fact that we were free. Free? It was relative freedom, because what we had wasn’t a life, it wasn’t a life at all. I’d generally put on a “so what” attitude to outsiders, but at home, within the four walls, I sometimes got really upset. I often said if only they’d bumped me off, I’d have no problems. I was always being suspected because of my record; if something vanished or got pilfered from the farm warehouse, it must have been me. The question of why I’d want a sparking plug or whatever it was never came into it! One time, Feri Nagy, who was one of the bosses, came up to me and asked where the sparking plugs had gone. I said, look here, my sewing machine works with a needle and thread, and I haven’t got a car. Ask someone who’s got a car.

My back still wasn’t sorting itself out, and by 1980 I could hardly walk, as there were two pieces of shrapnel from the mine that had wandered into my spine. They’d bedded down nicely in between the nerves. I didn’t even know about them. By the time they were found, I was in such as state I had to have an operation. After that, I was pensioned off. A year later, I tried to work again, but three months after I was back in the National Rheumatological Institute all over again.

So the years passed one way or another. Then one day my neighbour brought me a photocopy, a notice from the Committee for the Administration of Historical Justice, saying it was now possible to have people buried properly. I read it through and started to wonder. I thought of Kati, who had no relatives. I thought I would have her buried myself. I wrote that I should like to have my fellow accused Mrs Béla Havrila buried, as she had no relatives. At a personal interview, I asked if the families of my two other cell companions had been in touch, because if not, then I should like to have them buried too. I had a large wreath made, with 56 red roses in it. Then the day of the funeral arrived, by which time I was completely prepared. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to stand up – when I put the flowers down, I would stay there. Then I went home, and for a fortnight I wasn’t bothered about anyone or anything in the world. The flat could go to pot; I was in total crisis.

That was my productive fortnight, when I could do nothing but write poetry. I think I just wrote and let everything out, all the accumulated bitterness! Then I wrote a letter to the radio programme 168 Hours, saying I was looked for my companions. And Jóska Tóth’s son turned up. It was so touching the way he was clutching his only photograph of his father in his hand; he’d brought the group picture. This boy had only been a baby a couple of months old when his totally innocent father was executed. They’d never seen each other. I gave him the papers I’d received about his father’s grave. Then I met up with Jenő Fónay. Several people said he’d been looking for me for a very long time, but he didn’t know where I lived. I finally joined the National Association of Political Prisoners, because that’s where I belong.

Whenever I go out to Kati’s grave in Parcel 301, the voices always come back. They always break in on me with elemental force. Dispensation of justice? Constitutional Court? Fine. For my part, I forgive, but who should I forgive? No one’s ever asked for my forgiveness, no one’s ever begged my pardon! And I have pangs of conscience at still being alive, whilst the lives of those others were taken.

1 At 8.45 a.m. on 24 October 1956, the Radio announced Imre Nagy’s prime ministerial decree on summary jurisdiction.

2 The Museum of Applied Arts building.

3 The usual name for a five-volume propaganda publication entitled Counterrevolutionary Forces in the Hungarian October Events.

4 Mansfeld had been under 16 at the time of the revolution. He was executed on March 21, 1959, a few days after his 18th birthday. According to the penal code, a death sentence could not be carried out on a minor.

5 In the trial of Mária Wittner and accomplices, the Council of the Metropolitan Court People’s Court (judge: Gusztáv Tutsek) in the first instance proclaimed sentence on 23 July 1958, and in the second instance, the Hungarian People’s High Court (presiding judge: János Borbély) on 24 February 1959. The death sentences were carried out on 24 February 1959. Those executed were Katalin Sticker Mrs. Béla Havrila, machinist (born Esztergom, 26 December 1932), József Sörös Kóté, itinerant artisan and musician (born Monor, 17 July 1927), and József Tóth, lorry guard (born Monor, 24 July 1927). Source: FB 2620/75. Trial document number FB 8046/1958.

6 The official anniversary of the Liberation of Hungary from the Germans in 1945.

Interviewer: István Lugossy. Date: 1991-1992.
Editor: Györgyi Bindorffer, Pál Gyenes.