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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 32-3-151
TITLE:             The Hungarian "Solzhenitsin" Speaks Up
BY:                A/B
DATE:              1963-3-26
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Hungarian Unit
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1956-1965, Hungary--Literature, Personalities

--- Begin ---

"E" DISTRIBUTION - 650 26 MARCH 1963

RFE TARGET AREA RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

Background Report
(Hungarian Unit AB)

THE HUNGARIAN "SOIZHENITSIN" SPEAKS UP

With the publication of his works dealing with Soviet
concentration camps, which began early in 1962 Jozsef Lengyel has
become the Solzhenitsin" of Hungarian literary life.

Born in 1896, Lengyel is one of the veterans of the
workers' movement in Hungary. His first
writings -- revolutionary poems -- date back to 1917. He took part in the formation
of the Hungarian Communist Party and, during the period of the
Hungarian Soviet Republic, edited Communist newspapers. After
the fall of the Soviet Republic he emigrated to Austria, then,
in 1927, to Berlin and in 1930 to the USSR. He was active in
Moscow in the literary field, first on the staff of "Sickle and
Hammer", and then as the author of screenplays, Lengyel described
his experiences in the period prior to and during the Hungarian
Soviet Republic in a collection of short stories entitled
"Visegradi Street" (according to the Party history, the statutory
meeting of the Communist Party was held in this street), which was
published in 1932. The introduction to the book was written by
Bela Kun.

Lengyel was caught by one of the terror waves of the
Stalin era, He experienced at first hand the brutalities of the
Soviet forced labor camps and the tortures of exile. Arrested
in 1937, he was kept in a concentration camp until the end of
the war, after which a compulsory place of residence was assigned
to him. These details are not mentioned in the author's biography
in "Uj Magyar Lexikon" (New Hungarian Encyclopedia).

After an absence of 36 years, Lengyel returned to Hungary
in 1955. He continued to write and received various literary
prizes. In the summer of 1961 he visited China. He assumed an
active part in the reorganization of the Hungarian Writers'
Association, which had been dissolved after the 1956 revolution,
and was elected to the executive committee of the Association.
Recently he was awarded the Kossuth Prize.

Lengye1's Works on Soviet Terror

1. "The Charmer", a volume of short stories published
in February 1962 by the "Belletristic" publishing House.

Several short stories in this volume describe life in
exile and in forced labor camps. One of the stories describes
the fate of a law-abiding, simple-minded individual who is
imprisoned together with professional criminals and trys in

[page 2]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

a naive and helpless manner, to adapt himself to the savage and
beastly world of these depraved men.

2. "Yellow Poppies -- From the Notes of Gyorgy Nekeresdi"
(Nekeresdi is a fictitious name), a short story published
in the literary paper "Elet es Irodalom" of 17 March 1962.

The story reveals a dramatic vision of the Soviet forced
labor camp "Norilisk No.2". At night the inmates of one of the
barracks disappear one by one, to be shot and thrown into a
common grave holding up to 600 bodies.

3. "A Short and Angry Old Man -- The Notes of Gyorgy
Nekeresdi", a novel, published in the literary periodical
"Uj Iras" of November 1962.

The story deals with the arrest and imprisonment under
remand of Professor Adrian, a non-Party scientist. The angry,
whimsical old man shows moral courage toward the young judge who
has him cruelly beaten up. Besides describing the inhuman methods
of interrogation, the novel also reveals the bestial conditions
prevailing in the cells and the conversations of prisoners.

4. "From Beginning to End", a short novel, published in
"Uj Iras" of February 1963.

This 35-page diary of Gyorgy Nekeresdi contains the
personal experiences of Jozsef Lengyel. Its short chapters,
pieced together like mosaics and filled with dramatic tension,
reveal devasting details of the author's imprisonment in the
USSR, the years spent in a forced labor camp, his release and
exile.

The Story of "From Beginning to End"

The diary, called a "book" by the author, begins with
a dedication "to the Communist movement by Gyorgy Nekeresdi, who
knew that the revolution would win the fight for human dignity
once more" and with a quotation from Goethe:

"He who never ate his bread with tearful eyes,
Who never spent the sorrowful nights
Sitting up and weeping,
He does not know you, divine powers!"

