Crossing to Freedom

Hours passed and the group kept walking and praying that they would not be discovered. Daylight started to subside and evening was upon them when they heard the rumble of military tanks approaching. Without a moment of hesitation, my father and his companions all jumped underneath dense bushes that were lining the road and held their breath. Within minutes three Soviet tanks drove past them, less than 200 yards from where they lay hidden. After about half an hour, when the coast looked clear, they climbed back out of their hiding places and continued their trek.

Before long, night was upon them and they only had the light of the moon to illuminate their path. My father and the others made their way through cornfields, pastures, forests, ploughed up fields and over frozen creeks. Everyone was exhausted but knew that they could not afford to stop and rest. On they went, throughout the night until dawn began to break. Knowing that once again they would have to walk in the daylight, more exposed to the danger of being caught, everyone became desperate. They knew that even if they got to the border, crossing it by the light of day would be unsafe.

Just as everyone was starting to feel as if they could not go on, a lone woodsman (who I cannot help but think was another angel watching over my father and his companions) walked up to them and advised that they not walk any further. He led them to his remote cabin. It was 8 o'clock in the morning at this point, and everyone knew that this would be their only chance to rest in relative safety. The woodsman's wife made a hearty breakfast and after eating, everyone fell asleep on the floor. In the late afternoon, they woke up to a nice dinner and pooled together all of their money to give to the woodsman and his wife. They knew that their Hungarian currency would get them nowhere once they reached the West, so better to leave it with someone who had shown them so much kindness. Once it became dark enough they set off again with the woodsman who generously offered to guide them to the border. A short distance away from the Austrian border, the woodsman told my father and his group to walk straight ahead with caution, wished them luck, and made his way back home.

The group carefully made its way across an empty field zone that had been clear cut and before they had a chance to get to the other side of the field, the Soviets shot up flares....less that 300 yards behind them. The dark of night that was keeping them hidden was now as bright as day and the group was exposed. Terrorized, they ran towards the Austrian border which was just over 200 yards in front of them. Eva's feet were bleeding yet she managed to keep up with everyone. As they were crossing the final stretch towards freedom, they heard the Soviet soldiers start shooting. Would they lose their lives only inches away from freedom? Suddenly, a pair of Austrian border guards ran up to my father and his family and shouted for them to hurry and run towards them. They sprinted and made it across to Austria where the guards made it clear that they were safe and under their protection.

My father, his family and a few others hugged each other with tears of joy and relief. They were finally free after eleven years of oppression, yet their elation would be short lived for as they were celebrating this moment of victory they heard more gunshots and the other refugees that had been walking behind them, tragically, were robbed of their chance to gain their freedom.

Saved by God's Grace....

On October 25th, during the first opportunity that presented itself, my father left Oroszlanbanya to try to make his way back to Budapest. He easily found transportation to the town of Bicske where he planned to transfer onto another train to Budapest.

When the train to Budapest finally arrived and everyone had boarded, my father recalls that all of his fellow passengers were discussing the uprising. No one knew what exactly had happened or what was going on in their city. Everyone was attempting to analyze the situation and interpret the events as best as they could. The anticipation to get to their destination and witness in person what was really happening was palpable in those train cars.

About 13 kilometers from the Budapest-Kelenfold Station, the train came to an abrupt halt. The passengers were told that the train would not be allowed to continue on to the city. My father took it upon himself to find the conductor and asked what had just happened and what they were supposed to do. The conductor responded that he was planning to disconnect the postal car from the rest of the train and continue on that way in order to make it home to his family. He told my father that if he acted quickly he could join him and complete the journey to Budapest. Hearing this, my father and a few other passengers jumped onto the postal car and they sped away with the conductor to Kelenfold Station. Once there, they discovered the station packed with people. The city was now in curfew and no one dared leave in order to go to their homes as the Soviets were threatening to shoot anyone they saw on the street after curfew.

