This is a translated and edited version of the original two articles.
He was born in Szekszárd, Hungary, in 1939 into a large family. Experienced the 1956 Revolution as a student in Vác, while his elder brother, a student at the Technical University, was wounded at a demonstration at Kálvin Square. He was approached and pressured several times to become an informant but refused; as a result, his professional career stalled. Finally, in 1968, seeking to escape the repressive communist dictatorship, he fled Hungary with a friend under the guise of a holiday on the Adriatic. He succeeded in reaching Italy on the second attempt and eventually reached the U.S. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, he first became involved in the Reformed church led by Rev. Imre Bertalan and later joined the leadership of the local Hungarian Club.
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Could you briefly introduce your family?
My parents’ families lived in Tolna County. Both my grandfathers were killed in World War I. My paternal grandmother, Erzsébet Sörös, raised four sons. My maternal grandmother, Lídia Bese, raised five children. Both were wonderful women. We learned countless Hungarian folk songs from them and from our mother; I inherited from them my love of Hungarian culture and poetry. Although my grandparents were Catholics, my mother became very interested in the Baptist faith through her friendships with Reformed and Baptist girls. She eventually persuaded my father to become a Baptist as well. They married as Baptists and lived deeply religious and morally upright lives. They had six children. I was born as the third on 15 November 1939 in Szekszárd. We were always poor, but we lived a very close family life and maintained strong ties with our wider family.
How did you experience the 1956 Revolution?
After finishing school, I went to Vác to attend a technical boarding school. I was training to become a pattern-maker for foundries. We studied technical drawing, mathematics, materials science, and practical engineering. Shortly after I started school, the Revolution broke out. Vác had a railway embankment, and some of the country’s strictest prisons, holding lots of political prisoners, were close to the Danube. When prisoners were released during the first days of the Revolution, they passed through the town heading north, towards the border. Locals gave them bread and clothes and sometimes invited them into their homes.
Teachers at our school dispersed, but the boarding house remained open. We were not allowed to go home because the roads were unsafe. As there were no cooks, locals brought us whatever they had. We were curious, so we walked down to the railway station and joined the locals’ preparations to defend against a potential Soviet attack. We used crowbars to pull up paving stones and completely blocked the tunnel so that Soviet troops couldn’t enter. Soldiers who had joined the revolutionaries established positions along the railway embankment. They showed how to dismantle a large machine gun. Fortunately, nobody actually had to use it.
József Varga during his first visit with his parents and his son’s Marine graduation PHOTO: courtesy of József Varga
My eldest brother was studying at the Technical University in Budapest. On 26 October, Soviet tanks fired on young demonstrators at Kálvin Square and in front of the National Museum. My brother was among them. He jumped behind an advertising column but was hit by a burst of gunfire in his right leg. Taxi drivers took the wounded to hospitals. My brother was taken to the Honvéd Hospital, where a fellow glider pilot worked as a surgeon. He spent six months in hospital and underwent several operations. Afterward, he was expelled from both the university and the flying club. Later on, he was arrested by the secret police near Keleti railway station because he proudly wore a small Kossuth-crown badge. On that occasion they beat him so badly that he had to return to hospital…
What happened to you after the Soviets crushed the Revolution?
On 4 November, Soviet tanks arrived from Czechoslovakia and occupied Vác. They removed the barricades from the tunnels, and for about six hours we watched the tanks pouring into the city. We were terrified and stayed inside. On 15 November, the school authorities told us that we should go home, because they didn’t know when teaching would resume. The reprisals that followed were terrible, although my family living in Budafok (close to Budapest) by that time didn’t experience the worst of them directly. One local boy who took part in the Revolution was arrested and kept in prison until he was 18, then executed. When the school announced that it would reopen in January, I decided to return. I had grown to love the place, my studies and my friends. Almost everyone came back. I graduated with excellent results. I have a tattoo on my arm: ‘Galeri, 1959’.
How did your life continue after the Revolution?