The first chapter describes the quiet atmosphere of
peacetime and recalls the author's childhood, when his mother
baked fresh, tasty bread or when he could gorge himself with
cakes in a restaurant to which his father took him. Even when
he moved to Budapest from the countryside in 1917, he was able to
eat as much bread as he liked. Up to 1937 the author wrote often
about bread, bread-earning, worries of existence and daily bread,
but bread did not assume a "concrete or corporeal form" for him.

[page 3]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

In prison he refuses at first to eat bread. He spends
the two weeks prior to his interrogation in a place "where the
bread, still fresh in the morning, is by noon covered with mold
produced by human perspiration, by hot radiators and by the
hermetic sealing of the room. The cold water emits steam and
the tea water gives off no steam". Some men die from heart attacks,
others become insane. The author's skin turns saffron yellow,
and festers develop on his arms and legs. There are 25 iron beds
for 275 persons. When he gets back to his cell after his hearing,
half dead, his cell mates reserve a whole bed for him for 24 hours.
Three of his fellow prisoners hand him their daily sugar
ration -- six cubes of sugar in all -- and make him eat at least half of his
bread ration.

The author is transported in a boat to the forced labor
camp, where the daily food ration consists of bread, salted
fish -- and only 200 grams of water.

Somewhere outside a war, a big war, was starting. We
behind the barbed wire were not supposed to know about
it; naturally we did know and, even more, felt it.
In the mornings the transparent green cabbage soup contained
fewer and fewer cabbage leaves, we received no lunch and
the potato soup in the evenings smelled of earth, looked
muddy and had hardly any potatoes in it. The reduced bread
rations became our life and death, our everything.

The camps of the invalid and disabled persons changed
into the most populous camps, the brigades of the
woodcutters and gravediggers, into the largest brigades.
Only the woodcutters received 70 decagrams of bread per
day. They provided firewood for the six bonfires
burning around the camp, for the bakery, the kitchen, the
barracks and, finally, for the hospital. We, the
gravediggers, also received 70 decagrams of bread per
day. The hospital was our employer.

It is as dark as night when we get up, and it is much
too cold to wash. In wintertime we are led out of the
camp at daybreak. Tall, hard-faced Letts, broad-hacked
Russians, narrow-shouldered Chinese, bandy-legged
Bokharans with large heads, Armenians and Jews -- all
kinds of people, and all are marching. Stamping the
snow under each other's footsteps, we are trudging
along to the nearby woods. The soles and counters of
our shoes are made of used car tires, the upper parts
are patched together from the remnants of quilted cloth.
In these shoes you can only trudge along, they are heavy
and cold and always feel damp.

In the woods we rake up twigs, crumbling trunks and
abandoned beams from under the snow. We drag them to
the path we have just made. The smaller twigs are
carried by the men on their backs, the larger pieces
are picked up by two men and the heaviest beams are
attached to a rope and pulled by many of us to the
cemetery.

[page 4]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

We chop the wood, make a big bonfire and sit around it.

The Bokharans quickly take out their copper pipes,
cautiously fill them with a mixture of sawdust and
rough tobacco, slowly light them and remain silent.

We liked the Bokharans. One of them, a fair man, was
the brigade leader. The Bokharans never cheated or
stole, nor did they try to take the lighter jobs. But
again they did not share things as easily as the
Russians. They never gave each other or the others any
tobacco. Yet they never asked for or accepted anything.

All the other nationalities were made up of a mixture
of good and bad; the Chinese had the best qualities.
They always gave if asked, but never asked for anything
themselves. They accepted what was offered to them and
expressed their gratitude with eyes beaming eternal
friendship.

We remain seated and silent, smoke our pipes and try
to keep warm until the cold ground starts thawing under
the bonfire. Then we quickly clear away the embers and
begin digging in the same place where the bonfire had
been burning. At a depth of one or two spadefuls the
soil is soft. We go on making the hole deeper with
picks and handspikes. When the frozen soil does not give
way any further, we light another fire in the hole and
warm ourselves again. Now that we are perspiring from
hard work we feel the cold even more. The fire goes out
once more, and we again set to our task. We dig and use
our picks. The third bonfire toward the end of the
short winter day is made in accordance with the
instructions of the Bokharans. It is supposed to last till
morning to enable us to start digging right away. Two
full days were needed for digging a large grave. On the
second day we reached the soft, unfrozen earth.
We scooped out big hollows beneath the frozen
layer in order to get more bread and to make more room
for those arriving on their last journey. This was the
only way to fulfill the norms and thus to be allocated
a bread ration of 70 decagrams per day.

