• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
 Copyright: Johanna Granville, "Adding Insult to Injury: Repression of the Progeny of the1956 Freedom Fighters," review of Zsuzsanna K 
ő
rösi and Adrienne Molnár.
Carrying a Secret in My Heart: Children of the Victims of the Reprisals after the Hungarian Revolutionin 1956. An Oral History
. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2003.195 pp. Illustrations and bibliography. $33.95 (cloth), ISBN 9639241555."Capital punishment kills immediately, whereas lifetime imprisonment doesso slowly," said the banker in Anton Chekhov's play "The Bet" (
 Pari 
). "Which executioneris more humane? The one who kills you in a few minutes, or the one who wrests your lifefrom you in the course of many years" [1] Culling over forty lengthy interviews, historiansZsuzsanna K 
ő
rösi and Adrienne Molnár show us in detail how the lives of the children of those repressed after the 1956 Hungarian revolution were wrested from them,figuratively speaking, over several years. Thrust into poverty and degrading manual labor,barred from secondary school, stigmatized by friends and society, these children arguablysuffered more than their executed fathers.K 
ő
rösi and Molnár are both research fellows of the Oral History Archiveat the Budapest-based Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Theyexplain how this research grew out of the Oral History Archive's brave efforts in 1981(when still illegal) to gather oral testimonies from over one thousand "witnesses of twentieth-century Hungarian history" (p. 2). Given the campaign orchestrated bycommunist authorities thoroughly to expunge the memory of the revolution andstigmatize it as a "counterrevolution," the Oral History Archive's work has provedinvaluable in preserving Hungary's historical heritage.
Carrying a Secret in My Heart 
 consists of nine short chapters, a bibliography, biographies of the forty-two interviewees,and their poems and sketches produced as children.The chapters trace - through the words of the interviewees - the several stages of thechildrens' experience, from the revolution and their memories of it, the sudden poverty and
 
heavy responsibilities during the father's imprisonment, patterns of communication withinthe family, and social stigmatization; to the adjustment after the fathers' release fromprison (those who did survive), the public exoneration of the victims and their families in1989, and the adult childrens' present-day reconciliation with their pasts.The age of the interviewees varied at the time the revolution first broke out (the studentdemonstration of October 23, 1956). Four of the children were over ten years of age,sixteen were between seven and ten, eight were between four and six, and fifteen werebelow four years of age (p. 6). While the younger ones retain only vague visual memories of red stars and statues being desecrated, the older ones recall participating in marches andstanding in long queues for hours - often at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. - to buy bread and milk. Onerespondent remembers accompanying his mother to the hospital (one hopes because shelacked a babysitter) and saw bodies writhing in pain, missing legs and arms. One man'sintestines were hanging out (p. 14). The children intuited the revolution's end by the shift inmood at home. Some recall their mother's pleas that the father emigrate to save his life.Most cannot remember their fathers' actual arrest because they were either not present ortoo young to remember (p. 21). A few can still hear their fathers' last words as they weretaken away. "You are the man of the family now; you must help your mother!" oneinterviewee, Tibor Molnár, was told - a heavy responsibility for a ten-year-old (p. 22).Beyond a doubt, losing a father through temporary imprisonment or execution istraumatic. Yet, in modern life where between fifty and sixty percent of marriages end indivorce, the absence of a father during childhood is not uncommon. Indeed, a child canperhaps bear more easily the experience of losing a loving father who involuntarilyabandoned him or her than a divorce in which the father voluntarily left and neverplayed a role in the child's life. However, politically induced abandonment carries apeculiar signature. The chapters on economic hardship, educational barriers, and
 
stigmatization go the farthest in showing the reader the full extent of the unique traumaendured by the children of the revolution's victims, how their lives were wrested fromthem over the course of many years.For every one of the interviewees, the economic situation changed radically after theirfathers' arrest. Dealing with the loss of the major "breadwinner" was hard enough, but toadd insult to injury, the Kádár regime targeted the wives as well. One in three of theinterviewees' mother was fired from her job. (p. 29) Experiences differed, depending onwhether the families lived in the city or countryside, but most of them were forced to dopoorly paid manual work, like housecleaning or factory labor. Erzsébet Peko recalls: "Mymother went to stuff geese at 2 a.m., and by the time she went out to clean for a doctor shehad stuffed sixty or seventy geese. She knew she had to go, otherwise there would be nofood for us" (p. 28). In 1957 a decree was passed, stipulating that relatives of the executedwere not eligible to receive widows' pensions or support for those left as orphans (p. 28).Rarely could the families survive on the mother's pittance, so many of the children hadto give up their schooling (elementary level) and do rough physical work as well. Thefamily's survival took precedence over individual needs for self-betterment. Those whowere financially able to continue their studies were usually barred from secondary school.Some prudently circumvented this barrier by moving to another city or town where peopledid not know them. If the mother divorced her husband-convict and remarried, changingthe last name of her children, the educational barrier could be surmounted. It was a highprice to pay for something others took for granted.Chapter Four ("Stigmatization") is one of the most moving. Here the reader grasps theprofound and lasting effect of the social stigmatization the children endured: low self-esteem. "The consequences of 1956, and the situation it landed us in, left its mark oneverything," György Feny
ő
falvi told Zsuzsanna K 
ő
rösi . "We were not allowed to do this,we were not eligible for that. When something was being handed out, I couldn't reach
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...