00:00:00.000 - 00:00:13.000

[audio cuts out] certainly catching quite a heavy one. I called it again, 11 degrees and there it was just 52. And that's it from me. Childwatch, a special live programme coming to BBC One.

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I never told anyone what happened, because no one ever asked me. Adults sometimes don't believe children, but they should do, because they don't make up stories like that. Childwatch has undertaken one of the biggest national surveys into cruelty to children. children. Tragically, well over a million children in this country are suffering

00:00:32.080 - 00:00:47.080

now as a result of cruelty. Victims like Catherine, who wants today's children to get the help and support she never had. At least they know they're not alone and there's somebody out there somewhere who cares. And perhaps one of these days, you know, they can go to them for help.

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On Child Watch we shall be launching the first national free telephone service for children in trouble or danger and looking at positive ways of helping them. Help us keep our children safe. [Children singing]

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Child Watch, a week tomorrow on BBC One. In Sports Night tonight, there's European football, international snooker and amateur boxing. And it all begins at 10.50. First on BBC One, a revolution remembered.

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Thirty years ago tomorrow, the Hungarian people rose in revolt against the Soviet occupation of their country. Tonight some of those who survived salute those of their friends who died and with the aid of often harrowing actuality film recall the revolution in which they took part.

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[ Sound Effects ] [Music] [MUSIC PLAYING] [GUNSHOT]

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[GUNSHOTS] [MUSIC PLAYING] [GUNSHOT] [MUSIC PLAYING]

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(chanting in foreign language) - X-ray mobile, good afternoon. - Danny Benedetti now drives a taxi outside Manchester. 30 years ago, he was an apprentice metal worker

00:03:09.740 - 00:03:31.060

in Budapest. As a young lad I was brought up with the ideals of an independent Hungary and a free Hungary. I regarded myself as one Hungarian who was doing what everyone else was doing. The thought of being a revolutionary as such didn't come to me till much later.

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Véla Liptak is a consultant engineer in Connecticut. In 1956 he was a university student in Hungary. Most people I think go through life without being able to say that this was or that was the moment which changed my life.

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That kind of an experience is very special. What we had there was two three thousand students myself 20 year old at the time We want human rights and we don't want any form of oppression No

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Nation should ever occupy another Lucy Sulloy is an estate agent in New York. She was still at school when she saw the uprising begin I was only 14, but I had a mind of my own at the age of 14 and I knew that we had to do something to free our country. So I just joined up.

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Greg Pongratz is now a pig farmer in Arizona. That autumn in 1956, he was helping to manage a farm outside Budapest. I was 24 years old at that time and I was working in a state farm just about 60 miles from Budapest.

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When I heard that it's fighting in Budapest and what's going on, in the beginning I just didn't believe that. I said it's impossible. Against the communist system, there is no revolution.

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It never was fun. It began with a march that no one in Hungary thought could happen. For years to whisper complaint against the Soviet Union and the ruling communist regime was to risk imprisonment or death. Now thousands of university students were demonstrating openly against the repression under which all Hungarians lived.

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Even soldiers in the street looked on with approval. When we did march out there was that tremendous applause and Emotion and strangers running up to kiss and hug and It's hard to describe

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In words and then as we marched We seen other spontaneous signs Like, you know, the first thing to do, people walk out on their balconies and wave and applaud

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and what do they wave? They wave flags. And then one lady up on the third floor noticed that what she was waving was a Hungarian flag with a Russian insignia.

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And without any thought, she just went in, got a pair of scissors, cut out the Russian insignia and those thousands of people on the street applauded because that's exactly what they would have done. Those days were just very spontaneous, everybody knew exactly what to do. Workers returning home from their offices and factories joined the march,

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ordinary people who felt they'd been trampled on too long. There was an awful lot of red, white and green flags and various slogans about "Russkies go home" and stuff like that, and I just couldn't believe it. They're all talking about independence for Hungary and it's time the bugger went, but they didn't want him in the first place. Soviet tanks had first rolled into Hungary in the winter of 1944. They came as liberators after the Nazis, but were to stay on as masters.

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On paper, Stalin had agreed to allow the people to set up their own democracy. It was a promise that proved worthless. As the Cold War divided Europe,

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dissent became a luxury the Soviet Union could not afford. They wanted Hungary to be run by a pro-Stalin communist government, and they had the means to impose it.

00:08:03.380 - 00:08:13.900

The Soviets had brought with them their own brand of Moscow-trained Hungarian communists. Their leader was Matyash Rakoshin. their weapon, the Árvó, the hated secret police.

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Over the next few years, Rakosi and his regime suppressed all opposition to the Communist Party. At one point it was said no less than 5% of the entire population had spent time in jail.

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A joke circulated, there are still three classes of people in the new Hungary, those who have been in prison, those who are in prison, and those who are going to prison.

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You have to understand the feeling of a people as such, a million of people. The feeling, the way they were treated, the circumstances they had to live, the feelings towards people who were among them and pointed out and put in charge of a horrible experiment which was going on in Hungary.

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- I have been a factory worker. The conditions there was very desperate. They introduced a inhumane piecework system and they squeezed the last drop of energy

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out of our workers. And they speeded things up and they demanded higher performance for less and less and less.

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So our standard of living declined steadily. We couldn't even eat decent. Buying a winter coat was a major investment. Several family member had to work together as a unit

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and make a plan who gonna get a winter coat next. - The economic plan was a disaster. Workers in whose name the People's Republic had been set up found their life becoming intolerable.

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But to protest was a crime. - One of our worker lost the self-control. Before payday, he ran out altogether. He had a large family, and he was addicted to cigarettes.

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And he was bombing cigarettes. Then he lost his nerves and ran out in the middle of the shop. Here I am. I worked all through my life, and like a bum,

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I'm begging for a lousy cigarette. I don't know how to buy bread and milk next day for my children. And he start cussing the regime and the Soviet Union.

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He disappeared, and the propaganda brigade put up next day big signs all over. so and so has been sentenced by people's court for agitation against the great Soviet Union and our socialist regime.

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So October the 23rd, 1956 was a revelation. People came out into the open to raise a banner for freedom and discovered they were not alone. The crowd was told about the 16 Points, a a program of peaceful change drawn up by the students. One of the organizers, still living in Hungary,

00:11:03.460 - 00:11:15.880

was Imre Metsch. The whole square was filled with people. We came here because one of the heroes of the 48th War of Independence of General Benjosef was a Polish-born man.