Our task is only to dig. The burying is done by the
medical orderlies. If we can, we try to look away when
the grave is filled with corpses, but we involuntarily
notice the dead bodies as they are brought out in many
carloads, each with only a shirt on, the most torn,
discarded shirt of the hospital. There are no men to
make coffins, nor is there any timber for this purpose.
A small plate is tied to one of the thin legs of the
dead person. The plates used are the same as those
bought by a storeman to mark his various keys. Each
plate indicates the name of the dead man and his "file"
number. The case is thus closed, but the number stays

[page 5]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

with the dead. These men were not interested in their
file numbers daring their lifetime, hardly any of them
was familiar with the number linked to their name. Now
they have not only lost interest in the number, they
are also not cold any more in the thin shirt.

We were afraid to look at them: sometimes their shirts
slipped up and revealed their dead male organs. We
were afraid of these bodies and of having to share their
fate. We tried to avoid death by digging hollows and
by thus receiving our daily bread rations. But men
continued to disappear all the time into the graves,
death hovered over the gravediggers with growing
intensity...

Then follows the description of another scene: the camp
inmates are awakened at night to collect firewood for the kitchen.
In the numbing cold long icicles hang down from the nostrils of
the horses, making it very difficult for them to breathe. The
author can hardly move his legs, made stiff by the ice-cold air.
His worn-out gloves, and shoes, still damp from the day before,
freeze as hard as glass.

Later the author falls ill, his toes becoming red
swellings. Instead of 70 decagrams of bread a day, he is given
the sick ration: 40 decagrams of poor, wet bread. The brigade
leader entrusts him with the task of distributing the bread.
Two nights in a row a bread ration is stolen, and the author
has to sacrifice his own. The two days without food make him so
weak that he can hardly move from the bunk. During the third
night he catches the thief: he notices a hand touching the
loaves placed under his head. He grasps the hand -- which turns
out to belong to the brigade leader. The author cries out, but
someone slaps him in the face, and he has to let go of the hand.
The following day he moves to another bunk. Death is walking in
his footsteps.

His life is saved by the cook, who assigns him to the
group of potato peelers. Ivan Osipovich, the cook, is an
important person. He is protected by special guards, and when he goes
to sleep, the others are only allowed to whisper in the barracks.
Through this work the author regains some of his strength, but
having had to stand in line in front of surgery every day his
frostbite gets worse daily. The bone is already showing on his
big toe, and the first joint is frost-bitten. He is put in the
hospital, where he is allowed to assist the doctor.

Limping men, some with one eye or a wooden leg, bearded
old men with trembling hands, 35 disabled persons armed
with clubs surround the box, as they would surround a
sacrament or coffin, and collect 70 bread rations.
They carry their own rations and those of the 35 others
waiting in the barracks, who are even more disabled
than themselves. These are the 70 rations of the
spoon-carvers .

[page 6]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

The procession, like the festive procession of priests,
moves slowly across the courtyard of the camp toward the
barracks. Ivan Timofeievich, a tall old man and a
Communist, walks in front. He already got acquainted
with prison life and exile under tsarist rule. He is
not the leader of our brigade, nor would he undertake
the job, nevertheless, he enjoys the greatest prestige,
distributes the bread and administers justice.

The procession reaches the entrance to the barracks,
a door leading to a corridor. The advance guard, headed
by Ivan Timofeievich, steps into the dark corridor.
The entrance is narrow, and the flanking-guards are
thus obliged to make room for the large box. At the
same moment a few young men are trying to leave the
barracks. They are pale and sick looking, but young
and nimble. The old men have to protect their box of
bread from these men.

A rush and scramble, confusion and elbowing develops
at the door. One of the young men turns the box over
and bread is rolling all over the place, down the steps
and on the ground.

The bearded old men throw themselves on the bread. Ivan
Timofeievich remains in the door shaking his club.
Kondrat Ivanovich, the old Nazarene peasant, does not
strike any one, but merely protects the scattered
loaves with his body. Those with one leg beat around
the box with their crutches, the blind grope in the
air with outstretched arms.

They are soon pushed aside. The disabled and old men
fall on the ground and roll around, out of the reach of
the loaves. The thin body of Kondrat Ivanovich goes
sprawling on the ground.

Reinforcements arrive from the carpenters' barracks,
hunch-backed, long-armed, shock-bearded giants. As soon
as the thieves notice them they disperse.

