Selected text
He returned with a doctor colleague of his through Pest [Budapest], where the Hungarian Soviet Republic [4] had just been declared. My father had known Bela Kun [5] well, as he had been one year his senior at the Unitarian Gymnasium in Kolozsvar. One could only leave Pest with the permission of the authorities, but that wouldn't be granted. My father managed to reach Bela Kun, the leader of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, and asked him to give him the necessary permit. There was only one train leaving for Romania.
Bela Kun wanted to persuade my father to stay there at any cost and he was offered a good position at the Health Ministry, but my father didn't want to stay. He said that he had a family and he wanted to get home. In the end he got the permission and along with a doctor colleague, he set out.
They couldn't come through Varad so they came via Temesvar. The Romanian- Hungarian border was at Deva by then. The Romanians detained them. They said that they were coming from captivity and they might even have had some papers too. My father somehow knew they shouldn't say they were coming through Pest and so he said they were coming through Trieste. But his colleague maintained that they were coming through Pest. The Romanians interpreted this as if they had spent time in Pest in order to study communism and they were arrested.
My father had an ex-schoolmate in Deva, a lawyer called Dr. Szego. Each day he wrote a few lines to him and gave this note, along with some chocolate or a tin, to a warden or a member of the cleaning staff to give to Dr. Szego. He wanted Dr. Szego to let my father's family know that he was imprisoned. Nobody ever gave those letters to the lawyer. One day, however, Dr. Szego saw a piece of paper in the street with his name on it, which was one of those letters. So he let the family know and my mother and her father went to Deva and got my father out of prison. My father brought home from Italy a backpack full of chocolate and tinned food.
Bela Kun wanted to persuade my father to stay there at any cost and he was offered a good position at the Health Ministry, but my father didn't want to stay. He said that he had a family and he wanted to get home. In the end he got the permission and along with a doctor colleague, he set out.
They couldn't come through Varad so they came via Temesvar. The Romanian- Hungarian border was at Deva by then. The Romanians detained them. They said that they were coming from captivity and they might even have had some papers too. My father somehow knew they shouldn't say they were coming through Pest and so he said they were coming through Trieste. But his colleague maintained that they were coming through Pest. The Romanians interpreted this as if they had spent time in Pest in order to study communism and they were arrested.
My father had an ex-schoolmate in Deva, a lawyer called Dr. Szego. Each day he wrote a few lines to him and gave this note, along with some chocolate or a tin, to a warden or a member of the cleaning staff to give to Dr. Szego. He wanted Dr. Szego to let my father's family know that he was imprisoned. Nobody ever gave those letters to the lawyer. One day, however, Dr. Szego saw a piece of paper in the street with his name on it, which was one of those letters. So he let the family know and my mother and her father went to Deva and got my father out of prison. My father brought home from Italy a backpack full of chocolate and tinned food.
Period
Interview
Gyorgy Neufeld