October 15, 1944

It was an unusually warm day for the middle of October, when about a dozen people casually wandered toward the small hut on the hill of the vineyard belonging to Mr. Koncz. They arrived one by one and looked around carefully before they stepped inside, past the unlocked door. The emergency meeting began.
“The first Russian troops entered Hungary two weeks ago and the Romanians, the Finns and the Bulgarians broke ties with Hitler just within the last few weeks,” Mr. Koncz stated excitedly to the small group of people in front of him. “However,” he added, “the Arrow-Cross Party is getting much too boisterous for my liking; hold many public meetings and boast that their time is coming. I heard that they are building up a huge arsenal. Quite frankly, I’m worried about them.”
My father jumped up impatiently. “What are we waiting for then? I keep telling you that we need to get our hands on hand grenades, guns and ammunition, so we can attack the Nazis.”
“Hold your horses, Sándor.” Mihály Fekete, one of the organizers, tried to calm the hot-headed youth. “There is a bit of a difference between painting slogans on the bloody factory chimneys and attacking the whole fucking German army.”
“Fine, but doing something is better than doing nothing,” my father replied heatedly. “At least Ibolya and I have done something. Just recently we managed to cut some telephone wires to the German military headquarters at Lilafured.”
“How did you manage that?” Fekete asked.
“Well,” my father answered sheepishly, “we cut the wires by the poles, and covered them up with black tape. And every time someone passed us, the two of us started kissing. Nobody suspected a thing. I also made some caltrops during the night shifts and used them successfully a couple of nights ago. We threw a handful of them on the road during the night and, judging by the series of screeches, tire explosions and German swearing, they worked on tires like a charm. Serves them right for driving around with no headlights on during the night. Here, take a look at them. I brought a few samples with me.” He pulled out a package from his backpack. “They were used successfully during medieval times against cavalries, so I figured it would work on German trucks just as well.”
They were prickly metal devices, about ten centimetres long, approximately the size of a large man’s hand. Each had four metal points arranged so that when any three were on the ground, the fourth projected upward.
“Wonderful,” acknowledged István Oszip, wiping the perspiration off his shiny bald head. “Can you make some more?” Then he impatiently blurted out, “I heard about some sabotage attempts at the factory. Any truth in them?”
“What sabotage?” Barbai, one of the best tool and die makers asked. His advice was constantly sought, even by the engineers. He looked up and stated with an innocent face, “It must be the combination of the lack of sleep and the quantity of the food one can buy with our meagre ration tickets, but I noticed that lately it takes two or three times as much time to complete any given piece. And judging by the alarming numbers of faulty pieces, the quality of the raw material must be also be deteriorating,” he added petulantly.
My father, who was working as a draftsman, suddenly remembered, “Did I mention that a couple of weeks ago some of the blueprints and a whole bunch of order sheets disappeared overnight?” Then, after uttering a sad sigh, said, “Unfortunately, incidents like this can hold up manufacturing for at least a month.”
Sándor Nyirő butted in: “Fazekas and a couple of his co-workers were caught manufacturing armoured steel plates that were too thin. They tested them by firing at it at an obtuse angle, instead of the normally accepted ninety-degree angle, so the bullets kept bouncing off. The group was caught by a surprise inspection. But since they could not prove sabotage, instead of being shot on the spot, the perpetrators received only a five-year prison term.”
“Poor Fazekas, he wasn’t a healthy person to begin with. I sincerely hope he will survive his term,” Fekete added sadly.
“What are we going to do with Szálasi’s thugs?” Oszip reminded the group. “We can’t have the extreme right take over now that the end is so close!”
“I don’t believe they are that strong. At least we know for a fact that they don’t have strong support in Miskolc,” Apushka remarked, and all seemed to agree.
After the meeting, the twelve made their way back to town and found the streets unusually swarming with happy people; there were windows open, and radios blaring loud music. Happy people everywhere.
“What happened?” Fekete asked one man.
“Peace!”
“The Regent made an announcement on the radio…”
Strangers were hugging and laughing.
“Thank God,” an old woman cried out, “my son can finally come home. The Regent requested a cease fire.”
Fekete noticed that the streets were unusually devoid of the already familiar presence of German troops. Could it be possible to get rid of them for good? he wondered as he and his buddies made their way to the hall of the local Steel Union, where a meeting was already in progress. It was a stormy one.
”With the help of a workers’ militia, we could disarm the occupying German forces,” someone called out.
“We need at least five thousand workers,” someone else shouted.
“Take over the press and occupy city hall.”
“Don’t forget the telephone centre!”
“We need to talk to the soldiers at the local barracks.”
Some of the more cautious leaders warned, “We can’t act without the approval of the Central Committee.”
They were still in the midst of debate, when Fekete was called out from the room. Outside, his seventeen-year-old son Sándor, wearing a huge Steyer pistol on his side and a rifle on his shoulder, was waiting for him.
“Father, there’s an unusually large number of Arrow-Cross members on the streets,” he said anxiously.
“Are they stirring up trouble?”
“No, not yet, but they seem to be as busy as ants at a picnic.”
“Go back and let me know if you see anything unusual,” Fekete ordered, then went back to the room and made his report about the situation. No one took the report seriously. It was somehow inconceivable that such an extreme right wing party as the Arrow-Cross could pose any serious harm in the long run.
It was already getting dark and there were still no decisions made. Finally, Fekete and his few companions left the meeting and decided that without involving the rest of the Union, they would turn directly to the workers at the Diósgyör steel factory. They agreed to meet in the early hours of the following morning.
Just before they parted company, Fekete, feeling uneasy about the situation, stopped to mull over his concern: why would the Regent request a separate armistice with the Soviet Union while Hungary was still occupied by the German army? And why didn’t he put out a call for the all Hungarian soldiers and decent Hungarian citizens to chase the bloody Nazis from the country?