In bright autumn sunshine, we travel to Réde for the World Meeting of Esterházy Descendants. We pass by the castle park and then, following the music from the parking lot, we arrive at venue of the outdoor activities. While Jácint prepares his photographic equipment, I look around. We have arrived earlier than the members of the Esterházy family, the stage is still being decorated, the last flower is being put on the decoration, the folk dancers in their neatly ironed skirts and long boots are getting ready to show our fellow countrymen, who have mainly emigrated to Germany and Switzerland, what the "Magyar Wirtschaft" is. For now, the beer benches are empty, waiting for the square to be filled with curious people now still loitering at the craft stalls or the strudel maker until the show begins.

The idea and the realisation of the world meeting came from a kind and dedicated local couple. Tibor Buda was born in Réde and his wife Bea's mother also lived here. Our conversation reveals that the Buda family are true patriots (and strong local patriots), for whom roots are very important: they have already made a monument for the Unity of Hungarians, commemorated the soldiers of Réde who died in the World War, and they have done extensive research in archives, and they also came up with the idea of the Trianon monument.

The organisation of the world meeting is further proof of how much they do for their communities.

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Photo: Jácint Jónás

"I have been learning Hungarian for the last five weeks"

"The last living Count was Count Lajos, who lived in a nursing home near Zurich, with no children. My husband wanted to meet him very much, but unfortunately, this could not happen because, by the time the meeting was arranged, we received the news that Count Lajos had passed away. That was ten years ago. It was a very cold winter that year. It was planned that several people from Réde would go to the funeral, but no one dared to drive in the end because of the weather conditions, but my husband said that he would go by train, and so he did. As he had no knowledge of the language, our daughter and I wrote down phonetically what he should say to the taxi driver, where he should take him, and which cemetery he should go to. He wanted to bring something for the funeral, so he went out to the castle park, we made a little bag with a ribbon of the national colours, embroidered it with the name "Réde". He put some mother earth from the park in it and then he scattered it at the funeral. When he got out of the taxi, he said goodbye to the driver like a good Hungarian: "Viszontlátásra!" (“See you later”) Members of the Esterházy family standing by heard this and looked at each other in amazement: did someone here speak Hungarian? Their Hungarian was very limited but nonetheless recognized the language.  They gathered around him, wanting to know who he was and what he was doing there. That's when the cooperation started", remembers one of the main organizers, Bea Buda Tiborné.

This year is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Imre Esterházy V., and to mark the occasion the couple thought that a statue should be made, and it would be worth inviting the Esterházys to the inauguration ceremony. The sculpture was completed and the World Meeting was considered the perfect occasion for the unveiling.

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Photo: Jácint Jónás

"We asked Mr. Pál Esterházy, with whom we kept in touch after the funeral, what he would say if we organized a large-scale Esterházy meeting around the statue's unveiling, and he was very happy with the idea. His son Béla works in a bank in Austria and has taken it upon himself to track down the surviving Esterházys.

He collected the addresses, we sent letters to Peru, Venezuela, and Brazil, we sent out a total of sixty invitations, and relatives from America and England have now come here.

With the permission of Francesca Esterházy, who lives in Australia but has a bond to Tata as well, we are now able to exhibit this cloak, which she donated to the Esterházy Castle in Tata. It was worn by Francesca's grandmother at the coronation of Charles IV," adds Bea.

When the elegantly dressed Esterházys arrive by bus at the tent, I start to search among the many shining faces who are wearing "E" badges on their jackets, indicating that they have arrived as family. My eyes meet those of a man of my age, I smile and step up to him to ask him about his roots and his feelings about his family.

"I was born in Munich, my father János Esterházy is the fifth son of my grandfather, Kázmér Esterházy. He and his wife fled from Budapest to Germany during the Second World War and stayed there for the rest of their lives," Vincent Esterházy tells me about his family history. - "I turned thirty this year, and it's only recently that I've really started to realize what it means to me to be an Esterhazy, and I've become more and more interested in our family history and History in general. 

For me, one of the most important things I feel about my family is humility.

At least I try to be humble and be a bit thankful for a lot of things that happened to me. I had some crises in my own life, I had struggles, and I had to overcome them by myself but this feeling of belonging, being related, and being part of History helped me find the strength I needed, and helped me with my struggles. But I think humble is a word I would like to use. I've spent the last five weeks learning Hungarian, but the moment I entered the country I was shocked at how little I understood the language. But I want to continue to learn, to connect, not only to Hungarian History but to modern Hungary, to culture, to music, the movies, and much more. The whole weekend is amazing because we are celebrating not only family, but everyone who is connected to us, plus I get to meet relatives I didn't know before. I am very happy!" – rejoices Vincent.

 "Have you ever seen anything like this before?" - I point curiously to the stage, where the Eszterlánc Folk Dance Group of Réde is dancing with tightly braided plaits, pleated skirts, and loud boot-strap snaps.

"No," Vincent shakes his head.- And it amazes me! – he adds.

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Vincent Esterházy - Photo: Jácint Jónás

There are still many prejudices about the Esterházy family in Hungary

After the program, we go over to the Stewards House, where we can visit several exhibitions, including objects donated by the Esterházy manor in Tata, as well as displays of hunting, weapons, and wildlife of the Bakony hills. The event's expert, Zoltán Terplán, will later give a lecture on the Esterházys. The historian points out that he sees it as a big problem that the stereotype of the Esterházy family is still alive today, namely that they were aulic, i.e. Habsburg-loyal.

"The Esterházy family originates from the time of the House of Árpád, and they have played an important role in the history of Hungary and Europe especially since its members became part of the aristocracy from noblemen in the 17th century thanks to Miklós Esterházy. They gave the country a prime minister and ministers, but they did not only work in politics and diplomacy. The first Hungarian athletics association was founded by Miksa Esterházy in 1875. Pál Esterházy was also a multifaceted personality in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

Besides helping to defend Vienna against the Turks and liberate Buda, he reorganized the Hungarian administration after the Turkish occupation, wrote one of the greatest works in Hungarian Baroque music history, Harmonia Caelestis, and compiled a beautiful book in honour of the Virgin Mary.

The Esterházys always said that if someone was elected King of Hungary, you had to stand by him. In the autumn of 1921, Count Ferenc Esterházy fled the last Hungarian royal couple, Charles IV and Queen Zita, to Tata to escape arrest after their second unsuccessful attempt to return. The escape failed to achieve its purpose, but it also proves that the Esterházys were not only the ones to teach us such grand-sounding notions such as "Hungarianism" and "Christianity", because they were also extremely capable people who did something for the country. The communists have pretty well achieved what we hear in the song The International: to wipe out the past for good. They were unable to build, so they started to dismantle the Esterházy estates as early as 1945, and then gradually they tore up their roots. Their archives were destroyed, family members were eradicated, those who could not flee were deported, and in 1956 many left the country," explains the historian and museologist.

Looking at the exhibits, a lady speaks to me in English.
"You know, my biggest regret is that I didn't learn Hungarian." "It's not too late," I reply with a smile, but she just shakes her head. "I think it is," she says. I want to continue the conversation, but she modestly moves on. I am jolted out of my thoughts by a huge laugh, lift my head and see another lady with an 'E' badge, who has a glow as strong as the sun shining inside her. She is laughing with her head thrown back, her hair in a tight bun, her hands gesticulating vigorously as she visibly entertains those around her with some exciting story. When I speak to her, it turns out that she is none other than the famous opera singer Christine Esterházy von Galántha (maiden name Christine Obermayer), who became part of the family thanks to the love of her life. "I have sung in many places, in Vienna, Budapest, Munich, in the most varied opera houses. In 1992, I met a wonderful man, Endre Esterházy, in Munich, and two years later we were married.

