Jenõ Thassy

Dangerous Territory

Excerpts from an Autobiography

The cellar over at the building where Guidó's little girlfriend lived would easily have fitted into the set of any Hollywood action film. An imposing steel door led in from the basement. The first room one encountered, and it was a room, despite the wooden posts and beams, accommodated families. There must have been space enough for twenty or thirty to sleep, but it was far more comfortable in there, there weren't simply mattresses on the floor but collapsible campbeds, divans, sofas, and, what's more, a double bed with a silk quilt and surrounded by a folding screen, so as to ensure at least partial privacy towards the neighbours on the ottoman. Some stylish lady even brought down her dressing table, with hairbrushes and glass bottles strewn about before the mirror, which reflected the dim cellar.

It seemed that the residents of this shelter had been living there for some time already, and had tried to arrange things as comfortably as possible, with armchairs here and there, and even a landscape painting hung on one of the wooden posts. It turned out that many residents of the building, due to the proximity of the Danube, had already moved downstairs a week earlier. On entering, an older man stepped before us; he wore an elegant, dark blue overcoat, a fine wool scarf, an air-defence band on his arm, and a steel helmet.

"That's the building's air-raid warden," whispered Guidó, "a busybody, introduce yourself." I did so, too, respectfully. He shook my hand, and when I thanked him for receiving us, he threw back his head with chin upward, like a general reviewing his troops, looked me hard in the eye, and said they could always use a fine young man. He handed me a typed sheet, his own work: the house and cellar rules. Smoking permissible only in the area before the entrance, naked flames prohibited in the cellar, non-residents obliged to leave the premises by 21:00 hours, no loud music after 22:00 hours. There were some fifteen other points I can no longer recall. Having extended his creation with manifest pride, he introduced his wife, a fading, pleasantly plump, blonde tea-rose of a beauty. They were the proud owners of the double bed and the folding screen. Returning that night to my place, having smoked my final cigarette in the designated spot,
I passed before their bed. The wife, in a lace-adorned, pink nightgown, was already resting under the quilt, and the commandant happened just then to be removing the tin hat covering his curly grey hair. No sooner had he replaced the overcoat with a dressing gown, than the dear woman let out a whimper: "Hey, Bonbon, tuck in Kitty!", whereupon he gently pulled a blanket over the top of the quilt. A ritual it was, which may well have been repeated in their bed-
room for decades, but which here in the cellar became everyone's prey. By "everyone" I mean such curious peeping Toms as myself. From that point on I saw the air-raid warden as "Bonbon", altogether more human and more bearable than when barking orders to everyone in that curt, soldierly way of his. Bonbon was a high-ranking official at the Hungarian General Credit Bank who had never done military service, so it was here that he indulged his concealed martial inclinations.

[...]

It was Pál's idea. We should save the Danube bridges before it was too late, for it was dead certain that, like they'd done with the Margaret Bridge, which had blown up accidentally, the Germans had mined them all, and at the given moment would blow them up as well. So it was that we made our way down Váci utca, from doorway to doorway. Soviet planes were circling about, and at regular intervals dropped those little bombs which were more apt to do damage, which is to say shatter and shred, than to destroy outright. Váci utca, where at one time we'd promenaded, was now an obstacle course, so it was through heaps of rubble that we made our way toward our objective. Pál was in civilian clothes, but carried in his pocket a card identifying him as a medical orderly assigned to a hospital. There was less reason to fear the prospect of identity checks on the streets of the bombed-out city than down in the cellar, which the "recruiting brothers" visited to collect deserters and to outfit children capable of holding weapons in the appropriate dress. We approached Elizabeth Bridge from the side of Petõfi tér, but saw even from afar that our initiative was hopeless. A German tank stood near the quay, and soldiers up at the foot of the bridge, Germans as well as Hungarians with armbands. What was even more surprising, however, was the spectacle of soldiers walking--running, rather--between Buda and Pest.

