Meet Feri and Blanche

Here is the English translation of the spoken Hungarian audio of the interview with Feri in 2016:

Recording 1

And the teacher called me in—he closed the door behind my back and said, ‘Listen to me carefully. Now, I’m going to tell you a secret, but it will cost you your life if you tell anyone else. You and I are friends.’

And he pulled out the globe that spins... and he said to me, ‘Listen to me,’ and he went to check one more time if the door was locked. He said, ‘This is the Soviet Union, Hungary, and "turning it," this is America.’

In America—which I really liked—he said, ‘Everyone who works and earns their money, that money is theirs. Not like here with us—you work, you don’t get paid, and nothing is yours.'"

Recording 2

...then we ran out for ammunition. They said there was an opportunity to get ammunition in the Kilián barracks. But the staircase was already destroyed, the tanks had bombed it, and hanging onto iron bars and everything, you had to climb up to the third floor, and the crates full of ammunition were up there.

Now, volunteers... they called for volunteers who were willing to risk their lives because there was fighting. And well, I got mixed up in that group. There were six of us.

By then, a tank had already blocked the entrance, so it was terribly scary, but we managed to get into the barracks, up to the third floor, got the ammunition, carried it down, lowered it—everything. And with that ammunition, we were able to hold out for a few days.”

Recording 3

But I said goodbye before I left for the city.

I remember... my father... I left at around 3:00 AM in the morning.

The old man—well, I’m talking about my father—he woke up and said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going, Dad, to defend this country.’

To that, he lit his pipe and said to me, ‘Listen to me, my son. Don’t you come home if they shoot you dead.’

That was the farewell."

Recording 4

“...because I was underage, they simply said that without a guardian or parents, a child could not be taken overseas. Of course, my feeling was—because we all talked among ourselves—that we had to get as far away from here as possible, because the Russians would come after us, find us, and destroy us. You had to get as far away from communism as possible!

Now, most went to America and Australia, and 2,500 came to South Africa. But I didn’t succeed at first because whenever I went into the office through the interpreter, they asked when I was born: ‘1940.’ ‘Ah, go away. You’re a child.’

The interpreter was a Hungarian man.

One morning he came up to me and said, ‘Listen, look over there,’ he said. ‘The bus is standing there, and it’s still missing four passengers. Go ahead, kid. I’ll be the interpreter, but tell them you were born in 1938.’

Because we had no papers at all!

Trembling, I stood there, and the South African lady didn’t even look up at me. She just asked for my date of birth, and I said 1938. She wrote it down right then, gave me a paper—a bus ticket—and from there, right away on December 23rd, I got the plane ticket and the bus ticket to Munich.”

Recording 5

“...after that came the visit to Biesiesvlei, about 50 kilometres away on the other side of Lichtenburg. There were corn farmers, 2,000-hectare corn fields, and everything—lots of tractors, everything.

And well, as was my habit, I was already there by 5:30 AM with the workers. One morning—it was cold, of course—one tractor wouldn’t start. I understood how it worked, touched a few things, and got it started. This farmer said to me, ‘I need a man like you.’

My faith—I also have to mention—was that I believed after so many years, every year the rain comes for these farmers, and I cultivate their land. If I cultivate my own land, I will get rain too. And I trusted the good Lord that this would happen.

I was a very thrifty person, a frugal person, and after 16 years, my wife and I saved up enough money to buy this first farm.”

Recording 6

“...I always feel remorse in my heart.

I mean, what do you think—why have I gone back to Hungary 43 times, which cost a horrible amount of money? Not just me and my wife; I took the family, the grandchildren—I took everyone back to Hungary.

I wanted to settle back in Hungary at the time, but the family was established here. My wife is South African, and well...

I could live in Hungary too, but then she always said, ‘Oh, what about the small grandchildren and the great-grandchildren?’ So, after three, four, six, seven, eight weeks... we came back."