Judit Borzsak (b. 7/31/1936)
Because she came from the middle class, the daughter of a teacher, Judit Borzsak was not expected under Communist rule to go to the university and was sent to a secondary technical school of economics. But while she was there, government policy regarding eligibility for higher education changed, and on the basis of her good grades she was allowed to go to the university. She wanted to teach English but was first employed as a librarian in several manufacturing companies, including a radio factory. Later she became an English teacher. As guide of a tour for vacationing teachers she had an opportunity to travel widely when most Hungarian travel was very restricted. Her experiences in both Russia and the west were illuminating as she compared Muslim and Communist cultures and western Europe with Hungary. However, when she tried to become an au pair in England, to improve her English, she ran afoul of a suspicious and duplicitous Communist government in Hungary. She is currently program officer of the Hungarian Accreditation Committee of the Hungarian Ministry of Education, and she has much to say, among other subjects, about the changes in education, the media and society since 1989.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family, education in technical secondary school and university--Revolution and post-’56 changes--Work as a librarian, marriage, child care—We’re Travel, passports, impressions of foreign countries--Journalists’ work under Communism--Differences between the west and Communist Hungary--1989 and post-1989--Life under capitalism--European Union--Higher education in Hungary and the teaching profession--Freedom of speech, the press, TV and radio

Gabor Drexler (b. 5/2/43)
Gabor Drexler is the director of the Budapest campus of McDaniel College, which he was instrumental in establishing in 1994. (McDaniel was formerly called Western Maryland College) He has had a long career in education, the major part of which took place during the Communist regime. Although as the son of an engineer he belonged to the middle class, he was able to enter the university because of high entrance examination scores, and graduated in English and Russian literature and language. After briefly teaching, he worked in the Institute for Cultural Relations and was involved in educational and cultural exchanges with foreign nations and traveled extensively abroad. After 1981 he worked in the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and taught 20 th century English literature part-time at the university. He was a member of the Communist party which he discusses in the interview. He presents a history of Hungary under the Communist government, especially during the Kadar period, and comments extensively on the situation since 1989. He completely rewrote the interview in the interest of improved organization because he felt his oral presentation was confusing. His rewriting has not been altered in any way.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family, education under Communism--Life under Communism before 1956--Importance of 1956 and of Kadar--Entrance into university--Information restrictions under Communism--Prague Spring, including Kadar’s role--Work for the Institute for Cultural Relations, later the Ministry--Founding of McDaniel College--Evaluation of the changes in 1989--Analysis of current political situation in Hungary--Family, education in technical secondary school and university--Revolution and post-’56

Zsuzsa Eastland (b. 1944)
Although she belonged to the middle class, the daughter of teachers, Zsuzsa Eastland was admitted automatically to the university because she was rated one of the ten best students of the Russian language in Hungary in 1963. After graduating, she became a language teacher herself, eventually at the language institute of the medical school, teaching students medical texts in English and other languages as well. She has vivid memories of pre-1956 Communist terror and of the 1956 Revolution with its euphoria and hope. She discusses Communist values, how they were presented and how they were observed, and living with the restrictions of life under Communism. And she has much to say about 1989 and its aftermath, about current political splits in Hungary, the effects of living under 2 different totalitarian governments, and the clash of different unreconciled values today.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family background and religion--Memories of pre-1956--Education, discussion of freedom of speech--Memories of 1956 and its aftermath--Kadar regime: principles and practices--The “changes” in 1989 and subsequent corruption--Post-communism: leaders, problems, values and attitudes

Pal Geher (b. 1950)
Pal Geher is the son of a lawyer who lost his license to practice because he refused the role of prosecutor in the now-infamous case of Peter Mansfeld, a teenager accused of treason for involvement in the 1956 Revolution. He could practice law again later only in a town far from his family in Budapest. Pal was allowed to go to the university because of his high academic achievements and he subsequently went to medical school and became a rheumatologist and later a PhD. During the Kadar regime he organized a scientific society which arranged international medical meetings for Hungarian doctors, otherwise not permitted to travel, so they could exchange scientific information with doctors of other countries. After the fall of Communism he was twice in the Ministry of Welfare of the Hungarian government, in 1993-1994 and in 2001-2002. In the latter period he was Vice-Secretary of State and instrumental in reorganizing and privatizing the health care system in Hungary. He comments on both Communist and post-Communist politics and economics and the effects of the different systems on personal life.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family background, early education--University, becoming a rheumatologist--Post-Communist changes in hospital system--Study in France, considering remaining there--Passport availability, possibilities of leaving Hungary--PhD--Medical meeting in Budapest--Ministry of Health position and politics--Political comments--Hungary and international politics--Hungary, NATO and E.U.--Current freedom of speech and press in Hungary--Computers, internet and freedom of speech--Freedom of speech and personal relationships

