When and why did the issue of protecting life become so important to you?

Before I found LIFE International, I was a pastor in a church. I read important parts of scripture over and over again, such as Genesis, where it says we are made in God's image. One time when I preached about it, the Lord began to speak to my spirit personally. Until then, all I thought about abortion was that it was wrong, I didn’t support it. But then God said, ‘Kurt, you do not know my heart on this issue’. Although I had supported life, then I realized that it wasn’t just about saving children or women’s rights, although these things were important to God and to me as well. But the Lord said, ‘abortion is an attack on me’. That broke me because as a pastor I should have understood him perfectly by then. As soon as I understood his message, everything has changed in me. I understood what God wanted from me, which led to the founding of Life International 20 years ago. At the time, not too much effort was made by humanity around the world to protect life, and I am still lacking it in many countries today.

Through my work, however, I seek to be the voice of Father’s heart in this matter.

How do you experience, how much the world’s attitude toward abortion has changed in the last two decades?

Not enough. The changes occur person by person. We try to bring together leaders in different countries, they are mainly pastors, sometimes politicians, lawyers, educators. We train them on how to pass on our life-protecting biblical view to people instead of other worldviews. Many times priests also say they have never talked about this in this form, so we already feel able to change people’s lives. We are already present in more than a hundred countries, but our goal is to reach and spread the message of the Lord in all countries. We would help people choose life, make pregnant women aware that God loves them and their children. The value of human life seems to be diminishing, so we want to say in the name of Jesus that all life is valuable. And our relationship with God is a real treasure, regardless of gender, origin, nationality, age.

Of course, not everyone is a Christian – or follows any other world religion – so it may not always be easy to convince people. What arguments do you usually use?

As I travel the world, I find that most people have never heard that God loves them. But as a follower of God, I care about them. Ephesians says we are to be imitators of God. I try to turn to people with the same dignity that Jesus turned to us. When I wait at an airport or sit down at a restaurant, I used to ask, for example, the waiter, ‘If someone prayed for you today, what would you ask them to pray for? Can I pray for you?’ Sometimes there are tears for this because no one has ever turned to him with such attention.

Listening to the other, listening to your story as you listen to mine now, asking questions means: appreciating each other’s lives.

Nor do you do it as a journalist, even though it is your profession, but you pay attention to other people by imitating God. As believers in Christ, we are invited to listen to anyone we meet. When we do that, people open up, they become interested. And then we can tell them that God loves them, so much so that He sent His only son to die on the cross for them. It depends on our attitude and our heart: whoever feels that we care about him becomes receptive to our message. This is how many people receive Jesus into their lives, even though they have never heard of him before.

If I’m not wrong, the most important message beyond God’s love is that life does not begin with birth, but begins long before it. Many still call the developing little person a fetus during this period…

Our pastor recently gave a lecture in Cambodia, a small village in the middle of the jungle where a lot of men were killed or expelled under the dictatorship of Pol Pot, so the majority are women. One hundred and twenty Buddhist women appeared at the lecture. The pastor told them for two hours about the miracle of life, the conception, and from there all the stages of development to birth. What happens in the womb, how the person develops. Because at LIFE International, we call him a person. When his heart starts beating, your brain, your circulatory and respiratory system, how your lungs develop. When he is ready to be born. It turned out that none of those women had heard of it before. The pastor then asked if they would like to meet God, who, as Psalm 139 says, was involved very intimately in forming you in your mother's womb. In fact, He thought of us before we developed in the womb. I believe we exist from the moment God first thought of us. And those ladies became open to the message of the gospel, along with the fact that if they believed in Jesus, they would have eternal life. On that day all the hundred and twenty received Jesus into their souls.

If you value the other person, the most beautiful treasure you can give him is to introduce him to Jesus, who gives meaning to his life. At LIFE International, we do that.

Can you imagine a situation where abortion is the only possible solution nonetheless? Can there be such a crisis for a mother?

This is no longer the case today. The only such situation could be when the mother’s life would be in danger if she kept the baby. But due to the development of medicine and technology, this is already an extremely rare case in developed countries, perhaps more so in developing countries, in the Third World, where they do not yet have access to all means and medicines. If the mother could die in pregnancy, she, her doctor and, if he is next to her, her husband will make a sensible decision together. The doctor has sworn to save lives, so in this situation, you obviously have to save the mother’s life, but basically, the goal is to save the baby and the mother’s life together if possible.

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Kurt Dillinger

There are some extreme issues in abortion topic in the United States. In New York, for example, abortion is legal until birth, but Texas law completely prohibits it from the sixth week of pregnancy. How do you assess the situation overseas?

Some U.S. states have developed their own policies – some strictly prohibit abortion, others give it complete freedom, for whatever reason. There is a dynamic dialogue, but the current government would make abortion widely available. There are more conservative states and communities, such as Texas, Florida, or Idaho. There are also those where the local population is demanding stricter regulation. It is also interesting to note that there are also a number of pregnancy crisis centers in the states that support mothers in difficulty, but these are barely in the news because much of the media is too liberal, so there is no interest in presenting this type of care.

Yet these centers provide very well-organized, trained help, supporting hundreds of thousands of women each year in prenatal crises.

They also mediate mothers to local churches, even helping them get food and clothes. After all, they are often single, who are not cared for by their child’s father.

In such a divisive question, how can the success of your efforts be measured?

I mentioned the hundred countries, well, since the United Nations recognizes a total of 193 countries as sovereign, I am aware that we are only halfway to our goal. But even in that hundred, new challenges arise from time to time, as each country is different. In Hungary, for example, the protection of life in the womb has already been included in the Basic Law, but abortion is still possible. The situation is mixed, but we have the foundation on which to build protection of life, and that’s fantastic. Your country is in favor of life, you are on the right path, you are in the right direction. For many other countries, this can be an example to follow, so I can only encourage leaders and the Church not to give up, as they can even influence the surrounding countries by setting an example. This is because

young women in trouble should not be blamed or disregarded, but loved.

Not to promote everything that happened to them, but to lead them to the biblical path by standing by them. This is our job, regardless of whether the results can be measured in numbers. I am called to do this regardless of the outcomes. But fortunately, we are seeing good fruit. I hear stories like Cambodian from all over the world.

To what extent do you think this topic also concerns the male members of society?

I'm involved and I'm a man. And we are talking about it now as two men. If we look at it in general, men are not so involved in the subject, especially women care about other women in this sense. However, perhaps more and more men are recognizing their role, they are also seizing the opportunity to talk about it. But it also depends on where we go in the world because somewhere it is simply stated that it is the business of women. But pregnancy requires a woman and a man, so men are part of the problem. Another question is whether they are willing to be part of the solution. If you listen to the God, yes.

If you allow me a more personal question: are the other members of your family working in a similar field or are they similarly committed to protecting life?

I have been serving for 45 years and have been married for 42 years. With the same woman. And she’s more wonderful day by day for me, I love her more today than when we got married. God is constantly unfolding for me the beautiful gift that my wife means. We raised three children together, two boys and a girl who are already married, we also have six grandchildren. We talked a lot with the kids about what I do. My wife dedicated her life to the family while I sometimes traveled for 3-4 weeks, at which time she always showed the kids on the globe where I was going. I asked them as teenagers if they wanted me to continue what I started. I thought my son would say I'd rather finish it and be home. But he said God wants me to continue, so he supports me too. I was always concerned that they might not like God because God wanted me to do this but they would all gladly serve Him in their calling. Whether they work as a nurse or in the financial field. They are following the values ​they had ​received from me and are living their own lives with them, so I am a very lucky dad. Scripture says that if we lead our children in the way of the Lord, they will find their way back there. I am grateful to be able to experience this.

The chapel in the arched basement of the office building symbolises well the mentality and spirituality of the programme. It has been designed to allow liturgy to be celebrated according to the rites of any Eastern Christian church: a tripartite structure, as well as a walk-around altar and a curtained area, all prevail.

The chapel was dedicated to St Stephen the Martyr, the first known persecuted Christian and the patron saint of our founding king, Saint Stephen. Stephen the Martyr, moreover, is venerated in all Christian churches as one of the so-called saint-in-common - so it is particularly well placed in this sacred space, where representatives of several Eastern Christian churches (mostly the leader) have visited, adding colourful vestments, icons and other devotional objects to the otherwise puritanical walls.

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Kata Molnár-Bánffy and Tristan Azbej - Photo: Tamás Páczai

Most of us are probably unaware of how many different Christian denominations Christians in the Middle East and Africa belong to. Tristan Azbej lists their former guests, telling us briefly about one or two of them, and pointing out the difficulties they have faced - terrorism, persecution, church destruction.

It is painful to think that 340 million Christians around the world, families, children and of course priests and monks, are suffering persecution. It is the biggest human rights crisis of our time, and also the most silenced - silenced because it is too significant.

If it were only on the agenda of the world's major human rights organisations, it would supersede the much smaller issues discussed there, but which are of greater importance in the ideological trends of the world. The reality would, as so often, contradict liberal mainstream ideologies. So the work being done by the small Hungarian aid program and a few other similar, dedicated institutions around the world is heroic.

