The Forgotten Faces 1961
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Michael Daniel Kelly, aged 17, dead in the gutter of the Kalmenjózsef Street, Budapest, Hungary.
00:17The date is Monday, October the 29th, 1956. It is morning, a harsh morning.
00:30Everywhere can be seen the scars of revolution, because for six days Budapest has been agonized
00:40by an armed revolt against its communist government. It was begun, as so many revolutions are begun,
00:52by students. These are their faces. It was their ultimatum to the government on October
01:02the 23rd, which set in motion the gear wheels of revolution. They are the faces of embryo
01:08technicians, lawyers, artists and teachers, all fevered with the social discontent of
01:13their time, a discontent which has spread itself from the most advanced of students to the
01:19most junior of schoolboys.
01:25From their secret and forbidden meeting places, the revolution has brought the students and
01:29the workers out onto the open of the streets of Budapest. Joined by soldiers and other
01:35civilians and armed with a few submachine guns, grenades and ancient rifles, and bearing their
01:40national flags and emblems, they march in procession to defy the Hungarian government and the Russian
01:46tanks it has called in to suppress them.
02:02On this morning, October the 29th, such a procession passes up our Kelmen-Yozhev street.
02:09Their purpose? Demonstration. The objective? Parliament Square in the centre of the city.
02:16But they are never to get there.
02:23For suddenly, the crowd is fired upon by police snipers and machine gunners on the roof of a nearby barracks.
02:29In a few moments, many of the marchers are lying dead on the ground below.
02:33But the crowd finally manage to fight their way into the building. Then, for a brief moment, the oppressed become the oppressors as the crowd take their revenge on the uniformed men in the city.
02:38But the crowd finally manage to fight their way into the building. Then, for a brief moment, the oppressed become the oppressors as the crowd take their revenge on the uniformed men inside.
02:45The dividing line between murder and justifiable execution is difficult to find and in the fury of the moment, no one looks for it.
02:52And in the fury of the moment, no one looks for it.
02:59Those freedom fighters who died have been moved further further.
03:06down the street and lie flag-covered in the dust. Around them, the everyday life of Budapest starts again.
03:13The grocery roundsman, whose van has been smashed by a Russian tank, plods his way from house to house with his bicycle.
03:20his tires slashed to ribbons by the broken glass by the broken glass in the road.
03:32The grocery roundsman, whose van has been smashed by a Russian tank, plods his way from house to house with his bicycle, his tires slashed to ribbons by the broken glass in the road.
03:40Plods his way from house to house with his bicycle, his tyres slashed to ribbons by the broken glass in the road.
03:59Here is one of the dead, the schoolboy.
04:02He will be buried in an improvised plot in the nearby park.
04:06One of the men goes off to find the boy's family to tell them of his death.
04:11They must come and identify the body.
04:15The boy's name was Michael Bella Imredi, aged 18 years and three months.
04:25Eight minutes ago, he had tried to throw a grenade through one of the police barrack windows.
04:32He had missed. Some of his friends had laughed at him.
04:35Then a bullet from a police sniper had hit him in the back and killed him.
04:40Then a bullet from a police sniper had hit him in the back and killed him.
04:52And killed him.
05:22The man on the left is Tamas Varashi, a primary school teacher aged 37, a reserved and quiet
05:35man.
05:36He only openly joined in the revolution the day before this because, as he said, I can
05:41no longer sit still and do nothing when my friends are being killed in the streets outside
05:46my home.
05:48Now he is actively organising a local first aid post.
05:53The Kalman Jozef Street lies in an industrial suburb called Oypest, which like the entire
05:58capital has taken on the appearance of a wartime Hungary.
06:03The one small thing that Tamas can find time to do for the Imredy family is to send one
06:08of the young boys who knew him at school to take them home.
06:13The first aid post is in the cellar at the rear of this ruined house.
06:22It is packed with the wounded from many neighbouring streets.
06:25The conditions down there are not good.
06:27The walls are running with water from the nearby river and there is an acute shortage of dressings.
06:32Only the very seriously wounded can be moved across to the hospital, which is two blocks
06:36away across a road junction still under heavy shell fire.
06:44The name of this girl is Margit Zeke.
06:48Aged 33, she is the fiancée of Tamas, a journalist.
06:53She tries to find time between helping him at the post to finish a series of articles she
06:57is writing for one of the revolutionary newspapers.
07:07These two have both been on their feet all through the night working in the cramped confines
07:11of the cellar dressing the wounded.
07:18This little boy seated in the rubble is called Robert Fodor.
07:23His nickname is Robbie and he is aged 12.
07:27This is his sister Zuzia who is 17.
07:30Their father was killed the day before yesterday in the street fighting.
07:34They both saw it happen.
07:36Zuzia has tried to be practical and put the tragedy out of her mind.
07:41But young Robbie can't and won't let anyone do anything for him, not even his sister.
07:46And that doesn't help her very much.
08:04This very noisy young man's name is Erno Zighetti, a garage hand from Cubania.
08:15He's trying to get everyone to listen as he tries to persuade Margit Zeke to read the latest
08:19article of hers recently published in the Revolutionary Literary Gazette.
08:24At first she doesn't want to, but soon she realizes that she has no choice.
