I was ten in 1956, when the people of Hungary rose up to end the Russian occupation. It was a rout – and they remained under Communist domination until the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s difficult to explain now just how scary it was to hear of these heroic people crushed in the streets, and, for a child, difficult to place. Could it happen to me? To my family? How did the Russians get there? Why did they care what people did in Hungary?
A couple of years later a local church group sponsored a Hungarian family’s move to the US and their son, our age and pretty good at speaking English, came to dinner at the home of my friend Lois and spoke to a group of us – maybe it was our Girl Scout troop; maybe just a bunch of girlfriends – I’m not sure. He was dramatic and dignified and so happy to be there. Listening to him and the stories of those he’d left behind was a haunting experience – especially in the mind of a romantic politicized 13 year old mad for JFK.
I hadn’t thought about any of this in years, but this summer TNT brings us The Company – a history of the CIA — and of the Hungarian tragedy of 1956. From the perspective of 50 years it’s still so sad, even through the gauze of TV melodrama – and the freedom and prosperity of Hungary today doesn’t mitigate much.
I’ve kept my eye on what happened in the East since then. We took our kids through Czechoslovakia and East Germany while they were still behind the Iron Curtain. We couldn’t get the boys dry socks after a heavy rain because, as the storekeeper told us “we don’t have socks today.” We gave all our Bruce Springsteen tapes to our guide; each one would have cost him a month’s pay on the black market.
I’ve even been to Pottsdam. That photo on the left is the bridge where spies were exchanged during the days of the Cold War. So it’s not like I don’t know what happened historically. Once in a while though the recreation of reality, even with Hollywood gloss, slams me back where I was for a little while.
That’s all – I’ve been sitting here trying to think of a real ending for this – and I can’t — no massive summary available. Good night.