STEPHEN D. KERTESZ - Between Russia and the West

On a spring day in 1934, I arrived in my government office in Buda to find a message from the National Scholarship Council: I should see that same morning a Mr. Kittredge from the Rockefeller Foundation, at the Hotel Astoria, to talk over my studies in the United States. I knew nothing about such plans and called the secretary of the council, who informed me that its chairman, Count Pal Teleki had suggested some months earlier that a young Hungarian scholar with an international studies background in Western Europe should be given an opportunity to study in the United States. The council, having explored the matter with the Rockefeller Foundation and examined files of fellows who had studied in Western Europe, agreed that I should apply. I went to see Mr. Kittredge and gave him such references as Ake Hammarskjöld of the Permanent Court of International Justice at the Hague and names of a few professors at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales at the Sorbonne where I had been awarded a diploma.

The following year I received a Rockefeller fellowship to study at Yale. Before I left I discussed my proposed studies and research with Teleki who emphasized the increasing importance of the United States in international affairs and predicted that Washington would have a leading role in the re organization of Europe at the next peace settlement. He recommended that besides my special studies, I should consider the major trends of United States foreign policy.

My wife Margaret and I left for New York from Le Havre aboard the S. S. Washington in early September 1935. As a Rockefeller fellow at Yale, attached to the Law School and the Graduate School, I soon realized that Yale offered an exceptional opportunity not only for my studies but to learn about American political and intellectual currents. My advisor in the Graduate School, Professor Nicholas Spykman, believed in the League of Nations and advocated full-fledged American participation in world affairs. In the Law School, I worked mainly with Professor Edwin M. Borchard, a trusted adviser of isolationist senators in Washington. At the time he was exchanging long letters with such senators as William E. Borah Arthur H. Vandenberg, and Hiram Johnson, and shared his correspondence with me. Borchard

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and these senators were convinced that the collective security system of the League of Nations would lead to a generalization of all wars, contrary to the practice of traditional diplomacy, which sought to isolate wars. Instead of participation in any sort of collective security arrangement, Borchard and his political followers advocated American neutrality. This view was supported by a majority in Congress in the later 1930s and led to enactment of neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of any war.

The world press and even a huge headline in the New Haven Register related in early March 1936 that German troops were goose-stepping into the Rhineland - a violation not only of the Treaty of Versailles but of the Locarno Treaty of 1925 to which Germany had freely adhered. Although remilitarization of the Rhineland changed the strategic situation in the heart of Europe, and strengthened immensely Germany's power in Eastern Europe, Hitlers move encountered no serious opposition. France, even if it had acted alone, could have crushed the German army, but French public opinion was influenced by pacifist ideas and the government was unwilling to mobilize six weeks before the general elections. Belgium and Britain were even less eager to participate in reprisals against Germany, and in the United States some isolationists suggested that the Germans were eliminating one of the injustices of the Versailles Treaty.

I visited several American centers of learning and was surprised to discover that prominent scholars in international relations were not aware of the political and military consequences of Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland, believing that the collective security system of the League of Nations would block any further German expansion and secure peace. Professor Quincy Wright of the University of Chicago vigorously expressed this view to me. I concluded that the result of both "isolationist" and "internationalist" approaches in the United States might mean in practice less American participation in world politics. In my report to the Rockefeller Foundation, I noted this scholarly disregard of the realities of international life.

My fellowship happily was extended for another year, 1936-37, and I left American shores for England on the S. S. Manhattan to study the differences between American and British approaches in foreign policy. At Oxford, I was attached to All Souls and made contact with prominent scholars in other colleges as well. Intellectual life was lively and rewarding at Oxford, but British foreign policy in European affairs was not helpful and this was not entirely Britain's fault. There was no consensus on a European public order and so governments often turned to improvisation when they acted according to their real or fancied interests. The British government and people strongly condemned Nazi atrocities and abuses. Yet influential circles in Britain considered Hitlers rise to power as one of the German reactions to the inequalities institutionalized by the Versailles Treaty and to French punitive policy toward Germany. While there was some truth in these views, the assumption that concessions might facilitate Nazi Germany's return to the League of Nations and a more cooperative policy in Europe was alarming.