08:30Everyone wants to hear the words of freedom she's written and for the moment all else is
08:35forgotten as they listen to them.
08:42Here we go.
08:56I'm his first response.
09:01The End
09:31On these faces, as each tragedy is relived and talked about,
09:54can be seen a vivid cross-section of the shifting moods of a revolution.
09:58Gentleness and hatred, fervour and grief.
10:03And in these varying expressions, and on the faces that reflect them,
10:07can thus be seen the whole enigma of the Hungarian people.
10:11A highly strung and volatile nation, romantic, tempestuous, proud and arrogant of their heritage,
10:18capable both of cruelty and generous kindness.
10:22The Hungarians possess a complex national makeup not easily understood.
10:28This is Ezebeth Shuyok, aged 44.
10:34Her only son was killed yesterday.
10:38Istvan Beric, aged 19.
10:42Parents deported five years ago and not heard of since.
10:45Eva Rokos, aged 17, has a common sympathy with Istvan, her mother being killed three months ago by security police.
10:59Diogban, aged 37, foreman at a machine factory in Oipest, and Macias Vida, 40, a charge hand at the same factory, makes strange co-patriots.
11:16For one, Vida is a social democrat, and the other, Ban, a staunch communist, and consequently, they are both forever arguing.
11:30This is Katalin Vardas, aged 18, art student.
11:37For her young years, an advanced cynic and anti-communist.
11:41Laszlo Dondossi, 24, librarian, and before the revolution, the organiser of a discussion circle forbidden by the security police.
11:49Each of these people, highly individual, each with conflicting ideals.
11:56Is it therefore too naive to conclude that the one common belief strong enough to bring these people together
12:02must be their genuine love of their country and their desire for its freedom?
12:08A desire for which they are obviously prepared to die.
12:11This is an old truck disguised as a military ambulance.
12:19In it, five members of the AVH security police are trying to escape from the siege of their party headquarters down in the city centre.
12:26But they don't get far.
12:31Called the AVO, these are the men who have held down the country with an iron grip of terror.
12:41What are these men?
12:44Are they traitors and bullying opportunists of the worst kind?
12:48Or are they unwitting dukes?
12:50And if the freedom fighters had actually won the revolution,
12:54would any of them have donned similar uniforms to hold these men in check?
12:57Who are they?
13:18Who are they?
13:21Who are they?
13:23Oh, my God.
13:53By the 30th of October, the Soviet forces had withdrawn to the outskirts of the capital
14:00and Imre Noj, the premier, had set up his provisional government.
14:05The revolutionaries were now in complete control of the city.
14:10For four days, the people of Budapest lived under the illusion of freedom, until the morning
14:19of Sunday, November the 4th, when Imre Noj broadcast the following message to the Hungarian people.
14:35This is Imre Noj speaking, chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Hungarian People's Republic.
14:42In the early hours of this morning, Soviet troops launched an attack against our capital city
14:48with the obvious intention of overthrowing the lawful democratic government.
14:53Our troops are fighting. The government is in its place.
14:57I hereby inform the people of Hungary and the entire world of this situation.
15:09Searchlights pick out the grim chaos in the rubble, as on the evening of the 4th of November,
15:14Russian tanks pour into the city, and lining the squares and street junctions,
15:18fire shell after shell into the buildings held by the freedom fighters.
15:22Office blocks, apartment buildings and hospitals are fired on indiscriminately.
15:27Parts of many buildings collapse on their defenders, and scores are buried alive.
15:32The noise of gunfire is deafening, and everywhere is smoke, brick dust and rubble.
15:37Time and time again, students and young children are dragged out from beneath the rubble.
15:42It is terrible to watch.
15:44There is no time to bury the dead. There is not even time to grieve for them.
16:07There has to be a right and wrong in any human conflict.
16:30This most tragic of revolutions can be no exception.
16:35But in any conflict between two major creeds, one of which you believe in,
16:40there has to be a final taking of sides.
16:43And if those who happen to believe, as these Hungarian freedom fighters believed,
16:48had taken a strong moral stand on their behalf at the time when it most mattered,
16:53then it is more than likely that twenty thousand of these people
16:58need not have given their lives or their liberty for this belief.
17:02The
17:08Tamash Faresi,
17:09dead.
17:11Magid Csake,
17:12refugee.
17:13Istvan Berek,
17:16executed.
17:18Ivo R'rokos,
17:19executed.
17:21Raslo Horvath,
17:23dead.
17:26Diog Ban,
17:27killed.
17:29Anton Kuhlman,
17:30dead.
17:32Nihai Kish executed. Janos Zigsai deported. Refugee executed. Deported. Missing. Killed.
18:02Nagy Imre, a Magyar Némköztársaság minisztertalására.
18:21Nagy Imre, a Magyar Némköztársaság minisztertalásának jelölteketett.
18:25Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Hungarian People's Republic.
18:29In the early hours of this morning, Soviet troops launched an attack against our capital city
18:35with the obvious intention of overthrowing the lawful democratic Hungarian government.
18:40Our troops are fighting. The government is in its place.
18:44I hereby involve the people of heart.
18:53Thank you so much.
18:54Good morning, everyone.
18:57Thank you very much.