Spring 2024 - Recrudescence

Miklós Vámos

thank her enough. The slightly hunchbacked old woman laughed and reassured him that there would always be food no matter who ran the country, as long as people had vegetable gardens and a few farm animals, which he needed to have too, if he wanted to survive. Sanyi nodded, though he had not the slightest idea where he would even start. God willing, things would work themselves out. They heard on the radio that the Russkies were going to leave Hungary; the news made them happy; they cheered and clinked their glasses. But instead, more Russkies came in. The roads were swarmed with tanks and trucks, heading toward Budapest. Józsi sensed trouble ahead. They decided to leave their hometown behind. Józsi Balog’s uncle lived in the nearby town of Dabas, so they headed in that direction. After hiding out there for a few days, Sanyi had enough and decided to set off to Budapest on his own. He walked during the day and spent his nights under the stars, curled up in the fields. He almost made it to Budapest when he was stopped and arrested by Russians on the outskirts of Vecsés. They frog-marched him to an equipment yard that had been designated as an assembly point. By the time Sanyi arrived, at least five hundred people had been packed in there, waiting their turn. Frightening news circulated among the captured. They would be executed after interrogations. Or executed without interrogations. There will be malenki robot, like back in ‘46, then off to Siberia again, moaned the older men. Or to concentration camps, like the ones where the Germans kept the Jews, and that will be the end of us! None of the options seemed promising. Sanyi made up his mind to escape at the earliest opportunity. The first chance came when they left the equipment yard on horse-drawn carriages, supposedly to go to a storage shed to bring back canned goods and bread. One Russian soldier with a machine gun was in charge of the seven prisoners, but he sat up front, next to the coachman. When they turned onto a wider street, Sanyi threw himself over 110