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He fought against the Russians, he fought for our freedom, and at this time we organized a sympathy demonstration next to the Poles. A student climbed up the stairs and said the 16 points, from which the first point was to get the Soviet troops to go home.

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Russians out. That was the main demand. The students also wanted free elections, a legal opposition and freedom from censorship. Their hopes were high. Soviet troops had withdrawn from Austria a year earlier and just two days before Poland had won substantial concessions from the Soviet leadership. They sang their national anthem.

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The first stirrings of hope for the people of Hungary had been the death of Stalin three years before. Stalin, that was fantastic good news, you know. It was really like winning the sweepstakes.

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And we really hope that something will happen and quite suddenly. And Stalin was without doubt the most hated person in Hungary. We hated him religiously, you might say. A 50-foot monument to the man they hated stood in the city centre.

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That afternoon, the demonstrators swarmed around it. workers cut through the brazen legs and toppled Stalin from his marble pedestal. Stalin's leg was caught at the knee and then we also had the cables on and then we started pulling. Then when it was nearly caught through with the blowtorch

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from the back of the knee then it came down. I do remember the sound it's an incredibly eerie sound. It's a sigh of relief. You know, it's almost like a sound of sexual pleasure. I never quite, it's a very eerie sound and I still remember it. I even remember it in my dreams. It was an incredible sound of several thousand people giving a sigh of

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joy. I had a great sense of making history and we thought that the whole world was looking and everybody in the world is happy. Even days after, I don't know how, but his head ended up a considerable distance away.

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And people, they'd be casually walking down the street and all of a sudden they'd get a little hammer and start tapping at him and take a piece of souvenir. And it was a common thing,

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"Have you got a piece of Stalin to keep for the future?" It was really hitting at the symbol of old-fashioned. It would have been similar if, let's say, if let's say you come out of the death camps and pull down the statue of Hitler

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or something, or the SS sign, it was really the symbol of everything we hated. It was the most visible and manifest sign and symbol of Soviet occupation. Another group of demonstrators made for what are still the headquarters of Hungarian radio. They wanted their 16 points to be broadcast to the whole

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nation. The authorities allowed a delegation into the building to negotiate, but outside with no news of progress, the crowd grew restless. Suddenly a detachment of the ARVO, the secret police, opened fire on the demonstrators. [gunfire]

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All of a sudden, a burst of what appeared to be Tommy gunfire, presumably over the heads initially. And then I remember a chap falling on the floor next to me. And he must have had a severe wound,

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because within minutes, there was blood everywhere on the pavement. And as you were sort of walking in this blood, you could feel it under your feet and everything.

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I think people whisked him away to give him first aid. At which point they opened up fire again at us and a shout came over that let's go to the barracks to get something to fire back at them.

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- Saw quite a few dead people by that time and we got as close as maybe a half a mile from the radio station. By that time it was about 10, 30, 11 o'clock

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and my sister was very, very scared, so we decided to go home. And we caught a streetcar going home, and on our way home, there's a big armory, and there were soldiers on a streetcar that we were riding,

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and they were saying that they're gonna go open up the armory and release all the weapons to the freedom fighters. Army trucks appeared, full of soldiers.

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And everybody thought that they were going to fire at us because they had the Bren gun on the top and all armed to the teeth type of thing. And all of a sudden these lads were giving the rifles away

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to the students, the workers, whoever was there. Those first shots turned a peaceful protest into a revolution. Armed with the weapons of sympathetic Hungarian soldiers,

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the crowd laid siege to the radio station. By dawn, over 100 people lay dead in the streets, but the ARVO had abandoned the building. The radio news editor recalls his arrest by the students.

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Next morning when the attackers of the radio came in, they were teenagers, 15, 16 years of age with two machine guns. And the third one was someone between 25 and 30

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and he said, "I'm coming from the labor camp of Reczk. and you, you can save your life if you are ready to take arms and fight for the freedom of the Hungarian people. And then came an officer after it.

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So it was a very mixed sort of gathering and it was very difficult just to believe what happened. Who were these people who took over the radio, which was supposed to be well defended.

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And these youngsters, these teenagers, they just took over the radio. (dramatic music) Red Army tanks were already moving into Budapest

00:17:40.040 - 00:17:50.160

as the authority of the Hungarian Communist Party disintegrated. They were too late for a quick kill. All through the night, workers had been

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arming themselves for a fight. (guns firing) What followed was a battle for the control of the city. On one side, Soviet tanks and the secret police.

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On the other, the people of Hungary. - Unfortunately, there were too many of us and too few weapons. Somebody in my group, he came up with the idea.

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He says, "George, let's go out to our own factory. "I know where they are stocking the weapons "for the factory." We brought out as many submachine guns

00:18:28.940 - 00:18:48.380

and rifles as we could. As we were coming out the door on the empty highway, there was a Russian military passenger car coming, a Skoda. And three officers got out from the car.

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As it stopped next to us, they didn't really know what was going on. They just heard some rumors. And one said, comrade, where are you taking these guns?

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So in a second, we did have to make up our mind. They had their own guns. They were ready to actually draw them. It was either them or us.

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So we started to fire, and we killed them all. Took over the car. That's how we got our first answer. Many street fighters had never fired a gun before.

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Now they learned how hard it was to kill for the first time. And the Russian soldiers, they were coming from door to door out on the street. And I was in a second floor window.

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And I had a rifle, a Mauser. And I pointed the head of the Russian soldier who was looking out. And I pulled the trigger.

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And I saw the Russian soldier far down on the sidewalk. And I started to cry. It is a terrible feeling when you see that you shot somebody and he's dead.

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I don't wish that feeling to anybody. And everybody was yelling over there, don't cry. Come on, the Russians are coming. We have to defend ourselves.

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And I just had to go to the window and keep shooting. They were shooting too. I saw this Skoda, a Czech car belonging to the university, making a straking turn into the front of the university,

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followed by a pobeda, a Russian-made car used by the secret police. And there was firing. The pobeda was shooting at the Shkoda.

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And I was there with submachine gun on my shoulder, Watching as the Škoda turned over, Imre, the driver, jumped out, ran away. And my friend, Janči, was lying there.

00:21:01.120 - 00:21:18.960

He didn't even touch his gun, although he had one too. Bleeding, and the secret policeman kept shooting. And I wanted to defend him to fire. and I couldn't.

