My Father’s Experience with Communism

A Personal Refugee’s story.

I want to avoid writing about politics again. It has never been my thing. Still, I must.

In a previous article, I mentioned that my late father loved to watch the news 24/7, which I find depressing. In his opinion, it’s more about the information and that too much music makes pop musicians richer than they really are. (It’s funny that I’ve been listening to a lot of peace music lately, from the Cranberries, A Perfect Circle, Bad Wolves, Edwin Starr, Nena, and John Lennon.) This article is about him, and it seems to be related to the Ukrainian conflict today.

My Father

In 1936, my dad Imre (click here to find out how to pronounce that name) was born in a village in Hungary. His childhood was otherwise spent during World War II. In those days, Hungary was ruled by the Fascists party. Yes, many Jews, Romas (formerly known as Gypsies), members of the LBTQ community, and the mentally ill were deported from Hungary (As well as other European countries) and sent to concentration camps such as Auschwitz.

A Hungarian Movie About WWII

Several years ago, there was an Academy Award-winning Hungarian movie called The Son of Saul, which takes place in a WWII concentration camp. Also, the film is both in German and in Hungarian. Despite understanding a little of what the characters were saying in Hungarian, I just read the subtitles. Anyhow, The Son of Saul is a great movie to watch. It is well worth watching it with subtitles.

Back to the Story

However, I digress. Immediately following the end of World War II, the Communist party seized control of Hungary from the Fascists. My mother Magda and her twin sister were born in the same village where my father was in 1945. She was educated under the Soviet system until the eighth grade. She dropped out to work on the family farm.

Some months ago, she watched a Canadian-Hungarian program (it was all in her mother tongue) where a professor was discussing the Treaty of Trenton and Versailles. She was surprised to discover that Hungary was a much larger country before World War I began. You and I both know that Hungary used to be Austria-Hungary until that war ended. It was then divided into smaller countries after the Treaties were signed. Under the Communist Educational system, however, that was not taught to my mother nor her siblings.

Back to the Story II.

I digress once again. As you can see, I’m doing my best to understand what I’m researching about Communist Hungary after WWII. You already know that politics isn’t my thing. I find it too complicated. Maybe I’ll skip ahead to that infamous year in Hungarian history: 1956. First, Joseph Stalin died in 1953. Nikita Khrushchev took over the leadership of the Soviet Union soon after. Imre Nagy became the leader of Hungary in 1956.

1956

In that year, my mother was 11 years old, and my father, who worked as a laborer in Budapest, was 20 years old. Hungary was experiencing a bad economic situation at that time.

On October 23rd, university students in Budapest started protesting in front of a radio station against the Soviets. More people soon joined, and the situation escalated into violence. Soon, they began chanting “Russians Go Home” (which was also chanted in Budapest during a protest for Ukraine). When Soviet tanks invaded Budapest, all hell broke loose. There were thousands of citizens, including children (there was a boy with a gun in a Life Magazine photo book about the revolt) arming themselves with guns and ammunition. Essentially, they became the freedom fighters attacking the Communist regime. I don’t recall my father ever firing a gun. But when he went to work he saw Stalin’s statue being dismantled.

Imre Nagy, the Hungarian leader, was captured and killed around this time by the Soviets. When the citizens of Hungary believed they had won this battle, the fighting ceased between October 28th and November 4th. Boy, were they ever wrong. The Soviets returned with tanks and seized the country.

A large number of Hungarian refugees fled to the United States in 1956–57 including my father. As a result of the Communist government forcing him to join the Red Army, he fled to Austria. There, he stayed at a refugee camp before coming to Canada. When he first arrived in Canada, he worked for the railroad as a laborer.

My father and mother corresponded via letters in the 1960s until they met face to face (I’m not very knowledgeable about this because neither told me about it). In the end, they married, moved to Calgary, and had my brother and me. When my mother arrived in Canada, she became an immigrant.

Hungary was a communist country until 2006. In 1989, I was 16 years old and in high school when the Berlin Wall came down in Germany. I do remember feeling relieved when the Cold War ended. Additionally, my Social Studies teacher made my grade nine (which is junior high or middle school in Canada. By the way, I was 14 at the time.) class watch the miniseries The Day After on video. I have never seen anything as scary as that. In the miniseries, we see what happens to humans during a nuclear war. I then learned more about Russia and its history.

My father never mentioned his experiences during the Hungarian Revolution to me. Until I was an adult, I had never seen any photos or video footage of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

One of my broadcasting course assignments required me to interview someone I knew. I thought immediately of my dad because he escaped Communism. His answers to my questions about his experience were limited. His health had deteriorated at that time. However, I managed to complete my assignment and present the recording to my class.

In late November 2013, my father Imre passed away from Parkinson’s disease. Because of this, I stand with Ukraine.

References

Chapple, A. (2019, June 17). Hungary Under Communism. Radio Free Europe. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://www.rferl.org/a/hungarian-photo-archive-reveals-life-under-communism/30004019.html

Communism in Hungary | Communist Hungary. (n.d.). Communist Crimes. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://communistcrimes.org/en/countries/hungary

Farkas, J. A. (2021, March 5). THE PICTURES THAT TRAVELLED AND DIVIDED THE WORLD — LIFE MAGAZINE’S PHOTOS SHOT DURING THE 1956 REVOLUTION IN HUNGARY — PART II. Hungarian Review. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://hungarianreview.com/article/the-pictures-that-travelled-and-divided-the-world-life-magazines-photos-shot-during-the-1956-revolution-in-hungary-part-ii/

History of Hungary, Post-War Hungary, The Soviet Union. (n.d.). Mother Earth Travel. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from http://motherearthtravel.com/history/hungary/history-10.htm

Hungary — Hungary in the Soviet orbit | Britannica. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/place/Hungary/Hungary-in-the-Soviet-orbit

Molotov, V., Spitz, M., Liu, L., Tarantino, Q., & Nixon, R. (n.d.). Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Wikipedia. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956

Soviets put a brutal end to Hungarian revolution. (n.d.). History.com. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/soviets-put-brutal-end-to-hungarian-revolution

SURVIVAL: LIVES OF HUNGARIANS UNDER COMMUNIST AND CAPITALIST GOVERNMENTS 1956–2006 — Oral History Project // Regional Oral History Office. (2011, July 6). The Bancroft Library. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/projects/hungary/index.html