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Kata Molnár-Bánffy and Tristan Azbej - Photo: Tamás Páczai

Many of the latter programmes are explicitly modelled on the Hungarian program, such as the Polish program or the US program set up by the previous US administration. Their activities are not only symbolic: for the places they get to, and for the people they help in a specific way, this help is significant and important. But the scale of the problem and the number of people in need is far beyond their means. They are a kind of first swallows hoping to make a summer. This is how the leaders of the churches in the Middle East feel, too, for they are not only grateful for the humanitarian aid, the cooperation in reconstruction or even the scholarships, but above all for the gesture. They are glad that there is a nation in the prosperous part of the world that feels it important to show solidarity with Christians in the region from which the Christianity of the modern world has grown. And with those areas where today the daily lives of Christian communities are defined by various combinations of wars, terrorism and persecution.

"The work starts in an analysis group so that we would have an accurate picture of humanitarian disasters, political emergencies, or wars in Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese or even Egyptian and Nigerian Christian communities," says Tristan Azbej. The work of the analysts is used as a basis for reaching out to individual communities in need, primarily through churches. From the problems identified, they will seek out, in consultation with the local church, the task that they can be of best help with the means at their disposal. This could be emergency humanitarian aid: health, food, supplies or even money for disaster survivors. Examples of such disasters include the church bombing in Sri Lanka at Easter and last year's bombing in the Christian quarter of the port of Beirut. The focus is on families without breadwinners and orphaned children. There have also been cases where seriously injured victims have received hospital care and physical rehabilitation in Budapest.

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Kata Molnár-Bánffy and Tristan Azbej - Photo: Tamás Páczai

Long-term support is also provided within the program, such as providing health or education assistance to refugee communities. In Nigeria, for example, the education of girls in urban areas is important: in schools they are relatively safe from Boko Haram, who see Christian girls as a kind of free prey. The third form of assistance is reconstruction, which is perhaps the largest part of the Hungary Helps Program projects. In villages destroyed by jihadists, houses, schools, roads are rebuilt - and also churches that other aid agencies avoid in the name of misinterpreted political correctness. Yet the church, the place of worship, is essential for the full healing and rebuilding of the community. It is a symbolic moment of both mental and physical reconstruction when a holy mass can again be celebrated in a church that has been desecrated or used as a target for shooting. On the wall of Tristan Azbej's office is a photograph from the church of Tell-Askuf, a village in the Nineveh plateau, where the baptism of 13 young children is being celebrated: the first service to be held in the sanctuary, which was rebuilt with Hungarian funding.

To show their gratitude, the ending "Daughter of Hungary" was added to the name of the settlement.

In this settlement, where the jihadists destroyed the church and the cemetery, signaling that the Christian community as such is doomed to be wiped out, three-quarters of the population has since moved back, while in other parts of Iraq the Christian community has been reduced to one fifth.

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Tristan Azbej - Photo: Tamás Páczai

"There are also new ways to support beyond the traditional aid", the Secretary of State continues. "Thanks to our scholarship programme, more than 160 young people from these communities are now attending universities in Hungary, with the understanding that when they graduate they will go home and become the driving force and leaders of their home communities. And most recently, volunteers can join the Hungary Helps Program, and so can you, dear reader. It is possible to target (and even follow up) donations of money, and to get involved in the lives of local communities in reconstruction, education and health in specific safe locations."

In March, Pope Francis visited Christian communities in Iraq, helping to break down the walls of silence and indifference in the prosperous part of the world about the plight of persecuted Christians. During the visit, Tristan Azbej also met Pope Francis, but he did not have the opportunity to tell him about the program as he was preceded by a church leader in his company, the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Mosul, Nicodemus. The Archbishop praised the Hungary Helps Program for its meaningful and selfless assistance to the suffering Christian communities in Iraq, ahead of all others.

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Tristan Azbej - Photo: Tamás Páczai

Perhaps this is why the Pope announced on the plane on his way home from Iraq that he would accept the invitation of the Hungarians to attend the closing event of the International Eucharistic Congress in September. 

You served twice in Afghanistan, and your photos have been published in a book that is now a documentary. How did you experience that world as a soldier and a woman?

Missionary service is always preceded by a long period of preparation, during which we receive not only physical but also cultural "training". It is very important to be aware of the basic customs and rules that apply in the area where you will be working, because as a soldier, your life may depend on it. I first worked in Afghanistan as a third shift in the Baglan Province Reconstruction Team. After Bosnia, Kosovo and the Sinai peninsula, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the Islamic world, but Afghanistan was different from anything I had ever seen. The poverty I saw was shocking, especially the plight of the children. My first mission was in the winter, it was 22 degrees Celsius below zero, but there were little children walking barefoot in rubber slippers in the snow. They could go to school mostly only in the summer and studied in tents, but in the villages girls were not really allowed to study. The plight of women was also heartbreaking, especially to see them treated as objects. This was not so common in Egypt.

How to adapt to a culture so different from our own?

You had to watch every gesture, every movement you made. For example, we didn't wave with our left hand, we didn't touch anyone or anything with it, because it was used for cleaning. The male soldiers avoided eye contact with the local women, with whom only we female soldiers were allowed to have contact. Shoes were not allowed in the house, so we always told them that, contrary to local custom, we were not allowed to take our boots off for safety reasons, and not to take this as an insult. We also learnt conversation techniques, one of the basic rules of which is not to get to the point at the beginning of a conversation, but to lead it off with a warm-up conversation, mainly about the weather, the road or other current affairs. The only way to start implementing a plan was to convince the village imam. What the religious leader agreed to, the people accepted. Sometimes we had to argue at length for the introduction of electricity.

We had to understand that religiosity is so deeply rooted in them that it cannot be overcome by reason. The same applied to the treatment of women.

We could help the women if they asked, but we had to accept the male-female relationship system. This was determined by the fact that, outside the family, men and women hardly ever met. These are facts that also make the integration of newcomers to Europe very difficult. In Afghanistan, I used to cover my hair with a scarf under my helmet, so that if we went somewhere and took off our helmets, they could see that I respected their customs. This attitude was typical of the whole Hungarian contingent and was highly appreciated by the locals.

What was it like working with Afghans?

The trust of the locals is hard to win. In the local newspaper, we published weekly articles about Hungary, Hungarian inventors, artists, so that they could place us and distinguish us from the military units of other nations. We also published translations of poetry, as the Afghans, like other Eastern peoples, are an oral culture, and they are very fond of poetry, the emotional imagery appeals to them. One hour a week on the radio, on the programme "Hungarian Minutes", we also reported on the activities we were doing and the most important news and information about them.

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Dreams behind the veils

What was your task?

I was a spokesperson in my first mission to Afghanistan, and I knew even before I left that, in addition to our work, I had to introduce the Afghans to Hungary as much as possible, which I could only do if I gained as much direct experience and got to know them as well as possible.

The fact that it was the female soldiers' job to interact with women helped me a lot, as it opened up a hidden world.

In our camp we had a CIMIK house (short for civil-military cooperation) where locals could come to share their experiences and requests. Many women also came to us with various problems. After the screening, they would not take their burkas back after entering the house, even though we were working with Afghan male interpreters. They took their faces, which showed that they felt safe. During my second mission, I was also responsible for liaising with the local women's association.

What activities would you highlight?

Our mission was in our name: Provincial Reconstruction Team. Baglan Province had a five-year development plan that was developed by local leaders, with health, education and infrastructure development as priorities. We have sought to ensure that our activities are in line with and support the plans of the local people. We worked with local entrepreneurs, counted on their local knowledge, their expertise, wanted to emphasise that they were building their own future, and that of course meant jobs. Kindergartens, schools, roads were built this way. We had more of an advisory role and, of course, we contributed to the funding. The villages did not have water supply or adequate stone buildings for public institutions. We tried to help that with the so-called 'pipeline' project. We did this together with the Germans: we drilled wells and built water pipelines to villages where people - often children - would walk 5-6 kilometres on foot, leading donkeys harnessed with waterskins, to provide water for the family.

What direction did you feel the country was moving while you were serving there?

I saw only a micro-environment of a vast country, and even within the province there were so-called "white spots", high mountain areas that were inaccessible even by car. We were camped in Pol-e Homri, in the centre of Baglan province, but of course we were surrounded by locals from different areas. It was not at all predictable that this period would end in reversal. The situation was difficult in the countryside, but in Pol-e Homri there were girls students at the agricultural college. In the cities there was no problem.

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Distributing packages on Women's Day

I interviewed a lot of girls, all of whom dreamed of becoming educated people, for example, they wanted to become a veterinarian or a teacher. It is painful to know that these dreams may have been shattered forever for them as a result of the summer takeover.

I can’t forget their sparkling eyes and enthusiasm.

So in your experience, there are similarities but also marked differences in the Islamic world - depending on the country and even the region. What determines your behaviour, the local culture or your current position?

The basis is culture, and it is in culture that we need to develop an attitude that inspires respect, but also fosters relationship-building. We go there to help, not to change the local people. A good point of comparison is Ramadan, which I have experienced in several places. In Egypt, too, there was a deep religiousness, and we were very careful about how we dreassed even on days off, even inside the camp during the fasting month. The locals avoided all contact during that period, I would describe them as turning inwards. In Afghanistan, however, the state of alert had to be raised, too, because fasting and the struggle for Islam and independence were intertwined in their history, and attacks on foreigners became more frequent during this period.

Was there a situation in any of your missions where you were afraid?

I never felt fear. Just the knowledge that you have to be vigilant, and that it's a huge responsibility, but if I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't do it. There are situations and images that are burned into my memory. One of them was when a mass grave was excavated in Bosnia in 1996, next to a bridge opening.

