Three human lives

At around ten o'clock that day, two armed men broke into a bank at 16 Vécsey Street, near the Parliament building. "Hands up, don't move, or I shoot!" – shouted one of them, but after a stunned silence, panic broke out, to which the bandits responded with a series of actual shots. Imre Braun, the bank manager, managed to get out of the window to inform the police, but Géza Jójárt, who was about to hand over a thousand pengos to Miklós Szalay, the chief accountant of the National Child Protection League, was shot in the head. With his last remaining strength, he jumped out of the window onto the pavement, but collapsed there, his blood staining the asphalt red. He never regained consciousness. Inside, three other officers were wounded, one of whom – Frigyes Wirth, who had also recovered from malaria in the First World War – survived the attack with a thigh wound. The bullet could never be removed from József Klemm's abdomen, but he survived with it in his body, probably living in pain for the rest of his life. Dr. Imre Róth, 27, however, died of his abdominal wound in hospital two days later.

Miklós Szalay was the one who saved the others. He always arrived at his large withdrawals armed with a revolver, so he pulled the gun from his back pocket and fired in the direction of the attackers.

One of them was shot in the back, and they were so frightened by it that they ran away with the cash they had collected. On the way out, they found themselves face to face with József Benyák, a delivery boy who had been sent by his boss to the bank to change money and had just arrived at the door. That sealed his fate: he was shot dead. The fleeing bandits jumped into a car waiting for them in Vécsey Street and drove off. A car mechanic named Géza Mocsai even shot at them in the street while they were escaping the scene, and he claimed to have hit both the car and one of the robbers. By this time the bank's alarm was sounding loud, which Frigyes Wirth - already injured - managed to set off, and which was heard all the way to Bajcsy-Zsilinszky (then Kaiser Wilhelm) Road.

They drove too well, they were too muddy

The police arrived within minutes, but the witnesses were in shock and could offer little useful information. The crowd in Liberty Square, which had gathered at the news of the events, roared that Budapest was now a clean Chicago. Eventually, an 11-year-old boy playing in the square was able to give the most accurate description of the bandits, and a suitcase seller's testimony led to the identification of the license plate number of the vehicle, which turned out to have been stolen from Andrassy Avenue the night before. The car was found the same day, abandoned on a muddy dirt road near Kelenföld railway station, which laid the foundations for the success of the investigation. Although the robbers had removed their fingerprints, the police could be sure from the speed and efficiency of their getaway that at least one of them was an excellent driver, possibly an experienced car thief, which at the time narrowed the suspects down considerably.

It was mainly car mechanics who possessed such driving skills.

There were many false reports of suspicious individuals – one reportedly thought he recognized the attackers as three shaving Bulgarian gardeners – but the other key piece of information was a report from a member of the public. On Lehel Square, an eyewitness saw two men in the street looking strangely muddy and acting suspiciously, who, in the weather that day, could not have smeared themselves so badly on the paving in Budapest. So the police searched the car repair shops near Lehel Square and noticed that a mechanic called László Szepesi had called in sick that very day saying he had a toothache. It quickly turned out that Szepesi had already served two months for car theft the previous winter together with another mechanic, László Radovics. A carpenter's apprentice called Nándor Tari, who had also tried his hand at car mechanics, drove well, and wanted to be a racing driver, was in prison at the same time. Moreover, he had been an apprentice in the same workshop as József Benyák, who was shot during the robbery and who may have died at the entrance because he could have recognized one of the fleeing robbers.

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Liberty Square in Budapest in 1940 on a postcard

Testimony and an incredible past

Later that night, all three were found and interrogated. Szepesi and Radovic were found in their homes, Tari was found in a pub in Angyalföld, drinking wine and singing merrily. During the interrogations, the police noticed that Radovics was moving strangely and had difficulty lifting his arms, so they called a doctor who examined him and found a pea-sized bullet wound on his shoulder blade, covered with a plaster. The bullet, according to the doctor, could have come from Miklós Szalay's gun, while a wound on Radovics' wrist matched the bullet wound fired by Géza Mocsai. The bank robber then broke down and gave a detailed confession, saying that the crime was Szepesi's idea, that he financed the guns and the disguise, and that he was waiting outside as the driver in the stolen car. Radovics and Tari entered the bank, Radovics shot the teller, and Tari shot the others. According to the statements of the three, weapons and fake moustaches were found hidden in several places.

The gang's previous robberies were also revealed, and these too showed a lot of ruthlessness but minimal success.

In 1931, they attacked the Klauzál Square branch of the Hungarian Counting and Currency Exchange Bank, where they also fired shots, but the safe door was slammed in front of them, so they left empty-handed. In the same year, they also attacked the Mária Street post office in Újpest, but the postmaster fired back and they fled. In 1932, they started with the Lipót körút branch of the Municipal Savings Bank, but the cashier threw a hole punch at the gunman, who dropped his weapon and they all fled. At the corner of Vadász Street and Bank Street, they continued by robbing a man, from whose bag they took 1,000 one-pengő banknotes and 2,000 pieces of 50-fillér coins. Finally, on June 30, 1934, they shot at a sub-officer of the Country Bank in Széchenyi Street and dragged off his briefcase, which contained only one letter. The greatest damage – unfortunately in terms of human lives – was therefore done in Szabadság Square.

"This year is off to a good start!”

It is absurd that it was their clumsiness that led to the tragedy. Radovic's testimony revealed that he caused the panic in Liberty Square by accidentally shouting in his excitement, "Everybody leave your places, or I'll shoot!" 
In any case, the consequences were swift and decisive: the heads of the Budapest banks met as early as 2 January to decide on increased protection for their branches. The police were asked not to allow vehicles to wait outside the bank buildings, emergency alarms were installed everywhere, and security guards were reinforced. 
On 11 February, the trial of the criminals began for three counts of murder in addition to their previous attempts. In the end, Tari was proven right, when he concluded his interrogation with the words, "This year is off to a good start! I'll get a necktie, won't I, Captain?" On 22 January 1936, all three criminals were hanged in the courtyard of the Collector's Prison.

Resources:
https://mnl.gov.hu/a_het_dokumentuma/bankrablas_szilveszterkor.html 
https://horthykorszak.blog.hu/2017/02/25/szombat_esti_remalom_a_szabadsag_teri_bankrablas 
https://welovebudapest.com/cikk/2018/01/02/hires-budapesti-rejtelyek-hogyan-buktak-le-a-30-as-evek-leghiresebb-bankrabloi/ 
 

The reclaimed estate

The wrought-iron gate of the Mikes Estate in Zabola opens onto a breathtaking sight. Not far from the entrance, to the left, the old riding stables catch the eye, the only major farm building not pulled down by the great-grandfather. It was the home of the most valuable horses of the once famous Mikes stud farm, which used to be an important source of income for the family. The magnificent interior, with its arches and columns, is evidence of a restoration that reflects the owners' affectionate and tasteful approach to the estate, with the light of former days of glory almost radiating from behind the weathered plaster.

The main manager of the maintenance and development of the estate is Gregor Roy Chowdhury, the son of Shuvendu Basu Roy Chowdhury, an aristocrat of East Bengal origin, and Count Katalin Mikes of Zabola.

Gregor, known locally as Count Gergely, was born in Austria. His mother, Katalin Mikes had been forced to leave the centuries-old family nest at the age of three due to nationalisation and miraculously made her way to Austria at the age of 16.

