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....

The Persecution of a Boy Scout...

With the passing of each day, the Communists in Hungary were growing stronger and soon had their hands in everything. They controlled the police, the Ministry of the Interior, and the courts. Everyone had to have background checks and a clearance via the Communist committee. Fortunately, as my grandfather had acted against the Nazis, he was given clearance, yet sadly, it would soon become clear that this "clearance" would not truly be enough.

The Communist Political Police and the KGB started a wild witch hunt, and while they did capture and prosecute many war criminals and sadistic extremists, they also victimized many innocent Hungarians. They removed the people's ability to go to Church and religious schools. The youth were not allowed to socialize in groups such as the Boy Scouts, and anyone belonging to the noble classes were closely monitored. My father remembers this time as being an era of fear, hatred and revenge.

Despite the Communist ban on groups like the Boy Scouts, my father continued meeting with his friends and their troop during school hours. They needed something to stay sane during this time of turmoil, and going on hikes in the mountains, doing homework together, and hanging out making jokes and conversing was one of the only things my father and his friends had left of their youth. Although they were offered to join the Communist Youth Movement, my father and his cronies refused. They contacted the Boy Scouts World Headquarters in London to let them know that the Scouts had been banned in Hungary, yet sadly there was nothing that the London office could do.

It wasn't long before my father started hearing from his friends that several of the boys they knew, as well as some of their professors were being arrested for their involvement with the Boy Scouts. It was assumed by the Communists that since the Scouts were in connection with London, and therefore with the US by proxy, that the Scouts were acting as spies of some sort and the boys were being prosecuted and persecuted as such.

On June 7th, 1946, at about 4:00 in the afternoon, two plainclothes Communist agents came to my father's apartment, arrested and took him to their headquarters. He was interrogated until 10:00p.m. and was then roughly placed into a jail cell where he saw several of his friends who had been arrested earlier. His mother and sister were scared and outraged. They immediately went to seek help from Vice Admiral William Dietrich of the U.S. Navy who was shocked to hear that teenagers were being arrested. He immediately commissioned two 2 Jeeps with six American G.I.'s to go to the Communist Party Headquarters and get my father out. It was to no avail. When they arrived at headquarters the Communist agents denied that they were arresting and incarcerating teens and were turned away. My father spent ten days in the cell not knowing how or when he would ever get out.

On the tenth day, my father would be allowed out of his cell....but where he would be sent after that would turn out to be far more torturous than he could've imagined...

From Prince to Pauper

On October 30th of 1944 my grandmother celebrated her 40th birthday surrounded by close relatives. Although everyone would have preferred to stay together all evening, due to the citywide curfew, everyone had to leave before 5pm. The following day my grandfather was paid a visit by a sergeant friend who reported that the Gestapo had arrested Lt. General Janos Kiss and Major Vilmos Tartsay who were officers that my grandfather often met with. Due to the fact that he consorted with these men, it was a very plausible threat that my grandfather would also be persecuted by the Gestapo.

Immediately after the meeting with the sergeant, my father and his family once again started to pack up their belongings. While traveling by car was becoming more and more difficult for Hungarians due to the puppet government's denial to provide the populace with gasoline, my family was fortunate enough to have their chauffeur obtain 50 liters of gas from the black market. During the early morning hours of November 1, 1944 they were able to make their way out of Budapest to a remote country village called Nagybatony. The town was small, quiet, and did not have immediate access to a highway or a railroad which allowed it to stay under the radar of the Nazis and and away from military confrontation. My father and his family settled in this town and made an earnest attempt to feel safe once again.

One month later, the Soviet Red Army arrived in Budapest and on Christmas Eve the fighting began. Turmoil and destruction were to be found on every street and the Royal Palace was heavily damaged. This battle lasted until February 13th, and the knowledge that their home city was being destroyed lay heavily on my family's hearts. It was a gutwrenching holiday season for them. Luckily, they managed to stay in their small village until May 10th, 1945. At that point the family wanted to go to Pusztamonostor to survey the situation there. As they had lost their car in the interim, they had to travel by horse and buggy. When they arrived at their home in Pusztamonostor they found that it had been completely destroyed and ransacked. The retreating German Army had burned down their barns and silos and stolen all of their livestock, furniture and silverware. Beautiful portrait paintings of their ancestors were destroyed at the tip of bayonets, and antique Persian rugs had been pulled out and used underneath army vehicles by soldiers making oil changes and repairs. Anything else that the Germans had left behind was confiscated by the Soviets. They even so much as trampled and flattened out the lush botanical gardens on my family's property. Nothing was left unscathed.