Kalman Hencsei (b. 1/1/45)
Kalman Hencsei was warned early in life by his father against becoming a Communist. His father was a peasant who, under Horthy’s regime, became a policeman in Budapest, but he refused to work for the Communists when they came to power and returned to farm life. Kalman grew up in the village of Bezered, where the Catholic church was very important to him and where he is now endowing a chapel. He graduated from the university in math and physics. He planned to be a scientist but became a computer expert. He never became a Communist party member but he had a live-and-let-live relationship with the party and government. Later he got a degree in economics and worked in banking and in the government ministry of finance as s consultant, a position he liked very much. After an unhappy stay in the United States he became very critical of the “American mentality” and returned to Hungary. He is one of 3 partners in an English language school whose finances he directs. He discusses, among other subjects, the current political and economic situation in Hungary and various social problems such as the “gypsy problem”.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family background and childhood--Education--Communists in his village--View of Trianon Treaty--Career as computer expert--Work in finance-- U.S.A.--Work at English language school in Budapest--Current Hungarian politics and economics--Army service in Hungary--Gypsies in Hungary

Maria Kollar (b. 1945)
Maria Kollar is the granddaughter of an eminent Hungarian banker, Leo Lanczy, whose name is inscribed on the Chain Bridge in Budapest. Her father, Dr. Andor von Wodianer, was a lawyer. Because they were “bourgeois”, the family was “resettled”, that is, deported, by the Communists from Budapest to a village on the Hortobagy ( Great Plains) where they were quartered with a peasant family. After 2 years she and her sister were allowed to return to Budapest to live with their grandmother. Her mother secretly lived with them, although she was forbidden to live in Budapest. Her social background also prevented Maria from entering the university. She had a succession of administrative jobs with different businesses, finally working for Hungarian Lightmetal in Szekesfehervar which was bought by Alcoa. She describes especially the social and economic changes as well as the political ones which have occurred in Hungary after the fall of Communism in 1989.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family, deportation to Hortobagy, early schooling, return to Budapest--Political exclusion from university, work--Marriage, move to/work in Szekesfehervar, changes in workplace--Memories of Rakosi and Kadar eras--Current work and living situations--Current politics and press freedom--TV and computers--E.U.

Marton Ledniczky (b. 3/11/54)
Marton Ledniczky calls himself “an artist of film”. He is the son of a lawyer and grew up in Budapest during the Communist era aware of the censorship of school subjects and of terror during this regime. He worked his way up in his profession in a state-owned film company and went as well to a theater and cinema high school. He experienced taboo subjects in the film industry and also the fact that some film makers were “more equal” among the equal and were permitted to question politics a little in their work. He discusses the changes in the film business after 1989 and the changes in Hungarian life, both new freedoms and new tyrannies. He is currently an independent documentary film producer.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family background and education--Making films during the Communist regime--Freedom of speech with the coming of capitalism--Other changes with capitalism--Role of the media in capitalism--Critique of current capitalism

Emil Pasztor (b. 4/18/26)
Emil Pasztor is the son of a baker who opened his own bakery just in time to be wiped out by the Crash of 1929 but who managed to open another in 1939. Emil was just beginning medical school in 1944 when the siege and occupation of Budapest by the Russian army occurred. He was seized by the Russians and marched off, ostensibly to captivity and forced labor, but by incredible luck managed to escape. He finished medical school, married his wife, also a doctor, and together they decided, after the 1956 Revolution was crushed, to remain in Hungary to contribute what they could to the country. He subsequently (1973-1993) became director of the National Institute of Neurosurgery in Budapest, which included a 150-bed free-standing neurosurgery hospital, the 3 rd largest in the world. An American colleague called him “a leader with courage, vision and high personal competence….. I place him in the top 5 of all medical academics I have met….”(Dr. Frederick Holmes, professor emeritus, University of Kansas Medical Center, personal letter). Dr. Pasztor comments about his trips to medical conferences during Communist times and about the changes in life after the collapse of Communism in 1989.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family, education during World War II--Siege of Budapest 1944, capture by Russians, escape--Work as glazier, medical education--Marriage, 1956, choosing to remain in Hungary--Professional meeting in Washington and Sao Paulo--Changes after 1989

Agota Pavlovics (b. 5/3/56)
Agota Pavlovics at the time of the interview (2005) was an editor at the Central
European News Agency which she described as “at the moment the far world of beautiful hopes”. She meant there was hope it could convey more accurate news to other European news agencies because its reporters lived in and therefore knew more about central eastern European affairs. She is the daughter of a Hungarian mother and a Serbian father who was a teacher and long-time member of the Socialist party, and she graduated from the university in Serbo-Croatian and Hungarian languages. She taught briefly and then became a translator at the Yugoslavian embassy trade office. In the 1980’s this became a privately owned trade company and she then had a better income and more luxurious lifestyle. She became a journalist after 1989 because she felt it was ideally like teaching in informing and enlightening people. But she views current political and economic affairs in Hungary, along with current journalism, as in a “boiling period” of adjustment and change.