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A prize example of this approach was the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, concluded in June 1935. This instrument might have had a beneficial effect if France and Italy had been involved. But those states had not been informed of the negotiations, although the bilateral agreement was a revision of the Versailles Treaty. The resulting weakening of faith in British reliability both in France and Italy marked a further deterioration in the political atmosphere of Europe. A policy of concessions which could have stabilized Weimar's democracy in Germany only increased Hitlers appetite for conquest.

In the autumn of 1936 British society was disturbed by rumors about King Edward's relationship to Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson, the American divorcee. In the wake of that affair, the king's unprecedented abdication shocked the British public. Because of this preoccupation the troubles of Europe seemed remote. The winter fog over the English Channel blissfully "isolated" the nearby disorderly continent.

For the last few months of the second year of my fellowship I moved to Geneva where the League of Nations' cosmopolitan bureaucracy watched with trepidation the adverse turns of international affairs. Officials of the League and reporters had been impressed by the clever diplomatic performance of a new actor, Maxim Litvinov. After Hitlers seizure of power, the Kremlin had initiated a rapprochement with the Western democracies and the USSR had been admitted to the League of Nations in September 1934. Litvinov skillfully used the catch-phrases of Geneva and became a champion of collective security. His moderation and civility created confidence in Soviet behavior. Yet the League's ineffective sanctions against Italy during the invason of Ethiopia demonstrated its powerlessness. The League's council, of course, had protested when Germany had violated its international obligations, but the Western powers allowed the Nazi regime to take what its democratic predecessor, the Weimar Republic, could not obtain. The tranquillite' d'esprit of most Western politicians was not affected by Hitlers preparations for conquest. They found it comfortable not to take him seriously.

In the spring of 1937, I decided to visit some centers for international relations in Germany, and the Rockefeller Foundation, after some hesitation, approved my trip. The chairman of the League's committee that had prepared a revision of the Covenant of the League of Nations, Professor Maurice Bourquin, asked me to find out what modification of the Covenant would induce Germany to reenter the League. When I raised this question with well-informed people in Berlin their reaction was completely negative. Hitlerwould not permit application for membership in the League under any conditions, they said.

At the convention of the Hansische Arbeitsgemeinschaft fur Volkerrecht in Hamburg, I brought up Bourquin's initiative in conversation with an aristocrat on good terms with the Nazis, Professor Freiherr von Freytag-Loringhoven He was interested and told me that nobody had suspected that the war in Ethiopia and the League sanctions against Italy would make possible the occupation of the Rhineland, adding

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that membership in the League might open doors and opportunities for Germany. He suggested a private meeting with Bourquin near Berlin on the estate of Rudolf Nadolny, a former German ambassador to the Sovtet Union. I gave this message to Bourquin at Geneva, but did not inquire later if the meeting ever took place.

In Hamburg I participated in several social events at the convention of the Hansische Arbeitsgemeinschaft. During an after-dinner beer party the Stimmung and voices were rising and my companions had started to talk about the consequences of the First World War. I interjected casually that the peace settlement in Danubian Europe had been favorable to Germany because it replaced the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the second largest state in Europe, with quarreling small states that could not resist German expansion. Since my remark implied that Austria-Hungary could have resisted German pressure, my companions were shocked and retorted emphatically that no power on earth could resist Hitlers rejuvenated Germany. According to their perception, England was a declining power, the French had degenerated, inferior people lived in the East, and the Americans were interested only in business and did not have an army. They offered these explanations with aplomb. During the preceding dinner there had been conversation about Germany returning to pre-Christian heroic virtues and the religion of the ancient German tribes. These were strange Tischengesprache.

During the trip to Germany, I had met all sorts of people - enthusiastic Nazis as well as democrats frightened into cooperation. At the Kiel Institut fur Weltwirtschaft, I visited a former Rockefeller fellow and had an informative conversation about conditions in Germany. When he accompanied me back to my hotel he often raised his hand, giving the "Heil Hitler" salute. He explained to me apologetically that he had had to do this during the past few months in order to keep his position.

After I left Germany, I visited friends at The Hague and in Paris. I was surprised when Ake Hammerskjöld suggested that the Germans did not have well-trained officials for international organizations and that this was the major reason they had left the League. He told me that a German member of the Permanent Court's secretariat was recalled because of a misunderstanding. These were benevolent interpretations, coming from a great European who was a gentle man. In France most Frenchmen thought that Hitlerwas a ridiculous clown and a despicable demagogue, and felt safe behind the Maginot Line. Few people took seriously the political program spelled out in Mein Kampf.