After school, I returned to Láng Machine Factory, then moved to Ganz-MÁVAG, where highly skilled engineers and craftsmen worked. We produced diesel locomotives and luxury trains for, e.g., Egypt and the Soviet Union. I became active in the factory’s cultural group. I took part in a poetry competition and recited Petőfi Sándor’s The Poets of the Nineteenth Century. I wasn’t allowed to finish the poem because of its revolutionary tone, but I still received the first prize…
‘I had spent my youth in boarding school and then in the army and simply wanted to live as a civilian’
Previously, during my military service, I had been approached by the political department to become an informer. They told me how useful it’d be for my career… I said I came from a large family and didn’t want to snitch on anyone. Later, at the factory, I was again approached. ‘Comrade Varga, join the Party. We need you. You have an excellent record from your regiment.’ I replied I had spent my youth in boarding school and then in the army and simply wanted to live as a civilian. I didn’t want to put on another uniform. They didn’t accept it easily, and there were consequences. I stopped receiving wage increases. When applying for the option to buy a flat, I was told: ‘Comrade Varga, you are at the bottom of the list’.
When did you decide to leave Hungary?
By the 1960s, my friends and I increasingly felt that everything was getting worse; the system was becoming more restrictive. A group of us who had experienced 1956 decided not to take part voluntarily in anything connected with the regime. For a while this was possible, but gradually we found ourselves pushed onto a professional ‘sidetrack’. In 1968, my friend Pista Viktor and I decided to organize a two-week holiday on the Adriatic to escape. We knew others had already flown through Yugoslavia to Italy. Pista had a Western passport because his mother worked at the Ministry of the Interior. I had only a temporary travel document restricting my access to the neighboring countries of the Eastern bloc. We first traveled to Fiume (Rijeka) and spent time studying the Yugoslav–Italian border, buying maps and dictionaries, and planning our route. I planned to cross the border on foot, while he took our belongings by bus to Trieste.
Unfortunately, a storm came that night. I lost my way and eventually ran into a Yugoslav border guard, who pointed his rifle at me and took me to a nearby border post. I spent two nights in the detention center in Koper. I was told that I’d either spend ten days in prison or pay a fine. The judge warned me that if I attempted to cross the border again, I’d be handed over to the Hungarian authorities. After being released, I set off again. I walked through gardens and vineyards, keeping parallel to the road. Towards dawn I met a local woman carrying a basket. With my limited German, I asked her which way the Adriatic Sea was. She smiled and told me that if I crossed a few hills, I’d see it. In the woods, I found a damaged barbed-wire fence, then saw an electricity pylon with Italian signs. I walked downhill and hitchhiked towards Trieste. I found Pista near the railway station. We reported to the police and applied for political asylum together.
What did you find when you arrived in America?
After eight months in an Italian refugee camp, my new friend Pista Kerekes, whom I met there, and I arrived in New York in March 1969. (Pista Viktor was sent to Chicago, IL.) At Kennedy Airport, a woman from the immigration office gave us the white card confirming that we had been legally admitted. She also bought each of us a one-way bus ticket to New Brunswick, NJ. A year later, I received a letter from the authorities: I owed them $130. I had to pay it because the debt could have caused problems if I later applied for American citizenship.
Rev. Imre Bertalan gave us $20 each and said: ‘Boys, when you start earning, give this back to the church. That way we can help somebody else.’ The 56er Táncos family provided us with a room. My first job was cleaning at Rutgers University, earning $2.90 an hour. My landlady worked for Johnson & Johnson and helped me get a job with one of its subsidiaries, Permacel. I was trained to operate a specialized film-winding machine, earning $3.15 an hour. I stayed there for ten years.
Why did it take so long to return to your profession?