She met her future husband, Shuvendu Basu Roy Chowdhury, in Graz, Austria, and the two were married and became parents of Gergely and Sándor. These days, the former spends more time in Zabola – in Romania in general – after the restoration wrestling that began in the early 2000s resulted in the family regaining ownership of part of the ancient estate. It includes the old and the new castle with 50 hectares of the Zabola estate, as well as 3.5 thousand of the 13 thousand hectares of reclaimed forest. But only on paper, the forest issue has been tangled in the maze of the Romanian legal system for years.

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Countess Katalin Mikes - Photo: István Biró

In the footsteps of the great-grandfather

Gregor, or Gergely, has turned into one of Transylvania's most interesting businessmen, after becoming the majority owner of the Secuiana clothing factory in Kézdivásárhely (Târgu Secuiesc), which has a history of more than half a century. All his investments have been made with a single purpose: to raise the capital needed to run the estate. The businessman-count combination was inspired by his great-grandfather, Count Ármin Mikes, who built a new two-storey chateau in 1904-1905, connected to the old castle by a tunnel and a two-storey bridge. The original idea was to have guest rooms on the upper level and offices on the lower. As he eventually had a separate agricultural lodge and steward's villa built, all farming activities were moved there and the new castle was also used as a guesthouse in the 1930s. Old promotional brochures bear witness to the efforts to make the building suitable for tourism.

Ármin Mikes was considered a rather individualistic figure among the aristocrats of the time. An entrepreneurial count to the core, he set up a multitude of companies from Budapest to southern Romania.

Thus, for him, the Treaty of Trianon (1920) was a great blow not only because of the subsequent confiscation of property but also because, as a citizen of an enemy country in the First World War, he lost all his investments in Romanian companies, including a major railway project and its hoped-for benefits. In later years, he sought to rebuild his contacts in Bucharest, was the only Hungarian member of the Romanian Jockey Club, maintained constant contact with the Romanian liberal elite, and was regularly received by Ferdinand I and later by the Romanian King Charles II. Whenever a Hungarian economic delegation came to Bucharest, Ármin Mikes was a member of it. He made the most of those difficult times.

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The old Mikes estate - Photo: family archive

Fantasy in fabric

His great-grandson is also trying to make the most of the opportunities he has created largely by his own hands. "I've been driving a lot around Romania and seen a lot of fallow farmland. It was a time when you could get capital for farming, and farmland seemed like a sure thing. Initially, I rented a lot of small pieces to set up small farm units, and then I looked for agricultural companies in trouble. I ended up with a company in the Dicsőszentmárton area, and the business took off nicely, but I kept looking for something that would grow at a faster pace," he tells us the of the beginning.

When he was offered the textile industry a few years later, he was not interested at first but decided that the company in Târgu Secuiesc, operating practically under the owner's nose, could hold some potential.

"I thought there might be a change in trend soon: after the COVID-19 epidemic, a lot of companies would no longer want to have everything made in the Far East, they’d come back to Europe, at least in part."

"The idea worked to some extent, in the spring of 2022 I started negotiating the takeover of two German brands, and now we have an office near Hannover," explains Gergely.

Family relations in India

He had visited Transylvania several times as a child, but in those days, in the 1980s, they mostly went to visit relatives in Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca). He first visited India for a wedding when he was ten years old, and only after his father died in 2002 did he start to focus more intensively on his Hindu roots. Most of his relatives there now live in New Delhi and Calcutta, some of whom would prefer to forget the past, but some of whom are happy to remember.

It's easy to see a bit of fate in the way the parents met. The Roy Chowdhury family, like the Mikes, lost everything after the partition of India in 1947, when Hindu-Muslim strife divided Bengal into East and West Bengal. Gergely says it was only later, as an adult, that he began to "untangle" the threads for himself. On the one hand, there is an Indian family with everything for a comfortable, peaceful life, until in 1947 India was cut in two and the family had to flee the areas outside the borders. However, while Gergely and Sándor's grandfather, born in 1901, had then been living and working in New Delhi for a long time, many members of the family arrived in India with only one suitcase. The refugees from East Bengal received no compensation for the possessions they had been forced to leave behind, only land on which they could build a new home. Those who stayed have endured much persecution, but some are now successful businessmen.

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Part of the Mikes estate today - Photo: Samu Csinta

To start afresh is also a legacy

Researching the past is now an important goal and part of Gregor Roy Chowdury's life.

He visits India and Bangladesh several times a year, keeping in regular contact with 30-40 of his more than 500 relatives scattered around the world.

Recently, a Bangladeshi business newspaper, The Business Standard, "discovered" the distant Bengali who is working on tracing his ancestors. And he found one of his cousins: he is now a chef in the kitchen at the Zabola Estate.

Here at home, expropriation continues, but now of his own free will: The Mikes family has declared a forest in Sepsibükszád as primeval forest under the Conservation Transylvania green biodiversity program, which means they have practically expropriated themselves. Starting afresh is a family legacy anyway. Count Ármin Mikes also bought forests in southern Romania, all of which were confiscated in one twist or another of history. When recently talking to an Indian relative about the forests that are still the subject of litigation, he asked how long this process had been going on. And when he was told that it had been five years, he said, almost consolingly, "We have been in litigation with the Indian state for 250 years."
 

"We discovered together what this profession is all about"

They've always had a computer at home, and even as a child, he saw his parents working on it. He was interested in what it could be used for. At first, like most kids, he just played games and watched videos on it. He was about ten when he became interested in programming. He saw it as an opportunity to build and create something new.
"At the time, my sister was taking a massage course, and I created a website for her massage parlour. Then she didn't become a masseur and the site didn't get live. Maybe it's better that way," he begins, laughing.
He learnt how to program from YouTube videos, completely self-taught. He tried and tried until he succeeded. He not only created a website but also simple computer games. He went to György Boronkay Technical High School in Vác where he started programming seriously. He says that he made many friends there, many of whom he still works with professionally.

"Together, we discovered what this profession is all about. And our teachers encouraged us from the beginning to participate in different competitions," he says.

So even as young as a teenager he already earned some routine at competitions.

When engineering and art meet

While the average teenager is only busy doing school tests, János has been running his own business since high school, which he started with his brother-in-law in 2016. "He was working as a hotel manager and he was in dire need of all kinds of reports on how the hotel was performing. He had an Excel spreadsheet with lots of numbers." But the huge data set was becoming unmanageable. "As a solution, I created a web application (Peaqplus - ed.) that is still used by hotels today," he continues.

After graduation, he worked as a freelance software developer, which is how he first heard about EuroSkills, and then met Zoltán Sisák, who became his coach. After several rounds of selection, it was decided last May that he would represent Hungary among the web developers. For one and a half years, the preparation took place in the office of the HTTP Foundation (Dissemination of Network Knowledge Foundation). As he says, he was preparing practically "from dawn to dusk" for the last one or two months before the European Championship in September 2023.

As he says, web development is a very broad field: from the simplest website creation, such as a company presentation, to web applications. The latter is closer to his heart. "You have to design a complete, working system, like an engineer." 

"On the other hand, I could compare it a bit to a painter or a graphic artist creating something beautiful. Web development is where the two meet," he concludes. 

Messenger "exploded" after the victory

At the EuroSkills Competition in Gdansk, work went on for three days, seven hours a day. They had to work on the website of an imaginary company dealing with artificial intelligence. The first task was to build a simple introductory website and then a complex system.  
"My consultant and I felt that the task was a good fit, I always managed to do what I had planned. However, there was a Kazakh competitor who also did very well. We were hoping for a podium finish, but the gold medal was still uncertain. I wasn't nervous during the race, but I was very anxious when the results were announced. I had a stomach ache, a headache, and a lot of other symptoms. When they didn't announce my name as second, I was relieved," he recalls.