My father walked to the station exit and looked out at the empty street ahead. Three young men let my father know that that particular area around the station was controlled by the freedom fighters and urged him to leave the station with them. He did. They walked out into the desolate streets keeping close to the walls and shadows in order to remain unseen. My dad remembers the city gave the impression of being haunted in its solitude and silence. All of a sudden, the small group's progress was halted as a car drove up to them. They stood petrified not knowing who was inside. Thankfully, the men in the car were supporters of the freedom fighters and offered my father a ride to his sister's home. Just as my dad thought he was finally on the last leg of his trip, the car was stopped by a band of freedom fighters warning them that Soviet tanks were coming and that they must immediately turn around.

My father did not want to retrace his steps so he got out of the car, and hunkered down in the shadows. The last thing that he wanted was to come face to face with the Soviets. He stood in the gateway of a darkened building and looked around for safe sidestreets down which he could escape. Finally he realized that just a few buildings away was the apartment where his mother's former doctor's widow lived. He knocked on her door and was let in. As he stepped through the threshold a resounding blast of gunfire was heard that rattled the entire building. No one dared look to see what had happened. My father finally fell into a restless sleep on the widow's sofa. He awoke the next morning at 7am but could not leave her home as curfew would not lift until 8:30am. He sat and had breakfast with the widow's nephew, and as soon as he could, he left in order to find his own family.

Once on the street he walked back towards the building where he had gotten out of the car. The same building where he stood surveying the neighborhood to find his best way out the night before. My father remembers his blood running cold as he saw that a huge gaping hole had appeared in the front of that building overnight. He knew in that instant that only minutes after he had left that building's gate, and just as he was walking into the widow's apartment, a Soviet tank had shot at the edifice. It was but by the grace of God that my father had acted as quickly as he had. A moment or two of hesitation would have seen him blown away along with the front of the building that he was standing next to. Hearing him recall this story gives me chills and a feeling I cannot describe in the pit of my stomach. Once again, he had angels watching over him. I have no doubt of this.

The Tanks Come Rolling In....

As time went on and my father continued his top secret assignments, it became more and more clear that the Soviets were becoming stronger and their regime more nefarious. My father had to remain completely under the radar in order to carry out his assignments and not endanger himself, his family, and the Americans he was working with. In order to stay as out of the way and incognito as possible, he found a a safe meeting place outside of Budapest where he would meet and deliver news, plans, etc. to the Americans.

Every week he would travel to this small village outside of Budapest by bus. He would walk down a quiet, rural road waiting for the Colonel or his deputy to arrive so that he could hand over the reports and information he had compiled over the course of the week. If no one was around, the Colonel's car would stop, my father would hand over the information, and they would each go on their separate ways. If another car, or traveler, happened to be on the road, my father would keep walking and the Colonel would continue driving only to return every 20 minutes or so until the coast was clear. This became my father's life from May of 1954 until October of 1956.

During those years my father traveled throughout the countryside as often as he could to glean and observe as much information as he could. He was the the first person to report that the surveying company he worked for was measuring out land for a new air force base at Mezokovesd. Not long after that another base was being planned out....proof positive that the Soviets were strengthening their military might.

On October 21, 1956, towards the end of his time working as a spy for the Americans, my father was sent by the Geodetic Surveyor's Group to a town called Oroszlanbanya to assist on another project. He was in charge of finding accommodations for himself, three other surveyors and his boss who was to arrive on the 23rd. He did as he was told and then set out with his workmates to discuss the location that was to be surveyed with the engineers at the town's City Hall Engineering Dept. On October 23rd, at noon, my father went to meet his boss at the train station and update him on what had been achieved on the days prior to his arrival. The train arrived 40 minutes late, yet his boss was nowhere to be found. My father was puzzled, and as he did not have his hearing aide with him, he could not make out what was being said all around him. The only way he could understand anything was by communicating face to face. No one was willing to stop and speak with him, yet he saw in their expressions that something was not right.