I also studied musicology, and when you delve into this field, you realise how important the Esterházys are to culture.

I am still very interested in the family history and I am very happy to be here in Réde. It's wonderful that they think of our family in this way here, and we are all happy to be in this beautiful country and in this beautiful village, so I want to thank them," she says.

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Zoltán Terplán and the reporter, Zsejke Jámbor-Miniska - Photo: Jácint Jónás

All that remained of the castle is the main entrance with its tympanum

Zoltán Terplán also tells us that we are not standing in the castle, built in the 18th century, because it was burnt down in 1947 allegedly due to an attic fire, and only the main entrance with its tympanums and the steward's house, which is currently owned by János Varga and in which the exhibition is also being presented, remain. "The steward’s house was used as social housing during the communist era but was eventually bought by a private owner and turned into a hunting lodge. It was beautifully restored and enriched with a hunting collection. There is also a nature trail, and old photos show that deer used to wander through the castle park, where the countesses used to walk," adds the museologist. The historian explains that the Esterházys provided work for the whole of Réde and the people who lived in the area, who worked the fields, were servants, craftsmen, and artisans. The estate worked so well that it was able to produce for the market.

"The Esterházys are people just like us, they don't feel that they have to walk down the street differently just because they are Esterházys."

"But at times like this they feel the love that surrounds them, that they indeed have given something to this village, to this community, and that although they live in many different places in the world, they belong together," the expert concludes.

The main organizer couple believes that if we do not cherish our past, we have no future, and they see the World Meeting of Esterházy Descendants as a meeting of past and present, because members of the generation that was deported came, but there are also descendants who are meeting for the first time in Réde. The communists did not succeed in wiping out the past, the regime change took place, the dictatorship was abolished, and the Esterházy family is still united today, coming back to Hungary to cherish their traditions and nurture their roots.

It’s seven o'clock in the morning. We got up at about the same time, at half past five, only I was in Budapest, the Pauline Fathers - Father András and Father János - in Márianosztra. As I learn, within the monastic order there might be differences as to how life is organized, but daily routine is mostly the same. While offering me coffee, Father János recalls that when he entered the order, the monastery in Pécs still had an "alarm man" assigned each week, who would wake the others by knocking on their room doors. They would call out "Ave Maria", to which the response would be the same, indicating that the other one had woken up.

Their day began at six in the morning when they met in the chapel for nearly an hour of prayer. At this time, they say a Lectio Divina and contemplate quietly for half an hour. There is no set topic, as the point of this form of prayer is that God is at its center. The monks do not "talk" to God, but think about Him, and meditate on Him. "It's like when you feed yourself: you put a bite in your mouth, chew it, swallow it and digest it", Father János uses an analogy. He adds that because there is so much information flowing through one's mind, it is necessary to stop at what is important and relevant.

The end of contemplation is the truth that is incorporated into our lives and becomes part of us, like food, so we become more of it.

We also can contemplate, he advises, and you don’t need to be a monk for that. To take an example: if someone is often late for work, it's worth taking a moment to reflect. What's behind the tardiness? What can you do about it?

After the morning prayer, Father János, as part of his service, will celebrate Mass for the congregation of Mariánostra in the church next to the monastery. Father András, meanwhile, is also celebrating a Mass in the chapel.

At the end of the liturgy, breakfast is in the schedule, but as we saw it, there is nothing special about it, the monks eat the same as we do: rolls, butter, sausages, vegetables and fruit. Some of the food is provided by the monks themselves, some is donated by the congregation. The people of the village love the monks, indeed.

People who dedicate their lives to God

And why do they like them? According to Father János, on the one hand, it is because of their service, for people have a need to meet God, and they can get their intellectual and spiritual nourishment from the Church, in our case from the monks. For this they are grateful. "The other reason is simple: when people see someone dedicating his life to a noble cause, or to God directly, they respect him and stand by him," says Father András.

He thinks that people have a desire for good, are happy about it, and connect to it. At the same time he says, it feels good to have people standing by their side, but that's not why they do it.

If they were monks for that reason only, people would feel that, and they would not support them.

Mornings and afternoons are the "busy" times in the life of the monks when they perform their spiritual and physical tasks. What does this actually mean? They clean, do the monastery chores, keep the pilgrims' quarters tidy, and run errands.

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Photo:Tamás Velkei

I walk with Father János to the neighbouring prison, where he ministers once a week. When he is done with his work, Father András joins us and we walk together through the small courtyard between the monastery and the church to God's house, where we pray together. Their activities are interrupted only by lunch, before and after the meal they pray, of course. Lunch is brought from the prison, where they subscribe for the whole week. It is easier for them, whereas in other monasteries the monks may cook for themselves.

Getting up early, doing a lot, praying often, and being with God are all loving tasks, but the fundamental question remains: why does one become a monk? "The essence of being a monk is to make a decision and dedicate one's life to God," says Father András, the prior, after lunch.

”You can put up with a love laughingly”

Since the 13th century, the vocation of the Pauline Fathers has been the same, says Father András, because vocation is essentially marriage to God. But their daily life has changed, in that today's man is physically weaker, less able to endure asceticism and fasting, and more demanding, which means he has adapted to the demands of the times.

Their regulations are "moderately" strict. But what is strict? As we have seen, they live to a disciplined schedule. The monks are not idle; Father János, for example, was last bored at the age of 16, and he often goes on excursions or reads the Bible. There is always something to do, and there are a lot of books they don’t have time for.

They may also have hobbies, Father János likes photography, astronomy, hiking, and cycling, but there are also some monks in the order who ride motorbikes. The Regula does not forbid a monk from owning binoculars or collecting stamps, although they do not usually spend money on expensive items.

At 6 pm, it is time for dinner, and it is common to have a modest meal with leftovers from lunch or to eat cold. Evening prayers take place in the tiny chapel of the cloister, an area closed to outsiders. But for the sake of the readers of the Képmás, this time the two monks waive the rule and allow me to pray with them.

Once hermits, the Pauline Fathers have kept the notion of being a hermit by living in separate cells, so that each of them has a little world of his own where he can be alone with God. After evening prayers, they no longer talk, they all retire, they don't disturb each other, and they devote their time to God until bedtime. They often go to church and pray alone in the silence of the evening. The Silentium (silence) lasts from 8 pm - but this varies from monastery to monastery - until morning. Until then, however, I'd like to learn more about being a monk, so I continue my conversation with Father János in the dining room. I ask questions timidly as he stirs his herbal tea.

- What happens when a monk falls in love?

- It will pass... The primary question is always: who is the one I want to love?

- Have you ever fallen in love?

- Of course. It brought freshness into my life, but I knew it wasn't my path.

When I said to myself how beautiful she was, I immediately thought, "My God, how beautiful are You who created her!"

If you live in communion with God, you can put up with love laughingly. When we become emotionally close to someone, we quickly remember that true love is in the relationship with the Lord. And also: how nice that this "relationship" is costing me something right now.

- What do you mean?

- My attachment to God is not a free feeling dropped in my lap, but it costs me some kind of sacrifice, some kind of renunciation. It is good to be a monk because I have dedicated my life to the one I love and who loves me.

- According to this, everyone should be a monk.

- You know what's interesting? Everybody will be one day. Because Jesus says that when we die and go to Heaven, no one will marry or be married, we will live like angels of the Lord. The monastic life is a pre-reception of this.

- Still… few people become monks, the laymen are more numerous.

- It is a grace, an invitation.

It is not something we figure out for ourselves, and it is not something we do on our own, but the Spirit of God is working in us.

He caught hold of me and called me to become a monk. I could choose to accept or not accept His call.

- Are more invited than will eventually become monks?

– Definitely.

- Does it take great dedication to become a monk?

- It takes such a great one that it is not in the world, and it is not in man. This is what we get. From above.

