Michael Daniel Kale, aged 17.
Dead in the gutter
of Klmn Jzsef street,
Budapest, Hungary.
The date is Monday, October 29th, 1956.
It is morning, a harsh morning.
Everywhere can be seen
the scars of revolution.
Because for six days,
Budapest has been agonized by an armed
revolt against its communist government.
It was begun, as so many revolutions
are begun, by students.
These are their faces.
It was their ultimatum to the government
on October 23rd,
which set in motion
the gear wheels of revolution.
They are the faces
of embryo technicians,
lawyers, artists and teachers,
all fevered with the social
discontent of their time.
A discontent which has spread itself
from the most advanced of students,
to the most junior of school boys.
From their secret and forbidden
meeting places,
the revolution has brought
the students and the workers,
out onto the open
of the streets of Budapest.
Joined by soldiers and other civilians,
and armed with a few sub-machine guns,
grenades and ancient rifles,
and bearing their national flags
and emblems,
they march in procession
to defy the Hungarian government,
and the Russian tanks it has called in
to suppress them.
On this morning, October 29th,
such a procession passes up
our Klmn Jzsef street.
Their purpose, demonstration.
The objective, Parliament square
in the centre of the city.
But they are never to get there.
For suddenly the crowd is fired upon
by police snipers and machine gunners
on the roof of a nearby barracks.
In a few moments, many of the marchers
are lying dead on the ground below.
But the crowd finally manage
to fight their way into the building.
Then for a brief moment,
the oppressed become the oppressors
as the crowd take their revenge
on the uniformed men inside.
The dividing line between murder
and justifiable execution
is difficult to find.
And in the fury of the moment,
no one looks for it.
Those freedom fighters who died
have been moved further down the street
and lie flag-covered in the dust.
Around them, the everyday life
of Budapest starts again.
The grocery rounds-man, whose van
has been smashed by a Russian tank,
plods his way from house to house
with his bicycle,
his tyres slashed to ribbons
by the broken glass in the road.
Here is one of the dead, a schoolboy.
He will be buried in an improvised plot
in the nearby park.
One of the men goes off to find the
boy's family to tell them of his death.
They must come and identify the body.
The boy's name was Michael Vela Imredi
aged 18 years and three months.
Eight minutes ago,
he had tried to throw a grenade
through one of the police
barrack windows.
He had missed.
Some of his friends had laughed at him.
Then a bullet from a police sniper
had hit him in the back and killed him.
The man on the left is Tams Varasi,
a primary school teacher, aged 37.
A reserved and quiet man.
He only openly joined in the revolution
the day before this.
Because, as he said,
"loan no longer sit still
and do nothing,"
"when my friends are being killed
in the streets outside my home."
Now he is actively organizing
a local first-aid post.
Klmn Jzsef street lies
in an industrial suburb called Ujpest,
which like the entire capital has taken
on the appearance of a wartime Hungary.
The one small thing that Tams can
find time to do for the Imredi family
is to send one of the young boys who
knew him at school to take them home.
The first-aid post is in the cellar
at the rear of this ruined house.
It is packed with the wounded
from many neighbouring streets.
The conditions down there are not good.
The walls are running with water
from the nearby river
and there is an acute shortage
of dressings.
Only the very seriously wounded
can be moved across to the hospital,
which is two blocks away
across a road junction
still under heavy shellfire.
The name of this girl is Margit Zeke.
Aged 33, she is the fiance of Tams.
A journalist, she tries to find time
between helping him with the post,
to finish a series of articles
she is writing
for one of the revolutionary newspapers.
These two have both been on their feet
all through the night,
working in the cramped confines
of the cellar dressing the wounded.
This little boy seated in the rubble
is called Robert Fodor.
His nickname is Roby and he's aged 12.
This is his sister, Zsuzsa, who is 17.
Their father was killed the day before
yesterday in the street fighting.
They both saw it happen.
Zsuzsa has tried to be practical
and put the tragedy out of her mind.
But young Roby can't and
won't let anyone do anything for him.
Not even his sister.
And that doesn't help her very much.
This very noisy young man's name
is Ern Szigeti,
a garage hand from Kobanya.
He's trying to get everyone to listen
as he tries to persuade Margit Zeke
to read the latest article of hers
recently published
in the revolutionary literary gazette.
At first she doesn't want to, but soon
she realizes that she has no choice.
Everyone wants to hear the words
of freedom she's written.
And for the moment all else is forgotten
as they listen to them.