I could see the human remains, and there was a suffocating stench in the air. Maybe it was then, when I was very young, that I understood what our profession was all about, but I never wanted to do anything else.

No two missions are the same, even in the same place, because the conditions, circumstances and colleagues are always different. The most important thing is that we represent Hungary, we are Hungarian soldiers, we have to work as one.

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Children's Day

How do you deal with stress and intermittent but long absences?

The processing of experiences also varies from one life stage to another. When we are in the field, it is very important to have a team spirit, a leader whom I respect and trust. Evening chats with colleagues, a good roommate with whome we look out for each other. Photography is also very important, which is both a hobby and part of my job. It distances and approaches at the same time, as we see everything differently through the lens. We examine the gaze, but at the same time, looking at the image helps us to understand the situation itself, to reflect and process what we see. It has depth and sharpness. I like spontaneous images, catching the movements, gestures, when you can almost see the thoughts. To be present in the moment, free from preconceptions, criticism... You can tell a lot by the way a soldier is looked at.

How much does a mission like this wear on you?

It is very important to feel welcome at home. I feel lucky because my parents have supported me from the beginning and my husband is also a soldier who knows exactly what it means to be a soldier.

When I read his message in the morning, I know that he is with me in spirit every moment. But I also know, as he has, too, served in several military missions, that it is always harder for those who stay at home.

Even now, as we are talking, you've got a packed suitcase waiting for you as you are preparing to head to Kosovo for the third time. What are you taking with you besides your equipment?

I am not bringing any civilian clothes, I will work six days a week. I'm taking photos that I usually hang on the wall next to my bed, a mug I just got from a dear friend, and a few other personal items that make the accommodation my home. I have a lot of enthusiasm! Over the past decades, I've had adventures and experiences, worlds that have opened up to me, all of which connect me to the military profession. I like challenges, I like to set goals for myself, to test myself to see if I can cope with new situations, both professionally and as a person. I am constantly raising the bar, I have always managed to jump over it, and I hope to do so again this time.

The photos were provided by First Lieutenant Erika Szabóné Varga.

Janka was born from an unproblematic pregnancy and her mother spent her first days in the hospital with her baby in the greatest happiness. But when she went to the nursery to pick up Janka after one of her evening baths, she saw doctors surrounding her.

Just a routine procedure

”I thought it was just a routine check-up, but they sat me down and told me that Janka's skin was discolored, greyish-blue, which they suspect is a very rare metabolic disorder. My little girl's vitals continued to deteriorate, but the next day the doctors still didn't know what was causing the problem, so they referred us to the Bókay Street Children's Clinic. At home, they had already prepared a festive reception for us, so my first reaction was that we had to go home because they were waiting. At that time I didn't know that in the most frightening moments of life, you cling to the things of this world in unrealistic ways."

At the children's hospital, Janka was immediately examined by a doctor specialising in rare metabolic disorders, and after fifteen minutes she pronounced: the little girl was now in a life-threatening condition, her life was hanging by a thread and she needed to be admitted to intensive care immediately.

"My husband and I were devastated, we were overwhelmed by the insecurity and vulnerability."

"Meanwhile, I found out that there were no beds available for parents in the hospital, but all I could think of was that even if I had to sleep on the floor, I wouldn't move from her cot. The diagnosis was that the vessel leading out of Janka's heart, the aorta, was almost completely blocked, causing this huge circulatory problem. Basically, her lower limbs were not getting enough oxygen. Shortly afterwards, an ambulance came but I couldn't fit in and had to let go of my baby's hand. I just kept saying to her, as a goodbye, "Hang on, I'm here, I'll go after you with daddy."

Antónia will never forget the poignant feeling as the ambulance with sirens wailing sped off with her newborn baby. Up to the time the parents reached the infant intensive care unit of the Gottsegen György National Cardiovascular Institute, they felt that such horror was only happening to them. But there they met dozens of other parents in similarly difficult situations.

The life-saving surgery

"I saw her in her little bed and I saw the other babies next to her, who were also fighting for their lives. It's amazing, the superhuman work that nurses and doctors do. They fight for the children to the very end. I remember entering the third-floor ICU and seeing each parent hanging their gown on a numbered hanger. Then one of the nurses told me to make a mental note, my hanger would be number five. For me, that sentence was the clue: I have my own gown, I will have someone to visit."

When Antónia, in gown number five, first saw her daughter in intensive care, the little one was already covered in tubes and wires, with an artificial vein in her neck.

An infusion tower was pumping life into her, initiating mechanical ventilation this tiny child, whose condition had deteriorated so much that the parents were repeatedly told that it was not certain that Janka would survive the difficult surgery. Yet the three-hour operation performed through the back was the little girl's only chance of survival.

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Antónia Bábel and her family

"The reason why this heart problem was not recognised during pregnancy was because the blockage was in a place that was not yet under blood in the womb. There's a blood vessel called the Botallo wire, which shuts the lungs out of the circulation while the fetus feeds and takes in oxygen through the umbilical cord. Even though the blocked aorta had been there for months in Janka's heart, because there was no blood flow, it was not a problem. But when the Botallo conduit closed at birth, there was nowhere for the blood to flow through, it just flowed slowly. In the meantime, the pressure difference caused the wall between the heart chambers to leak, a hole they did not dare to operate on at the time because she would not have survived. This six-hour operation took place in December."

Antonia and her husband, László, waited in the empty hospital corridor during the operation through the whole night, shivering every time a door opened fearing from bad news. Before the operation, they asked their friends on their social networking site to pray for Janka, who is in big trouble.

"I felt like we were fighting a hostile force and we would not succeed without prayers. The appeal led to thousands of people praying for Janka, writing masses for her, forming prayer groups, and there are some who have been praying for us every night ever since."

 Extract from the story "Flowers of the Heart" (from the book "Janka's Tales" by Antónia Bábel)
While the earth was doing its best for the flower, the stars began to dance. One after another, from the smallest to the largest, from the nearest to the farthest. They shone so brightly that they could be seen in the sky even in daylight. All at once, a single, brilliant beam of light emanated from them towards the little flower, embracing it and enveloping it like a dawn dew from its base, through its leaves, to the base of its flower head.
When the surgeon who performed the surgery emerged from the operating theatre, smiling, it was as if the rope had been removed from the parents' throats. The operation had been a success, Janka would survive, and the recovery period could begin - they thought, but unfortunately, as is usually the case in fairy tales, there were more than one trials for little Janka.

The struggles of the little veins

"The doctors said that if everything goes well, we will be home in a week or two. I insisted on giving her breastmilk, so I was consciously paying attention my milk not to run dry. I took great pleasure in giving Janka several bottles of fresh breast milk every day through the syringe. But unfortunately our happiness lasted only for two days because she had a thrombosis and one of her feet went purple. I thought that if a life-saving operation had been successfully performed, nothing could be wrong, but by the next day Janka's left leg was purple to below the knee. However, because of the circulation problem, she could not receive the necessary amount of blood thinning medication because of the risk of a stroke or other internal bleeding."

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Although the hospital's vascular surgeon initially refused to perform the operation, because of the small cross-section of the blood vessels, he eventually did. As a result, the clots were removed from Janka's thigh. Unfortunately, her leg could no longer heal, so although the doctors were hopeful for a while, they had to give the parents the bad news: part of her left leg would have to be amputated as it was starting to die.

"I remember, the amputartion was performed on a Saturday, my husband and I went to a nearby shopping centre during the operation and we just ate and ate. As bizarre as it sounds - it was - we even joked about whether there was anyone else there in a similar situation to us.

It was a totally unrealistic situation, we were balancing somewhere on the edge of insanity, our psyche needed something from our old, normal lives to survive what had just happened to Janka with our sanity intact.

When I went to see her after the operation, I immediately checked to see if her knee was still intact. As our leg grows from the knee, this was strategic for Janka's future life. If it had been amputated, she would have had a ten centimetre long leg for the rest of her life."

The book of gratitude

After the amputation, it was finally truly a period of recovery. It was sixteen days before Antonia was able to hold her baby for the first time, until then there were times when she could only stroke her with gloves on.

"Janka was baptised in the intensive care unit by the Greek Catholic hospital chaplain, Father Mihály Mihálovics. We were standing there in the green robes in the afternoon, I was crying the whole time, and the nurses were watching this unusual film-like scene from behind the counter. We felt it was important for Janka to receive the sacrament of baptism as soon as possible."

It's hard to imagine what this family has been through, but the parents' hearts were filled with boundless gratitude besides the sense of pain and loss.

They were grateful to the doctors, nurses and ambulance men of the Peter Cerny Foundation, and decided from the very beginning of their stay in hospital that they would commemorate the work of these hard-working hands in a storybook.

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"I wanted to give something that was a part of my being, that I could give to them in the same way that doctors have given us their best and their souls. I wanted a gift that they would associate with Janka and her parents even after five years. I was eager to write a storybook that includes all the difficulties and joys we have experienced, highlighting the good things that have become part of our lives as a  consequence of these events: we made friends during our weeks in hospital and we have kept in touch with them ever since. Feedbacks make me happy: I receive messages from readers all over the world, many of whom have been through the same sad events. Our story gives them strength, or shakes those up who have not gone through such horrors. I have also received, and continue to receive, a lot of love from guests at book launches. It is an endless honour to have the doctors and nurses of the hospital present on these occasions. The storybook has been a great success, thanks to the fact that it was also available for purchase at one of the petrol station chains. At the end of 2020, I was able to transfer HUF 1 million from the profits to the Peter Cerny Foundation and HUF 1.6 million to the Foundation for the Protection of Children with Heart Diseases (“Szívbeteg Gyermekek Védelmében Alapítvány”), for which I am very grateful to those who bought the storybook."