As their home was no longer standing, my father and his family spent the night at their butler's house. The next morning they woke early to walk to the train station in order to return to Budapest. Once back in the city they discovered that their home there was being squatted in by a Communist apparatchik and they were unable to move back in. On their way to his aunt's house, my father remembers seeing his beautiful city broken and destroyed beyond recognition. All of the bridges across the Danube River had been blown up and the Royal Palace was just a ghost of its former glorious self.

Despite all of this, the schools in Budapest re-opened and my father completed the 5th grade and moved on to the 6th grade with high scores and grades. As the family had lost virtually everything, my grandfather started working as a truck driver and my aunt as a French and German teacher in order to make ends meet. The family went from generations of nobility to poverty in what seemed to be just the blink of an eye. The unimaginable had happened.

On Air Raids, the Advancement of the Soviet Red Army, and the Saving of American Soldiers....

It is with vivid detail that my father tells me how on April 3, 1944 he experienced his first air raids. It was 9:30pm and even with his lack of hearing, he could feel the tremendous blasts of the falling bombs and their explosions. The family hid for hours in a shelter and waited, unable to truly breathe, for the bombing to stop. During this time, no one was able to sleep well, schools held lessons erratically, and the streetcars ran on an intermittent schedule. By the middle of May, all of the schools had to close down due to the amount of air raids Budapest was experiencing and my father continued his studies on his own. He moved with his family from Budapest back to Pusztamonostor where it was still somewhat more quiet and safe. At this time my father was 15 years old.

He remembers watching with his sister as what seemed like hundreds of American aircraft bombers flew over their country home, and even in their idyllic, quiet village, the tremors could be felt with each falling bomb. At night they would go out and watch the skies light up as explosives landed and destroyed great portions of Budapest. The death and destruction lasted the entire summer of 1944. With hope and anticipation of some sort of liberation, my father's family would gather around the radio every evening listening to stations which had become forbidden for Hungarians to listen to....the BBC and the Voice of America. It was during those newscasts, that my family discovered with sinking hearts that the Soviet Red Army would be occupying Hungary.

At the end of August, my father, his sister and parents, along with their chauffeur packed their belongings into the car and headed for what they hoped would be a safer haven. They would be driving to Nyirbator to stay with their Uncle Joszi (Jozsef). While driving through Budapest, they had to abandon their car and seek shelter from a bomb raid which lasted for over 2 hours. When they exited the shelter they found that all of the windows of their car had blasted out from the explosions, however it still was able to start up and they went on their way. After four hours of driving and seeing military plans flying overheard, they arrived at their destination and had a somewhat peaceful night at Uncle Jozsi's house.

This feeling of peace was short lived, as the next morning the household was abruptly woken by the sounds of loud motors in very close proximity. They ran outside to find out that there was an air raid taking place in nearby Debrecen and the planes were flying right over the house. They watched as one plane was hit and exploded mid-air. Within seconds they noticed four parachutists fall towards the earth and land in Uncle Jozsi's cornfields. My father, his uncle and my grandfather ran to their car and raced towards the cornfields. Four American airmen lay stunned next to their parachutes and Uncle Joszi called out to them in English, "We are your friends and want to help you. Do not worry!". My grandfather then told them that the Germans would soon be combing the area looking for them and that they must act quickly in order to not be detected. The airmen buried their parachutes in the ground and then followed my grandfather's orders to dig a large hole in the cornfield that they would lie in and hide from the Germans.

On the way back to Uncle Joszi's country manor, they stopped on the highway, got out of their car and acted as if they were looking in the opposite direction in order to misdirect the German soldiers that they saw were already on their way searching for the American airmen. When the German soldiers came up to my father, he, his uncle and my grandfather all told them excitedly that they had seen a plane fall "over there" which was of course, opposite of where the plane actually crashed. The soldiers left and my father and family members went back to the house. Upon arrival, Uncle Jozsi went to the cellar and found four farm shirts and trousers and then they returned to the cornfield to find the Americans still hiding. They removed their uniforms and dressed in the workclothes which made them look like and pass as Hungarian peasants. Their uniforms were buried in the ground. Then, they were safely transported back to the manor where they would be able to hide in the attic until they could be safely transported out of Hungary.

