#11 GABI'S STORY

                                                       ESCAPE FROM  HUNGARY

                                                                      My friend, Gabi

                                                         

 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a nationwide revolt against the Hungarian government and its Soviet-imposed policies; it was seen as the first major post-war threat to Soviet control of Eastern Europe. The revolt began as a student demonstration, and attracted thousands to march through central Budapest to the Parliament building. The State Security police fired upon the crowd, one student was killed, and as the news spread, disorder and violence erupted throughout the capital. The government collapsed, pro-soviets were executed or imprisoned; the new government disbanded the secret police, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October, fighting had almost stopped, and a sense of normality began to return.

               The symbol of the hammer and sickle was cut out of the flag during the revolution to                                                                 symbolize freedom from Russian rule.

But then between November 4 and 8, 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered the Red Army to use force to put down the Hungarian Uprising. Soviet troops attacked en masse and abolished the independent national government. Hungary was immediately subjected to merciless repression. Thousands of Hungarians were arrested, imprisoned or deported to the Soviet Union, and about 200,000 Hungarians fled to the West. By January 1957, the new Soviet-installed government had suppressed all public opposition.

 

Gabi and I met on the strike line in 1975. We had both just started our teaching careers at Western Tech.  We walked the strike line together and bonded as sisters and lifelong friends. Gabi and her husband, Steve, are godparents to our daughter, Jessica; Steve and I are godparents to their son, Steven.  This is her story.

                                    My Journey from Hungary to Canada in 1956-1957 

                                                   by Gabriella Marietta Toth (née Marton)

 

My life and that of my parents changed dramatically on October 6th, 1956. Up until that time, my life as I remember it, was a fairytale. I was the only child of Márta and Gyula Marton as well as the only grandchild on my father’s side. We lived in the beautiful city of Budapest just kitty-corner to the Hungarian Parliament Building at 3 Falk Miksa Utca on the second floor in apartment #2.

Hungarian Parliament Building

 My world consisted of my parents, my Uncle, who lived with us, and my grandmother. As well, I had many relatives on my mother’s side since she was the youngest of 11 children.

My family in Hungary in either 1955 or 1956 at my grandmother's place just outside Budapest

Mom, Dad, Gabi, Grandmother (Dad's mom), Uncle Zoli

 It was a charmed life, my mother and father took me everywhere to sport events, to the theatre, to the opera and the famed Margaret Island was within walking distance. Because I spent so much time with the adults in my life I was wise beyond my years and could easily charm people and I was probably a bit precocious too. In September 1956, I finally started school because at that time you had to be 6 years old before you could go to school.

My first recollection that something was wrong occurred when I had to stay home and indoors…..no more daily park visits. The next thing that happened was my mother telling me to get away from the windows and that I was never to draw the curtains open again. At that time, I didn’t know that those were tanks in the courtyard of our apartment building. My father still went to work at least for awhile but soon that stopped too and the constant noise from all the fighting, the explosions, the tanks blasting their ammunition was terrifying. I could sense my parents' constant worry and anxiety. We were in the heart of all the action! I was always scared and hid under my duvet with my teddy (Reviczky Peter). Why I gave him this name is a mystery to me…..Reviczky is my mother’s maiden name but there is no one named Peter in the family or otherwise. Anyway, Reviczky Peter made it all the way to Canada with me.

 Most Hungarians left/escaped from Hungary in October or early November of 1956 but my parents were waiting for a miracle….hoping that the Russians would be defeated and would leave Hungary once and for all. However, it was not to be. As our food supply ran low we existed on potatoes….we had many sacks stored in the basement. No wonder, that it is my comfort food even to this day. My parents heard in late November that a colleague of my dad’s was taken in and then jailed and that’s when my mother was able to persuade my dad to leave.

My Uncle, my dad’s younger brother, the one who lived with us, had joined the Communist Party in order to advance his career. How he did it…. I will never know but he had a car pick us up on the 23rd of December and we were driven to a farmer’s house which was located near the Austrian border. For a sum of money and jewelry he helped us navigate our way through the minefields and cross the border into Austria on Christmas Eve 1956.

A refugee camp was not too far and when we arrived I was given a doll and doll house and my father was taken to the local hospital with a serious case of pneumonia and some heart issues. We remained in Austria in a refugee camp in Sankt Polten until August of 1957 hoping to obtain a visa to the USA. One of my dad’s relatives, who lived in Buffalo and owned a restaurant, was willing to sponsor my family. Fortunately or unfortunately the quota for Hungarian Refugees had been met and so we ended up in Canada specifically in Vittoria, Ontario on my cousin’s tobacco farm.

I don’t know the exact day of arrival but by the next day both my parents (who previously, I guess you would say were employed in white-collar jobs) were hard at work helping with the tobacco harvest. In September of 1957, I began grade one all over again at Vittoria Public School, the big difference being I knew only a couple of words of English. I was so much older than the kids in my class, so much taller and so much stupider or at least that is how I felt. I also wore earrings (no one did in those days) and my foreignness/differences marked me out for all kinds of teasing. Luckily, I was a quick study and within a short time I was speaking English and in fact became the translator for my parents, and my aunt and uncle families who were also refugees. My family and I spent the next 7 years working as share-croppers on a tobacco farm owned by my mother’s family. Fortunately, by the time I entered grade 8 we were living in London, Ontario where all our lives changed for the better.

Gabi & her parents on the tobacco farm near Simcoe, Ont..abt 1960

 Steven, our godson, in 2012  in front of his mother's apartment building in Budapest