By the end of my fellowship I was greatly disturbed by the political disarray of the Western world. I thereupon discovered it in my own country. Upon return to Budapest, I was astonished by the greatly strengthened position of the political parties under Nazi influence. Agitation of the various Nazi groups made good use of Hungary 's economic difficulties and of the defects of the obsolete social system. In foreign affairs Nazi propaganda emphasized the inability of the Western powers to bring about a viable system

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in the Danubian Valley and promised that Germany would correct the injustices of the Trianon Treaty.

In the countries I had visited, knowledgeable people were certain that the growing tensions in Europe and the Far East would culminate in some sort of crisis in world affairs. While no one could foresee its exact nature or when precisely it would occur, I was convinced that the interaction of aggressive dictatorships with the passivity of democracies was bound to lead to a catastrophic conflict. Disregarding the gathering storm, I went ahead and produced a scholarly book on the international responsibility of the state. But as it came to pass, the principles and rules of international law I discussed in that volume were finally of no use to me nor anyone else in the lawless years ahead.

At the close of the Second World War, geography proved decisive in the misfortune of Hungary, a country that had been in the inner circle of the German power sphere. From this came the basic problem of Hungarian diplomacy - attempting to preserve Hungarian independence in an almost impossible situation. None of the other Axis satellites was in so precarious a position. The peripheral location of Italy, Finland, Rumania, and Bulgaria made possible their early surrender, but events in Hungary turned out differently. Although in the early stage of the European war Hungary was considered an unwilling satellite, with the German occupation in March 1944, the country lost its independence and under a German-imposed Arrow Cross regime, it became Nazi Germany's last satellite. As a junior partner of the Axis, Hungary did not enjoy much sympathy in the West. And she was positively disliked by the Russians; Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden said to President Roosevelt that he "thought Stalin would want to be pretty arbitrary about Hungary because the Russians do not like the Hungarians, and that Stalin would be unwilling to give them any favors at the Peace Table." The Arrow Cross government installed by the Germans in October 1944 was the Hungarian version of Nazism. In view of the impending Soviet occupation, some Arrow Cross politicians announced that the population of Hungary would be transferred to Germany for the winter. People were supposed to return the next spring when the new German secret weapons would definitely defeat the Russians. This scheme for wholesale transfer of population proved impracticable, both because of logistic impossibility and because of general resistance. But as a consequence of forced evacuation, several thousand families, many young men, and most of the ranking government

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officials left the country along with the retreating German troops and the remnants of the Hungarian army. When news spread about the lootings, rapes, and other atrocities of the invading Soviet army, the flight became more widespread.

The country was first ravaged by the Germans, then systematically looted by the Russians. The retreating Germans blew up many bridges and destroyed a substantial part of the transportation and communication system. The physical destruction, the vacuum of political power and the lack of administrative structure were extensive throughout Hungary.

The invading Soviet army found a ruined country without administration or political authority. The old administration was nonexistent or not recognized by the occupying army, and so the Russians, with the help of Moscow-trained Hungarian communist advisers, created a new political framework. Eastern Hungary was in Russian hands in the last months of 1944, but the Germans were not driven out of western Hungary until April 4, 1945. The Soviet army encircled Budapest on December 25, 1944, and the siege of Buda lasted until mid-February. In late 1944 and early 1945, at one time or an other, most regions of Hungary were battlefields. In addition, the Nazis and their Arrow Cross henchmen, and later the Soviet authorities and their communist collaborators, liquidated selected groups of Hungarians.

How, then, would Hungarians survive such a catastrophe? The answer is that many of them did not. A world full of uncertainties first had developed in Hungary during the Nazi occupation. Mass deportations of Jews occurred. Prominent people disappeared, temporarily or for good; it was not possible to clarify their fate. In this chaotic world the survival of individuals depended on chance. My personal experience in occupied Hungary may best convey the chaos and tragedy of that period.