Janka heals the psychological wounds of parents

She was one year old when she got her first artificial leg. Her parents searched persistently from New Zealand through Africa to Israel because feet that small are not made anywhere.

Finally, in Budapest, two technicians carved a foot for the little girl with their own hands. Janka is a fantastic child, a cheerful, outgoing person who fortunately remembers nothing of the horrors of the first few weeks of her life. At nearly two years old, she walks across the room. But her parents and Lenke, Janka's four-year-old sister, have had to process what had happened. "At first, my husband and I were both wrapped up in our own trauma and talked very little. When we came home from the hospital, I couldn't find my place at home for three months, I didn't feel safe. In the hospital, help was always at hand, but at home I suddenly felt very alone, and the responsibility of constant medication was also a big one. Sometimes we were so exhausted that we couldn't even remember whether we had given her the current dose or if we had mixed everything in. There were also times when the respiratory monitor would beep at night, and it was only after the fourth time that I managed to wake up Janka."

The biggest challenge in writing the storybook was the depiction of amputation. Antónia was still struggling with the experience of loss herself, it was difficult to make the event palatable and accessible to children, but the book could only be complete with this.

They often read the storybook at home, too, and it helps Janka's sister Lenke to process the story.

"Janka is at the age now where she's looking at my feet, tapping her tiny foot and pointing out to her father that something is different here. Luckily, she often asks to put the prosthetic leg on and is happy to be able to walk."

"Looking at her and the infinite strength that she has, now, almost two years later, I can't say that what happened to us was a complete disaster or that I would erase it from my life. I am a much better person because of it."

In the hospital, you learn self-control and patience, you experience how fragile life is and how vulnerable you are. As we were waiting during the first surgery, my petty things were wiped away, it was like a cleansing fire. I reassessed life, it became clear to me what was really important. I realized that true happiness comes from pain... I think we made a miracle out of hell. I understand when people say or write to us that we are heroes. Everybody is a hero when they turn up in the intensive care unit of the Children's Heart Centre."

- A few years ago, you told me that you had a vivid experience from an occasion when you were ten years old, and you experienced what it was like to have your heart beat in your throat. Do you recall the event?

- Of course. There were actually two such events, both on 3 December 1956, when we left Hungary across the green border. Our leaders were former border guards, who told us that it was safest to cross the border at dusk, between five and six o'clock, because visibility conditions then were in our favour and the change of guards was at that time, too. All-day long, my parents and I watched border guards pick up and take away people trying to escape. We were just about to cross the border where our guides showed us when suddenly we heard the roar of a motorbike and soon noticed a jeep coming up behind us. Of course, we immediately dropped flat, trying to blend in as much as possible with the flora.

The jeep was passing maybe four or five metres away from us, scanning the border with its headlights - and we were lying right under its beam. I thought I was going to get a bullet in my back the next moment. My mother told me later that she was sure I was going to cry, because I was a ten-year-old child.

Well, that was the first time I experienced what it feels like to have my heart in my throat! Our guides showed us where to cross into Austria and told us that we would see a small wooden shack, that would be the Austrian border, and we should knock on it. So we did. It was very dark, so my father took out his torch and shone it on the guard shack. It had a German sign on it, which was a relief, but the next moment the door burst open and two soldiers rushed out of the booth with guns pointed at us. Now that was another time when I felt like my heart was about to burst.

- You had a math test in your pocket at that time, didn't you?

- Yes. (laughs) In 1956 I was in the fifth grade, we were studying fractions. I was a straight-A student, but I didn't study for this particular test, and I got a D. I had one week to have it signed by my parents, but I procrastinated, I didn't dare to bring it to my mother. One day a teacher came into the classroom saying that my mother phoned to ask me to go home urgently. I was sure that somehow she had found out about the test, and I hardly dared to go home. My mother sat me down, but she didn't want to talk about the test. She began to tell me that the Russians had taken everyone away and imprisoned them and that we could not expect much good here. We could go abroad, she said, but I didn't speak any languages then, I had friends in Hungary, this was my home. She wanted to know if I had any opinions about it.

The test with the D had been in my pocket for a week then, and my parents still didn't know about it, so I quickly decided that of course we should leave Hungary.

I still didn't say a word about the test, I hid it in my underwear, I fled from the country with it, and in the spring of 1957, I tore it to pieces and flushed it down the toilet in the refugee camp in Rome. Sometime around 2010, at a class reunion, I thanked my former math teacher for that D that was instrumental in getting me to the United States.

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Péter Forgách , a boy scout– Photo: dr. Péter Forgách

- And what memories do you have of Hungary from the times before your emigration?

- We were fans of the Golden Team. We were always eager to hear what was going on with Puskás. I was eight years old when they came down to Gyöngyös to play football, but it was impossible to get tickets for the game. I was totally desperate, but I didn't give up hope. The Wine Traffic Company had a Mercedes driven by a man called Imre Matusek. I saw him before the game and told him that I simply had to get in here, that it simply could not happen that I didn’t see the Golden Team when they were playing on our field. I asked Uncle Imre to let me get into his car because if I got out of that Mercedes, the people at the door would think I was the child of someone very important and would let me in. And so it happened: not only did they let me in, but I got to sit right on the bench next to Gyula Lóránt, the national team defense! I also remember that we used to listen to Radio Free Europe all the time at home, and in the morning at school, we used to discuss with the boys what we had heard the day before. We mistook Eisenhower with Adenauer, we didn't really see the world political context, but we knew that they were on the right side and we were enslaved by the bad. Back home, they told us who the fierce communists were and that we shouldn’t say anything in front of them.

We had a wonderful, brave teacher who would call some of us over every two weeks or so and tell us that what we were learning at school was not true. If any of us spoke out, she would be in big trouble - yet she took the risk of telling this to us.

It was also around this time that a friend and I found old communist party newspapers. We went to the main square in Gyöngyös and when there were a lot of people watching, we approached people who were known to be communists and asked them to buy them. Of course, they didn't dare to say that they didn't want the Party's paper, so they bought it, and we were able to buy ice cream with the money. Then there was a less cheerful incident: after the revolution, a friend and I threw paper leaflets out of the toilet window, on which we wrote in Russian: "Russians, go home!". It became a huge scandal; my friend was not admitted to any school. Finally, he was accepted in Pannonhalma, where he graduated from high school and became a Franciscan monk. If we hadn't left Hungary after the revolution, I would have become a hired help at the best.

- You became a successful retina surgeon with a private clinic, a father of four with an American-German-Japanese wife who also speaks Hungarian beautifully, and a Scout instructor. Didn't these all take enough energy, why did you need the Calasanctius Training Program?

- They did take a lot of energy, but I felt God gave me enough of everything so I can give back some of it.

I often remembered that many Hungarian teenage children died during the revolution, believing in freedom and fighting for opportunities for young Hungarians. I didn't die, with the help of God I was able to come out to America, to be successful, to live well; but I feel it is my duty to embrace their goal, so I work to help Hungarian youth achieve as much as possible in life.

And also, I owe them this, without them I wouldn't be where I am today. To this day, I carry a laminated picture of an armed Hungarian revolutionary teenager in my briefcase, so that I never forget - not that I could ever forget - the revolution.

My wife Kati has been my partner from the very beginning in setting up the program - we worked together in my clinic, by the way - we complement each other very well. We've grown together, we're like twins now. (laughs) I was happy that my children grew up in the company of intelligent Hungarian students.

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Dr. Péter Forgách

- How do you see the Hungarians and how do you see the Americans?

- What I love about Americans is that they are endlessly optimistic, the sky's the limit for them. I think Hungarians are pessimistic, and I'm not the first to think that. There is this wonderful country, wonderful continent, and a government that I think is taking things in the right direction right now. The government can't do your job, you have to live your life, you have to do something to be happy.

Of course, there are always things you can disagree with, but to always be moaning about things is something I cannot identify with.

I know that some people here in America have a very different view of Hungarian conditions - and by the way, they do us, Hungarians in America, a lot of harm by spreading their views all over the places - but taking advantage of the opportunities provided by freedom of speech and freedom of expression of opinions, I’ll now tell you how I see this. Hungarians are very talented people, but they lack self-confidence, and this is something that needs to be worked on. In American schools, they instill an incredible amount of self-confidence into children, even though their lexical knowledge is minimal compared to that of Hungarians. On the other hand, Hungarian children cannot present their much greater knowledge.

Now we have a pilot project for young people who have graduated from high school, and I hope it will work and get off the ground. The first boy graduated this year in Pannonhalma, he is interested in international relations, so he is now doing a volunteer job for three months in Washington with a think tank. I really believe that for students after high school it's worth taking a gap year to travel, see the world - and get immersed in the subject they're interested in.

- I would like to commemorate your foster father, Tibor Baránszky, who died in 2019 and who saved more than three thousand Jews during World War II with Vatican support. Doesn't it make you sad that he is hardly remembered in Hungary?

- Last December, we were approached by Hungarian filmmakers who wanted to make a feature film about him, and we hope it will happen.