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And it was a very difficult moment for me. I just realized that I cannot shoot at people. He died. We counted 27 bullets in his body.

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And then I remember next morning, we were carrying his body from somewhere. And it was already stiff. and one of his shoes fell off.

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And I had this crazy idea sometime-- go crazy in this situation-- that if I could just only get those shoes back, everything would be all right.

00:22:00.960 - 00:22:21.020

And of course, you cannot do that once the body is stiff. So we covered Jancsi with the flag. (crickets chirping) (ominous music)

00:22:21.020 - 00:22:38.240

Resistance groups formed spontaneously all over the city. 24 hours earlier, Danny Benedetti had been working in a factory. Now he had a machine gun and was fighting the Soviet army.

00:22:38.240 - 00:23:12.720

This is the place. On the morning of the 24th between 8 and 9 o'clock about a hundred, 150 of us left the radio. We came through the city onto the riverbank here with the intentions of crossing over the bridge to free the political prisoners that were being held in order to restore the palace at that time. As we got to roughly this area we were opened

00:23:12.720 - 00:23:40.320

fire upon from the bridge, the river and some of the buildings on the right. Half the group would already be on the square by then with very little or no cover at all except for a few benches and of course this wall here. I myself got behind the tree in this manner. I could hear the bullets hit in the tree, thudding into it, ricochets all around. The tree was a lot

00:23:40.320 - 00:23:58.800

thinner then, sober as I, and eventually I zigzagged my way back, ran into that building and via a glass door with the rest of us. Made our way to the top of that building in order to give covering fire

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to the lads on the square below. But by the time we got up there, it was too late for 'em really because they were holding their arms up to surrender,

00:24:09.680 - 00:24:21.260

taking white shirts off, waving 'em about. But regardless to all that, they were just mowed down. They had no chance at all. On the first morning of the revolution,

00:24:21.260 - 00:24:35.500

30 of Danny Benedicti's comrades died fighting on the banks of the Danube. - I was 16 years old, just gone 16. And I've never seen death as such.

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I've never seen so many bodies lying about, but it didn't quite sink in. You just accepted it. I was horrified by my schoolmates,

00:24:46.420 - 00:25:02.840

my comrades, my friends being killed, shot, maimed, wounded, but I just accepted it as part of what was going on at the time. - Outside the parliament building,

00:25:02.840 - 00:25:17.800

a huge crowd waited for news. Inside, the old regime was clinging desperately to power. Overnight, Imre Nagy had been made prime minister, by the Stalinist party boss, Erno Gero,

00:25:17.800 - 00:25:28.800

to appease the people and save his government. Nagy was a senior party member himself, but he was not seen as Moscow's man and was not associated with the terror Hungary had lived through.

00:25:28.800 - 00:25:39.300

Even Nagy misjudged the mood. He called for order, calm and discipline, and that was not what the people wanted. They wanted to be rid of everything to do with the Soviet Union,

00:25:39.300 - 00:25:52.080

and what they could get rid of, they did. [MUSIC PLAYING] There were nationalized bookstores. Young and old went in, throw out those books,

00:25:52.080 - 00:26:06.640

and they tore up those hated communist Marxist books about Stalin's life, about Rakosch's life, or Lenin. How would you feel if you have to read day and night a book which you have no interest in,

00:26:06.640 - 00:26:15.640

which a six-year-old child can feel that it is a lot of nonsense, and you You must read it, not only read it, you have to learn it by heart.

00:26:15.640 - 00:26:25.880

Because next day at the seminar, they are gonna ask you, "Comrade, did you read this page "and would you repeat it please?" Then you are a good Communist Party member.

00:26:25.880 - 00:26:37.240

(dramatic music) - The arrival of the Russian troops had focused the anger of the crowds. Anything they associated with the occupying forces

00:26:37.240 - 00:26:52.820

was publicly and gleefully destroyed. (explosion booms) The workers called a general strike and went into the streets to set about the impossible,

00:26:52.820 - 00:27:13.240

their task, to defeat two Soviet armored divisions with a ramshackle army of untrained civilians. (explosion) There was no central organization

00:27:13.240 - 00:27:20.240

to control the resistance, but one of their important strongholds was the Corvin Cinema. It was situated then, as now,

00:27:20.240 - 00:27:29.200

in a rough, tough part of the city near strategic barracks. Inside, it sheltered a growing army of its own. They knew the streets around it.

00:27:29.200 - 00:27:42.960

The Russians didn't and suffered. One of the Corvin Brigade was Danny Benedicti. - It was very easy to defend, this being the cinema. A couple of alleyways at the front,

00:27:42.960 - 00:27:54.120

which we had some heavy stuff. And as you can see, the houses all around you, we've sort of occupied each and every room. The back of the cinema here, as I remember,

00:27:54.120 - 00:28:07.640

was used as a burial ground. A lot of the lads were buried here in this corner. - Their main occupation was eliminating the Soviet tanks. They opened fire discriminately on anything and anybody.

00:28:07.640 - 00:28:22.680

If they saw somebody move down the street, they would virtually work their way down with cannon fire, i.e. to collapse the building. And anybody, anything moving,

00:28:22.680 - 00:28:31.680

they'd open machine gun fire. So obviously when a tank appeared, for your own safety, you have to put that tank out of action because he didn't care

00:28:31.680 - 00:28:49.080

or he didn't know who he was shooting at, he wouldn't shoot him. To cope with the tanks in the narrow streets was relatively easy, because the whole idea

00:28:49.080 - 00:29:04.160

was to get them in, draw them into the streets. Then they would sort of create confusion amongst themselves. They usually managed to get the first tank and the last tank. and whatever were in between, there's just no way out.

00:29:04.160 - 00:29:15.340

- The Red Army tanks fell to a Red Army weapon. The Molotov cocktail, invented by Russians in their street battles against the Germans, was now used against them in Budapest.

00:29:15.340 - 00:29:28.200

Lucy Salloy, then aged 14, knocked out her first tank with one. - We got bottles which we filled up with gas and pushed some rags into it

00:29:28.200 - 00:29:41.040

And on a truck that I was on, there was some pistols. So we took them along. And we sat on the top of the bridge waiting for the tanks to come.

00:29:41.040 - 00:29:55.240

And when they came, we threw the mortar cocktails on them. It stopped the first tank. And it went up in flames. It wasn't able to move.

