Karoly's Hungary

By Michael Fitzalan

This is the story of Karoly, a man whose family protected Katia and other Jewish refugees who were trying to escape the advance of Nazi Germany, from the west, and the advancing Russian’s ‘Red Army’ and their Romanian allies, to the east; Karoly was a teenage boy who was used as human-shield by Romanian 'liberators' in Hungary. After the war, he was sent to prison while Hungary was under communist control. He was committed as a political prisoner for being a member of the Independent Small-holders Party, the communist party’s only serious political rival.

Under the communist regime, anyone who held authority in the community was a threat and Karoly was arrested under a trumped up charge. He was sent to Márianosztra where he was given the option of starvation or working as a miner in a forced labour camp.

Karoly worked in a coalmine until he escaped the cruel communist regime in 1956. This is the story of a man who cheated death and suffered un-imaginable privations before escaping to England.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781326280727

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Karoly's Hungary

Karoly’s Hungary

by

Michael Fitzalan

Copyright © 2015 by Michael Fitzalan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews.

A Story from Hungary

This is the story of Karoly, a man whose family protected Katia and other Jewish refugees who were trying to escape the advance of Nazi Germany, from the west, and the advancing Russian’s ‘Red Army’ and their Romanian allies, to the east; Karoly was a teenage boy who was used as human-shield by Romanian 'liberators' in Hungary. After the war, he was sent to prison while Hungary was under communist control. He was committed as a political prisoner for being a member of the Independent Small-holders Party, the communist party’s only serious political rival.

Under the communist regime, anyone who held authority in the community was a threat and Karoly was arrested under a trumped up charge. He was sent to Márianosztra where he was given the option of starvation or working as a miner in a forced labour camp.

Karoly worked in a coalmine until he escaped the cruel communist regime in 1956.  This is the story of a man who cheated death and suffered un-imaginable privations before escaping to England to start again from nothing, a broken and mentally enfeebled refugee who rebuilt his life through hard work and determination.

Acknowledgements:

My grateful thanks to all those involved in this project, including: Nick Dunne and Tom Gately. Particularly, I wanted to thank Karoly for reliving the horrors of the war and his time as a persecuted farmer and political prisoner during the communist occupation.

Especially, I want to thank my wife, Suzi, and my two sons Alexander and Barnaby.

The people of Hungary suffered; Karoly suffered, Katia suffered,

The Jewish population of Budapest suffered; Hungary became part of the Holocaust.

This must never happen again, in the name of communism, or capitalism, or for any idealism, in the name of any religion, to any country or any people.

Chapter One - The Scapula - Before the war.

The Priest at our church knew me well; I had been an altar boy for one year from 1937-38, the fifth year in school, at the age of twelve.

I thought you I had seen the last of you, although you were an excellent altar boy, he said kindly as he smiled at me after mass on Sunday, my mother was lighting a candle before leaving to cook my sister and I our Sunday lunch.

I need your signature, I admitted sheepishly, although he knew the reason for my call to the presbytery, as I was part of a long queue.

Every Sunday, I need to sign so many forms for the grammar schools; I have no time to ring the bell, could you do it for me Karoly? 

Father, I would be honoured to do so, I said running to tell my mother; I was filled with such pride.

Is that Karoly? asked the old organist as I rushed past him, to tell my mother the good news; he was carrying a bundle of sheet music under one arm, on his way to the cupboard in the sacristy to return the music to its shelf.

Yes, a lovely boy, he helps his mother run the farm.

What happened to his father?

I have no idea but he seems to be the man of the house!

Even at his tender years? 

I carried on going to church even though I was not moved to higher school. During the time of High Mass, which was celebrated between eleven and twelve, nearer the end, about quarter to twelve, in the summer of 1944 the bombers would come.

This huge raid, on 3rd July, started with the planes from Sicily, which flew over occupied territory beyond us, turned and used Danube as a landmark, they bombed Szolnok, then moved on to Hatvan; then headed the seventy to eighty kilometres to Budapest, bombing the city on their return to Italy.

There were 640 bombers in diamond formation of 28 or 29 planes and 225 escort planes. There were one thousand bombers at Dresden. Budapest was the major target for the Americans, ignoring Ploesti, the oil fields in Romania, on the south-eastern part of the Carpath Mountain Range.

We had no air force. Horthy, the Regent asked the Americans to invade Hungary and he would support them instead of the Russians, they refused and bombed us instead.

We heard the explosions from the capital, the crump of bombs in Budapest was clearly audible; the ground was shaking, and windows were opened every Sunday because otherwise they would have been blown out.  I could see the diamond shape in sky and it was the biggest I had ever seen. I was at the entrance into the church, watching over the congregation from the back ringing the bells when the people knelt and I rang the bell when host was raised and when the chalice with wine raised.