A week before the German occupation of Hungary, my wife Margaret and I enjoyed a pleasant Sunday lunch at the house of Joseph Balogh editor of The Hungarian Quarterly. He had close contacts with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and we talked about Hungary's long-range perspectives and the dangeros alternatives in the immediate future. At that time battle-ready German divisions were concentrated along Hungary's western frontier. Although the German military threat of invason seemed probable, we preferred to discuss mainly the possibility and modalities of institutionalized cooperation with neighboring countries after Armageddon. It was a beautiful spring day, full of sunshine. and Margaret and I decided after lunch

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to walk through the Andrassy Avenue to Buda. The streets were almost empty, the atmosphere was pleasant, tranquillity dominated the city, and I remarked casually to Margaret that this was perhaps our last walk through peaceful Budapest. Despite catastrophic defeats of the Hungarian army in faraway Russian battlefields, life was unrealistically quiet in Hungary amidst a destructive world war fought in three continents and on several oceans. Hungary did not suffer bombardment because the American flying units in passing over Hungary were not fired upon or chased by Hungarian fighter planes. Their safe flights were facilitated by information about location of air defense. The Kállay government in September 1943 rejected the demand of the German High Command that it should be allowed to garrison western Hungary with five German flying units. This unique situation changed drastically under German occupation, during which our gracious host, Balogh was deported. He never returned.

With the German occupation the position of most officials of the political division of the Foreign Ministry - where I worked in charge of peace preparations - became precarious. Leading officials were arrested and deported to Germany. The Gestapo arrested my immediate superiors, Aladár Szegedy-Maszák head of the political division, and Andor Szentmiklóssy, deputy foreign minister. A few months later they were deported to the concentration camp of Dachau where Szentmiklóssy died. Szegedy-Maszákwas liberated by the American army and was appointed Hungarian minister to the United States in December 1945.

In the midst of these events I withdrew into another agency of the Foreign Ministry which represented the Hungarian government before the Mixed Arbitral Tribunals and the Permanent Court of Inter national Justice. By a bureaucratic miracle this agency had survived even in the war years, and because I had been attached to it off and on since 1931, my return did not create a sensation or bureaucratic problems. Under the cover of this inconspicuous office I continued the peace preparatory work with my most reliable collaborator. Immediately after the German occupation I had decided to take out from my office all remaining documents concerning peace preparations, and since I did not know the measures taken by the Nazis to control the Foreign Ministry, I asked my brother, Emeric, a medical student, to accompany me. The ushers in the ministry greeted me as usual, and we reached my office without difficulty. I put all materials relevant to peace preparations in two large briefcases and gave them to my brother. I thought I might be arrested at the gate by police agents and wanted to detain them while my brother walked

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out with the briefcases. But nobody paid any attention when we left the ministry. Apparently the Germans trusted the newly appointed key government officials and had not installed supervisory agents at the gates.

At that time I was living alone in our apartment in Buda - my wife and two daughters had gone to the country because of the bombing of Budapest - and I received there some of my collaborators in the peace preparatory work, although I was cautious because our janitor was a vociferous Nazi sympathizer. (After the Soviet occupation he became a loyal supporter of the Communist party; changes from one totalitarian allegiance to another for strictly opportunistic reasons were not unusual.)

Each day I had a sort of routine. I turned on the radio in the morning, which announced when American bombers, coming from Italy were approaching the capital. The radio usually indicated that planes were coming from the direction of southern Hungary. The watch words announced on such occasions were "Bácska, Baja, Budapest." This meant that I had just time to take a quick bath, shave, and go over to my parents' house to have breakfast with them in their air-raid shelter during the bombardment, which lasted about a half hour. When the "all clear" signal came I went to my office. The Americans bombed mainly the industrial districts, which were on the outskirts of the city.

All the while a clandestine, uncertain world had developed in Hungary, and as we went along we had to take the hazards of existence on a day-to-day basis. The rules of clandestine activities and contacts with the underground were a new experience for me in the spring and summer of 1944, and I learned a few elementary precautions. Most of the time I met my confederates in the anti-Nazi resistance in parks and streets, seldom in private houses, and because I continued an official life I often used intermediaries. One of my contacts was a young English lady, Miss Gore-Symes with whom I met twice a week to practice English conversation. On the side she cooperated with Charles Szladits, a lawyer and legal counsel of one of the major banks in Budapest, to shelter a group of British and Dutch officers who had escaped from German prisoner of war camps. A few of them lived for a while in the crypt of a Catholic church in Buda. These officers ran an efficient "factory" for false birth certificates, military passes, passports, and other identity cards. Szladits came to see me in this matter, and periodically I made some financial contributions for support of this clandestine group. Miss Gore-Symesremained my permanent contact with them. When the Soviet army

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occupied Budapest some of these officers reported to the Russians who interned them in the town of Hatvan. Some of them were not released, and disappeared mysteriously.