He quickly made his way back to the guesthouse where he was staying with the other surveyors and asked the caretakers and cleaning lady if they knew what was going on. He told them that his boss had not shown up on the appointed train and that everyone looked upset at the station. At that moment, another guest, a schoolteacher named Josef Chaszar, arrived and the cleaning lady asked him if he knew what could have possibly happened. The man responded with somber news. He said that in Budapest, all of the University students and workers had gone out to the streets for a peaceful demonstration. They were asking for freedom. When they made their way to the radio station, the AVH started shooting at them and before anyone knew what was happening an uprising had broken out. Josef told my father that that was his best bet as to why his boss had decided to stay behind and not risk traveling. Budapest was once more in the midst of a nightmare. My father, shocked, thanked the teacher for the update and went to his room. Within an hour, Josef knocked on his door to give him yet another terrifying update....the Soviet Red Army had entered Budapest with tanks and were shooting. All he could think about now was that his parents were in Budapest...in the midst of this carnage and turmoil and he could do nothing to help them.

Everyman's James Bond....

So that was how my father became something of an "everyman's" James Bond. No martinis, no gadgets, no exotic women with ludicrous names....just a man working undercover in order to survive and to do good by his motherland. A hero who would remain unsung to this very day.

My father's sense of loyalty and pride to his ancestors and country made him think about how this mission he had decided to undertake could help fight against the tyranny of the Soviets. Just as he was starting to come to terms with what he was doing, my grandfather began to get very ill. With the passing of each day he became sicker and sicker and the doctors that treated him found that he had been poisoned while at the internment camp with chemicals that thickened his blood, slowed his circulation, destroyed his liver, and would lead to his death. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. My father knew then and there that without any hesitation he would do whatever he could to retaliate against the Communists.

My father also knew full well that many Hungarians had been arrested, tortured, and executed for taking a stand against the Communists and that he was making a very dangerous decision. Yet he decided that he would do so alone, without anyone seeing or knowing what he was up to. His first step was to find out who he could contact in American intelligence safely. In his spare time, my dad would spend hours walking around the American embassy and observing the diplomats as they came and went. He memorized the makes, models, and colors of the diplomats' cars as well as their license plate numbers.

It was just a matter of time before my father noticed one car in particular. It was a green Chrysler that he'd seen parked at the American embassy, but he had spotted it while on the streetcar in front of a building on Pasareti Street (number 8). He walked up to the gate and saw a small plaque stating that the villa was a diplomatic residence. This was the opportunity that he had been waiting for. My father continued to walk around the embassy every Saturday until he finally saw the owner of the green Chrysler leave the building and walk towards his car. The following Saturday my father waited by the diplomat's home on Pasareti Street and when he saw the green car approach he quickly made his way towards it, and handed the diplomat a note as he exited his vehicle.

In the note, my father requested that the diplomat please meet with him at a convenient time and that he would return the next Saturday at 1 p.m. to see what his response would be. True to his word, my father returned one week later and was met by the diplomat who handed him a slip of paper written in Hungarian requesting his presence in yet another week, Saturday at 10 a.m., in his home. That week seemed to last forever, but finally the Saturday arrived in which he would meet with the diplomat and he made his way to the villa where quickly slipped into the building. The diplomat showed him into the living room where the US Air Force attache, Colonel Welwyn F. Dallam Jr., sat waiting.

Col. Dallam Jr. spoke Hungarian quite well and my father was able to speak to him of his intentions. He volunteered his services to the American Intelligence Agency and gave him copies of the plans and pictures he had smuggled out of his work of a large chemical plant being built by the Communists. He told the Colonel everything he knew about the new Red Army bases, and the Soviet Air Force's activity as well as their deployment. He asked what more he could do to help and from that moment on would spend as much of his spare time as possible wandering the countryside outside of Budapest observing what he could and taking pictures that he could pass on to the Americans.

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?

Hell Gets Worse: From Jail Cell to KGB Dungeon...

Immediately after being "released" from jail, my father found himself in even greater peril. He was taken by an armed guard along with a Benedictine professor, a Jesuit professor and another student to a car that was waiting outside of the Communist Headquarters. They were instructed to enter the car by another armed Communist agent who made a great display of loading his pistol in front of them. They entered the car as ordered and were sped away to a destination unknown.

After approximately half an hour, my father and the other prisoners arrived at their destination. They were met by a Soviet KGB guard at a gate that led to a three story villa. My father knew at that moment that they had been handed over to the Budapest post of the KGB and felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He was led with the others to a room in the villa where they were searched and had their belts and shoelaces taken away. One by one, they were led out of that room to cells in a dungeon underneath the villa. My father was the last to be taken to his cell. My father's cell was #7...he remembers it vividly to this day. The guard opened the iron door and my father was made to enter. After his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light he saw that there were five other prisoners in the cell with him, one of which was Andras Kallay who was a distant relative of his. They stood frozen staring at each other in disbelief.