The spoon-carvers get on their feet again. They abuse
and curse each other and with tears in their eyes put
the remaining loaves into the box. Ivan Timofeievich
alone does not speak, only Kondrat Ivanovich remains
calm.

Seven rations are missing. The nimble-handed thieves
are probably swallowing the prey unchewed in a corner
of one of the barracks or in the latrine. Ten rations
have to be put together from small pieces picked up from
the ground. Almost all the rations got damaged. They
are dirty, disgusting, violated pieces, besmirched with
mud, blood and earth.

[page 7]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

As they place the rations back into the box, the old
and honest men, crippled by work, watch each others'
hands suspiciously. One of them might steal a fallen
piece or might quickly put some crumbs into his
toothless mouth.

Five thousand kilometers away a great war is being
fought...

The next chapter deals with the duties of the night
guards, who surveyed the camp from watchtowers, by the light of
bonfires. Wolfhounds with long chains were tied to the towers.
The rowdy inmates, living in separate barracks, confer together
how they can obtain more bread.

The brigade leader who stole bread is also sent to the
hospital, where he finds himself face to face with the author,
now the doctor's assistant.

The author then describes the machinations of heavy
smokers in the hospital. The patients also in indulge in
barter in kind and in all sorts of businesses.

The man who transported water for the camp, an
apelike individual with long hairy arms, was a special figure among
the inmates.

One of the forms of starvation is that one does not
eat for days and as a result dies. This is how people
die in crumbling houses, this is how helpless old
people die in the lonely rooms of large cities.

Another form of death is not so isolated. It might be
caused by a mine caving in or by flooding. If a
rescuing hand comes in time, death can be avoided.
This kind of starvation is quick and unhesitating. It
is like the skeleton with a reaper depicted on the
Dance of Death drawings of the Middle Ages. The reaper
might or might not swish but at any rate it cuts off
the thread of life with a single swish.

There is also a kind of starvation which is a thread,
a spider's web or a rope made of a spider's web. It
becomes torn, then grows stronger again, spins itself
around a person and attacks from every side. Is it
terrible to see it. It is transparent and thickens in
front of your eyes. This is slow starvation.
"Undernourishment". "Atrophy". "Death from old age".

This kind of starveling eats and drinks all day. Such
people crowd around the fireplace in the barracks all
day long and cook and cook.

The huge pots, jugs and buckets, called owing to their
size, Pullman car" or "Bunker", wait for their turn.
A bread soup comes next, consisting of the daily bread

[page 8]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT 26 March 1963,

ration diluted with several liters of water and a lot
of salt. The alternative is oil-cakes cooked in water
to a pulp. The oil-cakes are smuggled into the barracks
by the transport men from the stables and are sold for
bread or money. Some men give 10 decagrams of bread
for one kilogram of oil-cakes. They want to have a full
stomach. Potato peels are also being cooked in buckets.

It was not easy to transport potato peels or cabbage
leaves to the refuse dump; on the way, groups of men
would throw themselves on the cases or small carts and
divide the prey amidst scuffles and wallows.
Instructions were issued by the camp headquarters to the
effect that the potato peels should be transported to
the stable in cars. These were also attacked. Then it
was ordered that the peels be transported under the
protection of guards to the cesspit, The men climbed down
the deep holes, picked out the useable peels, rinsed
them in water and cooked them.

Some of the men get puffed up from the potato-peel soup,
others pour salt into boiling water. The latter die
quickly.

In early spring the camp inmates start eating grass.
The grass on the camp grounds has no chance of growing
higher than half a centimeter. Already at dawn the
grass pickers are out, crawling on all fours, getting
the blades with their rails and putting them in their
"Pullman". A good many hours' work is needed to fill
a bucket. While picking the grass the men cheat
them-selves and eat it raw.

At last the bucket is full. A little water is added and
some salt, if available. Then the owner of the bucket
has to stand in line in front of whichever fire is
going. He watches the puffs of steam from the boiling
food with shining eyes, then gets hold of the red-hot
pan with his cap and quickly pulls it out of the fire.
It is impossible to wait for cooking space on top of
the stove, and so the pot has to be put inside. Next
the man settles down on his bunk and eats with his face
turned to the wall in a lonesome manner, Those who only
start picking grass in the morning might collect a bucket
full by the evening.

I watched a nice, intelligent young art historian with
nervous hands and a fine body go crazy and die within a
few months during the grass picking and eating period.