- How do you remember your calling?

- It was a long process in my life. The story didn't even start with the call, but with my conversion from a Catholic, religious man to a believer.

I had heard about God in church for nineteen years, I had prayed to Him when I experienced for the first time in a Eucharistic adoration that He was here: Jesus is alive.

For some it is a longer transition, for others, it is sudden, as in the case of St Paul. From that moment on, my life has been different, I live with Jesus Christ, who began to lead me. I have had many enlightenment moments that have shown me to become a priest. It was not an easy decision because - and I come back to your first question - I was in love, so I said to the Lord: I will become a priest, but only if You want me to. And the Lord showed me that this was indeed the vocation he was calling me to. I surrendered. I experienced great joy, even though I had broken up with that girl.

A winding road leads to the No. 12 main road along the Danube. The road surface is not perfect everywhere either, so I drive slowly in the twilight. It's not just the quality of the road: my thoughts return to Father Amdrás and his spiritual guidance accompanies me for a long time.

Flóra Béry-Januskó originally wanted to be a doctor, or more precisely a military doctor, because she saw this as a real life-saving profession. In high school, she studied biology and chemistry, but when her gynecological condition revealed to her how important motherhood was to her, she was unsure about her future plans. She decided not to sacrifice her youth to long years of university studies and a career in medicine. She eventually majored in security and defense policy. After graduating, however, she did not have enough time to find a job because she met her ex-husband and soon afterward found out that she was expecting a child.

  " We were very happy, Ábris was a real love child. There was no question of keeping him, even though it was all very sudden. I was already pregnant when I married his dad, but my realist self felt that I wasn't sure if this fresh relationship would last. We were already having difficulties during the pregnancy. We separated shortly after Ábris was born."

20 percent chance of surviving to one year of age

Flóra's life was turned upside down by her son, Ábris. During the pregnancy, there was no sign of any problems with the baby. They had several genetic tests to screen for common diseases, but doctors found nothing amiss.

Five and a half months after the birth, Flora noticed that her son could no longer do the things he used to be able to do.

But at first, he showed rapid progress: at two months he was already lifting his head, and not long after that he was able to put his pacifier in and take it out of his mouth. It was noticeable that after a while he couldn't do those. His motor development came to a complete standstill and he did not learn to sit up on his own.

Suspecting a musculoskeletal problem, Flóra first took Ábris to an orthopedic doctor, but nothing unusual was found there. They went to a physical therapist, and a physiotherapist, and went to a baby swimming course, but they all told her that everything was fine.

"When Ábris was seven and a half months old, someone suggested we go for a developmental neurological examination. There, the doctor told me at first glance that my child had SMA. When I asked him what that meant, he said there was an 80 percent chance he wouldn't live to be a year old. He said this in the style of asking someone if they like their coffee with milk or sugar."

To confirm the suspicion, Flóra and his son had to undergo several tests. But they did not complete the week-long hospital check-up, from where they left on the third day on their own responsibility because of an unacceptable event for Flóra.

"I couldn't go in for one of Abris' examinations. I waited in the corridor and when it was well over the necessary one hour, I knocked on one of the nurses' doors to ask if they were finished. She said yes, but she couldn't tell me where my baby was. Then I heard a baby cry from behind one of the doors; I sensed it was Ábris.

I opened the door and saw my child lying on a table covered with a sheet, and the specialist was explaining to the residents that this child had SMA and that if he didn't take the sheet off he would suffocate because he didn't have the strength to pull it off.

Then I took Ábris and left the hospital with him."

Belgian aid, pioneering foundation

A few days later, genetic testing confirmed that Ábris has type 1 SMA, which has a very short life expectancy. By then, Flora had already researched the disease on foreign websites and in scientific journals. This is how she found out about the first drug therapy, Spinraza. When she told the doctor on receiving the medical records that there was a drug therapy available for SMA, he was puzzled and told her that there was no drug for this disease. He advised Flora to take Ábris home and stay with him as long as she could.

"I'm not the despairing type, so I started contacting clinics abroad almost immediately. But I was not in the best financial position, and my relatives could not support me either, so I sold some of my more valuable and branded things. In the meantime, I set up the BJÁbris Foundation and started collecting money to cover the costs of the treatment. At the time, it was the first giant collection of its kind. Within a couple of weeks, a substantial amount of money came into our account."

After much negotiation, Flóra decided on a European drug trial program (not an experiment!), where the drug company gave the medicine for free and they had to pay for the hospital care. Most of the donation raised was used for this. Since Belgium gave them an appointment first, they travelled there for the treatment.

"We received the diagnosis in March and were in Belgium at the end of May. Ábris was ten months old then. Here we were referred to a world-renowned expert who gave me time to think after the first consultation.

He said that every child responds differently to the treatment: some do not improve, some stabilize, and there is a chance of progress, but he cannot say how much or how long the child will improve.

Nevertheless, I decided to go ahead with the program."

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Flóra Béry-Januskó and her son, Ábris - Photo: Flóra Béry-Januskó

The treatment lasted three months, and fortunately, it was successful and Ábris started to improve. In the meantime, Flóra became more and more involved in the topic of SMA and, seeing the situation in Hungary, she decided to found the SMA Hungary Foundation (“SMA Magyarország Alapítvány”) in August 2017.

"With this foundation, my goal was to ensure that children with SMA have access to proper care in this country. I received a lot of research material from abroad, so I proposed the development of a new professional guideline for SMA patients, which was published in the Magyar Közlöny (“Hungarian Gazette”) in April 2018. In the meantime, the drug has been registered in Europe, so it is now available in Hungary, it is financed by the National Health Insurance Fund of Hungary (Hungarian acronym: NEAK).

Flóra, with the BJÁbris Foundation, introduced a non-invasive respiratory support device to the country, which was previously unknown to pulmonologists here. Since then, all SMA patients have received it free of charge. In addition, a cough machine has also been purchased from Italy and is now also provided on a subsidized basis. There was no small wheelchair available in this country either, but now it is also available with 80 percent state subsidy.

He’s in a wheelchair, but may eventually stand on his own two feet

Thanks to her work with the Foundation, Flóra has been involved in many events and has organized conferences in Hungary, too.

She came into contact with several pharmaceutical companies, one of which has offered her a position as a partner in charge of patient relations, which gives her some financial stability.

But Ábris needs constant medical aid, which they get mainly from Italy, and these, along with all sorts of other expenses, are a strain on the family budget.

"Until I had this stable job, I did all sorts of things for the extra income: I tapped beer at festivals, I was a hostess at wine tastings, but I'm not ashamed of that. I couldn't have taken a full-time job with Ábris in the early years, and I did the fundraising work for free as a volunteer. But I can do this work from home, which is a great help to me."

Thanks to four-monthly treatments, regular physical therapy, and home exercises, Ábris has improved and continues to improve to this day. Although he is in a wheelchair, he has every chance of getting back on his feet in time. He recently turned six and will start school this autumn. Flóra is hopeful that everything will go well, but her previous experiences at school do not bode well. She has long been looking for a school for her wheelchair-bound son.

"Since we have been abroad a lot, Ábris has learned English, so I looked for bilingual and English-language schools.

I didn't want to send him to a public school, because they only accept him with a document certifying that he has special educational needs. I didn't want to put that label on it.

Now we have an agreement with a British private school, I hope that there will be a teacher who will help Ábris to use the toilet because he can't do that on his own yet."

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Photo: János Zsolt Izing

According to Flóra, there is a fear of children in wheelchairs everywhere, and in many cases, private schools are not accessible either. But she does not want Ábris to be homeschooled and sit at home. He's a very open and friendly child, and the community is important to him. But he is also a very lively boy, always smiling and with a great sense of humor.