It is interesting that the Jewish community in Hungary did not react to his death, but we have received fantastic accolades from the Jewish communities in the US and Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu wrote a letter to our family, my brother's Jewish friends flew over from China to Buffalo for his funeral, the Israeli ambassador was going to come, but his plane couldn't take off because of a snowstorm.

His funeral was attended by two bishops and the Chief Rabbi of Buffalo, who recited a kaddish. And recently we were approached by an Israeli lady who wants to write a book about dad. These all feel really good.

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Tibor Baránszky

- In your house, there is a sign in a prominent place that says "Make a lot, save a lot, give a lot!”

- Yes, I say that a lot, but there is a big headwind in Europe. (laughs) America has a great tradition of giving. In Hungary, too, there are a lot of good-hearted people, and we like to use Széchenyi as a role model, but it would be nice to have more Széchenyis - because there are a lot of well-off people. In Buffalo, there are at least ten Széchenyis: they donate, they set up foundations, departments, schools, libraries, they buy equipment for hospitals - I hardly see that in Europe.

I'm not promoting a St Francis type of lifestyle, I just encourage those who have a surplus to give to others. It is important to be aware that if I want to live well and do good for my children, I have to give something back to society.

Dr Péter Forgách, Honorary Hungarian Consul in Buffalo, was born in 1946 in Gyöngyös. 25 years ago he founded the Calasanctius Training Program (CTP), which has already provided scholarships to hundreds of Hungarian students at various American universities. Participants in the program are expected to play an active role in the community and to put their knowledge to good use back home. It also sponsors the travel expenses of twenty Hungarian scouts from abroad to Hungary for three weeks each summer to help Hungarian children born abroad to get to know and love Hungary. He was awarded by the President of the Republic in 2005.

The meeting was arranged at Edina Koszmovszky's home in Pest. When she opens the door, I immediately recognise her face from the unclear black and white photo taken of her decades ago. Her smile has not changed through time, her eyes sparkle as they did when she was eighteen. As I prepare for the interview, I notice how beautifully the sun is shining. "Just like October 23, 1956," she says with a smile as she sits down at the table beside me.

-Do you still have the red coat?

- No. That was the first thing I sent home to a colonel’s poor wife when I fled from Hungary.

- That day when you got off the tram at Astoria and some young engineering students handed you the 14 points you were only 18.  Did you sense in the air that something big was about to happen in Budapest?

- I wasn't aware of it, I just felt I had to be there. At work, we listened to the news all day, we knew about the solidarity demonstration at the Bem statue, but at that time no one thought there would be bloodshed.

- How did you get to the front line?

- My impudent son always says that I pushed myself (laughs). The truth is, it was fate. When I arrived at the National Museum, they were already reciting the National Anthem, and then suddenly someone shouted, "Let's free the Radio!" Then I, along with the crowd, headed for Bródy Sándor Street.

When we got there, someone asked who had the 14 points at hand, and I offered my copy. That's how I ended up on a news van in front of the building with a microphone in my hand, and that's when I first read out the demands.

We knew that they were not broadcasting the events because people had put radios in the windows and we could hear only music. Then someone shouted "Delegation to the Radio!" I was dragged off the roof of the car, and then nine randomly selected boys from the crowd were placed next to me, and our delegation of ten was formed. It was all so spontaneous and uplifting: we were breathing together, we wanted the same things, we were one nation. We went into the building, our names were taken down and we were escorted up to the President, Valeria Benke, who stiffly refused to broadcast the points. After a while, the crowd waiting in the street became anxious for us and demanded that we appear on the balcony of the Radio. We were then escorted out onto the balcony, where I was given a microphone and allowed to read out our demands for the second time. This was also not broadcast on the radio, instead, the speech of Ernő Gerő was broadcast.

- ”We condemn those who seek to spread the blight of chauvinism among our youth and use the democratic freedom which our state grants to the working people for nationalist demonstrations."

-It was a shameful speech! It made us look like provocateurs and rabble, but that was the spark from which the revolution broke out.

After reading the points, we were pulled back from the balcony, split into two groups, and taken up to the top floor study rooms. The person from the AVO (State Protection Authority) was in the other room so I could call my father.

- How did he react when you told him what had happened?

- My father was a patriotic man, a political prisoner in Hungary for nine years. When I told him what happened, he just said, "Edina, you lived up to your father." That made me feel very good, especially because he knew what I could expect.

- Not much good was in store for you. Word quickly got out about the girl in the red coat...

- My father was working for the ambassador of India at the time, who sent a delegation to Vienna after the revolution. My mother and brother had been escorted to the countryside earlier to be safe, and I stayed in the city with my father. I had always loved the water, and on the morning of 13 November, I was walking along the banks of the Danube. When I got home, my father was waiting for me by the stairs. I could see in his eyes that something was wrong. When I came up to him, he said, "Edina, the AVO (State Protection Authority) was here, looking for you by name. Turn around and head west." And then I turned around and headed west with the delegation. They put me in the ambassador's wife's car, next to their own daughter, and that's how I got across the border.

- It must have been painful to leave behind everything you knew and loved...

- When we crossed the border, I got out of the car and leaned over the barrier, crying. I said goodbye to my country and my family for the rest of my life.

I didn't believe that Hungary would be free after the revolution. Then I walked back to the car, got in, and in the evening I was already in Vienna, admiring the glittering shop windows.

- Where did you go to sleep that day?

- Walking down the street, I met a lady who knew a Belgian Red Cross and arranged for me to stay with them in a hotel.

- How did you end up in France?

- I went to Paris out of idealism, because I was in love with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proclaimed in 1789, the 17 points still hang on my wall. There I met a man from Marseille who later married me and we had four children. I never really got used to the port city, which is why I was so happy when my husband was offered a job in Nice, where I still live today.

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Edina Koszmovszky

 - You were not allowed to come home for fourteen years. Fortunately, my generation does not know this kind of torturous homesickness. Do you remember how it felt to cross the Hungarian border again?

- It was indescribable to meet my family again after so long and to bring my sons home to Hungary.

Besides, it was not only homesickness that was distressing, but also longing for my mother, because when a woman gets married and has children, she misses her mother the most.

- How do you see the country now, the country that you helped make free?

- Hungary has changed a lot. The 14 points were essentially realised at the time of the regime change, in 1989. The victory of the fight for freedom was completed then. Unfortunately, not all young people feel what a wonderful thing freedom is. Perhaps it is because we always appreciate less what life offers us on a plate, and only when we have to fight for something do we realise its importance. That is why I go home every October to tell young people in schools and universities about what happened in '56 and how great freedom is.

My other precious memory is of the death of the world's emblematic Hungarian a decade and a half later, but it is still uplifting. Puskás moved to the football pitches of Heaven in November 2006, when a trip to Prague for Advent had already been arranged for me and my group of friends. Unfortunately, this coincided with the funeral of Uncle Öcsi (Little Brother)  in early December, which we would have loved to attend. We ended up designing and producing custom T-shirts with his name, jersey number 10 and portrait for the trip, and all fifteen of us wore them as a memorial on the day of the funeral in the Czech capital. There was not a tourist, local or foreign, who did not nod in recognition of our attire. These experiences, the one in Balatonfüred and the one in Prague, together sent out a message: Puskás lives in the hearts of everyone, regardless of generation or nationality.

"If there was a poll to find out who the most famous Hungarian is, Ferenc Puskás would win it, although we have quite a few Nobel Prize winners – says Dr Zoltán Borbély, a sports lawyer, whose uncle Gyula Várvizi used to handle the currency affairs of the Golden Team, and whom Uncle Öcsi took into his confidence as a journalist in the 1990s, on account of family connections, too. - I am proud to have had a good relationship with several members of the Golden Team, and my aunt even wrote a poem to them. In the 1990s, I was able to follow Puskás' work as captain of the national team closely. He was so fond of tradition that he always wanted to stay with the team at the prestigious Grand Hotel at Margaret Island, as he used to do when he was a player. And he had a snappy answer for everything. When asked what should be done about ailing Hungarian football, he replied that a good doctor should be brought in, and when a journalist asked him when good football would be played in Hungary, he replied: on Tuesday. When the opponents were leading, he gave the boys the task: 'see, there can be gaols scored here, so do that, too', and they turned the game around." 

Golden feet and golden heart

Ferenc Puskás was born on April 1, 1927, but he was teased so much about April Fools' Day that after a while he just said April 2 everywhere.

His generation, a generation that experienced war, shared many common traits, for example, the years of bloodshed taught them to eat very fast. Another interesting feature: few of them grew very tall, and the full-length statue of Puskás on the promenade in Óbuda is a good illustration of the 172-centimetre height of the "Speeding Major" teaching children to juggle with a ball. Of the Golden Team, only Gyula Lóránt was taller than 180 cm, which shows that playing ability and individuality have never been determined by height (just think of Maradona or Messi later).

Moreover, Puskas not only had a golden left foot and a golden team, but also a heart of gold. He helped everyone he could. Unfortunately, there were some he could not help. When Sándor Szűcs, a footballer from Újpest, tried to leave the country with his love, Erzsi Kovács, a singer, on the word of an agent, he was caught in a planned operation and executed for illegal border crossing as a policeman (the Újpest players were all part of the police personnel). Puskás tried to intercede with Mihály Farkas, the Minister of Defence at that time, to save his fellow player, but the politician only accepted the request after the sentence had been carried out and "unfortunately there was nothing more he could do". History has not been kind to Puskás in this respect, either during the Rákosi era or after 1956: in Spain (Franco) and Chile (Pinochet), he had to play football and coach under dictators, and in Greece during the military regime.