Grass eating was practiced mostly by the intelligentsia.
The rough ones engaged in stealing. The potato peels
were snatched off by the Chinese, Turkmen and Kazakhs.
The Russians preferred the oil-cakes and salt water.
This is a rough generalization. I myself tried these
various foods and then decided that I preferred a
contracted stomach.

[page 9]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

The old peasants held out better than any one else. An
ethical disgust kept their away from "impure" food.
They survived the ordeals in the largest numbers.
The artisans also did fairly well, and in spite of
strict control they were able to earn some extra money.
They performed certain odd jobs for the guards for
nothing, and in exchange the guards winked at any
of their services rendered to non-prisoners. The man
who transported water was the go-between.

In the meantime the country, affected by a grave war,
was being ravaged by the Same famine as that in the camp.
In Leningrad the situation was even worse.

When one of the inmates died his belongings were
distributed among the others. One scene in the novel deals with
pellagrous patients occupying the barracks, who distribute the
belongings of one of their fellows who has recently died.

The next part relates the story of a camp inmate who
is stabbed in the chest one day when he notices on entering the
barracks that his fellows are just about to break open the box
under his bunk where he keeps six bread rations. In the hospital
the young man continues to save his bread rations, no one
knowing why. He dies shortly after the incident. Making coffins for
the dead had been abandoned a long time before, and since the
authorities had recently stopped issuing shirts for them, the only
thing they carry into the grave is a small wooden board attached
to one leg showing their name, date of birth and file number.

The doctor and myself are making a tour of the barracks
to inspect the Shirts and look for lice. Headquarters
was very strict about the extermination of lice. They
spread typhoid, which might also contaminate the guards.

When we enter the barracks a man is just being pulled
off his bunk and dragged by his feet onto the middle
of the floor. He was caught stealing bread.

He stays on his stomach, an anemic, bare-faced child.
Four fingers on his right hand are missing. I recognize
him, he is a salf-mutilator. Many of these young men
were transferred in such condition to the barracks of
invalids.

The maimed and the intact hand still hang on to the
stolen bread and while the body is being beaten and
kicked, the mouth is still chewing.

A gnome-like, hunch-backed carpenter steps with one
heavy shoe on the thief's lips. At the same time
someone else -- the doctor who entered the barracks with
me -- treads on him. With his feet he stamps on the
boy's back like a lunatic.

The boy does not defend himself, nor does he utter

[page 10]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

a sound. He continues to eat. He devours and swallows
the bread, mixed with blood and snot until the last
piece is kicked out of his hand and mouth. Old Kondrat
Ivanovich, this old peasant and reputed "propagandist,"
lifts the boy up from under the feet of the others. It
is not an easy or safe task, and by the time he has
finished, he too has caught a few blows and shoves.

Our doctor, a usually sleepy young man with a large
body and a little too phlegmatic nature, is gasping for
air. The other men are also enraged. But Kondrat
Ivanovich manages to interrupt the beating.

"Put him into solitary confinement" -- said one of the
more rational men in order to save the boy from further
beating and kicking.

At that stage of camp life the unwritten law of
retribution was that a bread thief had to be beaten to death.
This only applied to bread. If someone's last shirt
or only pair of shoes were stolen, he was not supposed
to complain. He was accused of not looking after his
things. But bread was a different matter, it was life
itself. A bread thief had to pay for the crime with
his life; not even the higher authorities could
interfere in such a case....

Ivan Timofeievich was and still is a Bolshevik. Kondrat
Ivanovich was and still is a sectarian god-seeker.
Ivan Timofeievich is a sturdy man with a beard. At one
time he was a blacksmith in a Leningrad factory, and
his hands remained sinewy, his fingers are thick.
Kondrat Ivanovich also has a beard, he is short and
thin, with fingers bent from arthritis. They seem to
assume the position which they had taken when he sowed
seeds into the spring soil with a home-spun sheet around
his neck, making one cast, one step, one cast, one step.

Ivan Timofeievich and Kondrat Ivanovich are working
together. All day long they sift and shovel peas
mixed with oats in a cold shed. After work they eat
together from the same messtin. Whichever of the two
is quicker, he who gets washed first has priority, i.e.
can go and fetch their food from the kitchen. They own
neighboring bunks and they massage and soap each other's
backs when the brigade is taken for a bath.