"When I think back to where we started and where we got to, it's a world of difference. A couple of years ago I was a fresh graduate with a baby with SMA, and now I'm in a very exciting position at one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, where I can even shape the Hungarian healthcare system. I feel like our lives are moving in the right direction."

I would have thought you were a lively, feisty little kid. Am I wrong?

I was obedient rather, and patient. My parents worked as teachers and I was often picked on by other children, so I vowed to learn to defend myself. However, at home I was always told to study, to stop playing sports, that's for Olympians. One day, I saw the dragon logo of the Kelemen István Jiu-Jitsu Hall on Madách Square and started to train there. At 14, I was already big in the children's group, so they put me in the adult group where I got beat up very badly. But I didn't give up, I kept reading martial arts books like the Bible. Two years later I switched to aikido, the first sport I became an instructor of.

Why was it important for you to volunteer in the army in the meantime?

I needed the challenge to toughen me up. At the time I even thought I was going to be a detective or a professional soldier. I requested to be placed in Pécs, to join the Depth Reconnaissance Squadron, which had been defending the border from the South Slavic war not long before, but I also trained with the legendary Kálmán Furkó in Szolnok. Without him I wouldn't be here today, he didn't tolerate compromise, but if you did what he asked you to do, you could leave. I learned hand-to-hand combat and parachuting, and I realized that real combat is different from idealized martial arts. The latter is a kind of inner path to spiritual peace, considered by many to be more art than combat. I think everyone gains as much from it as they understand. Those who go to Tai Chi will not become fighters, those who go to Thai boxing are obviously interested in competition, not enlightenment. One is health promotion, the other is results-oriented.

Am I correct that you eventually found your place in the krav maga Israeli self-defense system?

First I was a civilian skydiver, then I worked as a scuba diving assistant for a friend. After skydiving, it was strange to find that I dived more slowly and that while skydiving is a long preparation with short enjoyment, scuba diving is the exact opposite. But I've also been a receptionist at the Saudi embassy and armored truck personnel, too. And krav maga really got me with its practicality. The system is also effective because it is still being refined in Israel today. The coaches noticed me right away, and after being the best in the class I became an instructor of it a year later. Meanwhile, I was also the first Hungarian to complete in kettlebell the so-called "Beast Challenge", which requires you to perform three tasks with a 48 kg iron ball.

I trained for 9 months for this, but success was followed by endless emptiness. Since then I have learned - from the Olympians I trained - that professional athletes and even billionaire businessmen go through the same thing after a big result. They reach their goal, but then what's next?

I understand - before Alonso and Schwarzenegger - that the next step for you was knife fighting and shooting...

I first saw Sayoc Kali knife fighting in the movie "The Hunted" and I wanted to learn it right away, but it was many years later that I had the financial means to do it. Then I only had to travel as far as England, not the USA. Mentally, the training was extremely demanding: we started between 8 and 9 in the morning, stopped twice to eat, and often kept on until after midnight. We had to practice until 'the knife became part of our body'. At night I saw knives coming from everywhere, and in the morning I woke up dizzy. The master told me I looked bad. I said to him because I didn't sleep. Then he called his son to attack me. I didn't even know who I was, but I defended myself with 80% accuracy because my body responded automatically. He says, "do you get the point of the training yet?" I realized then, that the flaw in most martial arts is that they only imitate the attack. It's one thing when someone stabs you who is trying to take your life and wants to go home from the conflict instead of you, and it's another to defend against him so that you can use the knife, you can feel what he's going to do. I have since taught Sayoc to elite police and military units.

As well as teaching situational shooting, you also have taught multiple Olympic water polo champions, like Dr. Tamás Molnár and Norbert Madaras. Did the knife lead you straight to the "Formula 1 of shooting"?

As a kid, we used to go up to Mátrafüred, where I used to shoot air rifles at an old man’s house on weekends, and that was another seed that later took root. I always liked the idea of being in the present when shooting. If you mess up and then think about it, you'll mess up again; if you think about how the next one has to be good, you'll look to the future and you'll mess up again. I started my shooting career almost 20 years ago. I wanted to know the depths of that too, so I studied until I became an instructor. I have won many competitions: this year I won the Hungarian championship, and in 2019 I finished first in the handgun cup of the University of Public Service, ahead of the best police and soldiers of our country.

But I also took hand-to-hand combat further, choreographing the melee scenes in the Hungarian crime film series ”Tűzvonalban”, featuring András Stohl, for two years.

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Mátyás Tóbiás - Photo: Alfréd Pohlotka

We can say that by the age of 40 you've mastered everything you need to be a bodyguard, so we can move on to Alonso, Schwarzenegger...

My first job as a personal bodyguard was to protect Fernando Alonso's Formula 1 racer. I escorted him between the hotel and the race track, and we went to the Opera House for his birthday party. He's a jolly guy, and as everyone likes him, he didn't need to be protected much. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is an endlessly charismatic, mild-mannered, good-hearted gentleman. "Guys, thank you so much for making the event so nice for me, I was relaxed the whole time, I felt safe, and everything was on time," he said at the end of our work. It's rare for a client to be so direct because there is no communication between us. But on the last day, he offered to take a group photo with us, as well as individual photos with him. Once he opened the door in a towel with a cigar in his mouth, and then I saw how strong he still was. If you spoke to him respectfully, he was really nice. He had an extraordinary charisma, if he had told us to go with him to the North Pole barefoot, we would have followed without a word. And he never forgot where he started from, while he paid a high price for his extraordinary success. One thing was difficult: paying attention to your surroundings when you have the Terminator standing next to you... (laughs)

By the way, beyond this calm personality that characterizes you, what makes someone a good bodyguard?

I was part of a great team at the time, and bodyguarding is a team effort. People think you have "the" bodyguard like Whitney Houston has Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. But that romantic notion exists only in the imagination of Hollywood screenwriters that the bodyguard comes along, protects the client, beats everyone, shoots well even when blind, drives like Jason Statham, fights like Bruce Lee in his heyday, never gets tired, never bleeds - if he gets hurt, he just gets shot in the shoulder - and finally becomes a lover and takes the girl and the money. It's also a job that takes a lot of preparation, a lot of practice, and it can take a lifetime.

What the bodyguard uses most is his head. He builds everything up in advance, like an algorithm, and then, as events unfold, before anything dangerous can happen, he takes the defended person in another direction.

You have to know your client, and we even knew Arnold's astrological sign and blood type, down to the little things like his dislike of fizzy water. He smokes six cigars a day - when he arrived he was so tired he fell asleep in the jeep with a cigar in his mouth. So a job like this is two or three weeks of preparation, and site visits, from when the elevator was last serviced to what the escape route is in case of a power cut, where the shelter is, or where to transport the person if there's any problem.

Have you ever been in a (life-) threatening situation in your career?

Rather, in my life, because these were not always the result of work. Once our flat burnt down, or we fell into an 8-meter ravine in a car in the Buda hills. I drifted under a lorry and was almost shot in the back with a shotgun. While scuba diving, I was run over by a speedboat in the Red Sea: I was hit on the head, I didn't know where I was, I raised both hands out of reflex. My left arm was tugged and something started hitting it, I thought it was a shark biting it. But I was hit by the end of the boat's rudder, which hit me on the head, and its propeller tugged on my arm. If my diving watch with the metal buckle hadn't taken the first hit, I might not have a left arm today. There was blood everywhere, and the back of my hand and forearm were bleeding, but at least it wasn't a shark. It was then I realized how grateful I am to have two hands and two feet. Then we once crashed in a plane during a parachute training in Gödöllő. At 90 meters altitude, the engine stopped and at that altitude, you cannot jump out. We saw into the branches of the trees, tipped over, crashed, and hit a power line with the crash landing. As we were rushing out of the plane, the power was striking everything.

