Life Starts to Go Back to Normal....Or Does It?

After enduring weeks on end of torture, and interrogations my father and his fellow prisoners were called for a final meeting with their jailers. Names of other Boy Scouts were being called out and assigned to internment camps in Siberia. As each young man's name was called and led away, my father's blood ran cold wondering if he, too, would be sent away. Miraculously my father, his cousin Andras, and two other prisoners did not have their names called. They stood in utter shock and silence looking at each other. For about 20 minutes no one said a word or moved a muscle. Then, without further explanation, they were returned to their cells where they would spend six days in complete ignorance of what their fate was to be.

On the morning of the sixth day, my father was escorted upstairs to an office. A KGB agent asked him for his name, date of birth, birthplace, and other personal questions, then he was taken back to the dungeon. Later that evening he was called back upstairs and ordered into a prison bus which transported him back to the Hungarian Communist Political Police Headquarters. He stayed in a cell at the headquarters for another week and was finally released, without a dime, with a bruised body, swollen cheek and bloody nose, and made to walk 9km (just under 6 miles) to his home.

After walking for two hours, my father made it home and knocked at the window. He was pale and skinny and feared that his family would not recognize him. When his sister, Eva, looked out the window she screamed with relief and joy at seeing her brother and called out to their mother as she ran to open the door and let him in. My grandmother was ill at the time, but as soon as she heard that her son was home safe, she flew out of bed to see him. The neighbors made a delicious dinner and my father ate voraciously. Afterwards he was able to take a warm shower. His first time being able to use a proper bathroom and bathe in three months. He then got to sleep in his own, clean bed which felt like heaven after sleeping on a concrete slab for so long.

My father was allowed to rest for two days after returning home as it was September and school was about to resume. He would be entering the 7th grade which he remembers as being difficult and laden with many assignments. When summer rolled back around, he has fond memories of going on vacation with his classmates to Lake Balaton for three weeks where they swam, hiked, and rode bicycles. After the school trip was over, my father prepared to attend his sister's wedding. He remembers the church being crowded with all of the elite of prewar society in attendance. After summer ended, my father went back to hit the books and entered the 8th grade which he diligently studied his way through and was able to pass through with flying colors. Life was starting to feel as though it was going back to normal....but was it?