The two men always have bread. They divide the daily
ration into exactly three parts and, in addition,
always keep a piece in reserve. The rest they give
away. For several months they have been helping out a
young boy, a gentle and weak little lad, a mere
nestling. The two old men never curse, nor do they incite
each other. Yet each of them wishes to win over the
young boy, coming straight from the school bench, to

[page 11]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

their respective ideas. Ivan Timofeievich would like
to turn the boy into a Marxist materialist, Kondrat
Ivanovich would like to imbue him with faith in God.
However one looks at it, the boy has two fathers, two
serious exemplary men, who are very strict with
them-selves...

A conversation on food, cooking and the good things
eaten prior to coming to the camp -- favorite topics among the
inmates -- is followed by a significant dialogue between Ivan
Timofeievich and the boy.

"Are you still a Communist, Ivan Timofeievich? -- the
boy would like to know.

"What else could I be?"

"But they say that you are an 'enemy of the people' and
that they are the true and loyal men."

"Yes, they are loyal to their desks. But I am loyal to
the Party and to the people. Didn't you know that?"

"I know, but..."

"What does that 'but' mean? Do you think that you are
super-clever and everyone else is stupid?"

"People believe them. They say nice things and..."

"It is not enough to say nice things, they also have
to be done. Way back, during the underground period,
there was a traitor in the Party. He sent many people
to the gallows. Lenin once said about him: 'He
performed the work of a henchman, lout in order to be able
to do this, he had to recruit hundreds of people for
the Party'."

"Does this also apply to the present?"

"Nothing repeats itself in the same way. Thus the above
sentence does not apply to the present. There is one
thing which still exists; when they attack us they
have to refer to Communism and to the people."

"I do not understand this."

"You will understand later on."

"I don't understand how you can remain a Communist?"

"What do you mean? Should I cease to be a Communist
because of these men? -- and with his thick and crooked
thumb he pointed behind his back."

[page 12]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

"This is difficult, very difficult."

"Well, it is not easy. But you, my lad, will come to
understand it, because you will live to see it."...

The author is then given a different job: instead of
being a doctor's assistant he hoes potatoes in the summer and
sorts them out in the winder. This is much better for him
because he is able to steal. Later he is sent to a pin factory,
where he has to bend safety pins. This is a job received by
special favor, but bending pins 10 hours a day tears his skin
and ruins his nails.

The next part of the diary takes place at the end of
the war. The author is set free on 30 December 1946, 26 months
after the expiration of his prison term and 12 months after the
end of the war. He receives six kg of bread for a 10-day journey
and sufficient money for a railway ticket. At the railway station
he finds appalling conditions: the waiting room is crowded with
people spending days and even weeks there until they are able to
get on a train. Each day would-be travelers stood in line in
front of the ticket office which learns only half an hours before
the departure of the train how many seats are available.
Sometimes this number is two or three, sometimes nothing.

The author paints a sad picture of the various
characters "living" in the waiting room, some of whom are so
desperate that they would not mind changing their temporary
residence for a prison cell in order to avoid the depressing
waiting, uncertainty and hunger. It was bitter cold
outside, - 35 degrees.

On the 14th day the waiting room is put into disorder
by some fresh rumors. In about 30 minutes the "gay 508"
is expected to arrive. This is the name of the train
which picks up all the passengers who got stranded in
various places. It is the famous "gay 50S".

Is the joy too premature? One of the railwaymen warns
the passengers: "Everyone should look out, the train
is bringing the 'wild division'. People with a lot
of luggage.." -- and he shrugs his shoulders.

It takes me some time to understand from the noise of
the excited people what it is all about. No.508 is a
train consisting only of freight cars. It is scheduled
to run every 10 days on the long Trans-Siberian railway
line from Vladivostok to Moscow. Only its departure is
on schedule. After that, it is treated as an unscheduled
freight train which can be passed by any other train.
I begin to understand why this train is called "gay"
and why the railwayman told us it was wild: the train
is filled with criminals who had served their prison
term (they were released on time). In addition, whole

[page 13]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

families with all their belongings are also on this
train. They are returning from the places they were
evacuated to during the war. The train is also filled
with speculators who take from Siberia to the West
flour, butter and things obtained by plundering the
Japanese, in order to return with apples from the
Caucasus, ladies' chemises, pocket watches and radio sets
from Moscow. These things still exist. Nine years ago
already I thought that they had disappeared from the
life of the country...