I think that the fact that we survived is, besides great pilot skills, due to divine intervention, because those who were there have been involved in important tasks ever since.

We haven't talked about everything yet, for example, as a self-defense coach you also train women and civilians on how to protect themselves. But what are you most proud of?

To the lives saved and to those who have returned home safely because of my contribution. The sporting and other achievements are nice but only temporary. I think my life has been all about spiritual development. When I had to become a man, I became a man, which in today's world is not self-evident. When I was a kid and my mom took me to the Friday market, I saw what the kid next door was like before, during, and after his military service. Back then, boys really became men. And it taught me responsibility when, for example, I had to escort an international delegation as a bodyguard and on the first day I sat down with the boss, who said. "You get the best training, equipment, and colleagues, all with different elite unit experience. If anyone of the clients gets hurt, we'll buy you a plane ticket and you'll go to their family to tell them." In the end, from the Saudi prince to Russian, American, and Middle Eastern businessmen, families, and sports delegations, many felt safe with me, and all of that is a source of pride.

Cynthia was born in 1982 in Golden, a small town in the Rockies. After the revolution against the Soviet Regime, her father, Frank Berényi, had to leave his homeland, Hungary in 1956. Her mother followed her love twenty years later. The writer emotionally and honestly tells us about how she grew up as an immigrant family’s child in the ’80s and ’90s in Canada, her experiences when visiting Hungary as a teenager also later as an adult and her recognition of the traumas originated from her parents past and the affects to her own life.

The history of The Berényi Family is multilayered and diversified, experienced by all characters in their own way. In Cynthia's writing, she reveals her relationship with family: her father, who buries his painful memories within himself, works for the prosperity of his family and is away a lot, her mother, who tries to fit into a foreign environment and is often left alone with her children, her brother, who is sometimes seen as a competitor, sometimes as a partner in fate, and her rarely-seen grandmother who she feels close to her.

They all strive for security, love, and harmony, but the unprocessed traumas of the past and the conflicts, fears, and misunderstandings of the present prevent them from achieving these goals.

As the death of the beloved father approaches, family unity is finally born, and Cynthia overcomes the long mourning process and finds her own voice and path.

What inspired you to write this book?

I was inspired to write this book to honor my father and all the people who fought for freedom in The 1956 Hungarian Revolution plus all those who continue to fight for freedom today. I was inspired to share a sense of hope and inspire others to heal so they can live life fully.

Why did you choose this title for your book?

I choose the book title So Much More - A Multigenerational Memoir of Spiritual Liberation, because the book is about my father’s escape from Hungary during the revolution and so much more. It is about how that trauma impacted him and also how that impacted me and my life. There are many pieces in this book that everyone can relate to and there is so much more that can be found in every reading, even for myself!

How did you realize that there is a relation between the difficulties in your life and your relatives’ personal histories?

Not all my difficulties are in relation to my relatives’ personal histories, but some of them are. One part that was challenging for my father was to share his story and his voice fully. Same with my mother. When I asked my mother and her experience with the revolution and the details for my book, my mother responded: “the revolution happened, it was hard, we got through it and we never talked about it.” I realized that there were parts of my life that I felt were hard to share as well, such as my father's passing. Sometimes it feels easier to push things down, especially if they are hard to deal with, but these hardships always linger in the background of all we do.

I watched this with my father and saw at the end of his life, what it means to fully be free of burdens, to heal, to truly let love in, and for life to be amazing.

I had to do my own healing, which meant sharing my voice authentically.

Reading the story of your birth, I felt the difficulties your mother faced when having children in a foreign environment.

A year and a half before I was born, my mother had a miscarriage, contracted an infection, and almost died from it. I think the fear and sense of loss stemming from that trauma was deeply rooted in my mom and maybe was passed down to me as well. I arrived prematurely and was a jaundice baby, so I was put in an incubator. One day the nurses forgot to put my eye shield back on and my mom screamed in panic as she didn't speak English and couldn't explain to them what was wrong. In the end, my dad had to come back to the hospital and he resolved the situation. I think this is a good example of how challenging it was for my mother during her early days in Canada.

In your book, the painful feeling of rejection appears as a kind of family legacy.

Unfortunately, my father experienced this many times: he didn't know his father, he had no relationship with him, and when he was four years old, my grandmother sent him to her relatives, who made him work on a farm. He was rejected by his youthful love, and his marriage ended in divorce. The depressing experiences gained during the revolution also accompanied him throughout his life, preventing him from being able to let himself go completely spiritually. This also affected me, as I could rarely feel liberated and safe. My mother didn't get the love and attention she needed from her father either, and during our upbringing, her own desires and ideas had to be pushed to the background. For example, she was only able to implement her business after the divorce, because my father insisted that he be the only money earner in the family.

Although my parents loved us and gave us everything, I often felt that my emotional needs, and thus a part of my personality, were being rejected.

You also faced the dilemma that every child faces: can I have negative feelings towards my parents, and at the same time not feel bad for that and also be grateful for them?

Yes, for example, I learned from my dad to stand up for myself and speak up if I don't like something, but he didn't take it well if I did this to him or my mom. When I was little, I felt that my family was happy when I was smiling and going with the flow. I tried to live up to it, so I suppressed my negative feelings. In my teenage years, of course, I clashed with my mother many times and my parents could not handle this. Later, I understood that the tensions did not arise because my parents didn't love me or didn't care about me, but because they also had to work on their own difficulties. This realization led me to forgive and build more loving relationships and find gratitude for my family and acceptance of them and myself.

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Cynthia Berényi with her father - Photo: Cynthia Berényi

Have these hardships prevented you to live a life of fulness?

At times, I have held back parts of myself by putting on masks to fit in with others and society, which were not authentic and did not truly represent who I really was. Although it was hard to share so freely, this writing is my truth, and

finding my voice and sharing fully has allowed me to accept and connect to myself fully and therefore allowed me to accept and connect to others more fully as well.

What other methods did you use for healing yourself from transgenerational traumas than writing?

Journal writing has been the most therapeutic way for me to explore my thoughts and ways of being. I have also connected with healing modalities such as cranial sacral therapy, talk therapy, EMDR, and Emotional Freedom Technique/tapping.

What does it mean for you to be Canadian? What does it mean for you to be Hungarian?

 To be Canadian means to have a fresh start and a sense of freedom, which my father fought for. Being Hungarian means family, my roots, and my blood. I consider myself both Canadian and Hungarian and feel very lucky to have the background and status of both.

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Cynthia Berényi

Cynthia finished her manuscript, which she had been working on for 10 years, during the pandemic. She said it took her that long to muster up the courage to share her story.

”When we no longer want to pretend anymore that we are fine and everything is alright, then the possibility to accept and heal opens up to us” – says the writer, for whom the journey to the past showed the way to a happier future.

Cynthia is my cousin, so our families' stories interact at some point. For me, it was a strange and uneasy feeling to read the book, to "meet" characters that I also know. I would like to express my gratitude to Cynthia for using her work to memorialize those family members who are no longer with us.

The book So Much More – A Multigenerational Memoir of Spiritual Liberation is available in English on Amazon and also on the writer's own website.

You are young and a woman. If the reports of others are to be believed, this pairing is not necessarily a straight path to success in your profession either.   

It is true that in the world of classical music - especially for conductors, composers and concertmasters - men are still in the majority, but fortunately, we can see progress in this area too. I feel lucky to have been supported in my career by my environment.  

How did you discover the artist in yourself?

I've always loved music, my mum is a piano teacher, so I started playing music at an early age, and I decided I wanted to be a violinist when I was nine. 

You first took up the piano, why did you decide to take up the violin? 

I preferred the sound of it and the way I could communicate with the audience through the instrument.

I feel that the violin is more a part of my body than the piano.  

Born in California, how much of a culture shock was it to move to Austria when you were ten? 