I will forever be touched and so proud of the selfless acts my father and his family partook in. The lives they saved....it is humbling. They did this for no other reason than that they were kindhearted, and had a sense of civic duty that was innate. Truly noble. Heaven has a special place for people like this.

Saved from the Horrors of Nazi Germany....

In 1942, the Makays grew tired of splitting their time between Cegled and Budapest and made the decision to stay in Budapest full-time. My father enrolled in the exclusive and very strict Budapest Benedictine school to continue his studies, and in the evenings the family would gather to listen to the BBC's radio reports to keep abreast of what was happening. In early March of 1944 the Makays were feeling optimistic enough to celebrate my father's 15th birthday a month early. They rented a box at the National Theater and watched a play alongside other dignitaries. That would be my father's first official public appearance.

The family continued to live with as much of a semblance of normalcy as possible, and were grateful that at that time, Hungary was relatively quiet compared to other neighboring nations. Sadly, not long after my father's birthday celebration, everything took a turn for the worst. On Sunday, March 19,1944 Germany invaded and occupied Hungary. The Prime Minister at the time, Miklos Kallay, escaped in the early morning hours and sought asylum at the Turkish Embassy. While this was all happening, my father was attending mass at his school's chapel, and once mass was over he and his classmates were greeted with the shocking news that the Germans and Gestapo had arrived in their city.

When my father got home, he found his parents devastated, and his uncle, Kamillo, shaken at the news that his friends had been arrested by the Gestapo. The family's somber mood only grew as they discovered the very next day that Edmund Veesenmayer, who was Hitler's personal representative and Gauleiter had arrived in Budapest accompanied by General Winkelman the Gestapo Chief. All Hungarian Jews were then ordered to wear a yellow Star of David and register themselves with the new Nazi government. The populace went into a panic.

My grandfather started taking meetings with several of his Jewish friends who came to him for help. The Makays had to be very cautious about who was seen entering their home or calling them as they suspected their phones of being bugged. Although he knew he would be risking his life as well as that of his own family, my grandfather made the decision to do whatever he could to save the people who had come to him for help. He had the family's loyal butler drive six Jewish families and their belongings to a remote hunting lodge in the mountains that the Makays owned. Once the families were settled in the lodge, my grandfather warned them to make sure all windows and doors remain closed at night so that no light would escape and draw attention. He promised to return the next day with news and more provisions.

When the next day arrived, the Makays not only came back to the hunting lodge with whatever they could to make the families feel comfortable, but they also brought along one more family. As they were getting ready to leave for the lodge earlier, a young Jewish boy arrived at their residence on his bike pleading for my grandfather to save his family. So, once again, the butler drove his truck to pick up the boy's family in a town called Nagykata and took them up to the join the other six families. This made for close quarters with 35 men, women and children in a four bedroom dwelling. Extra beds were brought in, sheets were hung up to create separate rooms, two outdoor toilets were built to accommodate the extra occupants, and my father attempted to occupy the kids by playing with them.

My grandfather had the difficult task of telling all of the families that now Hungary was completely under Nazi occupation. He had to ask them not to use the fireplace or wood stove for fear that smoke would escape the chimneys and attract the attention of German planes or surveillance patrols. Instead of cooking for themselves, my grandfather told the families that he would have his chef prepare them their daily meals which would be delivered by either the butler or my father. They would be given a petrol heater to keep warm and the children would have to play indoors and quietly. He offered them what little hope he knew of himself...that the Anglo-American forces as well as the Soviet Red Army were both advancing and that soon they would be liberated from German rule. He warned them that should they hear any suspicious sounds coming from outside the lodge that they should all immediately leave the building and run into the woods in different directions and find cover. Seven families to run in seven different directions....always on alert, always fearing the worst.

My grandfather kept true to his word, and the families were fed daily by his chefs. They did not have access to kosher foods, but he provided them the cleanest foods possible and made sure the children had plenty of milk and fruit. The butler made it a point to take different modes of transportation, horse and buggy or motorbike, and varied his routes daily on his trips to deliver food to the families in order to avoid raising suspicion from the Germans who had declared martial law which stated that violators were to be promptly executed.

The seven Jewish families lived in my family's hunting lodge from March 23, 1944 until March 2, 1945 for a total of 344 days. While they lived there in hiding, the Makays bore witness in horror to so many other Jewish families being taken to Germany or to forced labor camps in and around Hungary, and feared themselves that somehow it would be discovered that they were hiding those seven families. Luckily, the families remained undetected and safe, yet sadly, this would not be the end of the nightmare that Europe was enduring.

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.