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University Daily Kansan Supplement
Hungary Today:
"The Freedom Fighters of the 1956 uprising are now almost extinct . . . They are going to build the 'new society' upon those of us still here."
By Bob Hoyt
Two German-speaking KU students went behind the Iron Curtain last summer and saw for themselves what it is like to live under Communism.
Perhaps the most poignant thing they discovered is the scar which the 1956 uprising left on the lives and minds of the students, and the helplessness with which they face the future.
Fraternity brothers (Beta Theta Pi) Robert Swan, Topeka junior, and Robert Wahl, Lyons junior, were among 300 KU People-to-People student ambassadors who spent the summer in Europe.
While a desire for freedom is not dead in Hungary, Swan and Wahl found that most young Hungarians have given up hope for freedom under Communism. Instead, they live with the dream that some day they will be able to leave their Russian-dominated homeland to find a better life elsewhere.
Swan and Wahl had hoped for a chance to get into Hungary before they left home, and luck was with them. On a train traveling from Germany to Austria, they were seated near two Hungarians—one a textile engineer in his 50's and the other a member of the Hungarian Communist party in his 40's.
They struck up a conversation in German with the textile engineer and he gave them his address and telephone number and invited them to visit him in Budapest—suggesting that they come into the country on an IBUSZ (Hungarian) travel agency tour rather than attempting to get visas on their own.
"This saved a lot of red tape," Wahl said. "It would have taken a long time to go through the Soviet embassy. By going on the short, guided tour, we went on one of three regular buses and it took only about 45 minutes to get cleared at the border."
They arrived in Budapest on a Saturday morning and attended the travel agency briefing in their hotel lobby, where a Communist guide gave them the Red version of recent Hungarian history.
"He went back to 1948," Wahl said. "He was very careful to explain all the reasons for the Hungarian revolt of 1956,
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About the Author
Bob Hoyt, ex-farmer, ex-paratrooper, is working on his Master's degree in the William Allen White School of Journalism at KU. He received his B.S. in journalism at KU last February, and was winner of the 1962 William Herbert Carruth Memorial Poetry Award.
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rationalizing all the conditions to give the impression that those who took part in the revolt were little more than missfits. He also had a very well-prepared story about the damage we were to see. His story was that the damage was caused by the Germans during World War II, and not the Russians during the early part of November. 1956, when they overran the uprising with armed force."
After the guide's briefing, the two KU men decided that since they had a contact, and they both spoke German, they would ditch the formal tour and go out on their own.
They called the textile engineer they had met on the train and arranged to meet him that evening.
"We went to his apartment," Wahl said. "It was nicely furnished. Apparently he lived very well. He had a piano and a collection of Russian records. He gave the impression of being a cultured gentleman and was very hospitable."
Swan said that the engineer did not volunteer any information about the uprising and the political conditions in Hungary, but willingly answered most of the questions they asked. He offered to take them out to see the city, and it soon became evident that he was more interested in having them see the cultural sights than the war scars.
"He took us to a museum and to the opera house." Wahl said. "Then we asked if he would take us to the place where the statue of Stalin had been before the Freedom Fighters pulled it down. He
agreed, but he wouldn't get too close to the place.
"There is nothing there now except the pink marble base. Our friend wouldn't get much closer than 200 yards. He said that it would be best if we were not seen looking over the place where the statue had been. He wanted to leave after about five minutes. It was foggy, so we didn't get a very good look."
That night, the engineer and the member of the Communist party they had met on the train took Swan and Wahl out on the town.
They went to a wine cellar, which, according to their hosts, had been there for 500 years. Here the Hungarians treated the KU students to a variety of wines. They heard some Gypsy folk songs and were invited to join a wedding party. And they talked. The Communist spoke no German, so the engineer acted as interpreter. The engineer was Jewish and spent time in three different German concentration camps during World War II. The Communist, according to Swan, seemed to be a "real nice fellow." He was a good host and made no effort to feed them any Communist dogma.
But most of the time the four just enjoyed themselves in the wine cellar.
About 12:30, the four of them went back to the hotel. Their hosts left them there, but as it turned out the night was only beginning. At the hotel they found a group of about 10 Hungarian students who had heard that they were in Budapest and had come to talk to them.
"Some of them were probably