The author travels on this train for three adventurous
weeks. He is dirty and full of lice when he gets off at Alexandrov,
a small town and the residence of one of his countrymen. After a
haircut and disinfection he arrives running a high fever, at the
house of his friend. After three days, he has to get up, though
still weak, and find a job. As he only gets temporary employment
he is not eligible for bread coupons. Bread can be bought on
the market from the wives and mothers of policemen; the latter
make sure that all competition is eliminated. Bread coupons are
also sold on the market. The author has to pay 100 rubles for a
loaf of bread which "officially" (for coupons) costs two rubles.

The author spends 22 months in Alexandrov, and then
one night the police come for him. His case is investigated over
four months. He remains a full-fledged citizen, with the right
to vote, but is not allowed to leave the place of residence
assigned to him. If he did, he would be imprisoned for 20 years.
He is taken in a prison van to the same railway station where
he caught the "gay 508" and then in a truck an additional 120 km
further away to a kolkhoz. First he works there as a charcoal
burner, then as a field-guard.

What is an unarmed, old and disabled man able to guard?
The rule, and not the act of guarding, is the thing that
matters; it is forbidden to leave the wheat unguarded.
If the higher authorities find an unguarded pile, all
the local leaders might be put in jail.

Naturally, the corn does not remain intact. Some carry
if off in satchels, others in their pockets or in
water containers used for the tractors. The corn is
usually stolen during the day, when, by rights, the
guard is asleep. No thieves come at night, but even
if they do, the guard could only keep silent. If the
thieves would order him to help load the sacks on the
car, he would do it.

It is best to select the night watches from among the
exiles, as the task is less dangerous for them. They
are strangers, cannot reveal the identity of the culprits,
and consequently are not murdered by the thieves.
People say that if the thief knows the night watch he
kills him. I had no such experience, but just in case
something happened, my good friend, Mihail, told me
what to do.

[page 14]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

The thieves either come or don't come. I could, for
that matter, sleep, bat the cold air keeps me awake.
In order to keep warm, at least two lovely 30-year-old
birch trees have to be felled and wood has to be
chopped all night.

The night watch makes a straw bed near the fire. He
cannot sleep, and merely turns around. He is always
cold on one side. If he lies very close to the fire
he might fall asleep for a short time. In this case
either the straw under him catches fire or a spark
falls on his quilted clothes. It is almost impossible
to extinguish such a burning garment, and your last
rags are ruined.

It is useful if a man is still strong enough to carry
a sack or if he can see, aided by the fire, the place
where the night watch is sitting and can thus carry
off the corn from a neighboring pile.

Fifteen per cent of the bread grains harvested by the
kolkhoz is distributed among the members and the
workers who, like myself, are of the same rank. A
sufficient quantity is kept for seed, and the rest is
handed over to the state. Only one-third of the
cereals given to us is suitable for baking, most of it
is frozen, moldy or is full of black wild oats.
Sometimes it is also bitter from wormwood which grew up
among the wheat and cannot be weeded out.

During the following six years the author is a forest
guard. He grows old, loses his strength and thinks he might
have to spend the rest of his life as a beggar: "My mother used
to make the sign of the cross over the entire loaf before
cutting it. I shall beg for pieces of bread in the name of Christ."

But his fate changes for the better. He could be at
peace and content, but is, instead, tormented by sleeplessness.
At dawn he sees gray-faced people running after bread: "Will I
never be at peace and content? If I at least could be wise and
forgiving. But I am not."

Have I told everything finally? I said that we stole
potatoes, but did not mention how they shot the young
man. I spoke of Mishka twice, but forgot about the
escape. A lot of things still frequently arouse me from
ray dreams.

There is a tin "muzzle" on the window of the cell;
it was badly fitted by the prisoners, and one can thus
look out through a narrow opening. A black prison van
stops in the icy yard. First the guards, then the
prisoners get out. Ten of them, again 10, then again
and again. Finally no one comes any more, the door

[page 15]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

remains open. A dense, heavy steam continues to pour
out of the empty car.

The memory of humane guards also comes back; few of them
were really wretched. Yet I myself have come across a
very small number of decent interrogators. Outside,
where the work was done, there were also decent
commandants. I already mentioned those who pretended not
to notice that we were cooking or baking. One of
them treated us with a patriarchal wisdom. The wife of
another commandant was a doctor She came to the
hospital, where, fully conscious of my lawful presence
and with the help of decent doctors, I pretended to be
sick and tried to improve my mind. The woman doctor
noticed the book in my hand: "What are you reading?"