He did not seek the company of dictators, but rather they sought his.

"He could easily have been a snitch, a darling, a man who harmed others, but he never abused his privileged position, he never harmed anyone, even though he spent most of his life in a dictatorial climate", continues Dr. Zoltán Borbély, to whom Puskás gave his last interview in 1998. Interestingly, the legend, who was already suffering from Alzheimer's disease at the time, also met Olympic champion boxer László Papp during the filming. "What are your memories of László Papp? - Lots. - Do you like him? - A lot. - Why? - Because he's a very good guy." Uncle Öcsi gave these answers to the reporter's questions and then patted the thigh of László Papp, who was sitting next to him. The same László Papp who, at a boxing match in Madrid, bribed the Spaniards in the audience to cheer for the Hungarian icon, thus creating a home atmosphere. - The word ‘simple’ in its most positive meaning characterised Puskás. He was a puritan, pure, straightforward, helpful man, whose parents loved each other dearly, and he carried this example on throughout his life. He was able to remain a man even under dictatorship, which is perhaps the most difficult thing."

Taboo and then admiration

How difficult it must have been is confirmed by Péter, a football coach, who is the son of József Bozsik, another world-class player of the Golden Team, Puskás’s good friend. It is interesting to note that Puskás and Bozsik not only knew each other well from the pitch but also grew up in the same neighbourhood in Kispest.

It is a miracle of life that the two world stars were born in close proximity to each other.

"For both of them to become outstanding personalities and achieve world-famous results, a kind of divine guidance, a special alignment of the stars was necessary” – says Péter Bozsik referring to the importance of the coincidences of fate.- "That said, I naturally think of my father first and foremost as a father, and of Puskás not as my father's neighbour or friend, but as the brilliant footballer. Because after 1956, Uncle Öcsi's personality was not looked upon very favourably for political reasons, I, born in '61, heard little about him at home. Politics was a taboo in my family too, and my parents were of the opinion that it was better not to talk about certain things because then I would certainly not be able to let anything slip at school, where they knew my family, and so they paid special attention to me. But I do know that my father - who as a sportsman was able to travel relatively often - and Öcsi still met whenever they could, in the Matthias Cellar in Vienna and later as old boys in Warsaw and Belgrade."

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Ferenc Puskás - Image: Fortepan/Márton Ernő Kovács

According to Peter, who later served as national team captain of the Hungarian national team, like the other members of the Golden Team, his father received serious offers as a player from abroad, including from AC Milan and Atlético Madrid. These trips were several weeks, even months long at that time, so the wives often accompanied their footballer husbands, but as both his parents had four brothers and sisters at home, they always returned to Hungary for the family. So he, too, learned about Puskás' life mainly from books, films and memoirs, meeting him in person only once.

"Unfortunately, when Uncle Öcsi was allowed to return home for the first time, my father was no longer alive and my mother was in hospital.

Puskás gave a dinner for a small group of friends: there were about 150 of us...

So I wouldn't say it was an intimate occasion, but I represented the Bozsik family. But as a withdrawn, quiet child, I could hardly get near him, there were so many people crowding around. There was a lot to ask, as we know that for a long time his name was not even allowed to be written down. When he won the biggest international trophy, the European Champion Club’s Cup three times with Real Madrid, it wasn’t even allowed to write down that he played, let alone that he scored goals. In any case, I know and I have seen that he always attracted people to him with his style, his manner, he was loved by everyone, he was a very good-hearted man. Whenever a Hungarian needed help, even as a star in Spain, he would selflessly support the ones in need, even with his own money. You could even sleep at his place. I have never heard a bad word said about him!"

The whole 20th century is in his fate

All this may also help posterity to understand the Puskás phenomenon, with which Hungarians all over the world are so deeply identified that, for example, those who take a job abroad will sooner or later hear the name Puskás from the locals, or even be nicknamed Puskás by them - just because they are Hungarian (this is the author's personal experience). But what exactly Ferenc Puskás, the man means to us Hungarians today is perhaps most accurately expressed - or at least in a way that is closest to our hearts - by Vajk Szente, the director of the musical about Puskás (entitled: Puskás the Musical):

"When we started working on the piece with producer László Szabó, we thought about it and came to the conclusion that Ferenc Puskás has everything we Hungarians love about ourselves," he says. -

He was a man of a cheerful nature, sharp-witted, cheeky, honest, lovable and gallant. And an urchin.

These were his most important qualities and we identify these in our best selves, too. These personality traits were all there in him, and he was able to show these to the world about us. Or, if we take the most negative Hungarian quality, pessimism, Puskás may have become important to us because he was a winner. Basically, this is why we love our other athletes so much, too, because we like to see that we have winners. And what we also love to see is the loyalty that was also strong in Puskás. He was Hungarian to his last breath, he carried his Hungarianness with him, he proclaimed it, he respected it. We can repay him by preserving his memory, because his life's journey reflects the fate of the Hungarian people in the twentieth century. That for a time we were not ourselves, but then we found our way home..."

– The wife of the first Hungarian prime minister was born into a noble family. What was the intellectual heritage that Count Antonia Zichy brought to her marriage?

- His father, Count Károly Zichy, was an imperial chamberlain and deputy chief bailiff of Vas county. He did a lot of charity work, supported the sick and the poor, introduced the Hungarian administration on his estates and founded a Hungarian school. He had eight children by his wife, Count Antonia Batthyány.

The young Antonia inherited not only wealth from her parents, but also helpfulness, deep religiousness and national commitment. She was nine years old when her mother died, but the young countess kept the words of the will of her mother throughout her life: "it is in the performance of duty that man finds true satisfaction".

- Antonia was a third cousin of Lajos Batthyány. Was theirs a marriage of love, or was it a combination of the customs and constraints of the time?

- It was a fiery, fast-moving love. In December 1833, the seventeen-year-old young girl met her distant relative, third cousin, Count Lajos Batthyány, almost ten years older than her, at a party in Pozsony. Batthyány was on his way to Turkey, but love overrode his journey, and eight days later he proposed to her, and a year later he led her to the altar in St. Martin's Cathedral in Pozsony.

The couple then travelled to Italy, Switzerland, France and Bavaria. In Paris, while Batthyány, a lawyer by training, spent his time listening to prosecutions in the French courts, his young wife could not get enough of French fashion, buying everything, admiring the hairstyles, hats, expensive fabrics and artificial flowers, which were still a novelty at the time. In the years that followed, they travelled extensively, travelling all over Europe together. Years later, the imprisoned Batthyány said to his wife, as a farewell, that she should remember him by the first years of their marriage.

-Children were not absent from their lives: one by one, they were born. What do we know about what kind of mother and father they were? What was the parent-child relationship like in a family of the aristocracy at that time?

-They had three daughters, but only two survived to adulthood - Emilia and Ilona, and little Antonia died at the age of two. Their first son, Ákos, also died unexpectedly in 1845 at two months old, a loss that was particularly hard on the father. "Lajos Batthyány wants to go mad, he can't take any action, he doesn't want to hear about anything, he is wallowing on the floor", wrote his friend Count István Széchenyi in his diary. Two years later, Antonia again gave her husband a son. Elemér lived a long life, dying in 1932.

Even if the parent-child relationship was not as intimate as it is today, the wife's letters show that the count and his wife took the upbringing of their children seriously and cared deeply about their fate.

-What was life like for the couple before the 1848 Revolution?

- The family spent most of their time in Ikervár, Vas county, and in the mid-1840s the castle was renovated according to the plans of Miklós Ybl. Mrs Batthyány created a real fairy garden with a beautiful park, special flowers and ponds, as well as musical and literary afternoons and evening balls. Guests stayed here often and with pleasure, enjoying the Count's precious library and his exceptional wine collection.

In the winter, they regularly hosted parties in their rented apartment in Pest, where not only aristocrats attended. They also enjoyed going to the theatre and had a box subscription.

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Countess Antónia Zichy, wife of Count Lajos Batthyány - Drawing by Miklós Barabás

- Great love, fruitful marriage, exemplary social life. Was Antonia Zichy and Lajos Batthyány's relationship so ideal?

- Not quite. We respect our first Prime Minister as a great patriot and an excellent Hungarian, but he was also a fallible man, with mistakes, errors and internal dramas. Many of his contemporaries already knew that the Count had an affair with his sister-in-law, his wife's sister Karolina, wife of Count György Károlyi. His farewell letter to his wife reveals to us the remorse that plagued Batthyány "In these lines I repeat to you the deeply felt expression of my fervent gratitude and admiration for all the treasures of your pure love, which I have never been able to deserve; and as true as it is that I stand at the threshold of death, it is only the knowledge of this sin that I take with me to the grave."

Despite the pain and disappointment of marital infidelity, Antonia remained a loyal companion and protector of the Count, and was , as Batthyány himself put it, "always a good angel" - in times of good fortune and in times of trial.

- How interested was Antonia Zichy in public affairs? How involved was she in her husband's work, and in a male-dominated world, was there any way she could be?

The Countess not only provided him a background in their private life, but also shaped her husband's political views. Her national commitment, her world view and her knowledge of languages (Hungarian, German, French, English) had a great influence on the Count, who spoke Hungarian poorly when they met. According to his contemporaries, his wife encouraged him to take a more active, reformist role.