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Photo: MKIK

János Hidvégi not only won a gold medal in his own profession but also came third in the Best in Europe award, the third most points (783) of all this year's competitors.  Never before in the history of EuroSkills has a Hungarian web developer achieved such a high score (this year's Best in Europe was awarded to Hungarian IT system operators).

In János's family, IT is too much of a stretch for everyone; years ago, his parents didn't even understand what he wanted to do with websites. But now they see that his career is going in the right direction. His parents and girlfriend were there in Gdansk to cheer him on. "They even teared up they were so overjoyed. My friends were watching the livestream at home. After the results were announced, I went back to my chair where I had left my phone and my Messenger almost exploded, with about forty unread messages," he says. 

"This is a great event, an experience of a lifetime. You can meet so many talented people and build international contacts." 

"If someone can show that they are a European champion in their field, that can be a strong advantage when looking for a job," he says.

Is artificial intelligence the future?

When I ask him what he thinks makes someone a good web developer, he lists curiosity, a desire to create, creativity, and precision. "I've always wanted to create something that works on its own. It's such a fast-changing profession that you have to be constantly open to new ideas. You have to keep moving forward. You have to find creative solutions to interesting problems."

János currently works as a software developer for a bank and a Hungarian startup enterprise. He will turn 22 in December but already has plans to start his own startup in the not-too-distant future. He is most interested in artificial intelligence (AI): how to make AI software or tools that help developers work more efficiently.

"Artificial intelligence has its dangers, but I'm not afraid of machines taking over. People have believed that many times throughout history. For example, when the steam engine was invented. There will be a different kind of jobs, that's for sure, and we have to adapt and take advantage of the new situation," he says.

The European champion always takes on jobs that challenge him and that he can learn from. And opportunities abound, with companies already looking for him to work with. And why would he recommend his own profession to the younger generation? "You don't need a huge workshop with lots of machines, you can do anything with a laptop if you're persistent enough and interested enough. Not many professions can offer that," he adds.

Our interviews with other Hungarian medallists from the 2023 European Skills Championships are available here and here.
 

I assume you have a childhood love for bicycles?

Bicycles and love are really intertwined in my life. As a child, I wanted to be a PE teacher, then a welder, and then I basically combined the two: today I help people with disabilities to move, and I weld iron, which is my trade. As for love: when I was courting, I was a relatively good cyclist. And then I tied my first girlfriend1s bike to my bicycle with a piece of string and towed her up the hills of Szada. Then I asked my master, my uncle, to make a tandem for the two of us. That's how the story began.

And how did it continue?

There are no coincidences. As fate would have it, a friend of ours was raising a blind child and told us how nice it would be for them to have a tandem. Word followed word, and then I made one. Then I got a call from the director of the Institute for the Blind, and they ordered three three-seaters. This was in the mid-nineties, but I still fixed them last year – it feels good to see my piece of work still running with its twenty-year-old parts.

Did you decide, or did life decide, to specialize in such special needs?

Life did. For example, one day a disabled man wandered into my shop with a piece of paper in his hand, which I still have to this day – he brought a drawing of a special bike he wanted. He copied it from a foreign newspaper brochure, we made it, and it worked. Since then, he has designed more, and I even refurbished a go-kart for him, one with pedals. It was after many, many years, that he brought it back for a repair this year; I have many returning customers like him.

Few people do this kind of work because it is labour-intensive, but not a big money-maker. You can only do it out of professional challenge and dedication, there is plenty of struggle with it.

How did you gain experience in deciding which type of bike is suitable for which type of injury?

I had the privilege of working in a medical team at the former State Institute for the Disabled, where we worked together with an orthopaedic doctor, physiotherapist and social worker. We worked together to find out which device would be suitable for a particular patient. There was a lot of professional work, as everyone saw different things from the perspective of their own specialty, and finally we managed to get people on the move who even their relatives hadn't thought they would ride a bike. One day, two gentlemen in suits came into my bike shop, which was already operating then, saying they were starting an association. From then on they invited me to two meetings a month with their disabled members, who could try out the equipment on the spot. There were so many kinds of disabilities there – people with no legs, no hands, blind people – that I could figure out their special needs. It was a greater opportunity for professional development than learning the trade from books.

I suppose such devices are not cheap. How can you guarantee that it's worth the customer's investment?

By playing it safe. There are also rental options, precisely so that we can decide what's right based on experience. We'll keep trying until we find one that's worth investing in. And of course, safety is the most important factor, so I take full professional responsibility for my work in that sense too. I've never had a problem. I've had some people for whom I've made a yellow bike - they've asked for it - so that they can be seen in traffic. I listen to all requests, and perhaps my upbringing has given me a kind of social sensitivity towards special people.

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This is how a mother takes her daughter to school on her converted Bringanti bicycle, they cycle 25 km twice a day - Photo: the Facebook page of Anna Balogh

Just knowing them will certainly mean a unique and rich experience...

I don't operate on a business basis but on a human basis. I get this amazing attitude from these people that nothing is impossible. I've made a tricycle for an artist who paints with his mouth and feet, which he essentially steered by moving his butt. And he rode it from one end of Budapest to the other. These are miracles. Or someone in the countryside who steers a four-wheeled recumbent bicycle with his trunk, with his sightless wife sitting behind him. They go with a backpack to the next village to buy goat's milk, take it home, make goat's cheese, and sell it.

Some so many intact people constantly whine and complain, whereas these people can do anything out of sheer willpower!

I meet people with tremendous spirit and a positive outlook on life.

I understand that this includes people with autism and Down's syndrome. What's it like to be working with them?

Recently, the parents of a little girl with autism wanted a pushchair bike that they could just push her onto and push. I told them to let her ride it because the most important thing in adolescence is to release energy and have a new experience. We tried, and she rode the bike like a captain riding a horse! You could see she had a lot of stamina. She smiled. And the parents were amazed to find out at the age of 14 what their child was really capable of. And in the summer we went hiking with a little girl with Down's. We were a little worried about whether she could handle six to eight hours on the bike, but she was smiling the whole way, talking to herself and holding her head in joy, shouting "Oh my God!" In her own little world, she was having fun, and feeling safe. She trusted me and my technique, she was happy with the scenery, and she said hi to everyone, of course, not everyone said hi back. I told her to leave it, they're dopey. Her next greeting was "Hi, Dopey!"

From your stories, I also understand that the lives of many people who have been living mainly within the four walls, even for years, could be made more colourful by providing them with the opportunity to get out...

This is what I encourage the relatives with, too. And I can usually find out what can be solved by which tool. And the people involved can learn to ride the bike, just as children learn when they're young. The key is that the bike should be personalized, and for this, it is of course important that I feel the prospective owner's vibes. Children and adults with autism and Down's syndrome are extremely sensitive, they can sense the approach of another person and their movements. I remember on a camping trip, I was washing a cooking pot with a watering can when a little girl with Down's who was considered difficult to handle came up to me curiously. We communicated with glances, posture, and body language, without a single spoken word. I still shudder when I think of it. Finally, she helped, she watered the pot, too, and we felt each other's vibes. That was a miracle too. I don't know if it's a skill that can be learned or if it's a gift.

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Photo: Antal Frank

I understand that you are already making special vehicles for the elderly, thus helping yet another group of people whose difficult living conditions can be alleviated in this way.