"I've got to visit my mother and young brother," said Guidó. And later, in the cellar, Imre tried in vain to talk him out of the idea, arguing that only the Good Lord could help, and indeed, to take a jaunt across the river to Buda was to fly in the face of providence. But Guidó's stubbornness was stronger than his sense of danger. Although this isn't exactly a fair assessment, it might be said the Görgey3 in him emerged, overcoming the Guidó who feared for his life. In accompanying him, I was driven, besides friendship, as much by curiosity as by courage. From the moment we moved into the cellar, I knew I was now in the middle of an experience so exceptional that, should I survive, I'd have material enough for a lifetime of writing. I resolved to keep a journal, in which I would attentively record what happened, when, and what I thought.

[...]

What an unforgettable excursion! A wounded horse, still with a halter, was galloping down Váci utca, neighing in pain; God knows where it had escaped from, wounded on its haunches, it left a streak of blood in the slush as it sped toward Eskü tér. A burned-out car made the going rough in Haris köz, debris and fragments of glass crunching beneath our boots. Artillery sounded from Buda, and so too from the direction of Váci út as Russian planes circled over the Castle and the Great Boulevard every ten minutes with clock-like puncuality, sprinkling tiny bombs. Should we turn back? I asked Guidó, who later asked me the same thing when an explosion sounded so close that we felt the blast on our eardrums. I left his question unanswered as we walked on, or, more exactly, jumped on and hopped on. At the foot of the Elizabeth Bridge on the Pest side, a mixed band of guards asked for our papers, and on seeing our Hungarian and German-language documents, they promptly let us pass, though a Hungarian corporal, speaking in a juicy accent, beckoned us to be careful where we stepped, for "there's more holes than bridge, Sir."

It seemed an eternity passed as we crossed, zigzagging like knights on a chessboard. Suspended between Pest and Buda, on Erzsébet Bridge, between the two smoking banks, the siege of Budapest brought to mind the bloody operations I'd seen at the No. 11 hospital where I'd occasionally helped out with the anaesthetics, half dazed myself by the chloroform I sprayed on patients' muzzles. Here it was fear that kept me in its intoxicating grip, and I prayed to overcome it. One after another I kept mumbling the Lord's Prayer, in Hungarian, then, "Pater Noster qui est in coelis," and Hail Mary in French, "Ave Maria, pleine de grâce..." Perhaps Guidó did the same, for his lips were moving under the steel helmet pulled down over his eyes. At the foot of Gellért Hill we cowered on a pile of rocks, but stayed there for no more than two minutes, as the hill was shaking from the batteries firing from there across the river into Pest, and we even saw hits in the direction of Vörösmarty tér, where Gerbeaud's was. We scooted away.

[...]

My final stop in Buda was at the Red Cross Hospital. It must have been about eleven a.m. when I got that far. The sounds of battle grew so much strong-er, and seemed so close that I feared Buda would fall that very day, whereupon I would surely fall into Soviet hands in uniform, alone, separated from my friends. I bitterly regretted the whole excursion as I ran from tree to tree in the large hospital yard toward the pavilion where my doctor-friend was quartered. The shelter door was half open. Standing by the entrance, holding each other, were a young medical orderly and a not-so-young and, frankly, not-so-pretty nurse. It was an odd place and time for flirting, but the siege, which we were getting used to, was a potpourri of singular events. I asked the lovebirds where I could find the doctor, Captain Imre Zárday. Everyone inside and downstairs is still asleep, they said; they'd had a busy night, and so were now taking advantage of the relative silence.

