Tag #154220 - Interview #94325 (Stepan Neuman)

In 1938 I joined an underground communist organization of young people in Uzhgorod called ‘Kommunista Ifjumunkasok Magyarorszagi Szovetsege’. [Alliance of Hungarian Communist Young Workers, best known by its Hungarian abbreviation KIMSZ. It worked illegally in Hungary during the counter-revolutionary Horthy regime (1919-1944). KIMSZ also published an illegal newspaper, ‘Ifju Proletar’ (Young Proletarian).] Its leader was a professor of Uzhgorod University, a Jew named Rothmann. It was forbidden in Hungary and this was an underground organization. I was a member of this organization for a year, before leaving for Budapest.

I was a sportsman and received a task requiring training. Before the building of the People’s Council there was a seven meter high post with a hand on top of it holding a laurel wreath and a green velvet Hungarian banner on it with a white sign – a cross and a spike. This was a symbolic sign of the Hungarian fascist party. I climbed this post at night and took the laurel wreath and the banner off the post. I threw the laurel wreath into the Uzh River.

There was Hungarian gendarmerie near the river. This building houses the Medical Faculty of the University now. I put the banner in my bosom and went home past the gendarmerie building. At home I put the banner into my wardrobe and on the next day I showed it at our secret meeting. This was one of my tasks in this organization, and probably the most dangerous one.