My elderly father now needs constant care, and after fifteen years I have bought back a tandem bike for us to sit side by side. I figured, now, here is a machine for my dad, we can ride it together if he wants to, he can pedal, but he can stop if he doesn't. At 7:30 in the evening, I took it over to his house in a trailer, and he staggered out with slippers and a stick: "What's this, son?" "Tomorrow we'll take this to get bread for mum," I said.

And he, who had been living in a darkened room on medication, was there the next morning in sweats and trainers – such was the impact of the sight of the bike!

I even joked about it saying:” What happened? Did mom kick you out?” Then, because he used to love fishing, I took him to a lake tens of kilometers away. Despite his illnesses, he was as happy as can be, he felt the morning wind again, and he could see the birds, the trees, and the colours that you can't see on TV. And his blood circulation and blood pressure changed. So, yes, a special bike can be useful for elderly care, because children are the future, but we also have to take care of our parents. We shouldn't write them off, we should give them opportunities, and we should trust them because what we can give with this to them is a gift to us. That's how I give back everything they gave me.
 

The Museum of Fine Arts organized a series of lectures on India, which has been independent for seventy-five years, with the support of the Embassy of India, the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asian Art, and the Indo-Hungarian Friendship Society. Among the speakers was Dr. Imre Lázár, a cultural diplomat, who gave an insight into the lives of women of Hungarian origin who have done much for independent India and the improvement of the social status of women in the country.

A Hungarian woman among Gandhi's followers

Mrs Aladár Vértessy's name was first mentioned by Ervin Baktay in an interview for "Radio Life": "There is a Hungarian woman living in Gándhi's settlement, completely according to the Indian customs." He called her a disciple of the Mahatma's inner circle. Little is known about her life, and sources do not all agree. For example, the Magyarság newspaper wrote of her in 1930 as follows: "Mrs. Aladár Vértessy was a celebrated beauty of Transylvania until a few years ago. In  Szováta, in a beauty contest held in the presence of Maria, the wife of the Romanian King, she won first prize for her beauty. Three years before she travelled to India, where she met Ghandi and became one of the Indian leader's most ardent supporters. As it is written from Temesvár when she returned home, she sold her Transylvanian castle, her land, her large forest, all her jewellery, her art treasures, and the money she had in the banks, and then she went to India again and entered a women's monastery founded by Gandhi in the depths of a jungle. She donated all her money to the monastery. She has her hair shaved, wears a cloak of animal hair, walks barefoot, works hard, and even begs from the miserable people of the area. All that she kept of her old life was her mother's portrait. Her only happiness is to exchange letters with Ghandi two or three times a year."

A member of the Nehru family of Hungarian origin

Magdolna Friedmann fled Hungary in 1935 to escape anti-Semitism.

She married into the family of the first Prime Minister of India - Jawaharlal Nehru - in 1935, marrying Braj Kumar Nehru, the Prime Minister's cousin.

This is how she became related to the first Prime Minister's daughter and son, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, who later also became the country's leaders. After the marriage, Magdolna Friedmann took the name Sobha Nehru. She was a direct witness and participant in India's struggle for independence and worked with all her might in the creation of a new, free country. At the time of the partition of India and Pakistan, she volunteered her services to the Emergency Committee set up by the government, of which she was the only woman member. She set up a welfare organisation that provided livelihoods for refugee women by selling their embroideries and handicrafts. Sobha Nehru passed away in 2017 at the age of one hundred and eight.

The young Hungarian girl and the ageing Bengali poet

Etelka Boglár met the Bengali poet Khanti Tsandra Gosh, twenty-five years her senior, in London. He told her about India, and then they parted ways but met again a few months later. Soon afterwards, a letter arrived at the Boglárs' apartment in Ferencváros. He asked her parents for her hand in marriage. According to photographs of the wedding, the ceremony took place in 1937 in Santiniketan, India. In one of them, she is shown in a tartan dress, with a bindi, or painted dot on her forehead, sitting Turkish-style. In the other, she is standing next to a grey-haired man with glasses, her husband. In the third picture, Eta and her husband are sitting in front of the entrance to a house. Between them, looking into the lens, is a grey-haired old man, none other than the famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. It is interesting to note that the founder of Santiniketan was Tagore's father, the great religious reformer and Hindu philosopher. The town was expanded by his son, the poet. Etelka lived near Tagore. Even as a widow, she remained in India, worked in the university library, and did much to promote independent India in Hungary.

Missionary sister who taught hundreds of Indian women to do needlework

Etelka Marton, known monastically as Sister Lenke, joined the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary in 1930 and arrived in Jabalpur, central India, in 1934. She arrived in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in 1968 but retained her Hungarian citizenship for the rest of her life.

Sister Lenke spent most of her time teaching poor women sent to her by priests from distant missions. The frail nun was respected and loved all her life.

On his 100th birthday in 2009, some two hundred and fifty women she once helped visited her. Over the decades of her ministry, she worked as a nurse, a mother of orphans, a sacristan, a gardener, and a catechism teacher. She taught more than five hundred poor, uneducated, and unemployed rural women to make handicrafts to earn a living. Sister Lenke died in 2011.

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Etelka Marton, aka Sister Lenke

Hungarian nun and the History of Art

Sister Edith Tömöry (1905-1998) was also a member of the order of Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. She came to Chennai (formerly Madras) in 1948, when the Stella Maris College, one of the first women's higher education institutions in independent India, was founded. In the same year, she established the Department of Arts, where she served as a senior lecturer and later as the head of the institution. Her book on the history of Indian and Western Fine Arts is still in use today.

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Sister Edith Tömöry

Mother Teresa of Olaszfa, helper of the poor in India

Born in 1921, Anna Ódor, known as Sister Teresa, was a member of the Ursulines, also known as the Order of Saint Ursula. She lived in India from 1949. During her more than half a century there, she did much for the upliftment of the poor. She built bridges, schools, hospitals, and roads, dug wells, and helped the people of India by passing on agricultural knowledge. Sister Teresa died in India in 2008, and people from many parts of the country came to her funeral. To mark the centenary of her birth, a memorial statue was unveiled in her honour in her birthplace, in Olaszfa. 

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Anna Ódor, also known as Sister Theresa

Artist mother and daughter who captured the beauty of India

The names of Erzsébet Sass-Brunner (1889-1950) and her daughter Erzsébet Brunner (1910-2001) are mentioned alongside the best-known travellers to India, namely Sándor Körösi Csoma and Ervin Baktay. They did not want to see the world but set out on a great journey out of devotion and a desire for spiritual and intellectual purification. 

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Erzséber Sass-Brunner and her husband

They arrived in India, known as the most beautiful diamond in the British crown, in 1930 and the country became their home for life. 

Mother and daughter, both painters, captured India's landscapes, sacred places, and the daily lives of ordinary people and painted the country's leading politicians.

They were attracted to the spiritual world, meditated, had visions, and were able to capture the spirit of India through their sensitivity and talent.
 

Family teamwork

Even as a child, Bálint Czimmer was learning the trade beside his father.  
"Dad is a cabinetmaker and my brother and I always helped him in the afternoons, after school, and at the weekends. He assembled the cupboards at home, which we took to the apartments and houses at weekends, where we installed the kitchen furniture. But if there were simple electrical installations, for example, we did that, too" he tells us of the early days.