Andras then rushed over to my father and asked why he, too, had been brought to the dungeon and my father responded that it was due to his affiliation with the Boy Scouts. Because of the fabricated allegations against the Scouts, all of the young members were being imprisoned and tortured. Andras understood that to be true, as the other boys in the cell were also Boy Scouts. He then took my father under his wing and explained to him what he should expect over the course of the next few days. As Andras had been in the dungeon longer he was able to warn my father that every night the KGB agents would come in and start interrogations usually around 11pm. Those interrogations would last until 2 or 3 in the morning. He told my father to be brave and careful during his times being interrogated and to remember it was better to be brave and endure the torture than to be sent to Siberia for the next ten years.

My father greatly appreciated the advice and tried his best to mentally prepare for what was to come. He also struggled to understand why his relative was also incarcerated. He had been a war hero and on October 15, 1944 opened fire at the Royal Palace against the intruding Germans. He was later captured by the Germans and was a prisoner at Dachau...the Soviets should have considered his heroism against the Germans, yet here he was in an underground cell. Andras explained that when the Americans liberated Dachau in 1945, he too was let free and he and his father went to Capri where they were able to regain their health. When Andras returned to Hungary to reunite with his fiancee, the Soviets arrested him with the false allegations that he was returning to Hungary as a spy. It was clear that no one was safe from the Soviets. Anyone, at any time could be considered a spy or as working against the government and could be abducted and tortured.

My father spent three months in the KGB dungeon....the months of June, July and August of 1946. He remembers those months as being the most painful of his life. When he describes the cell to me, I cannot imagine how such a kind and gentle man could have ever been placed in conditions like that. Five men had to share a small, concrete cell with only a sink and a bucket. They had to sleep on the slab floors without any blankets or pillows. Every fourth night at 11pm my father was taken upstairs to be interrogated by Major Igor Simolov. He recalls being yelled at by the Major in Russian and whose interpreter spoke poor Hungarian. Between my father's hearing impairment and the broken Hungarian he was being communicated with, my father had an extremely difficult time understanding what the questions and allegations being thrown at him were. The office was thick with cigarette smoke which made him nauseous and he was terrified of responding in a way that would further incriminate him in their eyes. Twice he was made to sit on a stool with a Jupiter lamp aimed at his face with an agent standing behind him who would intermittently hit my father on the head, slap, punch and kick him. One evening, my father found himself so tired that he fell asleep on the cell floor and as he could not hear the agent calling his name to go upstairs for his interrogation, he was kicked by one of the guards in the face with a steel toed boot causing damage to his jaw. To this day my father will often cry out in his sleep from nightmares induced by memories of those months spent in the KGB dungeon. It breaks my heart that he ever had to endure such a nightmare....and to think that it would be just the tip of the iceberg....

Of Family, Altruism, and a Crumbling Europe

Not long after my father lost his hearing, the Makay family was subjected to more changes, more turmoil, more life events than they could not have imagined would happen in a lifetime, much less in such rapid succession.

In the Spring of 1939, after nearby Czechoslovakia was occupied by Hitler and split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary was able to re-establish a Polish-Hungarian border. Since one of the Makay family relatives was Istvan (Stefan) Bathory, one of the most beloved Kings of Poland, my grandfather was elated and went to celebrate this victory with the Polish Generals. Sadly, this celebration was to be short lived. On September 1, 1939 war broke out between Germany and Poland, and while the Polish Army fought valiantly, they could not overcome the new German Wermacht. Germany's tactical Blitzkrieg broke up the Polish resistance and Poland was split between Germany and Russia. At this point, thousands of Polish refugees poured into Hungary and Romania. My grandfather and great-uncles rushed to the Polish border to help as many of the refugees as they could.

