My grandfather’s letter to János Kádár

My grandfather fled Hungary in January 1957, never to return, but his young family stayed behind. Between 1954 and 1956, he was a prisoner sentenced to hard labour at the coal mine near the village of Csolnok, in northwestern Hungary, after having been found guilty of conspiring against the state. He fled to Canada in 1957 and from his new home in Vancouver, he spent the next seven years pleading with Hungarian authorities, and anyone who would listen, to allow his wife and children to join him. Hungarian authorities did not grant my grandmother a passport, as they argued that only in the People’s Republic of Hungary would her children have a safe and certain future. It took over seven years for his wife and children to be granted permission to leave Hungary and join him in Canada. I translated one of my grandfather’s letters to Hungary’s leader, János Kádár, into English (the original Hungarian version is available here) and I am sharing it with HFP’s readers, on the 59th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. 

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My grandfather in Vancouver, in the fall of 1960.

My grandfather in Vancouver, in the fall of 1960.

I know that it is inappropriate to bother a head of state with private letters, and for this I would like to first of all apologize. But it is my complete desperation around my family’s and children’s future that convinced me to write this letter after all. I am a family man, of Hungarian origins, living in Canada, whose family remains in Hungary. I left my homeland following the events of 1956 and not because I wanted to remove myself from my obligations as a father, but in order to support them and bring them here, with the approval of both my new and my old homeland.

Unfortunately, up until now, these efforts have failed. My family has long received a visa from Canadian authorities, but has not been issued a passport by Hungary. My wife’s passport application was rejected because, according to Hungarian authorities, “the future of the children was guaranteed in Hungary, rather than in Canada, so it is in their best interest to stay at home.”

Now that my 13 year old daughter has finished elementary school, she would like to study further, but she is being hindered by Hungarian authorities. She cannot attend technical school, nor high school.

The reason for this is that I, her father, was arrested by Hungarian State Security in 1954 for conspiring against the state. The courts sentenced me to six years in prison, in a closed hearing, where the judge warned me in advance to only answer his questions with ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I was not allowed to say anything for my final words.

I served two years and three days of this sentence, at which point during the revolution, with a letter of release signed by the prosecutor’s office, I was freed from the labour camp established at the Csolnok coal mines. After my release, my wife and I did not think about leaving the country, as radio broadcasts guaranteed several times per day that the government had no plans to harass the former political prisoners any further, especially considering that most of the cases were based on abuses committed by the state.

We believed in your words, Mr. Kádár. Unfortunately, the initial decision and promise suffered changes and on January 27th, 1957, I discovered that there was a warrant for my arrest. That’s why I left the country the next day. Naturally, I left alone. As a result of the closed borders, I could not risk crossing the frozen waters with my children.

Why is a child made to pay the price for the alleged sins of her father, and over the course of her entire life?

I use the word “alleged,” because to this day, I do not see myself as guilty of any crime, even if I did participate–in a purely philosophical sense–in a conspiracy. The philosophical underpinnings of this effort, as uncovered by the authorities, were the following notes: “If Hungary’s current regime falls, as a result of external or internal factors, we must–according to our modest gifts and knowledge– help lift to power a new direction that will return our nation to democracy.”

I was sentenced, because between 1949 and 1952, I dared to criticize the errors of the day and because I did not feel that the direction at the time was democratic. This was my sin and it is because of this that I was torn away from my family six years ago. This is why my children are growing up without a father and this is why they can never become doctors, engineers or teachers. We cannot call this anything other than modern-day oppression.

Today, in the atomic era, when the great powers are exploring space, when they are working on conquering the moon, nobody is hearing or noticing the small, yet deep family tragedies. In our century, while scientists are spending millions on their research, in order to perfect human medicine, politicians are driving families to madness, because one cannot cross man-made state borders.

Despite every human depravity, I simply cannot believe that it is impossible to improve upon this situation. I cannot give up on my family and we still have a small flicker of hope that we might find someone in this corrupt world, within whom the sense of humanity and parenthood may rise and who might help us.

…Someone who could help us, before it isn’t too late to take the rearing of our children into a father’s hands.

Since I am not familiar with the higher art of writing, I express myself using simple words, but with all the more passion and with hope, as I ask the world’s powers to help us.

Frank Oszlanszky
1256 Nelson St.
Vancouver, BC
Canada

June 9, 1961

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