It was actually by chance that he chose to become a painter. "At the end of eighth grade I couldn't decide what I wanted to be, I think a lot of people feel that way nowadays, too. My grades were not that good, so I didn't want to go to grammar school. In the end, I decided on painting and stonemasonry." That's how he ended up in Pécs, at the Mihály Pollack Technical School, which turned out to be a good choice. Bálint took a liking to interior painting, and his teachers noticed his talent and diligence.

With their encouragement, after four years of hard work, he qualified for the World Skills Championships (WordSkills) last year, where he came 5th, qualifying for this year's European Championships (EuroSkills).

At the beginning of September, in Gdansk, Poland, he stood on the top step of the podium among painters and decorative painters.

Hungary took part for the eighth time at the European vocational skills competition, also known as EuroSkills between 5-9 September. In Gdansk, 576 young people from 32 countries competed, with 26 of them representing Hungary in 22 events. In addition to Bálint Czimmer, gold medals were also awarded to János Hidvégi, web developer, Daniel Nagy, building carpenter, and Márton Offner, plumber and heating engineer. Tamás Bandúr and Zsolt Koncsik were European champions in the team competition for IT system operators.

Smooth as a sheet of paper

But what is the difference between an interior painter and a decorative painter? "We do wallpaper and door glazing in the same way as a painter, but we paint the wall so that it's almost as smooth as a sheet of paper. We then design the pattern on that surface and finally paint the motif freehand," explains Bálint Czimmer. At first glance, it sounds almost like art. "However, decorative painting is all about bound shapes, every task has to be done to the millimeter, so I think it's closer to architecture," he says.

Bálint lives with his family in Kölked, a village of 900 inhabitants. "We live in a family house where you can walk through the garden to my great-grandfather's house, which is now empty. There I took one of the rooms, scraped off the old paint, made the surface of the wall smooth, and practiced painting there." But he also commuted and travelled a lot to become a better interior painter. To prepare intensively for the competition, he had to move to Budapest. He practiced on weekdays and weekends - that's how he spent six months at the painting academy of a domestic paint manufacturer and distributor. The sponsoring company also supported his work with paints and tools.

"I practiced from morning till night, and when the competition was approaching, I had practice to work on time, so I had to schedule every second," he says.

While preparing for the competition this year, he even had to complete the graduate exams at his high school – for which he studied over the weekends, because of the tight work schedule. He took the tests in Mohács on Saturday, and on Sunday, he left for the Championship. 

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Bálint with his master Csaba Csáki - Photo: Bálint Czimmer

"I didn't want to believe it"

A world competition like this is a huge stress, but not for Bálint. "I'm not the nervous type," he says, and it shows. Nevertheless, he has received mental preparation, and at the end of each working day, he talks through the difficulties with a psychologist. "They say 60 percent depends on how mentally strong you are at the competition," he says.

At the European Championships in Poland, the painting competitors had to work for a total of 18 hours spread over three days. On the first day, they started with wallpapering: they had to prepare four colours by blending and paint them on the sample board. On the second day, they were given an hour and a half for the speed task. The last day was left for the design task, the door painting, and a project of their choice. The latter was an antique tile painting. The design task was to paint a simplified replica of a building on the waterfront in Gdansk on the wall, which was the best for Bálint and luckily the one that scored the most points. In total, he scored 84 out of 100 points to come out first place.

He was the last to be called to the stage when the results were announced. "I couldn't believe it," he recalls the big moment.

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Photo: Bálint Czimmer

A twenty-year-old Mr. Teacher

More than two months after the event, Bálint is getting used to seeing his name in the press more and more. Meanwhile, since November, he has not only been a European champion painter and decorative painter, but also an instructor, having been invited back to teach at his former school. 
"It's a strange feeling because some students are older than me. It's difficult for them to call me 'teacher', but they do try (laughs). My goal is to help those who are truly interested in the profession, and I even give them special tuition. They shouldn't be pulled down by peers who are only in the class because they have to be," he explains.

From the technical school in Pécs, they also go to train young people in Transylvania. Bálint would like to start his own business in a few years and plans to apply to the University of Pécs to become an architect.
"I recently worked in an apartment where one wall was red and the other green. I made samples of marble glue and repainted the walls to match the colour scheme.

"In just a few days you can transform an apartment to make you feel like you're entering a completely different place," he says when I ask him why he thinks painting rooms is a beautiful profession. 

"I'm grateful to my instructors, including Csaba Csáki, with whom I prepared for the competitions, and Péter Wensofszky, under whom I had an internship during my school years, he made me fall in love with the profession. Also, my family and all the people around me, because I owe this success to them," he adds. 

(Csaba Csáki, a master interior painter and decorator, was nominated for the Prima Primissima Award in the Hungarian Education and Public Education category this year.)
 

"I was already familiar with steam engines because they ran in the street where I grew up. That's why I was so interested in the little forty-centimetre steam engine, which was a locomotive: the steam engine was lying on top of the little boiler. This was the type of agricultural machinery of the old days, much larger of course, when tractors with explosive engines were not used in the fields. The man who had it in his yard later put four wheels on it and put it on rails, and made a small track in front of his house, and there it waddled along. He even let me sit on it." 

"It left such a deep impression on me that the idea of building a small steam engine has stayed with me for the rest of my life."

His parents also saw how interested Kálman was in mechanical engineering, so as a secondary school student, they enrolled him at the Jenő Landler Technical Highschool of Transmission and Transport Engineering in Újpest, which was an excellent school in the 1960s (now Bilingual Technical Highschool in Újpest). Engineers taught the theory of technical subjects, but it also had very well-equipped facilities where theory could be put into practice. The knowledge of materials was essential, and students were able to see the crystal structures of metals and alloys in the technology lab. They were taught about the properties of different materials, such as strength, hardness, the modifying effects of metal contaminants, and their utilization. They also learned about heat treatment, which creates new crystal structures; and about the transformation of materials, such as forging, pressing, casting... The school had a very well-equipped forge. "In the first year, we learned how to use hand tools in the workshops. This seems a bit redundant nowadays in the age of machines - but they have their role, I used hand tools when I was making the engine," says Kálmán Varga.

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Parts of Kálmán Varga's steam engine in the workshop - Photo: Kálmán Varga

They were also taught welding procedures, which they then learned in practice for a year, and in the final year they learned how to use machine tools such as lathes, planers and grinders. "Mechanics came into our curriculum from the second year onwards, it was a very tough subject, they said if you didn't fail it you could pass your school-leaving exams. We learned about all the different types of loads that can occur when using materials. With this knowledge, we designed and drew. We also had a subject called kinetics: we learned about free and forced motions, aerodynamics, for example; thermodynamics - the thermodynamics of steam was also the basis for the construction of my locomotive," recalls Kálmán Varga. Mathematics, Hungarian, and History were subjects for their school-leaving exams, just like in other high schools. Today, the "Landler" is a school history concept and a pride of Újpest's history.

"I've used a lot of this theoretical and practical knowledge to build the locomotive. Just one example: when I was fitting the locomotive wheel to the axle, I needed to know the dimensional tolerances that would create this tight fit. Of course, there are technical charts, but you also need to understand why something is necessary," explains Kálmán Varga.

He started his work as a standards technologist at Izzo, and then improved his knowledge of thermal engineering at the Budapest Waste Utilisation Plant, where the basis was steam - albeit at much higher temperatures and pressures than for a locomotive or engine.

"By the time I retired, I had all the theoretical and practical knowledge I needed, as well as a lot of technical resources - my own workshop, tools, materials - and free time." 