The first challenge was the language because I didn't speak German at that time and all my classes were in German, so I had to pick it up quickly. By the way, European culture is very important in classical music and everyone should know it, wherever they live and work in the world.  

In Salzburg, you were admitted to the Young Talents’ Class at the age of ten, which meant that you got into the competitive world of adult musicians as a child. How did you cope with this pressure to perform?  

Musicians are under constant stress, and the most important moment is always the concert or competition, where they have to perform at their best. Fortunately, I always loved being on stage, showing what I could do in front of a lot of people, and that helped me to cope with high expectations as a child.  

Is there much competition in this world? 

Of course! You have to practice a lot, work a lot, because there are so many talented musicians. At the same time, it is not good to always have in mind to be better than the other.

I think everyone has to compete with themselves.

How did Budapest come into your sights? 

I was already in Salzburg for my undergraduate studies when I came to the Liszt Ferenc Academy on an Erasmus scholarship, which of course meant another change of environment, but I am an adaptable person. Budapest has a very attractive cultural scene, great musicians working in Hungary, and there are fabulous concert venues and good audiences. 

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Photo: Péter Suha

What is a good audience like?

(thinks) I can feel that the people are listening very carefully. The energy I feel when the audience is part of the musical magic is like nothing else.  

You are one of the youngest concertmasters in the world. What are your responsibilities in this position?

The concertmaster leads the orchestra. In symphony orchestras, the conductor gives the signal, but the musicians also pay attention to the concertmaster because they are a more precise form of signal. For example, they show the stroke, the style, and the tempo. All this helps to implement in rehearsals what the conductor says, and especially with guest conductors, it is important that the concertmaster represents the orchestra. You also have to coordinate the musicians, write schedules, and of course pay attention to your colleagues, listen to them, and care about them.

It is important for the concertmaster to be a good leader not only in music-related matters.  

Besides practicing, competing, and performing, you also organize high-profile events. From 25 to 30 August, hosted the New Millennium International Chamber Music Festival for the fourth time, with the addition of the Academy this year. What was the program like?

This year, the program has also been expanded with new international partnerships. Last year, I founded the V4 String Quartet, which made its Hungarian debut at the opening concert and had the specialty of performing Hungarian, Polish, Czech, and Slovak works. At the Academy, we also collaborated with Spanish, Austrian, and Bulgarian partners. There were workshops where we talked about important topics such as how to manage yourself, how to communicate in rehearsals, and how to stay healthy as a musician both physically and mentally. Thanks to the Erasmus+ grant, we were also able to provide financial support to disadvantaged musicians.  

Is talent alone not enough? 

Unfortunately not, and in today's world, even a lot of practice is no guarantee. If you don't know how to organize a concert, how to create an opportunity for yourself, it's very difficult. Managers don't come knocking on the door of practice rooms to offer concert opportunities, and not every musician can have their own manager! This is not taught in universities.  

You mentioned that participants can also get health advice. Is the life of a musician that mentally demanding? 

I think it's important that mental well-being is given more attention in this area too. If you look at sportsmen, when they are preparing for a competition, they are also working with psychologists to ensure that they can perform at their best in the competition. For musicians, this would be even more important because music is subjective: if someone wins, they don't do it in the same way as in swimming, for example, where it's who finishes first.

Being the best on stage is only half of it, the other half is how to deal with failure, how to deal with criticism when you don't win.  

How do you avoid burnout? 

It's always good to have a hobby. I love languages, I speak German, and Russian and I'm learning Spanish when I want to relax. I prefer active recreation. 

Do you keep in touch with your master, does he also help you prepare for concerts and competitions? 

I am grateful to Eszter Perényi, we keep in touch. Whenever I have an important solo concert, for example, the last one in Krakow, I call Aunt Eszter and she gives me a lesson. You can always improve, no matter how many degrees you have.

Which composer's musical world do you identify with the most? 

For me, Béla Bartók's music is very natural, and his quartets are among the best of the 20th century. I have played his violin concerto many times and I like the folk influences in his works, the slow movements are my favourite.

You also perform abroad a lot. What do you think the prestige and visibility of Hungarian musicians are like in the world music scene? 

There are a lot of successful Hungarian musicians playing at festivals, and I find that Hungarian artists are also taken seriously abroad.

The sport was in his blood

Miklós Hargitay was born on 6 January 1926 in Kőbánya to a family living in difficult circumstances. He inherited his love of physical exercise from his athlete father, who also took the upbringing of his four offspring very seriously in the field of sport. The Hargitay brothers performed a joint acrobatic act at the “Fényes” Circus troupe, and their success was reflected in the fact that the show toured the country.

Later, at his brother's urging, Miklós also tried speed skating, winning three Central European titles. "I still remember (...) that there was a skating rink near Szabadság Square, where I used to go. Not only because I loved the sport and was preparing for the '48 Olympics, but also because I could only take a hot shower there, because at home we only had cold water in the tap," he recalled. He also was a professional football player for Fradi and probably studied architecture at the University of Technology in Budapest.

With a big smile on the streets of America

The circumstances of his emigration are still unclear. According to some sources, he left the country as early as 1945 to test his knowledge and skills overseas, while others say he left only in 1947. His own memoirs confirm the version that he arrived in the United States in 1947.

With his boat docked off the coast of Brooklyn, young Hargitay set off on the American Dream with only $10 in his pocket and endless optimism. He started working in a fruit market for $2 a day and then headed west.

He supported himself for a while with temporary jobs - plumbing, carpentry - and then married an American acrobat, Mary Birge. Mickey's experience in Hungary came in handy, as he and his wife worked on a performance together, which they performed nightly in Indianapolis nightclubs. They had one child, Tina, but he and Mary parted ways after a few years.

Fame from muscles

The turning point in Mickey Hargitay's life came with a magazine cover. It depicted one of the highest-paid male actors of his time, Steve Reeves, who with his elaborate body, had created masculine characters on screens such as Hercules, Sandokan, and the muscular colossus Goliath. At the time, building muscle for aesthetic purposes was far from being a widely accepted sport, but Hargitay was ahead of his time in his pursuit of bodybuilding.

So much so that in 1955 he was awarded the prestigious Mr. Universe award in London.

The bodybuilder -turned- actor Arnold Schwarzenegger looked up to him as a role model, and later played Hargitay in the biographical drama The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980).

The victory set the young Hungarian sporting talent on a whole new path. He got a contract in the New York revue of the world-famous actress Mae West, which, in a somewhat bizarre way for the time, was especially based on men with sculpted bodies. The aging sex symbol also had a bit of a crush on Mickey Hargitay, which caused quite a stir within the company. Ironically, the Hungarian bodybuilder didn't end up with Mae West, but it was in this place that he found all-consuming, passionate love.

Flown to Hollywood by love

The story goes that one night, the 1950s sex symbol Jayne Mansfield, a Marilyn Monroe-type blonde entered a New York nightclub.

She sat down and when ordering, all she asked for was "I'd like a steak and the tall man on the left side of the stage".

Passion drew the two beautiful people together with an elemental force, and they were married on January 1, 1958. They were a dream couple, constantly on each other's lips, who were frequently written about in the magazines of the time, and Mickey had their Beverly Hills luxury home, the Pink Palace, completely renovated with 10 baths and a heart-shaped pool.

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Mickey Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield with their kids in 1963 - Photo: Profimédia - Red Dot

The beauty, also known as the "second Marilyn Monroe", didn’t hesitate to bring her beloved husband to Hollywood. The 20th Century Fox studios, under contract to Mansfield, were not pleased, as they wanted to convey the official message to the male public that their sex bombs were single and therefore available. The actress, however, persisted until Mickey Hargitay finally appeared on her side, in a 1957 comedy, "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?” They later paired up in the historical romance  The Loves of Hercules, on the shooting of which Mansfield was pregnant with their first child. This was followed in 1963 by Promises... Promises!, which made Jayne Mansfield the first American star to be seen completely naked on screen. As a result, the production was banned in several cities.