This was relative silence? The cellar on Vörösmarty tér was a peaceful oasis compared to this Buda morning! Since they didn't offer to lead me down to Zárday, I groped my way down on my own, and, stepping over dozens of mattresses by the flicker of my torch, looked among the sleepers for my doctor, one of my most recent friends, whom I'd known for less than six months, in fact, but all the same someone I felt warm friendship for. Among the singularities of these times was the burgeoning of human relationships. Finally I happened upon Imre; his tall, elegant frame was too long for the short mattress--though sleeping quietly, he'd drawn his knees up to his chest. Apparently exhaustion had felled him, for he'd forgotten to remove his gold-rimmed glasses before falling asleep.

Gently I placed a hand on his shoulder to rouse him. "I'm coming, I'm coming," he said mechanically like someone used to being startled from his sleep. On realizing who was looking for him, and why, he pulled on his cape, which had been doubling as a blanket, and suggested we step out into the yard for a bit of fresh air, for it was stifling down there in the cellar. Not that it was much better outside--fog was spraying about and, though it was nearly noon, the world was still grey, the fog pressed down all the smoke, amidst the clatter of shells, bombs, mortars, and machine guns; every now and then a bomb would scream somewhere and then explode like a clap of thunder. Skulking against the broad side of an oak tree, we talked, shouting above the clamour. "A little length of salami?" "You mean such things still exist? And cognac, chocolate!" He didn't need cigarettes himself, but they were a treasure when it came to swapping. He was very thankful, but would ask just one more thing. Would I go over to their place on Ülõ]i út? His pregnant wife was expecting their latest child at any time. They were both worried about each other, and unfortunately the phone had gone dead. The uncertainty was worse than anything! I should tell his wife that he's okay, and has got all he needs. He's surrounded by a great bunch of people, everyone's doing the job of three men. The Red Cross director, Countess Apor, is a classical Roman heroine, despite being in her seventies she's always on hand where needed, on her feet day and night; so she set a fascinating example indeed. It was an encouraging sign for the future, for where such people live,
reconstruction would be a cinch, once the weapons fell silent. I promised him I'd go out to Üllõi út the next day. It was but a stone's throw from me...

We spoke for maybe fifteen minutes, or tried shouting, rather, over the din of battle. He sent me away, saying I should start off before it got too late, whereupon I encouraged him to go back to their shelter, for it was, after all, just that much better down there than out here in the yard. We embraced, and parted.

[...]

We waited for the Russians, but only a foal arrived. I was the one who found it, when one January morning I went upstairs to determine what the relative quiet meant. There it stood, the foal, before our steel door, as if it had asked to come in. It looked four or five months old, skin and bones, shaking all over, but otherwise seemingly sound. Rather than be deterred by my extended hand, it licked it with its sandpapery tongue, and whinnied. An icy wind was blowing outside, so I opened the gate and allowed it under the doorway. It rubbed up against me as if looking for warmth, and neighed bitterly. Removing my greatcoat, I placed it on the foal, like a blanket; he allowed this, but went on trembling. Pál, who now appeared in the doorway, ran down to the cellar for a blanket and to get Guidó. Taking the greatcoat once again and putting it back on myself, I headed off to find some sort of food for the starving foal, which two of my friends were already pampering. I searched through the stores on Vörös marty tér and those nearby on Váci utca whose windows had been smashed in and which had been looted, hoping to come upon something akin to straw. Nothing anywhere. I ran on, toward Petõfi Sándor utca.

The suffering of horses was among the most upsetting of the many horrors of the siege. A detachment of hussars was among the soldiers stuck in the city. I met up with them first in Buda, some eighty horses locked in a half-burned Catholic church, the hussars nowhere to be seen, perhaps casualties of the battle. The horses, chewing on the benches, pattered their hooves on my arrival and thronged about me. Slamming the door shut, I fled from the scene. The image haunted me for a long time even after the war.

It seemed as if this foal had stopped by Vörösmarty tér as their emissary. I had to find something edible. A half-hour later, out of breath, I arrived "home" in the nick of time with a doormat. By this time Pál and Guidó had been joined by Imre Biedermann, Péter, and the Rakovszky boy, all of them horsemen. They stood around the trembling little foal. And all of them helped tear apart the doormat, held together by wire so thick that even a bayonet had a tough time of it. Decades of dust issued forth as we beat the liberated knot against the entrance wall.