My fiancé Irma Luzsányi’s family was from Szolnok. Her brother was a nationally ranked cyclist and had been photographed several times during the Revolution. After it was crushed, he was smuggled out of Hungary using an illegal passport. I kept in touch with Irma by correspondence. In 1970 she visited Laci’s family in England. I advised her to register at the refugee camp in Vienna. I applied to the immigration authorities for permission for her to enter the U.S. as my fiancée. We married in 1970. We bought a car, a house, and had two children: József was born in April 1972, followed by Ágnes in 1973. It wasn’t easy without any family support, and I couldn’t afford to leave a secure job with health insurance.
When did you finally change jobs?
In 1979 we wanted to visit Hungary. I was earning reasonably well, and my wife had found work too. We found an older Hungarian woman to look after the children while we worked. I was entitled to only eight days’ holiday a year, so I asked the union for enough time to stay in Hungary for two full weeks. They refused, but we went anyway. When we came back, I found a letter dismissing me… At the union meeting, they said I’d be suspended for ten days. During those days, I looked through newspaper advertisements and found a company in Perth Amboy, NJ, looking for a pattern-maker. I became a respected specialist and stayed there for 18 years. I started with $7 an hour and was earning $18 when I left.
I lost my job when I was nearly 60, when our own company was bought out. The pension contributions I had made over 18 years were worth only about $400 a month. I had to find another job. I obtained the unarmed security officer’s qualification through the New Jersey State Police, then worked for Bloomberg Financial for another 22 years until I finally retired in my early eighties…
József Varga (R), and Kriszta (Tóth) Julika (L) PHOTO: courtesy of Ildikó Antal-Ferencz
He subsequently encouraged me to take on various church responsibilities. I was elected to the presbytery and served as an elder for seven years, during which I always tried to actively contribute. For example, there were only English-language Sunday classes at the church. When our children were five or six, with several fellow elders, I proposed establishing a Hungarian Sunday school. Later on, when one of the involved families with five children moved to Switzerland, I pledged to keep the school going. Whenever new Hungarian families came to church, I’d invite them to join the school. We reached our peak of 32 pupils.
When some members of the English-speaking congregation criticized us for placing too much emphasis on being Hungarians, I explained that I didn’t want my children to copy my imperfect English; they’d learn English at school, from friends and television. We weren’t given an additional classroom when I asked for it, or I was told there was no money for a typewriter with Hungarian characters, so I had to buy it myself. Despite all these difficulties, we had many wonderful experiences. I still have the lessons, poems, and songs I prepared for the children.
Then you became active in the Hungarian Club, right?
I joined the Hungarian American Athletic Club (HAAC) in the early 80s. At that time, the club was struggling. Eventually, a new leadership was elected, made up largely of 56ers. Catholics, Reformed Christians, and Scouts all worked together. To this day, HAAC remains the only one of the Hungarian organizations in New Brunswick where people work together regardless of religious denomination or political views. That’s one of the reasons it has survived for more than a century.
I became secretary and reorganized the club’s administration. We worked with several other Hungarian clubs existing at the time in the region to coordinate events. Later, I chaired the cultural committee for ten years. We bought a piano, improved the club premises, and after 1990, we invited many performers from Hungary: from Róbert Rátonyi and Kati Kovács to the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble. We also hosted political and cultural events and worked to bring together Hungarians of different backgrounds. One particularly memorable guest was Nobel Prize-winning physicist Edward Teller. He attended a political banquet and afterward spoke with us in Hungarian. He said: ‘Do not abandon the Hungarian language, because it will sustain you!’
At the club’s height, we had around 300 members. I remained active until the 2010s. One of the projects closest to my heart was the Hungarian Festival. I helped organize the first one back in the 70s, when we moved it to New Brunswick from Holmdel, NJ. Our Hungarian Sunday school also participated. Another important development was the foundation of the Hungarian Museum. Professor Ágoston Molnár, a highly educated and energetic former Reformed minister, began collecting material for the museum in a building belonging to our church. Eventually, through his extensive network of contacts, he helped secure a former factory building that could be converted into a museum. When he moved the collection there, the church forgave the appr. $10,000 in outstanding rent as our contribution to the launch of the museum.
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