By his own admission, Mickey Hargitay had as much to do with acting as a taxi driver.

But this and the scathing reviews did not discourage him from continuing acting: he also appeared in Bloody Pit of Horror (1965), inspired by the writings of the Marquis de Sade, and in the terribly weak Lady Frankenstein (1971). He also signed five film contracts in Italy and appeared in a television physical exercise show.

Did the Hungarian spirit crush the dream couple?

During married life, the differences between the two became more and more pronounced. Although Mansfield was fond of playing the 'dumb blonde' to the cameras, in reality, she was a woman of outstanding intelligence, widely educated, and fluent in five languages. Her intellectual needs did not necessarily match those of her beautifully built husband, even whose humor she found less than sparkling.

But the real breaking point was the arrival of the children - Miklós, Zoltán, and Mariska - and the personality differences that emerged in their upbringing. "We are different. I'm adaptable and avoid conflict, I can't stand discord. And Mickey is really wonderful, devoted, a great husband, but Hungarian! He's quick-tempered, prone to tantrums, and very strict with the children, whereas I'm permissive with them. Yes, it all started with the children," Mansfield confessed about the breakdown in the relationship.

Mickey Hargitay visited Hungary on several occasions, first in 1961 with Jayne Mansfield.

The bodybuilder was such a star at home that the road from the airport to the city was closed, and the Minister of the Interior Affaires offered his own staff car, a Volga to drive them.

He was reluctant to visit the places of his childhood, but he was always proud of his roots - it is no coincidence that all three of his children were given Hungarian names and learned Hungarian. He confessed his love of his homeland at the 2005 Hungarian American Foundation Gala when he remembered his parents. They taught him to "remember to include the name of your sweet homeland in your evening prayers".

The dream couple finally divorced in Mexico in 1963, but the divorce was later annulled. They were together for a few months after the birth of Mariska, who would go on to have an acting career before the divorce was finalized at Mansfield's urging. A few years later, the actress died in a tragic car accident in which her beautiful body was mangled beyond recognition. Her lover and all three of her children were traveling in the car with her, but they escaped the tragedy with minor injuries and were raised from then on by their father. Of her three husbands, Mickey Hargitay was the only one to attend Jayne Mansfield's funeral.

"A few years ago, Miklós Nyitrai, who is now the dean of the university's medical faculty, supported a tender, which allowed us to start planning the 3D project with the funds we received", says Attila Péntek, the professional coordinator of the PTE 3D Printing and Visualisation Centre, after my arrival, showing me around the Pécs laboratory. He adds that it was then that they decided which printers to buy, which topics to focus on, where to place the equipment they had purchased through the tender and started looking for competent staff.

Back then, the biggest problem was the latter: finding people who understood the technology or at least wanted to learn it.

Initially, they were given a room in the biophysics faculty but soon moved to a new building. They started with ten simple printers, based on so-called FFF technology, which were used to print a very rudimentary version of medical prostheses. Sometimes a device was printed for more than fifty hours. (The simpler, cheaper machines, based on the FFF technology mentioned above, costing between 300 and 400,000 HUF, are still in use on the upper floor of the laboratory, where they were printing continuously when we visited. The SLA printers cost more than that, between 2 and 3 million HUF, but - in general - still serve the average user and companies engaged in small series production.)

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This is what a 3D printed heart looks like - Photo: PTE 3D Visualization Center

During this period, they explored the potential of machines with medical and engineering students. With their involvement, they began to build and test various simulators. They began to understand what materials had to be put into what form to make a sellable, usable simulator that was a little more capable than its competitors on the market. This was helped by the medical students' continuous testing of the prototypes.

For example, the various bones that help students to get hands-on training. They make a 3D printed model and then pour silicone around it to make a mould for mass production. The outer, hard part of the "bone" is then made first, and then the softer "marrow" material is poured into the silicone mould.

Many hours of work are spent on experiments, Attila explains, sawing, drilling, screwing, and continuous (medical) feedback to make the bone material resemble the real human bone as much as possible, as this is the best way to help education.

Help for surgeries

In addition to training medical students, they also print "practice bones" for certain surgical procedures. The resulting CT scan is scanned and the bone is printed. This helps the doctor to "practice" before surgery, rehearsing where and how to perform the procedure.

This option can shorten the operation time and reduce the risk because the doctor can be more confident about the procedure.

We spend a long time in this room, where they also make elbows with "skin", "flesh", and "nerves", and they also print hearts, which can even imitate the heartbeat and breathing.

Then we stop by a pile of "bleeding skin", one of the lab's most successful simulators. It bears a strong resemblance to human skin: a cross-section of the human body with different layers, and a small container hiding under the "skin" containing "blood" so that medical students can practice surgical laryngectomy on it.

A lot of experimentation went into making the surface of the device most like the feel of skin. They use a mixture of silicone and foam to try to recreate human skin in a way that doctors believe is most similar to the real thing. This recipe is a secret, completely unique development. It also required a lot of experimentation on how to glue the multiple layers together, how to place the blood pouch below the surface.

Meanwhile, we walk on to the moulding room where the demonstration instruments (bleeding skin, bones, organs) are made, one by one or in small series. János Mendler, who has decades of experience in modelling and injection moulding, is designing a model on his computer. Among other things, his experience has helped the PTE 3D Printing and Visualisation Centre to turn towards simulators that are competitive.

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Artificial hand - Photo: PTE 3D Visualization Center

Hope for people with arms or legs

Attila Péntek picks up a prosthesis from one of the tables. This device is another success story of the lab. Inside it are two surface signal sensors that detect mechanical signals from two main muscle groups.

These muscle groups retain the ability to move the wrist and fingers even after amputation.

Thus, when the case, which is equipped with so-called myoelectric sensors that use electrical signals from the muscles, is attached to the remaining arm, the muscle groups can move the fingers of the 3D-printed prosthetic hand at the end of the case. (The prosthetic case is made by the medical device producing company Corvus-Med, with which the lab works in symbiosis.) Due to working principles, the case must of course be made separately for each patient.

Printing, designing and the production of a prototype are all done in the lab. Many versions of the prostheses have been developed, many of them just to see how the different parts and mechanics behave in real life, and then to see how and on what path to take for further work. In the second round of investment, which will be launched in the near future, the Centre expects to be able to attract further funding to make further improvements.

In addition to printing and education, research is also carried out in the lab. They can print teeth, braces and even the pliers used to pull them. The latter device has been tested with dentists, some of which had to be reinforced with glass fibre to make it more usable.

The university also generates income from the many products. For example, the bleeding skins are sold to research centres in hospitals. In addition to medical developments, there are also ongoing orders from industry, such as the automotive industry.

The future lives here with us

On the lower level of the building, there's more excitement, with huge printers serving industrial needs. The Stratasys J750 polyjet printer is priced at well over 100 million HUF, but it can now print in colour. The principle of operation is similar to that of conventional printers, except that in 3D, in the ink cartridges plastic (photopolymer) is used instead of ink powder.

The machine builds up the print layer by layer, and where a small part of the model protrudes, it prints a support from the tray level, which can be removed from the model later. We can imagine the function of the support material as the support pillar in a house under construction, which supports the vault.

The machine sucks the materials into the print head under vacuum, then the head mixes and drops the coloured plastic onto the tray. The top of the drop is cut off by a blade to allow the next drop to fit precisely. Finally, the machine firms the print with UV light. At the end of printing, the support material is washed off with water.

A smaller brother of the printer is ideal for dental printing. Based on a CT scan, the model is segmented and the denture is printed.