The foal watched and understood, but couldn't wait for us to finish beating the dust out of the doormat--it fell upon the shabby bunch of straw and voraciously gobbled it up.

Meanwhile, the conference regarding its fate had begun. What else could we do but decide on a coup de grâce? A bullet in the poor thing's heart, once it finished its last, loathsome meal. While the weapon was still ours, at least. But who was to volunteer for the job?

"You're the hunter," I told Imre. Not him! He wouldn't shoot a foal. I should call upon the younger nimrods. In vain, Péter, Rakovszky; Pál Odeschalchi, wea pons enthusiast that he was, and Guidó, turned me down. Péter went down into their cellar to try his hand at recruitment. Not one of the young diplomats accepted.

The foal had finished the doormat by the time Péter returned with a Frenchman, among the POW's who'd escaped the Gulag to Hungary and who'd been granted asylum by Keresztes-Fischer, the Interior Minister, and been given bread by Franci Hohenlohe in the Wagons Lits building.

It was the Frenchman who finally consented to the task--if it must be done, well then, it must be done... "S'il faut... il le faut!"

He used Imre's service pistol to put the foal out of its misery, and he did so with real expertise, so that it was over in an instant. The animal collapsed under the arched doorway, on the remaining core of the doormat. This was our final act of arms. The next day, the Russians arrived.

---

Jenõ Thassy was born in 1919, just months after a gang of Serbian soldiers ransacked the family estate in the southwest of the country, killing his father and four-year-old brother. His pregnant mother was herself wounded but
surviv ed. The widow had to run the dwind ling estate singlehanded, meanwhile trying to give her only child the best possible education. Under the circumstances, this meant a Jesuit boarding school, followed by cadet school and then by the Ludo vica Military Academy in Budapest. By the time Lieutenant Thassy received his first posting in 1938 as an officer in the forces sent to re-annex part of former North ern Hungary from Czechoslovakia as a consequence of the First Vienna Award, the country had embarked on its fatal course leading to war on Hitler's side.

Dangerous Territory, published in 1996, is an irresistible account of an extraordinary life spent in the Central European turmoil up to 1945, the end of the siege of Budapest and the beginning of the Soviet occupation. The young army officer soon discovered that he did not belong in an officer corps that was dominated by blinkered, racist, chauvinist, pro-German officers. His different outlook and his humane behaviour towards his men--natural to him but considered scandalous by his superiors--brought him into contact with like-minded officers in his unit and later in the general staff, where he served thanks to family connections. As the country entered the war and more and more family friends and acquaintances found themselves in trouble for their Jewish blood, Thassy found his place in the tiny circle of the organized resistance in the army. His landed gentry background and connections with the mostly Anglophile aristocracy and the highest circles around Regent Horthy, his uniform and derring-do enabled him to provide protection in one form or another to a large number of people. Wholesale production of forged identity papers, securing hideouts and safe houses, bringing food, medical aid and hope, carrying arms and news, trying to help and save and guide, certainly did more than armed resistance could have achieved under the circumstances.

Thassy describes his life and adventures with characteristic modesty, mixing frankness with irony and self-reflection. The mural of Hungarian society as it was between the two wars that emerges is fascinating. The book combines hindsight with the young Thassy's feelings and outlook at the time. It is a book that all non-Hungarians interested in Central European history and society ought to read. Here in this country it has already run to two editions.

The excerpt chosen for translation is taken from the end of the book, describing the last days of the siege of Budapest. That catharctic experience brought to an end an era whose child Thassy was. At 78 he is now at work on a second volume, describing his life outside the country he loves so much. In 1947 he fled to Paris and eventually ended up in New York where he is still on the staff of the Voice of America's Hungarian Service.