My assistance to the escaped officers had an interesting epilogue. In the autumn of 1945 a British major visited me in the Foreign Ministry. Thanking me for my support of the underground in Budapest, he handed me a certificate as "a token of gratitude for and appreciation of the help given to the Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen of the British Commonwealth of Nations, which enabled them to escape from, or evade capture by the enemy." The certificate was signed by Field Marshal H.R. Alexander Supreme Commander, Mediterranean Theater. To my surprise the major wanted to reimburse me for the money given to assist the Commonwealth officers. I would not accept his offer and explained that we were not thinking of any sort of monetary compensation or reward.

All this came later. In the summer of 1944 Regent Miklós Horthys position had strengthened somewhat. Since the Germans did not take over direct control of the major government agencies, some residual power remained in Horthys hands even after the occupation in March 1944. Horthydismissed the pro-Nazi prime minister, Dome Sztojay, and replaced him with General Géza Lakatos The attempt to kill Hitleron July 20, 1944, had created confusion among German authorities in Hungary, momentarily increasing Horthys freedom of action, and he was able to block the deportation of Jews from Budapest. Under the new government the Foreign Ministry had more freedom, and Deputy Foreign Minister Mihály Jungerth-Arnothyasked me to continue the peace preparations in the Foreign Ministry and to use for this purpose the additional documents accumulated during the German occupation. It was ironic to read German requests for flour and other foodstuffs to feed the Jews deported to death camps.

At this juncture I turned down a diplomatic appointment in Switzerland. The deputy foreign minister informed me that the government intended to appoint me consul in Zurich where I could continue my work undisturbed by immediate events in Hungary. He pointed out that under the forthcoming Russian occupation the government agencies might be paralyzed, whereas in Switzerland I could make good use of material deposited at our Bern Legation. I declined the appointment for a variety of reasons. From a purely personal point of view I would have been comfortable to observe the apocalyptic events in Europe from a quiet post. But I felt that it would have been a cowardly action to run from danger and not share the fate of my countrymen. Moreover, contacts with the Western

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powers had convinced me of the slight value of backdoor diplomacy. If Hungary was to survive the holocaust there must be a government in the country, and it might be more useful to try to influence events while at home than to seek the good will of foreign powers. It seemed probable at the time that the Allied powers had made decisions according to their own well-considered interests; I had no illusion about our capacity to influence the course of events in the last phase of the war. Time and again since 1939, I had advocated the establishment of a government-in-exile. "The Hungarian nation should remain united" was the answer to such arguments. It became clear after the war that I was wrong. A government-in-exile could not have alleviated Hungary's fate under Soviet occupation. The Telekigovernment had made some preparatory steps in early 1940, when five million dollars in bank notes and securities were deposited in the United States for certain contingencies. Such plans were abandoned later.2 But in the summer of 1944 burdened with our wartime status, we were decidedly late for this sort of action. At that time nobody suspected that the ultimate fate of Hungary would not depend upon our wartime attitude.

Jungerth-Arnothyappreciated my reasons for declining the Zurich appointment, and we agreed upon a compromise, which, unfortunately, came to naught. I was to go to Switzerland as a diplomatic courier as soon as possible and spend two or three weeks there organizing and preparing the deposited material for publication and other uses. The Foreign Ministry asked for a German transit visa, which I received promptly, and I was scheduled to leave Hungary on October 16 with another official of the political division. Regent Horthys armistice proclamation of October 15 intervened and made my departure impossible. The ill-prepared armistice attempt then failed, and German armored divisions concentrated on the outskirts of Budapest moved into the capital. Pro-Horthymilitary commanders were arrested, the Lakatosgovernment deposed, and the Germans installed an Arrow Cross government under Ferenc Szálasi. Horthywas taken prisoner and deported with his family to Germany.

With the violent end of the Horthyregime, a chapter of Hungarian history came to a close; a new wave of mass arrests began, this time turning very personal indeed, for the Arrow Cross government's agents arrested me at the house of my parents. My wife and daughters had returned from the country, and a family dinner was interrupted by the intrusion of three gunmen, allegedly detectives, who arrested me after a thorough search. I learned later that four of my colleagues from the Foreign Ministry had shared my fate - Denis Nemestóthy,

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Baron Maurice Czikann-Zichy Almos Papp and Ádám Koós I was accused of having been in contact with the underground parties and of having taken part in preparation of the armistice negotiations - actions considered treasonous.

