Zsuzsanna KŐRÖSI – Adrienne MOLNÁR

CARRYING A SECRET IN MY HEART...

Children of the Victims of the Reprisals after the Hungarian Revolution In 1956

-An Oral History-

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Revolution

Chapter 2 A new world

Chapter 3 Communication within the family

Chapter 4 Stigmatisation

Chapter 5 Society and the family

Chapter 6 The pressure of duality

Chapter 7 Together again

Chapter 8 The turn: around

Chapter 9 The legacy

Appendix

Biographies of the interviewees

Bibliography

Illustrations

The twelve-day 1956 revolution exerted a lasting effect on the fates of the families of the more than 20,000 who were imprisoned and 229 executed by the régime in the harsh reprisals that followed the crushing of the revolt. The authors present a rich selection of excerpts from the interviews conducted with the children of those Hungarians – national heroes, as they are generally seen today – who were imprisoned or executed for their involvement in the uprising. The intimidation, and the attendant social and economic devastation that it wrought, bore especially hard on the psyches, upbringing and education, and hence the subsequent opportunities and life courses of those children.

The material is grouped by different themes, such as the effects on communication within families, changes in social status, how relatives and friends reacted, and what sorts of problems these children encountered in pursuing their studies, in trying to assimilate into society as adults, and in relating to those fathers who did return. In an appendix, the editors present detailed biographies of the people most directly affected, offering an unparalleled glimpse into the fates of those they interviewed. The documentation includes letters that the children wrote to their imprisoned fathers and the farewell letters of the executed to their families.

“… original and significant contribution to scholarship surrounding the revolution through its focus on the ‘second generation’ of victims, its illumination of the lesser-understood period of reprisals, and the authors' use of oral history.” – Beverly A. James, University of New Hampshire

“Zwei Autorinnen, wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterinnen des ‘1956er Instituts' in Budapest, haben in der Auseinandersetzung mit der ungarischen Revolution von 1956 ein neues Kapitel eröffnet. Der bisherige Diskurs zu diesem Thema war oft auf die Ereignisse jener dreizehn Tage und auf die bewaffneten Aktionen beschränkt. Nun wird das öffentliche und private Schweigen in der Kádár-Ära thematisiert.” - Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Central European University Press, Budapest – New York, 200 pages, 2002

ISBN 963-9241-55-5 cloth $39.95 / Ł25.95

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