00:29:55.240 - 00:30:06.080

The older tanks, they had the air the grill, the radiator if you like, on the back of the tank behind the turret. So if you threw your bomb, your petrol bomb onto that,

00:30:06.080 - 00:30:17.020

obviously it would suck the burning fuel into the engine itself, thus filling the tank with fumes, flames, whatever. You immobilize the tank.

00:30:17.020 - 00:30:30.520

- As their fame spread, the Corvin Brigade found new recruits. they chose their own commander, Greg Pongratz. - In the beginning, the Corbyn was only about 80,

00:30:30.520 - 00:30:44.840

maybe 100 kids, but we made so much damage to the Russians that everybody was looking up to the Corbyn, that what's going on over there. And a lot of people came over there, kids mostly.

00:30:44.840 - 00:30:56.480

They were curious to see what's going on over there. They was hanging around only a couple of hours. they were talking with some of the freedom fighters and they just didn't want to go away.

00:30:56.480 - 00:31:05.520

They stayed over there and they said they're gonna fight also. And that's how the Corwin was growing. We had kids over there,

00:31:05.520 - 00:31:14.880

dozens and dozens and dozens of them, they were waiting for weapons. So when the Russians, they came and they attacked, all those weapons from the Russian soldiers

00:31:14.880 - 00:31:25.880

went to those kids. - Armed and encouraged by their success, the young people and children of Hungary were fighting the Red Army divisions to a standstill.

00:31:25.880 - 00:31:38.780

What was happening seemed incredible to the winners and losers alike. Later, a count would reveal that 200 tanks had been put out of action,

00:31:38.780 - 00:31:49.220

but still the authorities dismissed their opponents as hooligans. A typical hooligan was a young boy called Johnny, or Janchi in Hungarian.

00:31:49.220 - 00:31:58.460

Janci. He was about 13. Many, many times I told him to go home. Your mother is waiting for you.

00:31:58.460 - 00:32:08.020

He never wanted to go home. He knew the danger very well because many kids died beside him. He comes in to the office running,

00:32:08.020 - 00:32:23.020

and he was yelling, bojiboji, bojiboji, I'm in trouble. My mother is coming. I said, now what can I do with you? But outside I heard some noises and a woman is telling to one

00:32:23.020 - 00:32:33.620

of the guards at the corridor that, "Gerardo, get out of my way with that gun because I'm going to give you one that you had going to fall off. I want to see the commander."

00:32:33.620 - 00:32:47.100

So the door opens. John, just before that, he jumped under the bed. And the door opens and the woman comes in. It was-- you can-- you can see on her

00:32:47.100 - 00:32:58.300

that she was the wife of a worker. So it's-- she comes in, and she said, who's the commander? I said, what can I do for you? Where is my son?

00:32:58.300 - 00:33:09.780

I said, I'm sorry, ma'am, but I have so many kids over here, I don't know which is your son. And he tells me his name. And I was in trouble because I didn't want to lie,

00:33:09.780 - 00:33:21.120

but I didn't want to discover the kid either. And in the meanwhile, the door opens, and from the first aid room, they send me up a cup of coffee. And the kid who brought me the coffee,

00:33:21.120 - 00:33:36.600

it was another 15-year-old kid. He had a head wound and a big bandage on his head. And the blood was coming through the bandage. And when the woman saw this kid with the bandage,

00:33:36.600 - 00:33:41.760

she started to cry. She said, oh, my Johnny. My Johnny, I think-- I don't know.

00:33:41.760 - 00:33:51.880

He's dead. He's-- I think I was hallucinating when I saw him a few minutes ago down on the street. I don't know where to look for him.

00:33:51.880 - 00:34:02.280

I'm going to check the hospital, but please, God, let me find him in the hospital. I shouldn't go to the cemetery to find him. And she was crying.

00:34:02.280 - 00:34:13.560

And once I see the bed cover, it's lifting up, and Janci's coming out from under the bed, and he's going to his mother. And, "Mommy, I'm here.

00:34:13.560 - 00:34:18.560

Take a look. I'm not even wounded. There's nothing wrong with me. Please, but you're not going to take me home.

00:34:18.560 - 00:34:27.640

You're going to let me stay here." And the woman, she just couldn't say anything. She was just hugging the kid and kissing him, and he was in glory.

00:34:27.640 - 00:34:45.880

And he was crying, but these tears, they were for happiness. And later on, she said that, "What you mean that I'm not I'm not going to take you home. I'm not going to let you out. I'm going to hold you until we go home, and when we get home,

00:34:45.880 - 00:35:03.880

you're going to see what you're going to get from your father. So, anyhow, later on I asked this woman, does she know that we all have mothers, and all our mothers, they're just the same,

00:35:03.880 - 00:35:23.520

us nervous and they crying like you do. What would happen with this country if every mother, mine and all the other mothers, they would come over here, they would get their young child, their kid, and they would take it home.

00:35:23.520 - 00:35:35.560

Thanks to these kids that the Russians, they left Budapest and we achieved the freedom of our nation. to your son, your 13-year-old son, who is a hero of this nation.

00:35:35.560 - 00:35:50.520

Now you want to take it home, you have all the right to do it. I tried to send him home many times. He didn't want to go because he felt that his obligation to his country is to stay here and fight with us.

00:35:50.520 - 00:36:07.960

And the woman wiped her tears. And he said, "Commander, you know the responsibility you carry. The life of these kids are in your hands. Please watch them.

00:36:07.960 - 00:36:21.920

This is the only thing we have, our children. I'm not going to take him home. I'm going to let him stay here." He said, "I don't believe, and my husband even less,

00:36:21.920 - 00:36:31.780

that you're going to win. But what you achieved until now, that was the seventh miracle of the world. And if you really achieve the victory,

00:36:31.780 - 00:36:40.020

if the Russians, they really gonna go out, that's gonna be the eighth one. And I don't believe it gonna happen, but I'm gonna leave my son here."

00:36:40.020 - 00:36:50.900

And she left. - It was not only in Budapest that the battle was fought, and it was not only against the Russians. As much a target for the people's anger

00:36:50.900 - 00:37:01.460

were the AVO, the secret police. Driving into the town of Madurova 30 years ago, a communist journalist from Britain found an example of their handiwork.

