Everything Gone....

Sometime around the middle of May of 1951 my father's uncle (on his mother's side) came to see them and bore with him some troubling news. The Communists had started a mass deportation of all of the upper and middle class intelligentsia out of Budapest over to the eastern part of Hungary to be placed in forced labor camps.

It wasn't long after they received this news that the Makays started to witness it become a reality. Three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, during the hours of 4 and 6 in the morning, the Communist police would troll through the neighborhoods of Budapest delivering 24 hour eviction notices to families at random. The victims would then have to pack up whatever they could and sell or donate the rest of their belongings before the trucks came to cart them away. Budapest was once more in a state of panic.

Two of the first victims of this mass forced exodus were my father's Uncle Kamillo and his aunt. He helped them pack and store away everything they had left and then bade them a tearful farewell. My father was dumbfounded and unable to wrap his mind around the fact that his brave, heroic uncle was now being forced to face this fate.

On June 22, 1951 at 5am the Makay's doorbell rang. My grandmother opened the door and was served with their eviction notice. They were ordered to be ready to evacuate their apartment within 24 hours and be taken to the village of Sap near the Romanian border. They were allowed to pack two bedrolls and cram their wardrobe into 4 suitcases. The rest of their belongings were donated to neighbors, friends and the people who came to help them pack. By 8pm my father and grandmother were done packing and distributing their remaining goods, they said their good-byes, ate a small dinner, and tried to rest while waiting for the trucks to come for them. At 4 in the morning the truck that was to take them away stopped in front of their residence gate. Two agents and four movers made their way up to the 3rd floor apartment, grabbed the allowed luggage and scoured the home for anything left behind. My father helped his mother up into the truck and they could do nothing more but to watch their home disappear as they drove away from it. Everything. Gone.