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When Laszlo Bojtos got married in April of 1956, he wanted to take his new bride from Budapest back to his home town for their honeymoon.
Laszlo Bojtos: I was born in the western part of Hungary, very close to the Austrian border in this area here.
He locates the old community on a map in his Brecksville home.
Laszlo Bojtos: When I went to the police to permit me to get that close to the border, they turned down my request. [laughs in disbelief] That was my own town!
It's a familiar story coming from a person who grew-up in an atmosphere of Soviet domination in the years following World War II. Budapest native and current Clevelander Edith Lauer says those were dark days.
Edith Lauer: Everybody lived in the same situation of just getting enough to eat. Constant harassment by the police.
It was a social pressure cooker that would explode in October of 1956 when thousands of Hungarians took to the streets in flagrant disobedience of Soviet strictures. Edith Lauer and her daughter Andrea have compiled a book of stories from Laszlo Bojtos and others who lived through what's come to be known as the "Hungarian Revolution."
Laszlo Bojtos: This was a three stage event: First, it was a popular movement. Then, it turned out to be a revolution. And then, when we were fired on, it became a "freedom fight."
Owing to a lack of heavy artillery, the weapon of choice for the Hungarian Freedom Fighters was the "Molotov cocktail" - a bottle filled with gasoline and topped with a cloth fuse. Even though Edith Lauer was only 14 when Soviet tanks rolled into town, she was very much a part of the fight for freedom.
Edith Lauer: Although I never had a gun or a Molotov cocktail, I was a very skilled builder of barricades. And when that wasn't enough to stop the tanks, some of the older kids went and turned over streetcars.
Radio reports told the world about what was happening in the streets of Budapest.
Edith Lauer: It was thrilling. Nobody thought about what would eventually happen.
What happened was that the Soviet high-command responded with an overwhelming show of force on the 4th of November, effectively smothering the rebellion.
Radio appeals for help from the West went largely unheeded, and Edith Lauer's family fled the country several weeks later, working their way through refugee camps in Austria and Germany, before finding a sponsor in the U.S., and finally settling in Cleveland. Laszlo Bojtos and his wife left in early December, carefully negotiating land mines as they crossed the Austrian border to freedom. Lauer says she's gathered similar dramatic stories of "1956-ers" from around the country for her book and accompanying website.
Edith Lauer: We began the website over a year ago and we were amazed at the response and enthusiasm with which people sent in stories.
Today, as Ohio's Honorary Consul General for Hungary, Laszlo Bojtos helps people negotiate the bureaucracy of securing passports and visas for visits to his homeland. But, in his heart, he's even more interested in preserving a story of freedom that has never really died.
Laszlo Bojtos: This is the situation that we lived in. Getting out of this yoke was such a fantastic feeling to us. [pauses] Fifty years ago.
David C. Barnett, 90.3.