The church was packed with people: husbands and other men on right hand side, left side for ladies and the unmarried ladies in the aisles and at the back; it was traditional for the newlywed ladies to take up position. 

The organ was up on the mezzanine where the newly married men and young men stood to sing. I could see the altar because I was tall. The priest was standing three steps above the congregation; he used to perform the transubstantiation facing away from the congregation. I would pull the rope to ring the bell when the priest held up the bread and wine. It was thirty degrees approaching noon and both inner doors and outer doors were open. When we heard so many engines, we were worried the fighter pilots might peel off and strafe the congregation on the road.

The whole church shook but we dared not leave.

40km away in Budapest, the bombs were dropping but we could feel it in our church.  I was at the entrance and stepped down the four steps to look at the planes. Six hundred and forty planes took a long time to pass overhead. They were not challenged; we had ten Messerschmitt in Hungary to protect us from the Russians. 

The mass finished but I warned them to stay inside. When the planes passed, the vibration of the engines shook the church too. I gave them the all clear afterwards. On my way home, I heard about Antal Joo who was a lecturer when I was in my fifth year, I used to assist in church services, funerals and weddings, every Sunday from 1937 to 1938.

Then on 1st September 1939, I was enrolled at a grammar school. I heard a crystal radio broadcast at Nagykáta, put in the window of his living accommodation on the first floor at about midday, we had enrolled in the school and we were waiting for the journey to take us back home and that was how I learnt war had broken out.

The radio could be heard from all over the station, it was so loud. My mother was with me. When she heard the announcement with all the others waiting on the platform, her face was filled with terror. She knew what war was about. In our area, she saw the victorious Romanians plundered everything in our area except the millstone in our mill because that was too heavy.  An American general, Bandholtz put a halt to the looting, saving the contents of the museum in Budapest.

After the announcement of war, we were all oppressed by an atmosphere of depression; I learnt some history from my mum, from my school, from my grammar school and from my time in England.

We Hungarians never interfered with your western civilised situation but we were known as the Huns.

Yet, our state was established in the Carpath basin, and in 1,000 AD became a Roman Catholic kingdom under St Stephen. England did not become a country until 1066.  The Arpad gave us Kings Bela IV in 1241.

Father Robert of England bought the ultimatum to Hungary, being the envoy, leading them through the Carpath mountain range to Hungary, they destroyed the eastern side, and when the river froze, they destroyed the other half of the population. In 1242, Genghis Khan died, left Hungary hopeless and helpless. 

Then as time went on, the country rebuilt itself; there never had been a state until we drained the marshes, which flooded when the melt water came from the Carpath Mountains. Only Hungary stood up to the Ottoman army from 1366 to 1526. In that conflict, they clashed nineteen times. We lost two kings, the last in 1526 when Hungary finally collapsed. In the mean time, the kings' advisers were begging the Pope and Western Europe to help. Janos Hunyadi, the military leader beat the Turks in Belgrade.

It took three weeks to get a message to the Pope and he called Hunyadi, the saviour of Christianity.

The Pope ordered the bells to be rung throughout the Roman Catholic world to be rung at midday, which became Angelus. Pope Calixtus III, Jacob Calcaterra said the Pope thought he was the most impressive leader of the last 300 years. This was on June 29th, 1456.   

When Horthy came to power, at the end of the First World War, the communists who committed crime against the Hungarian population were gathered together in an internment camp 15km from our village, six of their wives went to beg the priest for their freedom.

The priest got six communists released. That was our parish priest at work. A few days later, the priest gave me the scapula.

When I was at the front; taken there by the liberating Romanians, to participate in the siege of Budapest, as a shield, we came in from the east over the pasture, we had arrived in the afternoon the previous day, they were whispering behind me as we carried the heavy ammunition boxes. The house we stayed in was between the two fronts. Facing down to the south were the Hungarians on the hill, in front of us. Two hundred metres away were the soldiers.

When we went back from delivering the ammunition boxes, those soldiers who came back made sure I was at the back so I would be shot first.  They had taken me to the front of the next house, facing the Hungarian front line, showing I was civilian. The house faced the hillside with nothing in between.

There was a 10-centimetre by 10-centimetre square window in the kitchen door and right in the middle, the window there was a bullet hole.

When I stood at the door the Romanian pulled me away and said, Officer caput.

You could not have shot more accurately if you had been at the door and they were firing about a km away. Took me to show the Hungarians, you might hit a civilian if you fire on this house.    

They indicated that I should pick up the ammunition boxes. 25kg boxes of German ammunition, pointed to gully, go that way, take cover behind lilac bushes. I heard four or five shots coming from the ground. As we went further to the west, to the house, and then across road, I could see statues on the left, looking at them, then heard whispering.