"I spent five years meticulously building the locomotive and a carriage for two passengers, all by my own hand. I made a track around our house in the garden. I would like to extend it to the back of the garden. I plan another twenty years of work: I want to build stations, a semaphore, a wagon turner, a heating house, and a rail yard." 

The locomotive is two meters long, including the wagon, which carries the water and the wood - the driver sits on top of it, and heats the engine from here while it is running. 
Apart from the working principle, no existing large locomotive type has been used as a model, it is entirely the creator's imagination. The engine driver has to feed enough steam by opening and closing a tap on the two steam engines to provide sufficient power for starts and steady progress, but without the wheels spinning. The steam injection is used to control the speed of the locomotive. The cold engine is heated with charcoal, but then only wood is added to the fire from time to time to ensure that steam is continuously generated. "That's what got me when I was a kid, putting wood on the fire," says Kálmán with a smile.

A ride in the garden with the little train is a wonderful experience, awakening in adults the child that sleeps deep in their souls and is often repressed. And the children take part in the journey, with awe-inspiring joy and sparkling eyes. In a journey that is both fairytale and real. Such an experience is very rare today. Even the creator, Kálmán Varga, almost turns back into a ten-year-old boy, and he doesn't mind if his face gets sooty as he – like a serious train driver – makes the rounds with his grandchildren or interested adult relatives behind him. And those to whom he gives the responsibility of driving the locomotive feel honoured.

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The rail road in the garden - Photo: Lívia Kölnei

Passers-by, children and adults alike, still stop by our fence and marvel at the little engine that whistles. Sometimes they even ask a question that shows how distant the steam engine is from people today, how they can't understand how it works. They ask: "I understand that it's a steam engine, but how does it work, what makes it run?"
 

István is a bearish-looking man with a strong brown beard and a tattoo on his arm carrying a two-and-a-half-year-old boy called Timoti.

Did you think about adoption before this little one came into your life?

Yes, but they were only vague thoughts, but fate decided that if I didn't move first, she would... I loved living abroad, I was happy in my little world, and I didn't feel ready to have children. But I knew I wanted to be a father one day. When my nephew's parents divorced, I remained a father figure for him, I was involved in his life from abroad, I helped him financially, and I followed his life. This thread was important to me.

What was your life like before you had the baby?

I am a CNC bender, using a microcomputer-controlled machine tool, a sought-after, marketable skill. From 2014 I lived in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Finland for eight years. I loved living in all of those countries; I was accepted and recognized for my skills. I got to the point where I was free to choose where I worked, how much I was paid, and what accommodation I lived in. In many places it's a project-based job, so when a company stopped working on a project, I moved on, changed cities, and countries, and got to know a new climate, and new people. Finland was my favourite, because although the conditions there were very simple, the forest, and the pine trees were just a stone's throw away... I had long-lasting relationships, but it didn’t help that I had to travel a lot, or that I had to send part of my salary home to my nephew. His mother didn't earn enough to keep up a mortgaged house.

Despite this, I was carefree, free, well-off, and had a successful international career. I loved the fact that I could be at the top of my list.

Which country were you in when you found out your nephew had become a father?

I was in Germany at the time. My nephew had left school for a girl at the time, and although they were both just over 18, the baby 'checked in'. Even during the pregnancy, there were many signs that they would not be able to cope. The mother complained of self-harming thoughts at pregnancy examinations, and they were soon on the radar of the child protection system. The Family Support Service gave the mother increasingly strict terms and conditions and by the time the baby was four months old, she had to phone the Service every day. By then I had taken my nephew to work with me in Germany, teaching him my trade so that he could support his family. One morning, my phone rang, the police called me from Hungary, saying they couldn't reach my mother. They were worried about the baby, so they finally entered the property and found the mother with the four-month-old baby. They were asleep in the double bed, the mum hadn't heard the siren... We immediately left Germany, put all our stuff in the car, and travelled all day. On the way we talked about the scenery, not a word about the alarming events we had been hearing about for some time.

It seems a drastic step to quit your job, pack your bags, leave your home, and completely close down that part of your life.

Family Support invited me to the case conference to explore the problem, and it wasn't a question that I had to be there. There we learned that the mother was mentally unfit to raise the child and therefore he was being removed from the family. The question was then raised as to whether someone from the family would take him in or whether he should be placed in an orphanage.

I knew that I would have to give up my whole life if I came forward, I was overwhelmed and my heart started to race, but suddenly I said: I'm taking him home.

I am a realistic person, but at the time I was guided by my feelings, I said yes almost before I thought about it. In five minutes I became a father, although I didn't want to, not even the Virgin Mary was so unprepared for the coming of baby Jesus. Timoti was four and a half months old at the time, and I went home with him without knowing what size diaper he was using. At first, my godmother helped me, but the sore bottom, the teething, and the hospitalization due to asthma took their toll on me too. It was only supposed to be a few months. Both the baby's grandmother and my own mother advised us to give the baby up for adoption because it wouldn't work, but I was hooked by then. I couldn't bear not to see him, not to hold him.

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Photos: István

All of a sudden you find yourself with a five-month-old baby. How was your first night?

Getting up at night was a new experience, the intermittent sleeping, bathing a poopy baby at night... Changing diapers, bathing, lulling, feeding, everything was new but I did it on instinct.

How did the baby take it when a big man with a stubbly chin just took over from an 18-year-old girl?

Timoti loved me from the first moment he met me and grinned at me with his mouth full. It was me who chose his name when he was born. However, after a few months, we had to move out of my godmother's house because she was collapsing under the weight of what had happened. Eventually, the family services told me I could choose to move into a Family Transition Home, find a flat to rent, or have the child removed from the family. I didn't want to let Timoti down, so we got out of the situation by renting a small apartment in Vaja, a town of barely a few thousand people. It took two days to decide and move, and here in Vaja, we finally have our own little life together. In Jászberény, Timoti was already in daycare and I had a job, but here I had to start looking for a job all over again. It was not easy to get my employer to accept that I was raising a small child on my own, that I would have to take sick leave from time to time, and that I could not work three shifts.

I never thought in my life that life with a baby could be so difficult, hats off to the women!

Do you think that your life will be like this?

In our two years together we have grown together and I am everything to Timoti. If he were taken away from me, I'd have my life back, but it wouldn't be good for him. If I knew he was going to a place where he would be loved and cared for, I might be able to reconcile with that, but there is no such place. In the meantime, I have become a father, and it overrides all my rational consideration that no matter how many rituals I use to put him to sleep in his own bed, he will appear at night, crawl into my bed, and cuddle my neck. All the difficulties disappear when he starts saying, "Daddy!" I was the first to see him get up and walk, and I heard his first words. These are things that are not rational, but they work.

What are your plans for the long run?

I hope to get a job abroad and take my little boy with me. It's hard because in my profession it's hard to find a job with only day shifts. So far, my experience here in Hungary is that although employers are impressed with my skills and experience, as soon as they find out that I have a kid at home, they back out.

For me, the biggest help right now would be a secure job.

I think, maybe a mother can best understand what the difficulty is for me in being pretty much cooped up here with Timoti, with no adult activities. And women aren't exactly happy when they find out I'm a single father. Grocery store, post office, doctor's office - these are the places of my life. Timoti is adored in the village, at the nursery, and at the shop, he's the favourite everywhere.

"Terrible is the temptation to do good," ponders the maid in Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle, who has one minute to decide to save the abandoned baby, taking on the role of the fallen girl in a male-centric society. One minute to make a decision that will last a lifetime. And even today, some people experience this kind of temptation to do the right thing.
 