Discursive Table of Contents: Background and education--Teaching--Working in Yugoslav trade office--Journalism--Privatization of property in Hungary after 1989--Hungarian economy and European Union--Political instability in Hungary--Intelligence, press honesty and responsibility

Katalin Pecsi (b. 3/29/51)
Katalin Pecsi was born in Budapest to Communist parents and grew up knowing nothing of her Jewish heritage. Her father’s background was that of an assimilated Jew; her mother came from an Orthodox family and her maternal aunts and uncles belonged to a Zionist youth organization Hasomer Hacair and spent some time in Palestine. When she was young there was little discussion of family members killed, ostensibly as political prisoners, in the Nazi death camps. Her parents as Communists talked of politics but eschewed all religious beliefs, although St Nicolas and Santa Claus both visited at Christmas time, causing Katalin some confusion as to whether they were twins or one person making 2 visits. She discovered her Jewish background while at the university and ever since has been exploring it, in Hungary, in Germany, and in the United States. She feels that Judaism is “the most important part” of her identity. She is currently professor of literature at the Central Europesan University in Budapest and director of education at the Budapest Holocaust Memorial Center. She is also a founding member of Esther’s Bag, a group of Hungarian Jewish women seeking to promote research on the history of Jewish women and writing, holding discussions, and having exhibits about women in the Jewish community.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family’s Judaism, Zionism and trip to Palestine--Parents’ Communism, father’s
deportation to camp and escape--Mother’s work in anti-Nazi underground--Upbringing in ignorance of Jewish heritage--Discovery of Jewish heritage, meaning to Katalin--Marriage to non-Jew, travel as a student before marriage--Editorial work, PhD, children, travel to Germany and USA--Father’s suicide, discovery of Jewish music and Holocaust history--Jewish practices in USA, Jewish secrecy during Communism--Children and
Judaism, political divisions in Hungary today

Tibor Pok (b. 2/10/64)
Tibor Pok’s life illustrates the difficult economic challenges presented to many Hungarians by the collapse of Communism and the coming of unrestrained competitive capitalism. He went to a high school which trained students for the catering trade, but he worked only one year in that field before starting a small trucking business. It was the 1980’s when in Hungary the Communist government allowed small businesses to be privately owned. Soon, however, after Tibor started his, small private trucking firms proliferated and his ceased to be profitable. After 1989, when capitalism replaced Communism, he started a small tobacconist shop, which also carried a small assortment of food and household items like soap. It was located on the ground floor of his parents-in-law’s house in a suburb of Budapest and was managed by Tibor and his wife only. After 10 years, however, he could not compete with the many large international chains similar to WalMart which flooded Hungary. Currently he works as a waiter and his wife as clerk in a store, and they don’t have to pay the heavy taxes and other expenses of owning their own business. Having worked in the United States, he is advising his daughter to go to the west when she is grown because she will have better business opportunities there.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family and--Starting a private trucking company, its failure-- Starting a small private store, its failure--Evaluation of the changes in 1989--Travel, impressions of other countries--Current political conditions in Hungary--Current education in Hungary

Eva Szabo (Dr. Bara Denesne) (b. 12/14/1927)
Dr. Eva Szabo practiced medicine in Szeged, Hungary, during the Communist regime and she says she and her family never suffered a bit during that period. Despite gentle pressure to join, she was never a member of the Communist party but “I was not an enemy, I was neutral”. She was the daughter of a factory mechanic and an obstetrical nurse, and she decided early to get an education in order to “become somebody”. Coming from a worker background she had no trouble getting into the university. She describes the real estate situation under the Communists, the 1956 revolution in Szeged, life during the Kadar regime for doctors like her and her husband, and the post-1989 political situation in Hungary with the divisions in society resulting from differing political viewpoints. Her husband adds a word about the influence of the United States in the political changes of 1989 in Hungary.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family background and education--World War II--Communism: housing, army service--The 1956 Revolution in Szeged--Medical practice during the Kadar regime--After 1989

Gabor Erdelyi (b. 1927)
Gabor Erdelyi is the son of a lawyer, later a judge, whom the Communist government tried to involve in the show trial of Laszlo Rajk and imprisoned when they couldn’t achieve their objective. Gabor trained to be a teacher in his native city of Debrecen and taught high school there before 1956, agreeing to teach Marxism. He told his students that if they learned the Marxism they had to know, and he would check their knowledge daily, then the class could spend their time studying other more interesting and important subjects. He was teaching when the 1956 Revolution occurred and he was one of the principal leaders of the Revolution in Debrecen. He escaped from the pursuing Russians in an ingenious way and spent the next 50 years in the United States. He and his wife returned to Hungary in 2001, thankful for the refuge in the United States but happy to return to the patria they had never wanted to leave. He not only relates the exciting story of his escape from Hungary in 1956 but has insightful comments on both the Communist and post-Communist political and social situations in his native country.

Discursive Table of Contents: Family, kidnapping by Russians, education in Debrecen--Teaching under the Communists--Pre-revolutionary activity in Debrecen--October 23, 1956 in Debrecen--The Revolution; head of security--November 4, 1956: hiding from the AVH--Escape from Hungary--Critique of interwar political situation in Hungary--Beginnings of democracy ’45-’46—Communist Hungary; father’s imprisonment--Imre Nagy, Janos Kadar--Politics and economics in post-Communist Hungary