00:37:01.460 - 00:37:12.920

- People were standing around in the streets in a great state of distress. People were weeping, and people came to the car and said, "Would we go to the cemetery and see the bodies?"

00:37:12.920 - 00:37:23.940

And we went to the cemetery, and there laid out were the bodies of 80 people who had been on an unarmed demonstration and had been shot down, had been machine gunned

00:37:23.940 - 00:37:36.380

by members of the Arvo, of the security police, the day before. There had been a demonstration, an unarmed demonstration, against the Russian occupation of Hungary.

00:37:36.380 - 00:37:49.900

And the people had marched, and as they marched, the Arvo men from the roof of the police headquarters had opened fire on them, without any reading of the riot act, without any warning,

00:37:49.900 - 00:38:01.740

without anything, and had mown them down. I had never seen dead people before in my life. And I saw these 80 bodies, young girls and young men and mothers with their children.

00:38:01.740 - 00:38:14.600

And they were laid out there with the dried blood still, you know, the blood still on their clothing. And people were crying and they pushed us, foreign journalists, to the front so that we could see.

00:38:14.600 - 00:38:29.120

And then they took us to the National Committee, that's to say the committee that had been elected to run the revolution. All I could say was I promised to tell the truth about what had happened.

00:38:29.120 - 00:38:37.360

People said, "You don't know what it's been like living here. We've had eight years. You've been told it's been eight years of socialism. In fact, for us, it's been eight years of hell."

00:38:37.360 - 00:38:54.360

And they told me the pitiful wages they got, and the Arvo men were getting... I think it was an incredible figure, incredible coefficient. They got something like 20 or 30 times as much as ordinary workers. It was supposed to be a worker's state, and yet this security police were really on to

00:38:54.360 - 00:39:02.560

a very, very good thing. And people said, "They're not communists. They're animals who sell themselves to the Russians, and we shan't leave a single one of them alive."

00:39:02.560 - 00:39:17.560

People were very, very angry indeed. The lieutenant who had apparently ordered this massacre had been beaten up and was lying wounded in the hospital. And the people outside were demanding him because they wanted to execute him.

00:39:17.560 - 00:39:28.320

And the director, after a consultation with his colleagues, decided that to avoid upsetting the other patients, he would have to let them have him. And I was standing there by the gate.

00:39:28.320 - 00:39:41.680

There was a wire mesh fence, and people were shaking it and shouting for him and shouting, "Murderer, murderer." And he was brought as close to me as you are on a stretcher, a man under sentence of death,

00:39:41.680 - 00:39:49.960

something again that I'd never seen before. His head was going from side to side, and there was spit coming out of his mouth, and he was clearly very frightened.

00:39:49.960 - 00:40:02.520

And as soon as they got to the gates, the gates opened, and the people dragged him off the stretcher and kicked him and beat him to death. And it took about 10 minutes. And then they, they hanged him, I think, upside down from a tree.

00:40:02.520 - 00:40:22.800

I did a lot of interviews on that, over 100 interviews on that. And they said that the people who were foremost in that lynching, or as I would call it, execution of a murderer, were people who had lost relatives and loved ones in that atrocity.

00:40:22.800 - 00:40:45.800

This was rough, rough justice, but it's the sort of justice that people take when an atrocity like that has been committed. I wouldn't say the Hungarians were animals to the Hungarians. The hatred of the people against the few that were animals, trained as animals, if you like.

00:40:45.800 - 00:40:59.300

I mean, it was just a hatred that built up over the years. You didn't talk about anything because the word arvo, I mean, it sounded, you know, everybody looked around three times before, you know,

00:40:59.300 - 00:41:10.300

they'd say, they said there was an arvo around. I mean, even I as a student knew the meaning of the word arvo, and it was not very pleasant, I can tell you.

00:41:10.300 - 00:41:22.700

- The arvo were officially disbanded Five days earlier in Budapest, they'd massacred 200 unarmed demonstrators. Now these experts in fear learn

00:41:22.700 - 00:41:35.820

to fear being arrested themselves. The headquarters of the Budapest Communist Party are in Republic Square. That morning, the seventh day of the revolution,

00:41:35.820 - 00:41:47.260

an Arvo detachment still controlled it. News got out that they'd seized some students, so a group of fighters turned up to demand their release. But not for the first time, the Arvo opened fire

00:41:47.260 - 00:42:00.660

on a crowd of Hungarians. This time, their targets were not defenseless. - All of a sudden, firing broke out, and I'd noticed a tank with the Hungarian

00:42:00.660 - 00:42:09.980

coat of arms on the turret were making its way towards the building, and stretcher bearers running after them. You could recognize the stretcher bearers

00:42:09.980 - 00:42:21.420

by having a white band across the head. And all of a sudden, all hell was let loose. There was grenades exploding, heavy fire from and to the building.

00:42:21.420 - 00:42:49.500

(guns firing) Over 100 people were left dead in the square. Even stretcher bearers came under fire as they ran forward to help the wounded.

00:42:49.500 - 00:43:00.100

But the Arvo were outnumbered and outgunned, and in the end could only surrender. - The angry shout went up from the crowd, (speaking in foreign language)

00:43:00.100 - 00:43:09.860

No prisoners, no prisoners. The secret police was here that day was the instrument of the terror against the population because they have been told you are the fist,

00:43:09.860 - 00:43:19.360

an iron fist of the socialism, you smash the enemies of the people and so on, and they have been paid well. But when they had to make up his mind,

00:43:19.360 - 00:43:31.800

they gonna open fire on our own population in defense of the interest of a foreign occupational power, they condemned themselves to death. - There were 48 Arvo in the building.

00:43:31.800 - 00:43:52.100

Some escaped, some had already been shot dead. The ones who were captured suffered the worst. I've seen the offices of the Arbol that were captured were strung up by the feet on the trees outside and people started kicking and saying, "That's for torturing my father, that's

00:43:52.100 - 00:44:10.580

for torturing my brother." I would imagine eventually they got kicked to death. All of a sudden, thousands and thousands of foreigns appeared in hundred foreign bills And they were stuffing this money into the mouths and pockets and there was money lying

00:44:10.580 - 00:44:24.900

all over. I've noticed one, for example, hanging from a tree. He just had his boots and pants on, stripped to the waist, apparently dead. I would say there must have been about 40, 50,000 forints all around him.

