592
PARTISAN REVIEW
Five or six AVH officers sat as "audience ," behind us stood AVH guards, on
the platform sat the Attorney General , Gyula Alapy , the members of the
People's Court headed by Vilmos Olti , and the court-appointed defense
counsel .
Everything went smoothly , no witnesses were called , the accused read
their memorized texts against themselves and each other. During a break
Faludi approached me again with a big friendly smile all over his fat face .
The AVH, he said , is very satisfied but there is some unpleasant news , my
sentence would not be three years but eight years, however, the whole thing
is just a formality and I should appeal and the sentence would be reduced.
(I
did, and it was increased to ten years.) " A mere formality , as I told
you . .....
Then came the pronouncement of sentences. For Ferenc Vagi, death
by hanging, life sentences for Andras Kalman , Ivan Foldi and Gyorgy
Demeter, fifteen years for Gyula Kuti and Janos Dob6 , ten years for Tamas
Acs, Peter Balaban and Gyorgy Soml6, eight years for Endre Rosta, Gyorgy
Aczel and Gyorgy H6dos , six years for Antonia Dob6-Drittenbass and five
years for Rosa Demeter.
On the way out of the trial I whispered to Vagi , " Don' t take it serious–
ly, it's just a show." He looked at me and shook his head : "We are objects
of history." In the Vic prison I watched a light burn in his cell for four
weeks, night and day. One night it went dark; the sentence had been carried
out.
*
*
*
I was but a small " object" among some 250 "Rajkists, " and the AVH
had plenty of time at its disposal to play with me and others of my kind .
It
had been quite different with the major "criminals" who were supposed
to
confess their sins at a public trial within three or four months after their
arrest. They were turned, with beatings and torture , into monsters in a vety
short time. With Szonyi it took just one week. A few days after his arrest he
was seen by a friend of mine, barely recognizable, his head shrunk to an
ash-gray, wrinkled skull. A week later, someone else told me he had re–
gained some of his human features . Gabor Peter had assured him that he
would be allowed to continue working as a doctor under an assumed name;
but to make certain that he collaborated,
his
wife, six months pregnant, was
arrested and he was given the choice of confessing or of watching her torture.
He confessed .
It
was said that he was the only one to scream when taken to the gallows
-' 'I was betrayed, I was forced to confess with promises! "
Rajk died silently. Unbroken by weeks of torture , even by the arrest of