I looked around to see last of those following crouching down. I watched the hillside, looking for a spark.

We reached house and the well that soldiers would sit under the canopy in 40-degree heat on deck chairs. As we continued on our line of progress, a plant was cut in half in front of me, and then I heard the bullets hit the ground, stepped back, and then, I hit ground.

It was then that I believe that Mary saved me, the priest had not told me Our Lady would save you but she did. The priest knew it and that was why he gave me the scapula.

The second time I was saved, it was frosty, minus fifteen, horses neglected not cleaned or fed due to the weather.

We were in a house with a summer kitchen, window to west; two sacks of oats provided my bed for two months. Through the window, a man limped in walking stick, an officer, dressed in uniform. The Corporal and others went to greet him. The officer motioned with his walking stick for the soldiers to line up. He got angry and beat up the men with his stick. The corporal ran after them but they disappeared. Then, the officer looked at me.

Who are you? he growled.

The corporal explained I had a horse and cart. The officer struck me once hit my forearm and hit my bone, the radius. I said a swear word that is shared by Russians, Slavs and Hungarians, and on the second strike, I grabbed stick and pushed handle of stick. It went into his belly, and he left me alone after that. He moved on.

Between the house and the summer kitchen, we washed our hands and had breakfast. I read my books, Mark Twain's travel books sitting in window to west, sitting with arms over back of chair reading book, facing out of the window. In the potato cellar, at about ten, no one had a watch; we heard the whoosh of an artillery shell from the west. There was 10 cm of snow on potato cellar; I saw it jump like dust, to the north, which was to my left. I jumped up, by now; I was used to being a soldier, spotting artillery.

When a shell comes and the spent shell is ejected, the gun is lined up and aimed by the observing officer; I counted to seventeen, it should have come, but it did not. We opened up the door facing to the north but the soldiers were too scared to go out so they sent me.

You soldiers, I teased, you send a schoolboy out and you are afraid to come out. The neighbour had a toilet a metre and half from the kitchen; it was obliterated. I stood there.

Mary came in again, the shell would have come into my lap, Our Lady’s scapula was around my neck but I did not realise it. So the bullet was an inch in front of me and the shell landed four and half metres to the south of me. The length was perfect; the trajectory was four and half metres off target, thanks to my scapula and the protection of Our Lady.

In the same summer kitchen with just one room with a fireplace and sacks for my bed, using an aluminium bowl for washing, filled from a nearby well, I washed twice a week. I heated up the water so it was tepid and took off my clothes to wash myself, I never saw a Romanian's collar bone; they just rinsed their mouths with water and spat it out.     

The Romanians

They had leeches and they patted their trousers until they fell out. I screamed at them to get out and shake their clothes outside but the leeches got to me in the end and I was infested with them and got scabies. There were millions of welts all over my skin. Scab crusts formed over my skin about the size of a pin each of them, all over my body.

I showed the corporal and he said he would take me to the doctor. We went down earth road parallel to tarmac road. I went to see doctor, when I suddenly heard a shell blast and, straight away after, a soldier hit by shrapnel came through the house.

Therefore, I had to go back. I went again to see him, gave me some brown stinky ointment that looked like dark beer. I had to rub it on my skin. I said, ‘thank you’ and left to go back to the house. The main road and earth road ran alongside each other and as I reached where the earth rod joined the main road, I could see the Russian lorry coming from the east. Two soldiers were in the front, they knew the driver had made mistake. I was at the fork and heard shell coming from south, never heard them from south before, forty fifty metres away, ribble, ribble, ribble, it went straight past me.

Straight away, I flattened myself on the frozen ground. The shell missed by three metres, ten fifteen metres on my left the second shell landed, missing the truck because the second soldier told him to accelerate. It was minus fifteen but could feel the slivers of shrapnel land on me on the frozen ground. I knew how to react. I waited until the lorry left before I got up to go back to the house where we were posted. The next village was eleven kilometres away; I would have no guarantee of safety, so I went back. The Corporal asked if I knew where the Headquarters were.

I said: Yes, but we will have to see my mum and sister in the next village.

I drew the map.

All right, we can do it, he agreed.

My cart was emptied and I had two horses, as I approached a big brick building, the forester's house, I saw some Romanian soldiers.

The Hungarian soldiers could see I was a civilian turning my horses on the main road. In front of me was football pitch four feet higher than main road.

I saw a couple and they were crouching at the back of the field; ten centimetre high snow on the top of the gully they were running along. On the hillside, there was a machine gun set up to cut down Romanians on the road.