00:44:24.900 - 00:44:53.980

People never bothered to pick up any of the money or anything, but it was just a way of expressing that you were a paid torturer, so here's your final payment. I served at that time as an ambulance man, volunteer. We grabbed one secret policeman because we must have the information really where the

00:44:53.980 - 00:45:06.980

students are. I said, "If every policeman, secret policeman, will be killed, nobody will tell us where are the students." So we wanted to save one of them.

00:45:06.980 - 00:45:25.820

We created a circle around him to save him because the people, the crowd was so mad. And we've been worried they kill him also. Now, when we made the circle around him, suddenly somebody grabbed the rifle

00:45:25.820 - 00:45:35.460

with a barrel end and crushed his skull. So he dropped to death. - The street fighters searched the building for the students.

00:45:35.460 - 00:45:45.020

In the basement, they found mutilated corpses. And in revenge, Arvo guards were flung out onto the street to lie twisted among the rubbish of their own secret files.

00:45:45.020 - 00:46:05.200

- There was no forgiveness then. There was no forgiveness because we didn't know how much, how long this uprising will last, how long we are going to be free. But we did not want them to forget what they did was against any humanitarian rules of

00:46:05.200 - 00:46:17.080

the world. The people themselves, they just acted, acted violently. You would have done the same thing. Anybody would have done the same thing after being depressed for so many years.

00:46:17.080 - 00:46:36.120

All of the pent-up hatred, the helplessness, the rage which started building up in all of us finally got released. I don't remember. Somebody in the Republic Square told me who took up firing position nearby, tears were

00:46:36.120 - 00:46:51.640

streaming down, and I have been shouting and singing, and sometimes tears streamed down my face. It was like an earthworm. We felt so helpless before. You were in the clutches of an almighty state.

00:46:51.640 - 00:47:09.640

You couldn't move. One careless statement could do away with you. And finally, being positioned when you can do something about it. Whatever I did, I did it for my people and nation.

00:47:09.640 - 00:47:29.560

I have been motivated then and now. I didn't kill Hungarians. - The Arvo who survived slipped away into hiding as the new government started its reforms.

00:47:29.560 - 00:47:46.660

For Hungarians, it was a time like no other. Soviet tanks were rumbling out of Budapest and soon it was promised they would be leaving the country altogether.

00:47:46.660 - 00:48:05.020

On the banks of the Danube, people watched the families of Soviet diplomats packing their bags. The two top Politburo men sent by Moscow were also leaving, apparently accepting that Russians were no longer wanted

00:48:05.020 - 00:48:32.700

in Hungary. A close supporter of Imre Nagy was the city police chief, Csándor Kopács, he watched the Politburo men depart. In those days, it was also confirmed that while I was in the parliament, I was a witness when Mikoyan and Suslov, the two members of the Soviet political bureau, said goodbye to Imre Nagy.

00:48:32.700 - 00:49:03.700

Mikoyan said with tears in his eyes that we had to withdraw from Budapest and Hungary. And we asked him to save what could be saved. He said that we should save what could be saved in the given situation. The last days of October were the beginning of a political spring.

00:49:03.700 - 00:49:19.700

New parties were born, old suppressed ones were resurrected. Non-communists were brought into the government. A population starved of truth was sated by dozens of new pamphlets and papers. Censorship was gone. Budapest was alive.

00:49:19.700 - 00:49:37.660

Everybody knew what to do. The factory workers knew how to organize their factories to eliminate the bureaucratic nonsense and to get whatever they were producing produced right and the professors know how to teach and the shopkeepers know

00:49:37.660 - 00:50:03.260

how to run the shop and if you remove this artificial unnecessary dogmatic structure life becomes so free and happy it was unbelievable. The streets were full of farmers bringing in food. These are people who usually are very stingy and they were distributing food on the street

00:50:03.260 - 00:50:31.980

corners freely. There were boxes on the side of the street containing paper money, just a sign above it saying that if you want to donate anything for the wounded or the dead, please do so. And I've seen an elderly lady count out 800 forints from that box, which by the way, I've

00:50:31.980 - 00:50:54.900

put in 120. I possess the total of 140, I remember. You saw those broken windows on the stores, nothing touched because people felt that the honor of the revolution belonged to everybody.

00:50:54.900 - 00:51:18.140

It was just a marvelous few days. Total elation. just stood in groups. The feeling of unity in the country or in the city at least. Everybody was like a relative, a friend. It was unbelievable.

00:51:18.140 - 00:51:41.040

It was just a great unity. I mean everybody was equal. Whatever your qualifications or whether you were a university professor or a minor from the provinces, everybody was the same. (dramatic music)

00:51:41.040 - 00:51:59.500

- People behaved like children when the teacher left the schoolroom. And I saw many adults behaving like children. I remember I was walking through the street

00:51:59.500 - 00:52:15.920

and I met an old man who was watching a picture of Rakos, which was on the ground. And when he saw me coming, I was a few feet from him, he spit on the picture and then looked at me and grinned.

00:52:15.920 - 00:52:26.220

And he didn't know me, he didn't know who I was, but his face said, "If I want, I can spit on him. "And there is not a thing you can do about it, "whether you like it or not."

00:52:26.220 - 00:52:35.940

He was telling me that I can spit on whomever I want. Many people said obscenities, just to show you that they can do it, you know, and (beep) the Russians.

00:52:35.940 - 00:52:48.900

Then look happy and look around, that nothing happened. You know, the world didn't collapse, nobody grabbed them. - The prisons were opened and out came the victims of the years of repression.

00:52:48.900 - 00:53:04.340

Most had been imprisoned for their political beliefs, but there were religious prisoners too. The leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary, Cardinal Mincenti had confessed under pressure

00:53:04.340 - 00:53:15.160

to a charge of conspiring against the state. Now he told of the misery of his seven years in jail. - He just discussed about his experience in the prison, how they tortured him.

00:53:15.160 - 00:53:27.280

He mentioned about, for example, they put a woman, nude woman, into his cell, embarrassing him because a high priest and so, and beat at his genital organs also.

00:53:27.280 - 00:53:40.640

He wanted more to know what happening, and he want to know what happening now in Hungary, and he said, "I cannot say anything until I learn "from every angle what happened."