On a late autumn day, eight people are waiting on the quay in Újpest, between warehouses built into the retaining wall. One of them is a young woman who is being smeared with jam from a jar by Raoul Wallenberg. Meanwhile, Géza Soos, Pál Szalai, Budapest’s police commander, Wallenberg's driver, two armed officers, and the woman's husband wait for their guard to give the signal. They are waiting for a lorry on which the Germans are reportedly transporting prisoner-of-war airmen and Polish Jews. 

When the signal arrives, the woman crawls out into the road, with the currant jelly that looks like blood on her head, and waves to the approaching car, asking for help.

The lorry slows down and then stops. The driver and his armed guard get out, but at that moment the hiding men surround them and disarm them and the two German soldiers guarding the prisoners in the back. The 14 freed prisoners are given civilian clothes and taken to a safe place. The four soldiers are also re-dressed, hidden by Géza Soos, and released in December in exchange for the release of 40 Jews. This 1944 incident was described by Lajos Koncz in the magazine Beszélő, based on Wallenberg's diary.

This was not a single incident, Géza Soos dedicated his entire life to helping and saving others and to doing what was in the best interest of his country and what the Bible instructed him to do. He is an undeservedly forgotten hero of twentieth-century Hungarian history.

The right way is to help

– You're not going to strangle this child – said Géza Soos, then a teenager, to a desperate pregnant woman in the Mária Valéria slum.
– But who will get him food? Who will give him clothes? Who will baptize him?
– We will.
This is how Géza Soos and Zsófia Naszádi, two high school students from Kőbánya, became the godparents of the unborn child, little Zsófia, and the saviours of her life.

Géza Soos, born in 1912, was a student at the Szent László High School in Kőbánya, Budapest, where he and his peers regularly helped families in the Auguszta and Mária Valéria slums.

He became involved in Reformed youth organizations at an early age, serving as secretary general of the Soli Deo Gloria Reformed Students' Union at the age of 22 and president at the age of 24. He also gave the graduation speech of his class, and already then he expressed the idea that the spread of poverty and disease was "driving Hungarian life deeper and deeper with a loud avalanche", and that the only way forward was to help. In this 1930 school speech, Géza Soos's whole life is already contained.

At the same time, he was never satisfied with himself, he wrote in one account: "I was SDG's most despicable worker [...] but the Lord's grace is greater than our weaknesses." Géza Soos, after graduating from law school in 1935, continued to travel the country while working, speaking to young people about his faith, the social situation of Hungarian society, and the Nazi threat to the nation.

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Géza Soos with his parents, sister Edit Soos, and aunt in 1934 - Photo: sdg.org.hu

In capital letters in Wallenberg's calendar

The outbreak of the Second World War found the young official working in the Information Department under Prime Minister Pál Teleki, and after Teleki's suicide, he was transferred to the Foreign Ministry. He used his government positions to counter the German advance, rescue the persecuted, and assess the possibility of a way out of the war. In 1943, he helped to organize the Conference at the Soli Deo Gloria Reformed Students' Association camp in the village of Balatonszárszó. Géza Soos guaranteed the government that the occasion would not be used for anti-government activities.

After the German occupation of Hungary, the rescue of the persecuted Jews became a priority, and people were driven to the SDG camps in the diplomatic car acquired by Géza Soos, where as many persecuted people as possible were hidden.

But the homes of the members and leaders of the Soli Deo Gloria Reformed Students' Association and the Hungarian Community, which later became famous for the trial, were also full of hidden people. Pastors, priests, state employees, and secret printers produced fake baptismal certificates for Jews. Soos played a very important role in getting the report, known as the Auschwitz Protocol, to Governor Miklós Horthy, who stopped the deportation of Jews from Budapest.

When Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest, one of the first things he did was to contact Géza Soos, whose name was written in capital letters in his diary. An example of their joint activities is the story told at the beginning of this article. For understandable reasons, there is only limited information on exactly how many people they saved.

Stealing a military aircraft

Although the Germans did not take direct action against Géza Soos, who worked in the Foreign Ministry, for a long time, after the Arrow Cross takeover he was forced to go into hiding, for example in the attic of Pastor Dezső Fónyad in Monor. After the arrest of the leaders of the resistance, including Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky, Géza Soos said goodbye to his pregnant wife Ilona Tüdős, and set off with his fellows to carry out a plan worthy of an action film.

On the night of December 8-9, 1944, a small group snuck onto the military airfield in Pápa, climbed onto a Heinkel He-111 bomber plane with German supremacy markings waiting there, and took off at dawn, stealing the military plane in the middle of a war.

It was not only the potential chasers that they had to worry about, Allied forces were already flying in the opposite direction over the Adriatic Sea. Off the coast of Italy, American fighter jets forced them to land. An interesting group got off the plane: Air Force Major Domokos Hadnagy with his wife and their one-and-a-half-year-old child, first lieutenant Árpád Toperczer, Sergeant Sándor Rakovich, an engine mechanic, Géza Soos and J. A. Bentinck, a Dutch lieutenant who had escaped from German captivity. Among other evidence, they brought the English translation of the Auschwitz Protocol to the Allies, including news of the Hungarian resistance.

An honest man cannot cooperate with the communists

The passengers of the plane were under suspicion, and interrogated for months by British and American officers as prisoners of war. Meanwhile, in Budapest, Géza Soos's daughter was born, and Soos's mother and elder daughter Ildi died in the besieged city. The next time he met his family was in Geneva after the war. It was here that he completed his theology studies after a brief attempt to return home. He wrote: "In 1946, in Budapest, the Communists again tried to kill me because I refused to join the communist party or at least sign the declaration of obedience. [...] I soon realized that there is no way out: an honest man cannot cooperate with the communists."
In Germany, he was engaged in the pastoral care of some 14,000 Hungarians, as well as Czech, Ukrainian, Polish, and Latvian Protestants who were stranded there. In November 1948, he travelled 3,380 km by car and 1,750 km by train, finding some of them in such misery that he gave them his last pennies and sometimes even his change of clothes. In 1951, at the invitation of the Hungarian-Americans, he moved to the United States with his wife and five children.

He has cared for the diaspora, taught at universities and lectured in church and other communities. He also became one of the editors of the Új Magyar Út (’New Hungarian Way’) magazine, writing articles.

He became known to the entire Hungarian immigrant community.

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Géza Soos baptizes the child of a Hungarian refugee family in Germany - Photo: Mint a Jézus Krisztus jó vitéze ('As the Good Soldier of Jesus Christ')... Bp., 1989

The only way home

On September 5, 1953, despite a raging storm, Géza Soos got into a car with Ferenc Koszorús to preach at the Pittsburgh Reformed Church. Due to poor visibility after a bend in the road, Soos' car suddenly crashed into the bridge abutment. Ferenc Koszorús was unconscious and seriously injured, and Soos rushed to a nearby family home to seek help. He helped lift Koszorús into the ambulance and then sat down next to the driver. On the way, he complained of feeling unwell and then fell off the seat. At the hospital, only his death could be confirmed. He was only 41 years old. Géza Soos was laid to rest in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. At his funeral, Albert Wass said about him: "A giant tree has fallen, Hungarians! A huge mountain has fallen: a cliff. Hungarians all over the world: if you want to repay him for what he did for you, follow the path he marked. Every Hungarian should know - these are the words of Géza Soos - that there is only one way home. The way of love and humility in Christ."
 