In 1839 Batthyány began to engage in public politics, and already in his first manifesto he emphasised: “The encouragement of womanhood has been found to be an effective means of arousing patriotism in all endangered nations; that it may assume this glorious role in our country as soon as possible, we shall endeavour.”

In addition to her family duties, the young wife became her husband's political partner, a worthy representative of opposition principles. She was a spectacular advocate of her husband's political views in parliaments as well as in the theatre and at balls. She supported economic initiatives in Hungary, regularly donated to charitable causes, and in the 1940s her salon in Pest became a centre of social life, where Mihály Vörösmarty, for example, often visited.

Together with his sister, the wife of Count György Károlyi, they were also enthusiastic supporters of the Védegylet (Protection Association). They spoke Hungarian, wore Hungarian clothes made in Hungary and danced to Hungarian music at balls. They were adored by the youth, and their personalities amazed even Sándor Petőfi, who disliked aristocrats, calling the countesses "fairy flowers".

According to secret police informers' reports, the two did more to strengthen national feeling than a parliament, because fashion has more power than legal disputes.

-She was the first First Lady in Hungarian history. How did she shape this role, how active was she in that role?

- She did not have much opportunity to appear as a classical First Lady, as the development of the revolution did not allow her to do so. At the same time, her life before Batthyány became Prime Minister and her behaviour after her husband's execution portray her as a virtuous, powerful woman of great influence, who not only offered the warmth of home to a statesman but also shaped our history - she influenced the Count and shaped public opinion with her behaviour and gestures. One thing is for sure, she set the bar high for all the wives of prime ministers to come.

- What did she think of the outcome in January 1849, after her husband was taken prisoner in Austria? Was she aware of the fate of the first prime minister?

-She did her best to prevent the inevitable. She followed her prisoner husband wherever she was allowed to go, writing letters of comfort and encouragement and praying for a better fate for them. She tried her best to plead for an appeal for pardon, but she could not help.

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Portrait of Countess Antónia Zichy, widow of Prime Minister Count Lajos Batthyány – engraving by Károly Rusz

- It is true that to avoid the humiliation of hanging, she herself brought that particular dagger into the prison?

-Yes. At the Count's request, she carried to the cell the dagger with which her husband wounded his neck the following night to avoid the humiliation of hanging. We can only imagine the agony the wife went through fearing that her husband might commit suicide with the instrument she had given him. The widow was to be prosecuted, but it was not successfully proven that she had smuggled the dagger in. In his last letter, Batthyány, in an attempt to save his wife, cast suspicion on himself saying: 'I have long carried a rescue instrument'.

– What happened to the widow and her family after that fatal day of 6 October?

- Batthyány's property was also confiscated, so her only legacy was her husband's letter of farewell. Mrs Batthyány and her children moved abroad to escape the harassment, their livelihood being provided for by the considerable Zichy fortune. She first went to Bavaria to stay with her sister-in-law, then to Paris, and finally settled near Zurich.

The Austrian secret police kept a constant watch on her, as her house was regularly visited by the leading figures of the Hungarian emigration, most prominently Count László Teleki. The Countess did not interfere in the politics of the emigration, but she regularly helped impoverished fugitives.

"Although we live abroad, we always ponder over our sad memories in our sweet homeland," she wrote about her feelings in a letter.

She moved home in 1856 because she wanted to marry her children at home, and she managed to marry her daughters to descendants of Hungarian families, and their weddings were national events. She bought a small castle in Dáka, where prominent public figures often visited 'the most honoured daughter of the country'.

-What was her behaviour like in these difficult times?

- First of all, she insisted on her husband's will and did not ask for anything back from the Austrian state. Bearing the weight of her widowhood, she was respected and loved not only for her loyalty to her husband but also for her own example, charity and patriotism. Together with János Damjanich's widow, Emilia Csernovich, she founded the Hungarian Housekeepers’ Association. Together with the wives of the martyrs of Arad, she had a requiem said on 6 October each year.

Wherever she appeared, it was considered a protest against authoritarianism, and the widow of the martyred prime minister was often cheered.

An important event was the reburial of her husband in 1870, where she was finally able to pay her last respects to his body, which had been hidden in the Franciscan crypt until then. She wore a black mourning dress for the rest of her life, and signed her letters "Widow of Count Lajos Batthyány".

-Antonia Zichy survived the Compromise by eleven years. How did she relate to the new era? Can one whose husband has been executed compromise with the ones in power?

- The Countess did not agree with the Compromise: 'Hungary is needed for the monarchy to exist, it is true, but Hungary can live without Austria, that is my conviction. We have the strength, Austria is the rotten body, and if we lean on it, we will fall down, too," she wrote. On the eve of the coronation, hers was the only house in Pest whose windows were not lightened up.

The political atmosphere of dualism was no longer her world, since Franz Joseph, the tyrant, became king of the country: 'my sad voice is not welcome, for it sounds like a reproach'. In the remaining years of her life, she lived in seclusion, caring for her children and grandchildren and doing much charity work. She died on 29 September 1888.

In accordance with her wishes, as written in her will, she was buried beside her husband and the letter of farewell he had left her was placed on her heart.

- You mentioned in a conversation that the public is, unfortunately, a good ten to fifteen years behind in terms of what is considered genetically modified. Let's start then by explaining what we mean by GMOs in the 21st century.

- People are as distrustful of GMOs as they were of mobile phones. A few decades ago, of course, genetic modification worked differently. Perhaps the best way to imagine its evolution is to compare it to fixing a broken kitchen cupboard. Whereas in the old days, if a cupboard door was broken, you had to buy another cupboard to replace it, today, if you have the same problem, you only have to replace the screw that caused the problem. I can understand why fifteen years ago people were terrified of genetic engineering, but nowadays it is more like genetic engineering than genetic modification. We can now achieve the desired change not only by introducing an external gene into the organism but also by tweaking the regulatory region of the genes in the plant. In other words, we are fine-tuning.

- What is the purpose of genetic modification in plants today?

- We produce such plants for several purposes. One version is when we genetically modify the plant to make it more resistant to various diseases, insects, pests so that ultimately fewer pesticides need to be used in its cultivation. Another genetic modification technique, often used, is to make the plant more resistant to the active ingredient of a spray. This method is used so that the useful grain that is sown can be easily sorted out from the various weeds and plants, as the agent kills the weed, but the valuable grain is unharmed by the genetic modification, so the end result is a much cleaner crop. In these cases, low environmental impact sprays are always used today.

Perhaps these examples already illustrate one of the benefits of genetic modification: it reduces the use of chemicals.

- As far as I know, feed imported from abroad by livestock breeders is not controlled, so it may contain GMO products. So a chicken breast may get a GMO-free label in the shop because it is a conventional chicken raised on Hungarian feed. But how verifiable do you think this is?

- It always makes me think about how "organic" bananas from Colombia, the home of the drug lords, can be. I wonder how much it costs there to buy a label like that and put it on a banana? Who can check it several continents away? One thing is for sure: I, who am familiar with these technologies, would never buy meat more expensive just because it is GMO-free. And it is important to emphasize once again that if a piece of meat is GMO-free it means that it is not organic because it may require more chemicals to treat it and it may have higher technical costs. And let's not deny the marketing value of the label: because GMO has become a pejorative term in the public consciousness, the GMO-free label has a good ring in the market. It is as if it was an adjective for the quality of meat, however, the meat itself can still be bad, label notwithstanding.

- Why aren't researchers like you lobbying to whitewash the term GMO?

- Genetic modification can be used to do a lot of good things, but because it is also done by humans, it is inevitably sometimes used for pointless or harmful purposes. Fifty years from now, there are likely to be private reproductive clinics where people go because they want glow-in-the-dark body parts. We can't do anything about stupid or self-interested people, but for the moment we researchers need to concentrate on how we can turn this knowledge to the benefit of humanity. In many cases, this is controlled breeding, which can achieve useful goals in five to ten years that would take decades using conventional methods.

We can hate GMOs, it is just important that we put the energy and attention into it so that we know exactly what we hate.

- Will we get to the point where we can eat better quality food thanks to genetic modification?

- Such attempts have been made and are still being made: the best known is the story of the so-called golden rice. In the Far East, many problems are caused by vitamin A deficiency, which in severe cases can lead to childhood blindness. Twenty years ago, researchers Peter Beyer and Ingo Potrykus used what was then considered a conventional genetic modification to 'breed' rice that produces beta-carotene, which gives it a slightly yellower colour - hence the name golden rice. It has no resistance to any pesticides, it is only considered genetically modified because it contains this extra substance that prevents the development of this typical deficiency disease, thus saving lives. At the time, the scientists who created the gold rice were driven by humanitarian concerns and gave up their copyright and patent rights. Unfortunately, however, gold rice has not been commercialized since then because it has been so fiercely opposed by various environmental lobby organisations that they have won the day - at the expense of the masses. Of course, we in the West may have unrealistic fears about genetic pollution, since we live in a place where vitamin A deficiency is a rarity, because carrots, spinach, and Brussels sprouts are among the foods we eat every day. But no one in the Philippines or Vietnam has asked people about this. In 2019, the Philippines finally allowed the public cultivation of golden rice.

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Photo: ODPictures Art Studio

- But you're not genetically modifying plants, you're genetically modifying animals for a noble cause. Can you tell us about that?

- Of course! In my PhD project with the University of Szeged Medical School, we studied drugs that cause sudden cardiac death in animal experiments. As a PhD student at the well-remembered Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, with a research group led by Dr Zsuzsanna Bősze, I contributed to this by creating a rabbit whose heart was engineered to produce a human ion channel protein.