00:53:40.640 - 00:53:54.640

And delegations to delegations visited him day and night. - In the euphoria of the moment, Catholics and Communists pledged to restore Hungary together but the danger was not passed,

00:53:54.640 - 00:54:05.120

and among those who knew that was a tall, young army officer, Colonel Paul Mallater, who was about to be made Minister of Defense. He and Prime Minister Nagy knew that Soviet forces

00:54:05.120 - 00:54:13.760

were not withdrawing as promised. Nagy warned that unless they did, he would take Hungary out of the Warsaw Pact. They did not, and that evening,

00:54:13.760 - 00:54:26.640

he declared to the world that Hungary was a neutral country. But the world had another concern. (dramatic music) - The Suez Canal, lifeline of Europe

00:54:26.640 - 00:54:36.600

and a dramatic sequence of events became a cause of war when President Abdul Nasser announced it's-- - That same day, the British and French invaded the Suez Canal.

00:54:36.600 - 00:54:44.200

The crisis had been brewing for some days, but its explosion could not have come at a worse time for Hungary. - We understood immediately that when

00:54:44.200 - 00:54:52.760

the Suez invasion happened, Hungary's just going to be one of many things going on in the world, and this was like carving it in stone to the Russians

00:54:52.760 - 00:55:03.800

that we are so busy with Suez that there is no way that we will do anything in Hungary, that you have a free end in Hungary. I remember that was really the first time

00:55:03.800 - 00:55:19.200

I really was scared, not so much during the shooting, but when I heard about Suez, and within half an hour, the opinion of everybody around me was that we are finished, because there's no way that the Russians

00:55:19.200 - 00:55:39.260

would miss that chance to come back. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) This time, the Russians took no chances.

00:55:39.260 - 00:56:05.560

150,000 fresh troops and 3,000 tanks were sent in to crush the revolution. [MUSIC PLAYING] But the fighters were fighting, and the ordinary people

00:56:05.560 - 00:56:17.920

were very somber, very, very somber, because it was the dashing of all their hopes. And one could feel a kind of physical feeling of fear and hatred when the tanks came down the street.

00:56:17.920 - 00:56:31.760

The Russian tactic was to take it back block by block, you see, and against them at that stage in Budapest, they had very fragmented guerrilla forces, each of whom had a sort of block that they were controlling

00:56:31.760 - 00:56:41.760

and then they were falling back. And they were fighting with machine guns and Molotov cocktails against tanks, and really they didn't stand a chance.

00:56:41.760 - 00:56:55.240

The Battle of Budapest was bloody and one-sided. (guns firing) With the Hungarian army disorganized, it was left to the street fighters to resist where they could

00:56:55.240 - 00:57:02.680

but they were without a leader. Imre Nagy had fled to the Yugoslav embassy and his defense minister, Malata, had been arrested by the very Russians

00:57:02.680 - 00:57:15.100

with whom, naively, he had gone to negotiate in person. - I told Malata that it's possible that I don't know well enough the history. But I don't remember one single situation

00:57:15.100 - 00:57:27.140

when the highest commander of the armed forces went to the enemy to negotiate about anything. I said, what happens if they're going to catch you and they're going to keep you over there?

00:57:27.140 - 00:57:41.580

I told him that you're not going over there as Paul Molita. You're going over there as the Secretary of Defense of the Revolution. What happens if they gonna keep you there?

00:57:41.580 - 00:57:55.380

They hanged him. This is Hungary calling. This is Hungary calling. The last remaining station.

00:57:55.380 - 00:58:09.180

All to the United Nations. Early this morning, the Soviet troops launched a general attack on Hungary. We are requesting you to send us immediate aid

00:58:09.180 - 00:58:26.880

for the sake of God and freedom help Hungary. - But there was no help. Radio broadcasts from the West urged Hungarians to resist, but no government was prepared to intervene.

00:58:26.880 - 00:58:41.940

Britain and France had their own war to fight, and the realists in the State Department knew that America would not take direct action. Within a week, the Russians had control of the city.

00:58:41.940 - 00:58:53.760

The revolution was over, and Hungarians began to learn the price of inflicting humiliation on the might of the Soviet Union. - Innocent people got shot down

00:58:53.760 - 00:59:02.720

purely by queuing up for their food. And I've seen that myself. We'd be waiting for the bakery to open to buy the bread and the milk.

00:59:02.720 - 00:59:15.680

And an armored car would thunder down the street, and it would open fire on them. Kids of five, six, seven, old ladies, they'd be mowed down. I could see one of the Russian tanks guarding

00:59:15.680 - 00:59:32.160

the corner of the avenue. And then I saw this Red Cross car come slowly with a big Red Cross flag on it. to us, directly to us, the tank.

00:59:32.160 - 00:59:55.480

And just as the car got in front of us, we were, of course, protected by the corner, the tank fired. And the Red Cross car caught fire. And nobody got out except a blonde girl.

00:59:55.480 - 01:00:10.040

must have been 20 or even less, long blonde hair. And the tank kept firing. She was wounded. She fell on the burning car.

01:00:10.040 - 01:00:24.920

And I don't know if you can imagine this, but you are within three or five yards of a young girl being roasted in front of your eyes. So I saw one person jump out to the street.

01:00:24.920 - 01:00:41.880

and of course, cut down by this machine gun fire. Then somebody else jumped out with a garbage can, hoping that that would protect him. And of course, bullets went through it like tinfoil,

01:00:41.880 - 01:00:57.400

and he fell. And then maybe 20 of us, with our bare hands, tore down the water pipe from the side of the building and tried to kind of scrape her off the car

01:00:57.400 - 01:01:11.360

and pull her out. And of course, by the time we managed, she was dead. There was a feeling of despair because you were listening to all these broadcasts on the radio,

01:01:11.360 - 01:01:23.400

and you were told that help is coming, and this and that's going to happen. And all that was happening, it was every man for himself. if he could get out of the country, he got out.