After my arrest our apartment, especially my library, was thoroughly searched in my presence, but fortunately I was able to avoid any focusing of attention on some compromising documents hidden among the files of a Hungarian case we had before the Permanent Court of International Justice. While three detectives discussed whether or not to go through this huge bundle of files, I called their attention to some more books and files in the next room and suggested that they should inspect everything carefully and divide their time accordingly. They began to swear but dropped the critical files and, confronted with a great mass of material, became confused. After seizing a few ridiculously irrelevant papers, they decided to return for a detailed search if deemed necessary by their superiors.

My first jail was a huge schoolroom in Rökk Szilárd street where about fifty people were sitting like statues on the floor with crossed legs. I learned later that most of them were suspected, or actual Communists. In front of them sat a gendarme, playing carelessly with his tommy gun. When I was escorted into the room the gendarme explained that only his merciful heart kept him from shooting the whole collection of worthless dogs. Such were the mild epithets used in his endless harangues. The young gendarme was not, however, without a sense of humor. When he asked a Serbian partisan in the group to tell a story, the latter told an anti-Nazi joke, which caused a hilarious outburst. The gendarme laughed with the rest of us, and the Serbian was not punished.

In the crowd I discovered two colleagues from the political division of the Foreign Ministry, one of them nursing head wounds, the result of torture inflicted personally by the new chief of cabinet of the Arrow Cross foreign minister. We were not allowed to speak to each other. Anyone who moved or uttered a word to his neighbor was beaten or otherwise punished. Suddenly an air raid began, and we were ordered down into the basement - happily for us the gendarmes prized their own lives. While marching downstairs Nemestóthy managed to get next to me, whispered the accusations against us, and indicated the documents they were after. They knew, he said, of our contact with prominent members of the Smallholder party under ground (the leading democratic party of Hungary). His words came as a great relief. Relatively speaking, these were minor matters. During subsequent interrogations it was a great help to know the goal

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of the enigmatic questions. I did not deny that I had contact with Smallholder politicians and that I had favored an armistice instead of the senseless destruction of Hungary, but I refused to confess that I possessed the documents they were looking for.

The detective inspector who led the interrogations was a short fellow with gray hair and sharp-looking cold eyes. He acted with the skill of a professional, and wanted to deliver something to his new masters. When I continued in my refusal, he suddenly punched me in the face, a blow meant to be a captatio benevolentiae, because he emphasized that his superiors had much stronger means to open the mouths of stubborn plotters and reminded me that I had a family against whom they could apply reprisals. His arrogance strengthened my determination not to reveal anything, whereupon he explained that he had to produce something for the foreign minister and suggested that I should compose a copy of the document drafted originally by myself. We compromised on that, and during the night I wrote a document that proposed armistice negotiations in a cautious way and omitted incriminating passages - or at least I thought so.

Next day the atmosphere changed. The detective inspector obligingly expressed his conviction that we were gentlemen and that he had always known it. We were conducted to another prison, a former private villa in the Swabian hills of Buda, and in the villa we were put into a small room with two policemen who were told by the detective inspector that they would be shot if they even let us speak to each other. As soon as he left the room the policemen locked the doors and asked us politely whether we would like to play cards. We did. Our guards were changed every six hours, and with one exception all of them treated us well. We slept on the floor and did not get food every day, although later our relatives were allowed to bring supplies. Interrogation continued under decent conditions. Margaret was permitted to visit me, and she brought in a suitcase containing badly needed underwear and shirts. A friend accompanied her, and they took the electric funicular from town to the top of the Swabian hills. Unexpectedly the funicular stopped at mid-course, and a gallant German officer helped the two ladies carry the suitcase to the gate of the elegant villa. We learned later that during their trip the explosives put under the Margaret bridge by the German army were blown up by mistake in rush-hour traffic, and the explosion had destroyed the electric cables as well. During Margaret's visit I was able to whisper instructions concerning what papers to destroy at home she succeeded in getting rid of them with the help of my brother Emeric, to whom I was later to give supplementary instructions.

Notes

STEPHEN D. KERTESZ - Between Russia and the West