"War and Peace'."

"Oh" she examined my case sheet. "Why is the light so
bad here?" -- she turned to the doctor. "Have a stronger
bulb put above the "bed." Then she turned to me: "At
least as long as you are here I would like you not to
feel that..." -- the lovely blonde woman turned away,
she was unable to finish the sentence.

When we were transported from one place to another, and
someone managed to throw a letter out of the closed
carriage, the addressee always got it. Always, and we
knew it.

The formation was marched across a Siberian village.
We stopped to get a drink of water, Peasant women
broke through the cordon of guards to bring us buckets
of poiled potatoes. The guards could not tolerate this.
I have never in my life heard anyone curse in the manner
that these women cursed the guards, And what did they
do? They could have used their weapons, but did not
think of it.

"Throw the food from, further away!" -- they told the
women.

It is not necessary to lick the wound like wounded game
or to cherish the secret wound; the face of the men
rising at dawn is not tortured any more. The balm of
justice has already healed and is still healing the wounds.

One can again see what could never be seen entirely,
but which had to be felt all the time, even in the
eyes of the numerous guards: thanks to you, Ivan
Timofeievich, Kondrat Ivanovich, Ivan Osipovich and the
many Ivans (poor Sacha, you too should rest in peace).

[page 16]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

The Ivans are in majority, the good and the strong
ones, whose body-warm humaneness protected us. They
are growing stronger all the time, This process is
slower than I would like it to be, but faster than I
could have believed it to be.

One had to tell the story of the long days and quickly
passing years and, when eating bread the day before,
and tomorrow's bread today, one had to tell the story
of the daily bread.

One had to make a true accounting for a superannuated
debt, which has become entirely superannuated ever
since truth and the Party are once again united.

Let everyone have bread!

This is the way in which I, Gyorgy Nekeresdi, say
farewell, bow deeply to the productive and creative
human being.

Lengyel's Works are Promoting the Hungarian Ferment

Admidst the colorful trends of Hungarian literary
life, filled with tension and unexpected events, the effect of
the works revealing the crimes of the personality cult is
beginning to make itself felt. This atmosphere is also the result of
A.Solzhenitsin's recent novek. "One Day in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich" was published in Hungarian in book form, reprinted
in "Nagyvilag", the popular periodial of would literature, and
furthermore was serialized by some provincial newspapers, prior
to these publications. The absence of press comments on the book
was at first quite striking. The political "directions for use"
were provided by Tvardovsky's preface to the novel and by an
article in "Les Lettres Francaises" by Elsa Triolet. Then a
Hungarian newspaper [l] mentioned a discussion on the book between
the literary critic of "Literaturnaya Rossiya" and "Yermilov",
a contributor to "Iztvestia". Hungarian critics expressed a
basically favorable view on Solzhenitsin's novel, and literary
public opinion became interested in it. According to a provincial
literary paper, "'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' caused
a considerable stir and aroused excited discussions among
literary men and readers." [2]

Jossef Lengyel wrote about the Stalinist terror before
Solzhenitsin did. It seems likely that the publication of such
works required the approval of the highest Party leadership.
Naturally there are conditions attached to every literary activity
moving in a certain direction. A work on the Stalinist era has to

------------------------------

(1) "Magyar Nemzet", 17.2.63.

(2) "Tiszataj", February 1963.

[page 17]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 26 March 1963,

emphasize that the Communist ideology, the Party and the regime
had nothing whatsoever to do with the distorted and criminal
methods of the personality cult and that Communists suffering
the hell of terror remained loyal to the idea. The aim of
talking about this terror is not to rummage in the unproductive
past but to serve the future.

The Jozsef Lengyel's novel provides an exemplary
specimen of this procedure. The dedication, the closing chapter
and the conversation between a Communist and a God-fearing man
were written in accordance with the current requirements.

Lengyel's recent work as well as some of his earlier
writings gave rise to lively discussions, which fit into the
more extensive debates conducted in Hungary on the extent to
which the mistakes committed during the period of the personality
cult can be revealed and on the manner in which this should be
done.

The circle is getting narrower. If the events in the
USSR can be put down in writing, why couldn't the same be done
about Hungarian events? The ice seems to have been broken; a
recent short story by Gyula Oszko described the terror during
the Rajk trial (of. HPS No.1296).

The ferment continues to spread, and the Hungarian
Solzhenitsin, Jozsef Lengyel, is an important part of it.

End

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