01:01:23.400 - 01:01:47.120

I was kind of going out of my mind. I just thought this is a bad dream, yet I knew it wasn't. And I was totally lost as to what to do, where to turn. I remember one occasion it was broadcasted that the pope

01:01:47.120 - 01:02:09.320

is praying for us. I mean, that made us feel really good, that was a great help. So eventually, I managed to get out of the country. - In the weeks that followed,

01:02:09.320 - 01:02:32.520

200,000 Hungarians walked out of their country, most of them forever. (somber music) With the uprising crushed, the Arvo came out of hiding

01:02:32.520 - 01:02:43.840

to hunt down anyone who had supported the revolution. The best hope was to find a life elsewhere, and most found it in France, Britain, and America, the very countries that had seemed to fail them

01:02:43.840 - 01:02:57.320

in their most urgent need. Janos Kada had sworn to fight for Hungary with his bare hands, but when the crisis came, he'd mysteriously disappeared,

01:02:57.320 - 01:03:10.260

only to emerge a few days later as the chosen leader. Chosen, that is, by the Soviet Union. With his newfound Soviet friends, he sought to capture, later, the execution

01:03:10.260 - 01:03:20.440

of his former colleague, Imre Nagy, and with equal ruthlessness turned on the revolutionaries he'd once supported. Thousands were sent to labor camps in the Soviet Union.

01:03:20.440 - 01:03:30.940

One of those arrested was young Lucy Soloy. She'd been shot twice through the lung by the ARVO and was recovering at home. - The police took me away in the middle of the night

01:03:30.940 - 01:03:41.680

and didn't really give my parents any reason why they were taking me. We all know that they were gonna question me about some of the freedom fighters.

01:03:41.680 - 01:04:10.480

took me to the police station and I was there with, I don't even remember how many people, but it was quite a few of us there. Some of us knew each other. And what they wanted to find out is more people that was involved in the Freedom Fighters with us. They wanted to have names and addresses and involvement. And they more or less forced us and tortured

01:04:10.480 - 01:04:32.560

us. They tried to break us down to tell them the information they were seeking. I was in the police station for two weeks before they released me. Many were not released. At least 450 Hungarians were executed for crimes against the state. Hundreds of others disappeared. One man condemned to death was Imre Mécs.

01:04:32.560 - 01:04:57.400

(speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) We knew how many steps we had to take before we could enter the final place. And during this short journey, we had to tell our last message to our comrades and those who were left behind, to the Hungarian nation.

01:04:57.400 - 01:05:15.160

We were prepared for these last statements, and our comrades made statements every day, (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language)

01:05:15.160 - 01:06:04.080

(speaking in foreign language) [ Foreign Language ] [ Foreign Language ] These young men were workers and took part in the battles against the Soviet troops.

01:06:04.080 - 01:06:41.640

We suspect that here, under this bush, is probably lying on my lap, the head of the Hungarian 56th Party, the Minister of Home Affairs of Hungary, Maléter Pál, and two close colleagues. I cannot stand here without regret. I think that after 30 years, 56 years,

01:06:41.640 - 01:07:13.720

(speaking in foreign language) - Hungarians for the last 500 years have not won a single revolution, a single fight, yet they have succeeded in this one goal

01:07:13.720 - 01:07:28.900

of periodically regaining their self-respect. Just as an individual needs that feeling that I am able to look myself in the mirror, so nations also have to regain

01:07:28.900 - 01:07:39.540

their self-respects periodically. You cannot be a slave forever. - What Hungary has achieved in the 30 years since the revolution is evident in the streets.

01:07:39.540 - 01:07:59.380

Of all the Eastern Bloc countries, it seems the most open and the most prosperous. They need no Berlin Wall to keep their citizens in because their citizens by and large are content with their material lot. Their economy is not run on the Soviet model and the Soviet Union does not complain.

01:07:59.380 - 01:08:14.500

Some argue that the revolution gave everyone a lesson they won't forget. Looking at life in Hungary today, even exiles take some satisfaction from what has happened. - As a young lad of 16, what I did in 1956,

01:08:14.500 - 01:08:24.420

I sincerely believed in. I regret the circumstances under which I had to leave the country. That is the reason why I can only come back as a tourist

01:08:24.420 - 01:08:39.600

or to visit my family or have me holiday. But when I sort of look around me, in the length of time I spend at home and what I see. I think that a great deal of what we wanted in '56

01:08:39.600 - 01:08:51.220

is here and now. It may have taken 20 or 30 years to materialize, but people are enjoying the things that we wanted, we fought for.

01:08:51.220 - 01:09:02.580

I think I would eventually like to come home. It is my country and I do belong here. I feel that, I've always felt that ever since the day I left here.

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- If those who died in '56 did lay the foundations of today's prosperity, you still have to search hard to find memorials to them. Each year, the state bulldozers flatten another cemetery.

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20,000 people died in the fighting. These are some of the few graves that are left. And prosperity isn't the whole story. The whiff of democracy that Hungarians briefly enjoyed

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has not returned. The people still play host to four divisions of the Red Army. (dramatic music)

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What the students wanted when they devised their 16 points was the right to choose their own way of life. These graves are evidence of how highly they valued that right.

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There is some choice in Kádáz, Hungary, but it does not represent the vision for which these people died and for which those who survived grieved.

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- In the 25th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, it was a film on the television stations, all the newspapers, they were publicizing Hungary and they were showing Budapest, the show windows,

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full with everything, the people well-dressed, happy people, and Janos Kádár came out between the people and they were applauding, and they were showing that thanks to Janos Kádár that the Hungarian situation,

01:11:13.320 - 01:11:27.940

the living standard is so high today in Hungary. But thanks to those kids who sacrificed their lives for their country, that the living standard is the highest over there today.

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Not the reform and the advancement of the communist system to those kids. And that's why it was worth it. All those kids are heroes of the nation.

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And they live in our heart as heroes. [MUSIC PLAYING] [Music] [Music]

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[music playing] [Music] [Music] (dramatic music)

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Béla Lipták escaped from Hungary in November '56 to avoid arrest by the secret police. Now he returns as often as he can. Lucy Szaloy left Hungary with her family the following year.

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Now married with four children, she considers herself more American than Hungarian. Peter Freyre was expelled from the British Communist Party because of his newspaper reports on the revolution.

01:13:13.680 - 01:13:26.420

Imre Maitsch still hopes that Hungary will build a proper memorial to the lost Prime Minister, Imre Nagy. Dani Benedikti, an exile for nearly 30 years,

01:13:26.420 - 01:13:37.620

would now like to live where he grew up. Greg Pongratz was already out of the country when he was condemned to death as a war criminal. His home is now Arizona,

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and he'll never return to a communist Hungary. (dramatic music) [Music] [footsteps]

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(footsteps) [footsteps] [ hepatitis B insulin B estrogen levels, radiationBletit seciN ] [ juice of ripped seeds and amla strain ]

01:14:16.420 - 01:14:33.060

[ insulin A] [BLANK_AUDIO]