The corporal has seen the machine gun firing at civilian couple running in gully behind the pitch. The father had been holding their baby and the mother had been carrying two bags. Bullets made a dust cloud as the bullets hit the ground and the father ducked.

I was out of the cover from the forester's house. The corporal leapt up and whipped up horses, they bucked and bolted.

He threw himself on the northern side.

The man was driving us eastward into certain death, into the machine-gun-fire.

I was dragged down onto the southern side where the bullets would come from. I was looking at the side of the cart wondering when the bullets would split the timber and hit me.

It was only a few metres and a few seconds.

The machine gun jammed or stopped firing but I saw the bullets churning up the earth in front of the refugee father who was trying to escape to another village. Again, Mary intervened.

I thought back to the priest and his words.

Here is a scapula of our Lady, wear it because the war is coming and Our Lady will save you in a dangerous situation.

Later, when I heard about Pope John Paul, being shot and he wore the scapula of Our Lady, I knew Our Lady had protected him from death. He went to thank Our Lady.

When I went to Our Lady in Lourdes, in the lower basilica, I knelt at her statue and thanked her for saving my life.

There is nothing extraordinary about me. It is just my Catholic behaviour. I am devoted to Our Lady. She saved me four times. I respect her; she is Hungary's saviour. King Stephen offered his crown to her protection. I am connected to Our Lady from my childhood. No one can criticise me for the appreciation to Our Lady for protecting me.

It started with the diamond shape of the bombers; the vibration disturbed our mass on 3rd June 1944.

The priest gave me the scapula a week or two later. He passed away while I was in prison, Father Antal, Joo, Good-Anthony. He was my saviour that way. In his eyes, I deserved what he offered me, perhaps he saw that we were all vulnerable and I might have to go through these terrible situations as he had witnessed in the First World War.

Our Christmas meal was potato soup followed by 'Mamaliga', salted corn flour. We had no bread and no meat of any description, there was nothing left after the soldiers had moved forward. After that, we scrubbed the floor with diluted soda crystals to kill the lice the Romanians left behind. In April, we went to the Teleki estate and someone gave me a bag of sunflower seeds. We saw the Hungarian soldiers being marched through the estate by Russian soldiers. They were crying with hunger. There was nothing I could do.

After the war, the Romanians walked back through our area, having exchanged their rifles for food when they were fighting in Czechoslovakia. They came in bands of one hundred and fifty, coming from north west, flying south east, heading for Tapioszecso and then onto Cegled, which was the only operating railway for them to return home to Romania by train. We saw about 120 soldiers walking tiredly, behind them a team of horses pulled an empty cart carrying two Romanian soldiers too exhausted to carry on.

The Romanians begged us for water and bread. Some youngsters chased them out of the town, thanking them for the damage they had done in their three months in our area from their arrival in October. They disappeared very quickly, but there horses were slow, they were only skin and bones. That day we took our sunflower seeds to the 'Press' and we got a litre of sunflower oil from the seeds we had gathered earlier that April.

Late on, in June, when the railway line was repaired, we got one train a day going to Budapest and Békéscsaba south east Hungary. In the morning it went one way in the evening the other. We also started going to the south east, to buy food from them. They had only been occupied for a short time and so had managed to build up their livestock. We bought some hens and eggs.

There was no room in the train; we packed out the roof and everywhere in between. The last trip I remember was my mother and I carrying a piglet in a sack. We went to the post Pullman that had ladders on the top, so we climbed onto the roof. The railwayman took the post Pullman to the front of the train. For two hundred kilometres, we sat behind the engine. The smoke and smuts hit us as we sat there.

There was no way we could have travelled with the animals in the normal carriage so we had to wait until the next morning before getting down. We were like chimney sweeps.

The Jewish prisoners from the concentration camps arrived by train. They were packed on the trains. Those that came down to Szolnok, south of Budapest, saw a train filled with Hungarian soldiers as prisoners of war in locked up waggons arrive. The soldiers on the roof fired to scare people away. Their habit was, if they could catch a civilian, they would put anyone in the carriage with the prisoners.

There were about twenty lines. We slipped out of the carriage we were in, and slipped under the wagons waiting for an engine on the next line. The Jewish prisoners from the concentration camps jumped out of the train as well and joined us hiding under the goods wagons. Then, our engine was ready, having taken on water and coal; the engine driver blew the whistle to let us know that the train was about to depart.

The Jewish passengers got back in the carriage, we climbed on the roof, and the train headed for the southeast. 285,000 thousands prisoners of war from Austria went through the country like that in closed waggons until they reached Romania and Jassi, where the doors were opened and the dead taken out before the trains continued on to Siberia. Each waggon had four windows for ventilation and these had thin bars on them, which were sewn up with barbed wire. No one ever escaped