On these faces, as each tragedy
is relived and talked about,
can be seen a vivid cross section
of the shifting moods of a revolution.
Gentleness and hatred,
fervour and grief.
And in these varying expressions
and on the faces that reflect them,
can thus be seen the whole enigma
of the Hungarian people.
A highly strung and volatile nation,
romantic, tempestuous, proud
and arrogant of their heritage,
capable both of cruelty
and generous kindness,
the Hungarians possess a complex
national makeup not easily understood.
This is Erzsbet Sulyok, aged 44.
Her only son was killed yesterday.
Istvn Berek, aged 19.
Parents deported five years ago
and not heard of since.
'Eva Rakes, aged 17.
Has a common sympathy with Istvn.
Her mother being killed three months ago
by security police.
Der Bn, aged 37.
Foreman at a machine factory in Ujpest.
And Mtys Vajda, 40,
a charge hand at the same factory
make strange co-patriots.
For one, Vajda, is a social democrat,
and the other, Bn, a staunch communist,
and consequently
they are both forever arguing.
This is Katalin Vardas,
aged 18, art student.
For her young years, an advanced cynic
and anti-communist.
Lszl Dondosi, 24, librarian.
And before the revolution,
the organizer of a discussion circle,
forbidden by the security police.
Each of these people, highly individual,
each with conflicting ideals.
It is, therefore, too naive to conclude
that the one common belief strong enough
to bring these people together
must be their genuine love
of their country
and their desire for its freedom'?
The desire for which
they are obviously prepared to die.
This is an old truck disguised
as a military ambulance.
In it, five members
of the AVH security police,
are trying to escape from
the siege of their party headquarters
down in the city centre.
But they don't get far.
Called the AVO,
these are the men who've held down
the country with an iron grip of terror.
What are these men'?
Are they traitors and bullying
opportunists of the worst kind'?
Or are they unwitting dupes?
And if the freedom fighters
had actually won the revolution,
would any of them have donned similar
uniforms to hold these men in check'?
By the 30th of October,
the Soviet forces had withdrawn
to the outskirts of the capital.
And Imre Nagy, the premier,
had set up his provisional government.
The revolutionaries were
now in complete control of the city.
Four days, the people of Budapest
lived under the illusion of freedom,
until the morning of Sunday,
November 4th,
when Imre Nagy broadcast
the following message
to the Hungarian people.
"This is Imre Nagy speaking,
"chairman of the Council of Ministers
of the Hungarian People's Republic.
"In the early hours of this morning,
"Soviet troops launched an attack
against our capital city,
"with the obvious intention
of overthrowing
"the lawful democratic government."
"Our troops are fighting,
the government is in its place."
"I hereby inform the people of Hungary
and the entire world of this situation."
Searchlights pick out
the grim chaos in the rubble,
as on the evening
of the 4th of November,
Russian tanks pour into the city and
lining the squares and street junctions,
fire shell after shell into the
buildings held by the freedom fighters.
Office blocks, apartment buildings and
hospitals are fired on indiscriminately.
Parts of many buildings
collapse on their defenders,
and scores are buried alive.
The noise of gun firing is deafening
and everywhere is smoke,
brick dust and rubble.
Time and time again,
students and young children are
dragged out from beneath the rubble.
It is terrible to watch.
There is no time to bury the dead.
There is not even time
to grieve for them.
There has to be a right and wrong
in any human conflict.
This most tragic of revolutions
can be no exception.
But in any conflict
between two major creeds,
one of which you believe in,
there has to be a final taking of sides.
And if those who happened to believe,
as these Hungarian
freedom fighters believed,
had taken a strong moral stand
on their behalf,
at the time when it most mattered,
then it is more than likely
that 20,000 of these people,
need not have given their lives
or their liberty for this belief.
Tams Varasi, dead.
Margit Zeke, refugee.
Istvn Berek, executed.
Eva Rokos, executed.
Lszl: Reva, dead.
Der Bn, killed.
And Dan Kelman, dead.
Mihly Kiss, executed.
Jnos Zigzai, deported.
Refugee.
Executed.
Deported.
Missing.
Killed.
This is Imre Nagy speaking,
chairman of the Council of Ministers
for the Hungarian People's Republic.
In the early hours of this morning,
Soviet troops launched an attack
against our capital city,
with the obvious intention
of overthrowing
the lawful democratic
Hungarian government.
Our troops are fighting,
the government is in its place.
I hereby inform the people of Hung...