Its use helps when making braces, as the dental technician can rehearse the most ideal position and prefabricate the restoration, which can then be fitted into the patient's mouth. A silicone gum is also created to the printed denture in the lab, shows Attila Péntek.

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3D printed head - Photo: PTE 3D Visualization Center

In the lab you will find a room that looks more like a space base. Here you will find a printer that prints from polyamide in an insulated chamber. The inside of the chamber is heated to a temperature of 160 degrees Celsius, and then a laser is used to melt the injected material, which is more porous than flour. This process forms the object to be printed, with the printer also moving from layer to layer. At the end of the process, a large block of dust is created, from which, like Indiana Jones in the desert, the print must be carefully extracted by the technicians.

My favourite of the poet, Dezső Kosztolányi's letters are the pieces written in 1915, in which he tells his wife about his son Ádám. His wife, Ilona Harmos was being treated for pneumonia in the Tátra mountains at the time, so she was forced to take some time away from her five-month-old son. I wonder how they managed to feed him? What did children eat at that time? We can read about it in our old cookbooks.

Where did the milk come from?

"Even mothers are healthier if they breastfeed, which makes the milk more abundant", wrote Peter Pázmány in the 1600s. The promotion and appreciation of breastfeeding were typical of the Catholic Church (we might recall paintings of Mary breast-feeding the baby Jesus), while wet nurses became fashionable in the Enlightenment period. Of course, if a mother was unable to breastfeed her baby for some reason, relatives or wetnurses came to her aid. And when the district nurses’ service was organized, the collection and distribution of breast milk began. The Kosztolányi family did not take advantage of this opportunity, and five-month-old Ádám was initially given pasteurized milk from the Károlyi estate in Fót, which "worked very well". Although the cookbook of Erzsébet Hunyadi from Bánffyhunyad was published ten years later, in 1925, it still reflects the feeding habits of the time. The author wrote the principles in consultation with doctors and teachers in Budapest. As she writes, improper nutrition can cause illness and digestive disorders later on, so it is important to set aside time to get informed.

She recommends exclusive breastfeeding up to six months of age (refuting later misconceptions, she makes it clear that neither water nor tea is needed as a supplement), but not on demand, but every 3-3.5 hours.

Ilona Harmos was also breastfeeding, and they were worried that the illness might have affected the milk the baby was receiving. It was only after her admission to a sanatorium that cow's milk came. We know from Hunyady's cookbook, cow's milk was diluted with water or tea and enriched with flour (the so called ‘children's flours’, such as Kufeke,  Szitmaltin,  Maltosit or Demaltos contained milk powder, malt extract, egg yolk and were flavoured with sugar or cocoa). The Kosztolányi family gave the baby tea in addition to milk, first with saccharin (also mentioned in the cookbook), then switched to sugar on doctor's orders.

The first spoonfull of food

At first, the baby's menu was supplemented with oatmeal soup, and then on 9 October 1915, "he was given his first apple preserve, carefully boiled and warmed twice", his father wrote in a letter (the apple's phosphorus content is a bone-strengthener). On October 15, "Baby gets toast-bread  (he loves them) soaked in hot milk, and carrots, etc. Baby is very greedy. He just shakes for his food. But he digests everything very well, even the toasts!" Ilona Harmos must have thought this was premature because Kosztolányi wrote several times to reassure her that the baby had no problems with the toast. But the mother must have been right, because later on the baby had to have an enema and visits to the doctor, and after that little Adam could only have half of a toast.

In the Hunyady cookbook, milk-soaked buns, sponge cakes, or toast are only mentioned from the age of one.

The Kosztolányi's son, however, was already eating bread at the age of six months, and from the end of the month onwards the father, who always wrote with loving care about his son, could report increasing success. "He is getting fatter. The other day we gave him a little raspberry juice. How he loves it! He's a gourmet. His father's son. [...] Baby is having lunch now: mashed potatoes and applepurée. He likes applepurée, but he doesn't like potatoes at all. He blows it back into the spoon!" – a note from November 1915. This is in line with Hunyady's instructions. She also says that the first thing to try is the broth. Then you could add grits and tapioca to it, and then purées - first of all of the soup vegetables, spinach and potatoes. Then came orange juice, apple and plum purée, and mashed bananas. From the age of ten months onwards, it was milk-based semolina pudding. The meat was not recommended until the second year in Hunyady's book, and whole eggs until the third year - yolks were allowed earlier.

Soups, stews, light soufflés, sponge cakes and some meats (chicken, veal, venison, rabbit, for example) are recommended for three-year-olds, while the earliest age at which a child can fully adopt the family diet is four years, according to the 1925 recommendation.

Roux is only used from the second year onwards, and before that, you can read about puréed stews made with butter and milk in the cookbook, for example, peas, cauliflower, lentils, beans, carrots, spinach. So there is no sign of stuffed cabbage or pig’s feet and tripe. After the Second World War, sugar-sweetened water, baby formula, and semolina pudding were only given as a last resort. But exclusive breast milk, fresh vegetables, and selected, high-quality meats were already important foods for babies in the 1920s. 

The documentary presents Attila's story, more precisely a phase of his life, in a mosaic of different situations. Each scene is separated by a chorus of songs, parables, and communal prayers. "Above" and "below", silence and noise, sin and purity, dirty streets and beautiful statues in the Archabbey of Pannonhalma - these are the oppositions the authors build on and reinforce the struggles that take place in the protagonist's soul.

While Attila was living at home with his parents, he had to steal in order to have enough to eat and to buy drugs for his parents.

He later became an addict himself, served time in several prisons, and spent a total of six and a half years in prison. After graduating from high school with excellent grades as an ex-con, he was accepted to university, but before he could start, he started using again after a breakup. He went to prison as a homeless in the Kálvin Square underpass and was released as a converted Christian. He decided never to sin again, to stop using drugs, and to give up crime. In the meantime, he has learned carpentry, served his community service sentence, enrolled in a driving course, and visited the Archabbey of Pannonhalma to learn about monastic life.

The story of his conversion is told through conversations with monks, prisoners, friends, and his mother. He never speaks in full about the crimes he committed, but he does make one exception and tells in detail how his brother, whom he found and cut the rope, committed suicide. It is a truly poignant and heartbreaking confession all the more because Attila is not acting for the cameras, his pain and remorse are sincere.

Halfway through the documentary, he recites a poem - and that's when we realize how much pain and warm feelings there must be in his heart. And maturity. Because Attila is actually a very intelligent, empathetic, respectful man. He became one over the years.

The filmmakers do not absolve him of his sins, yet we come to love this lost man who is in constant search of God and happiness.

Why do people always want to destroy themselves? - he asks a monk in a scene with the innocence of a child. He does not hesitate to ask further questions about God and monasticism. Questions that most people would not dare to ask.

It is very good for the film that the filmmakers also bring in the symbol of the road - we see Attila walking towards Pannonhalma or learning to drive a car. He tries to steer his own life as best he can, but sometimes he gets weak and admits:  Life is much harder than prison.

One question weighs heavily on his mind: should he become a monk or start a family.

The title of the work can be interpreted in several ways. It could refer to the people who helped him and paved his way, it could refer to his departure from prison, or it could refer to his faith that helped him to quit using drugs.

In this age of superhero movies, it's nice to finally see a film where the protagonist's superpower is "merely" the ability to repent.

Where the emphasis is not on the loud and noisy scenes, but on silence and the natural. The "enemy" our protagonist has to fight is everyday life itself, not a CGI monster with supernatural powers.

The documentary, made with the support of the National Film Institute, premiered at the Uránia National Film Theatre on 1 June 2022 - it will tour festivals over the next year, and the filmmakers plan to continue screening films among the vulnerable.

Watch the trailer of the film here.