The radio was still talking about the Soviet withdrawal, but here it was already clear that we were doomed
Before the revolution, what was the public mood like in the countryside, in Debrecen, compared to the capital? Was the social tension palpable?
As a novice teacher, I taught in Budapest for three years and then moved to Debrecen, so I am in the fortunate position of having a basis for comparison. The situation in Debrecen was more tense then than in Budapest. The restlessness was greater. You could better feel the dictatorship and the consequences of the misery after the lost war.
Of course, the teenage world lived its own life in a special way, following the youthful hobbies and the modern fashion of the time.
However, the social tension was palpably stronger in the countryside than in Pest.
Just a few months before the outbreak of the revolution, he became deputy principal in a newly founded school. How did you experience this period?
In January 1955, I moved to Debrecen with the intention of starting a family during the school semester. At that time, he went to the Csokonai High School, which was the largest high school in Hungary. I did it this way for two semesters, and then, on the city’s initiative, the Ministry of Public Education chose Csokonai High School in two. The new boys’ high school was established on July 1, 1956, separating 8 boys’ classes and eleven teachers from Csokonai. The new school was named Árpád Tóth High School.
On August 22, 1956, the teaching staff of the high school was established, and I received the position of deputy director. I took over the position of director a year later from our retiring director.
When the revolution broke out, the school was less than two months old, and I had been its deputy principal for two months. Just two months ago, we were living with nearly 400 boys in a sublet in the building of the Csokonai High School. Apart from the children and the teachers, two stamps were the property of the school. One long and one round.
The teaching took place on the same day when the demonstration started in the city with the participation of the vehicle repair shop and the university. At that time, there were already schools in the morning, they joined the demonstration.
The atmosphere in the entire city was revolutionary, but the uncertainty was also palpable. There was chaos and confusion. Enemy tanks and armored cars marched between the demonstrators. Its participants threw the soldiers sitting in the cars, who endured this incomprehensible reception with an unflappable face.
Although everything started with peaceful symptoms, the atmosphere heated up.
Adolescent children were filled with the excitement of the revolution, patriotic fervor. The teenage world whipped by revolutionary romanticism became very busy.
The teaching would have continued in the following days as well, but with a strong freedom fighter atmosphere. There were parents who no longer allowed their children to go to school, rural people no longer had to travel from the surrounding villages, and college students were sent home. Attending school was not compulsory. If he did send the child to the parent, it was the school’s responsibility to deal with them. There was no more teaching, but instead we organized different sessions.
At that time, the teaching staff’s position was that this situation is not the concern of the child population, we did not say, Come on, children, let’s go! They had to be taken care of.
Despite this, we had two students who became the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary Committee of Debrecen, who ran around the city with pistols and were taken in by the police. One of them was brought out of the guard room by his class teacher.
There were also many people who gave charity. They assisted in feeding the town, provided traffic services and medical services to the students. The revolution, the entire front of the freedom struggle, really unfolded.
What were the revolutionary weekdays like? Was there provision in the city?
There was enormous poverty in the city at that time. You had to stand in line for meat at two o’clock at night, if someone wanted to eat meat. The misery was great. The winter stove could also be bought in installments, you had to pay HUF 20 per month to have coal for the winter, which was high compared to the wages at that time.
Did the revolution give hope in the city that the country’s fate might change for the better?
At the beginning, we still hoped that something would change in the direction of freedom. However, in the end, you could already see the result. It will either be an even bigger problem or it won’t work.
The Voice, or Free Europe, said on the radio that the Soviet troops had begun to withdraw, that the agreement had been reached, and that the city was buzzing day and night with tanks and armored cars. The ground literally shook.
By then it was already clear that the Soviets were not going outside, but coming inside. What the West said was not the reality. At that point it seemed that we were doomed.
How did they feel after the revolution was crushed?
After the defeated revolution, sadness, mourning and poverty prevailed. Shock and amazement, misery and cold followed. It’s hard to describe in words. It was terrible.
Our concept with the teaching staff was that the school should be a place that gives the child an experience, not an intimidating environment, but a second home, and the parents should know that their child is in a good place and likes to go to school, where they work, they care about him. This was the essence of our pedagogical program during the consolidation period.
Cover image and cover image: Debrecen in 1955, one year before the revolution; Source: Fortepan / Antal Kotnyek