PLEASE NOTE: This book contains graphic description ... - HUNSOR

7917 year old Karoly and 8 year old Gyula. They lived on a rented farm not far away from theBogdany farm in Hatarjaras. They had been living there for a long time and had a very goodrelationship with the owner, Mr. Cseszak. Cseszak, a clerk. He took up this post after the arrivalof the Hungarians. He lived on Zoldfas Street, near the entrance to the market, he was divorcedand lived with his son. He was considered to be a very good man in Becse.When my father, Jozsef Kovacs, was drafted, he hired a couple to help my mother cutthe hay. It was September 18th, at eight o'clock in the evening, and they had just gone to bed.My mother and her sons were frightened when someone began knocking on the door. Theythought that the couple living in the stable wanted to break into the house. My mother picked upher smallest son who was still sleeping and carried him with her. The older boy went ahead ofher through the next room. The boy jumped out of the window, but came back immediately andshouted:"Mum, there are a lot of people here." At that precise moment he was shot through theheart and died at once. My mother was shot at five times, three of the shots hit the boy in herarms. One bullet grazed her just beside the ear and the other next to her eye.Then the shooting stopped and the partisans came to my mother and asked her whereCseszak was. My mother answered that he was living in the town."We're looking for him", they told her. My mother said that we were living here now.The wagon in the yard had a small registration plate on it, with my father's name on it. TheSerbian partisans numbered a hundred or more, a lot of guns with them. According to mymother, all of them had fine, smooth hands. They were not peasants or workers but clerks andother white collar workers, young and middle-aged. There was a Hungarian woman among themwho asked my mother,"Do you know who we are?" My mother said that she did not. "We are the troops ofliberation. In two weeks the Russians will arrive and we will liberate Becse." "I don't care, Iwould just like one thing, please, bring my sons into the house", she said, as she looked at herdead sons lying on the ground."Not there", they were pointing at the house from which my mother and her sons hadcome."Take them in there then", my mother said, pointing to the summer kitchen. They took thedead bodies there.Meanwhile they went into the house and took everything we had away with them. The curtainswere torn away, clothes and bedding were wrapped in other bedding, so they could be takenaway more easily. Some days later one of these packs was found80in the nearby corn field.The only dress left for my mother was the one she wore and she had to borrow one from hermother, so that she could go to the funeral. The sons' best clothes were at my father'sgrandparents' in Becse, so they were buried in the clothes they had been wearing when they weremurdered. The partisans were there for a while and told my mother that she shouldn't go into thehouse before morning. My mother did not notice that she had been robbed in the meanwhile.