From autumn in Pest to summer in Melbourne

The 1956 Summer Olympics were held in Melbourne, Australia. The legendary Hungarian water polo team, which would have had a good chance of winning this time too, arrived that year in a rather shattered condition. They were both mentally and physically exhausted because, by the time the Olympic flame was lit in Melbourne on 11 November, the flame of the Hungarian Revolution had already been extinguished in blood by Russian tanks.

The national team was due to depart on 24 October, but the French airline carrying the Olympic team did not take the risk of landing at Ferihegy, Hungary, in those turbulent times. In the end, they agreed to go as far as Prague, Czechoslovakia, and, after some delays, to get the Hungarian team to Australia. In order for the water polo team to catch the bus to Czechoslovakia, team captain Dezső Gyarmati had to be dragged back from the barricades, and young Ervin Zádor, who wanted to say goodbye to his mother, had to walk 25 kilometers across the war-torn countryside to reach the camp.

Finally, the bus did roll out, with the players on the seats deep in thought.

The Hungarian national team had not been able to have training in a pool for three weeks by then and were waiting in a closed training camp to see what the politicians would decide about their fate. They didn't know whether they would even make it to the Olympics, just as they didn't know what would happen to their loved ones at home, and if they got out of the country to the West, whether they would be able to come back. Everything was uncertain, except that if they could play, they would do whatever it took to win for the national flag! The Hungarian team arrived almost at the eleventh hour from a dreary November to a glorious Melbourne summer. There was no time for the planned acclimatization either, with the stake matches starting soon. In the final of three, Yugoslavia was joined by the Soviet Union, and news of the match attracted an incredible crowd to the pool.

Water meant freedom

What did water polo mean and what does it still mean for Hungarians? The Hungarian public and the Hungarian soul have always looked upon the polo players as heroes, and they have repaid this unreserved love with wonderful results. This small country, which has neither ocean nor sea, produces water sports champions every year, and in water polo Hungary, despite its small size, is a world power, even a legend. Water polo is not just a matter of stamina and endurance, but also of strategy and cunning. Water polo players can swim several kilometers in a match without being able to rest on the floating medium; the ball is whizzing along like a car on a highway, passes are quick and accurate; and underwater, there is a constant battle for position. In water polo, as in hockey, only flags are issued for flagrant infringements, and the water covers up a lot... That's why it hasn't become a sport for the reserved Englishmen, for example, but it's in the blood of Hungarians.

When a muscular player rises out of the water up to his waist and throws, we can easily imagine that he’d even be able to walk on that water if he wanted to. 

The sophisticated and aggressive game is close to the Hungarian mindset, and over the years it has become a symbol of Hungarian uniqueness. "In Hungary, every water has a different taste," said our Olympic champion Miklós Martin, nicknamed Buci ("Bun") by his teammates because of his bun-round face.

During the socialist era, sport played a prominent role in Hungarian public life and communities, as it remained almost the only legal form of self-expression. Professional sportsmen and women were much freer than the average person, they could travel beyond the Iron Curtain and only had to work on paper. However, these privileges went hand in hand with the political leadership's use of athletes for its own propaganda purposes, using their achievements to justify the success and legitimacy of the socialist system. This special status offered even players from disadvantaged, aristocratic backgrounds hopes of avoiding marginalization. Water polo opened doors and created a world of its own, which was, and maybe still is, passed down from father to son. Water meant freedom.

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The Hungarian delegation at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Melbourne - Photo: Fortepan/Imre Sárosi

The pool was simmering beneath the surface

During the communist era, the excellence of the water polo players was envied even by the leader of the Soviet party state, Stalin, who sent the Soviet water polo team to Hungary to learn.

The Hungarian training program included skiing, on which swimming and ball-handling techniques were later built. The Russian coaches were diligently taking notes in our stands, learning how the Hungarians solved all the elements from movement, how they shot using a turn, and then copied the training plans and took all the knowledge home. At the Helsinki Olympics, there was even a possibility that the Hungarian team might concede the match to the Soviet team. It was not their idea... By 1956, the Russian team was a serious threat to the Hungarian boys, and they were beginning to outgrow their masters.

"Whatever you decide, let's win the Olympics first," captain Dezső Gyarmati told the troubled team, many of whom were considering not returning to Hungary after the Games. And the match began. In the Melbourne stands on that legendary afternoon - 6 December 1956, a month after the Hungarian Revolution was crushed in blood - eight thousand people packed into six thousand seats, many of them paying £30-£40 for a two-pound ticket. The spectators were aware of what was happening in Hungary and stood with the oppressed state, whose citizens were trying to win their freedom against a powerful aggressor.

The Russian national team already received a huge backlash when they came out of the dressing room with CCCP-emblazoned on their jerseys. The same inscription was also on the Soviet tanks that the Australian audience saw on the news... The humid atmosphere was extremely tense, which the Swedish referee was well aware of. In the first quarter, the Hungarians scored from a penalty that the referee had retaken after the failed shot, and at the moment of its launch, the Soviet goalkeeper was not even fully prepared for the shot. The Soviet players' tempers were running high, with the pool simmering with tension beneath the surface. 

"I felt like I had five liters of soda fizzing in my head," said Ervin Zádor, the youngest player on the team.

A bloody outcome 

The Hungarian team used a new strategy in the game, which they had come up with the night before in the hotel: a zone defense, which had never been used in the pool at the Olympics before. They also defended the forwards with a tight man-to-man defense. This unexpected strategy confused the opponents, who could not shoot at all from close range, and their long-range shots were defended by Otto Boros. This really unnerved the opposing players. Georgij Msvenieradze, the two-handed shooter, started swearing and fighting incredibly in the water, and the Hungarian players replied to it neither silently nor idly. We were leading 4-0 with only a few minutes left in the game when the players switched to a violent style.

Ervin Zádor admitted later that he had not used his most sophisticated vocabulary, and although Valentyin Prokopov, the giant Soviet player, probably did not speak Hungarian, he broke the skin under Zádor's eyes with a full-force underwater elbow strike. He rose out of the water towering like an angry Loch Ness monster. It was a big blow, bleeding profusely, and it quickly stained the pool pink. The crowd roared, and at that moment the Hungarian player became an epic symbol of the Hungarian fight for freedom.

With good strategic sense, he did not get out of the water on the dressing room side, but walked along the front of the grandstand, blood pouring from his eyes and running down his wet chest, almost covered in blood on his upper body.

The photograph taken of him at that moment spread around the world and became a symbol of the crushing of a small state.

As emotions ran out of control, the referee called the game off one minute before time, and the Hungarians won. The crowd jumped over the barrier, the Soviet players walked out amidst a line of police, and the usual handshakes didn't happen. Spectators chanted "Hungary, Budapest!". And the ball was floating gently on the water.

A lesser-known detail of the story is that the match against the Soviet Union was not the Olympic final: it came afterward against the very talented Yugoslavian national team, and Ervin Zádor was not allowed to play in this match, despite his pleas to his coach. Propokov's huge blow could not change that match, but it still threatened our Olympic gold medal. But the Hungarian team won that match too. We showed the world that in conditions where seven men fight seven men, where the rules are the same for everyone, where there is no dictatorship, no informer network, and no iron curtain, we are capable of winning. Without tanks – with a ball.

The members of the Hungarian water polo team at the 1956 Olympics were: Antal Bolvári, Ottó Boros, Dezső Gyarmati, István Hevesi, László Jeney, Tivadar Kanizsa, György Kárpáti, Kálmán Markovits, Mihály Mayer, István Szívós and Ervin Zádor.