www.hegyipublications.com

The Torture of my Uncle Steven

(My uncle spent 5 years in a death camp. His only sin: he emigrated001

 to Yugoslavia. Read the story in my book: www.hegyipublications.com "Journey to the big woorld"). 

Uncle István described the tortures he received in the basement cells at the AVH headquarters in Budapest.

• He spent nights bare-footed in a cell that had water running through it with rats swimming around. 
•    Beatings with rubber batons until he became unconscious
•   Two or three policemen would kick him with boots when he was tackled down to the floor until he passed out
•  Standing naked in a small cell and if he leaned on a wall, would receive a painful electric shock   
•  Shoving salt into his mouth then was forced to drink water from the toilet bowl
•  Going without food for days
• Going without sleep for many nights and days
•  Being handcuffed and in leg irons for several days and nights.

Fellow prisoners included former communist leaders, intellectuals, writers, farmers, labourers and priests. The guards used to brag about the treatment that was especially designed by Rákosi for priests. After sever beatings, a priest would be given a crucifix to kiss. But, the crucifix was charged with electricity and sometimes the doze was big enough to electrocute the priest.

The torture was to get false confession that he was an agent of the foreign imperialists and Tito (My uncle escaped to Yugoslavia but a border guard handed him back to Hungary).   When he could not take the pain anymore, then he signed a confession that he could not even read because his eyes were too swollen from the beatings.

He was then taken to the labour camp at Recsk which was also called death camp. There, the purpose was to torture prisoners on a continuous basis. He said the first day he was taken outside to work in below freezing temperatures and when he tripped and fell in the snow in from of one of the guards, the guard stepped on his bare hands with his spiked boots, twisted his leg until blood was pouring out of his hand. He had to tear off a piece from his shirt to bandage the hand so that he could continue working without gloves.

Uncle István told us how determined he was in surviving, even though the AVH guards kept telling him that this is a death camp, you are here to suffer and die as soon as you are too weak to work. So he kept up his strength, besides working in the quarry he did push ups and other exercises. When he came home he did not fit into the riding boots that he was wearing before his internment because of the increased leg muscles.

As we listened to uncle István (Pista bácsi) I was getting increasingly angry at the communists who would be that cruel and inhumane to another human being. That feeling of wanting revenge came back again, but the time was not right.

But, after the revolution, the time was right to leave Hungary.