My grandfather was able to offer sanctuary to three Polish colonels and their families. He had them move into the elegantly appointed apartments that had been vacated by the Austrian diplomats who had left Hungary to find refuge of their own in Canada, as they were anti-Nazi. The Austrian Embassy was closed down and the feeling of impending doom was becoming more and more palpable. My father, his family, and all of Hungary were caught between two vicious, totalitarian forces, Germany and the Soviet Union.

During this time, my father, who was 10 years old, befriended the Polish colonels' children, as they spoke some French and my father was fluent in the language. He played with them and tried to make them feel as comfortable as a young child is capable of. His mother invited them all in to their home for dinner, and my father remembers all of the wives crying, brokenhearted at having to leave their homes, and possessions behind with no knowledge of if they would ever be able to return. On Sundays, the Makays took these families to Church with them and on outings to the Zoo, the Royal Palace, and Cegled. When Christmas came around, all of the families were invited to spend the holidays with the Makays at Keszthely, and while the children tried to make the best of it, my father remembers the atmosphere being rather somber as the parents were all too wise as to what was brewing on the political front as well as melancholy about holidays past in a home country they were not able to return to. New Year's Eve was just as dismal with the women worrying about their childrens' futures and the men trying to analyze the political situation and what it would mean for all of them.

After the holidays, the families returned to Cegled and the children went back to their studies. Besides learning their lessons, my father and his sister were also taught protocol and etiquette. On Sundays, they continued to visit the Polish colonels' families and play with the children, until my grandfather was able to secure safe passage for the Polish families to Ankara, Turkey with help of a high powered Turkish attache. Life was made to be as normal as it could be under the circumstances, even though my father remembers that more and more government VIPs were coming in to consult with his father from Budapest and both my father and his sister were instructed to keep quiet about who was visiting. The months to follow would see Europe broken and faltering further and further with the passing of each day, and the Makays would find themselves saving more families from certain death.

Keszthely....

While I continue to go through the small mountain of handwritten journals that my father has given me to peruse and write about, I wanted to take a moment to post some photos of one of my father's childhood homes, Keszthely. This was one of the largest, and most beloved homes of my father and his sister. With acres of park-like grounds, an impressive library, and what seemed like miles of banisters just waiting to be slid down, it is no wonder that my father genuinely enjoyed his times there.

Keszthely is also the only family home that is still standing. The other Makay estates were reduced to rubble by the invading Communist military, or abandoned and left to decay. While several other former Communist countries have graciously given their former royals, nobles and aristocrats their properties back, or at least significant monetary compensation for all that was confiscated from them, the Hungarian government has never done so. My aunt, Eva, spent many years and much money working with attorneys in Budapest in an attempt to regain what was taken from our family, yet nothing ever came of it. Sadly, Eva passed away in her home in Toulouse, France this past year, and our family has given up all hopes to ever regain our properties. Keszthely is currently a museum and its grounds are a public park.

These pictures show a partial exterior of the the home, the library, a sitting room, one of the staircases, another angle of the library, a partial view of the grounds, and the entrance gate. These are the only images that our family has left of this home, but it is enough to see how grandiose and beautiful it was, and still is. You can imagine what it was like for me as a little girl seeing these pictures. I remember fantasizing about what it would be like to prance and twirl in those rooms in gowns opulent enough to put Disney Princesses to shame. Every little girl dreams of being a princess, and there I was with that reality so close yet so very far away. However, what mattered most is that I was my father's little Princess....and still am.

A Brief History in Pictures

This past weekend, my father came over with the two albums of family photographs that he was able to acquire after his escape from Hungary in 1956...which is a story for another day. He sat with me over tea and patiently showed me each and every photograph, reliving the moments as if they were just yesterday. I find these moments with my dad both fascinating and heartbreaking. I have heard all of his stories time and again throughout my childhood, but the older my dad gets, the harder it is for me to see him so sad at the bitter memories of having his life and family literally torn apart by the invasion of Communist Russia....again, another story for another day.

In the meantime, I want to share some of the pictures from my father's albums.

1.My grandfather, Istvan Makay

2.My Aunt Eva, my father, and my grandmother Erszebet Makay.

3.My grandfather (on the left) with one of his assistants.

4.Our family's Coat of Arms.

5.My father's Aunt and Uncle, Margit and Kamillo Karpathy.