The rabbit is a very good electrophysiological model, because its heart size and heart rhythm are the closest to those of humans among small animals.

In case of laboratory animals, it is important that they should be easy to keep, and that is why most of these experiments are done on mice, but the mouse heart is very different from the human heart in terms of electrophysiological properties. In the rabbit heart, thanks to our genetic modification, a human protein was produced alongside its own, so that human drugs could bind to this human protein, giving much more accurate clinical results. It was really complete research because we developed the animal and there was someone who was able to examine it immediately – the process did not die along its course but became practice-oriented.

- Yes, here genetic modification is taking place at quite different levels and for important causes.

- I wanted to choose a research topic that made sense, and these rabbits and our results are still being used and studied in Europe today. Sudden cardiac death often has no symptoms, or more precisely no identifiable symptoms, which is why it can happen that athletes who have undergone regular medical check-ups suddenly collapse and die on the field without any warning. Doctors cannot examine or reconstruct the events afterwards, because unfortunately the heart is no longer working, and the only way to find out whether the person had a gene mutation/defect that could have such drastic consequences is to check their DNA. So we have basically reproduced this gene defect in an animal and from then on we could continuously monitor the minimal abnormalities that can be detected in the heart. That is how different types of drugs were tested, because the other difficulty with this condition is that it is not only cardiac drugs that can cause this effect, but also certain antidepressants, anti-inflammatory drugs.

- Let's also reassure animal rights activists that you value the animals used in your experiments.

- Yes, obviously because they are very valuable, very important. The animal welfare standards are based on the 3Rs principle, to which another one has been added to in recent years. So the four R's are reduction, refinement, replacement and rehabilitation, which must be respected in all experiments. Reduction involves reducing the number of animals used in experiments as much as possible. Refinement means using methods that cause the animal as little suffering and pain as possible during the experiment, breeding and care. Replacement means that, where possible, instead of animal testing, a scientifically accepted method or test should be used that does not require the use of live animals. The fourth, rehabilitation, draws attention to the moral responsibility of all researchers in the aftercare and rehabilitation of animals used in experiments. Any experiment that causes more pain to the animal than a needle stick must obtain an animal protection permit. The ethical aspect of all animal experiments is crucial: we must demonstrate the purpose for which we want to carry them out.

Obviously, someone who wanted to use the results for entertainment purposes would not get a licence if the aim was to produce, say, a faster greyhound or a lighting horse.

But if we use it for purposes such as producing golden rice or medicine, or perhaps developing agricultural products, then perhaps it is more understandable for the readers why one can love biotechnology so much.

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Photo: ODPictures Art Studio

- How much buzz is there in experiments around the world? Can Hungary keep up with the Western world? Or is it in the Far East that the latest technological innovations are being born?

- Scientists differentiate 16 different types of sudden cardiac death syndrome, and in 2013, we developed type 5, meaning we developed a rabbit that is apt to examine sudden cardiac death type 5. We met a Chinese researcher at a conference years later, and we were very happy when he told us that they too were developing this particular type of rabbit. We asked him which type of syndrome they were modelling and he said, with the utmost naturalness: all of them! This is a good example of the different possibilities we have. Obviously we cannot and should not compete with them.

- What does the future hold? Will we be less afraid of genetic modification? I hope that those who read this interview will...

- We are moving towards more and more gentle regulation. Already, there are treatments for plants that only make the leaves genetically more resistant to pests, and does not affect the crops, as pests leave that alone, too, and humans only eat the that part.  In case of farm livestock, it is now feasible to introduce a regulatory region into the animal which, once the animal is ready for slaughter, turns off the gene that was producing the protein that helps it grow. After the 'switch-off', these animals are kept for an additional month and when they are used as cooking material, they no longer contain any of the protein produced by the modified gene.

Our bunny was of the kind that only produced the human protein in its heart chamber, not in the whole bunny. It is even possible to assign a certain substance not to be produced in embryo phase but be produced in adolescence.

So, science is capable of more than we think, and is smarter with its power than we first think. It may be feared, but it is no more dangerous than any of the two-edged tools God has given to mankind.

Tamás Bakócz was born in 1442 in Erdőd in Eastern Hungary, in a serf family. His father was a wheel-making craftsman, who was able to educate his sons with church support. Bakócz did not later deny his lowly origins, as he added wagon wheels to his coat of arms. His brother, Bálint, won a benefice as a young man so that he could help his younger brother, who had entered the Dominican Order, to study. Bakócz, or Tamás Erdődi as he appears in the school registers, was a schoolboy in Szatmár and completed his studies at the Breslau and Padua studium generale. In 1464 he became a Master of Philosophy at the University of Krakow, where many Hungarian students attended and spent the following years at the University of Ferrara in Italy. After returning home in 1470, he was appointed to the royal chancellery as a clerk. His career took off from 1480. It was then that his brother gave him the provostship in Titel, and after giving advice to King Matthias during his western campaign, the king took notice of his talents and made him his secretary. He was subsequently appointed royal adviser and vice-chancellor, and in 1486, again by the Emperor's favour, he was awarded the bishopric of Győr.

He accompanied the King on his campaigns, managed the diplomatic affairs of the country, and was part of the Renaissance spirit that permeated King Matthias' court after his marriage to Beatrix of Aragon, Princess of Naples.

When the king died in 1490, Bakócz, after some vacillation, helped to elect the Polish king, Wladyslaw II, and in international politics, he championed the cause of the great war against the Turks, which meant that he also supported the ambitions of the Republic of Venice, which was interested in the same.

Properties, titles, connections

In 1490, the year Wladyslaw II ascended to the throne, he appointed the forty-eight-year-old Bakócz, who was by then one of the richest and most influential people in the country, as chancellor-general. His accumulation of wealth was an eyesore to many. Those envious of him had him described as the country's 'most unscrupulous orphan' since many of his estates were acquired by adoption or by inheritance contract.  In 1497 he exchanged the bishopric of Győr for the more important and wealthier bishopric of Eger, but he still possessed many other ecclesiastical titles and estates. In the same year, with the approval of the Emperor and the Pope, he exchanged the bishopric of Eger for the archbishopric of Esztergom, previously held by the young Hippolito d'Este, nephew of Queen Beatrice, the widow of King Matthias. With this exchange, Bakócz became the head of the Hungarian Church. In 1500, as a Hungarian archbishop with the support of Venice, he was granted the title of cardinal by Pope Alexander VI.

He was also highly respected in Rome: he was regarded as an influential high priest, a supporter of European unity against the Turks, a true Renaissance lord.

In 1510, Pope Gregory II made him Patriarch Emeritus of Constantinople. It was a mere title since Constantinople had been under Turkish rule for almost a century, but its holder was among the most prestigious of the cardinals. At home, alongside the weak-handed king Wladyslaw II, Bakócz ruled the country's affairs with almost absolute power after 1500. The great chance of the life of the cardinal who was already in his seventies came in 1513, after the death of Pope Julius II.

The candidate for the papacy

He arrived in Rome for the conclave with great pomp and splendour, as the heir-apparent to the papal throne. But the cardinals, who were mostly from Italy, had no interest in electing a cardinal who intended to use the authority and wealth of the Church to launch a war against the Turks, defend the southern Hungarian frontiers, reconquer the Balkans and Constantinople, and expel the Turks from Europe. This decided the fate of Bakócz. The Italian cardinals were more interested in the peace of Italy, in preserving the Renaissance splendour of the Curia and in winning over the Medici family than in risky and expensive campaigns in the Balkans.

Thus, although Bakócz initially received votes, the majority voted for an Italian candidate, the still young Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici of Florence, in his late thirties, who chose the name, Leo X. The new Pope, who was the son of the legendary Renaissance prince of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici, felt he had to make amends to his losing opponent, Bakócz, who had left the conclave in defeat. So he sent the Archbishop of Esztergom home with an appointment as papal legate and the authority to declare a crusade. On his return to Hungary, the Cardinal did indeed declare a crusade, but in 1514 the disobedient serfs gathered under the sign of the cross, led by a Szekler nobleman named György Dózsa, turned against their own masters instead of the Turks.

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Coat of arms of Tamás Bakócz. Image: Wikimedia

The Hungarian notables managed to quell the bloody peasant war that broke out only with brutal severity, and the Archbishop subsequently received many untruthful reproaches from them for letting the spirit of rebellion out of the bottle.

He must also have taken it as a personal insult that the noblemen of the Parliament, in their anger, decided that in the future no descendant of the serfs could be appointed a bishop or archbishop.

The Crusade was dropped from the agenda, and a decade later, in 1526, a weakened and abandoned Hungary suffered a fatal defeat at Mohács from the hands of the Sultan. Tamás Bakócz did not live to see this tragedy, suffering a stroke in 1519. He retired to Esztergom, where he died in 1521, aged seventy-nine. Here he was laid to rest in the red marble Bakócz Chapel of the Cathedral, the finest work of his Renaissance artistic patronage, built with Italian masters and one of the jewels of the Hungarian Renaissance.

Bakócz was a child of his time: a Renaissance high priest who loved power and pomp, who raised his family from the serfs to the Hungarian aristocracy, and did his best to unite Europe against the Turkish conquest and to save the country. Until the end of the 20th century, he was the only Hungarian mentioned by his contemporaries as a contender for the papal throne.