REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

THE GULAG –
THROUGH THE EYES OF A SURVIVOR
Péter BÁLÓ 1
The below article has been made upon an interview with a Hungarian survivor of the
GULAG – Mrs. Pintér. She spent eight and a half years in captivity, in several Soviet
force-labour camps. My aim is to commemorate her and those millions of nameless
people, becoming the victims of the communism.
Mrs. Pintér was born as Magdolna Rohr, on the 24 th of December, 1928. Her father
worked as a clerk at a law firm, while her mother was a housewife, bringing up the
children.
She went to Bátaszék to primary school and then she maturated in Budapest. She was
educated in a religious way, attended church school. She stayed in Budapest during the
WWII, being an eye-witness of bombing the capital, the lack of food – all these things
left a serious mark in her soul.
Her personal tragedy started on the 23 rd of September of 1945, when two Soviet soldiers
appeared in their flat with a civil translator and they asked her to go with them. She was
promised that they only wanted to talk to her. Getting in the street they pushed her in a
car. Afterwards she was taken to a later demolished building to the Üllıi Str. (Budapest),
and her interrogation has started. The interrogators asked her about her friends and the
actions they had done together, but due to the lack of any such actions, the young girl
couldn’t reply any of the questions. Then the Soviet officer took his pistol and threatened
Magdolna with killing her on the spot. After the inefficient interrogation she was
accommodated in an unheated room of the building, furnished only with a bed. The next
day her interrogation continued, and then she could have some information to find out,
why she has been captured by the Soviet authorities. It became clear, that a friend of hers
wanted to leave Hungary, but he was caught at the Austrian-Hungarian border, and in his
notebook they found the name of two English pilots, and also the name of Magdolna
Rohr. That could be the base of the charges.
Being aware of her innocence Magdolna kept on denying the charges. One day a
reinforced guard took her and the other prisoners, kept in the building to Szombathely,
where they were accommodated under inhuman circumstances, in a coal-cellar. The next
station was Eisenstadt that is situated in Austria. Among the poor supply with meal the
night-interrogations have started. In the evenings a Russian woman was put in her cell,
who constantly asked questions, but as she was innocent, she couldn’t answer any of
1 Emlekpont Museum, Hódmezıvásárhely, Hungary.