tony’s blog

Good Friday is perfect, warm, sunny, blue sky, quiet air. Ben and Tony walk down the rail trail past loads of cyclists, joggers, … and find a short old man clutching an empty coffee cup eager to talk. “Look in there, see what I did!” He’s made a back gate from his garden onto the rail trail and it’s open, revealing neatly tilled seedbeds sprouting in dead-straight rows. He explains excitedly that “I made it!” – constructed a roto-tiller from an old discarded machine and an electric motor, “verks be-ooo-tiful!”

His accent is German, but his intonation is not at all – strange mixture. So Tony asks (of course) – and this story pours out.

He’s 84 and Hungarian. At 16 the German army arrive, and take many teenage boys back to Germany. “They gave us army uniforms, and $40 a month”. He rapidly learns German. Three years later the war ended, he returns to Hungary, and finds himself in a suspect group, with different ideas (and language) from the population who had never left. Because he speaks German he works for the railways.

One day a stranger gives him a parcel in Vienna, and offers him money to deliver it to “a friend” in Budapest, who will introduce himself by saying “What a nice day” in a particular way. In Budapest he’s surprised to see the “friend” is the same man! The Russian secret police catch the man, and the railway worker is jailed for 5 years, and forced to work in the mines because he’s small (he says the tunnels were only 80cm high – boggle?) – he shows me the mineworker’s tattoo (a pick and shovel) on his forearm.

But 3 years later the communist uprising changes public feeling, and he’s released – and given a gun and appointed a peace-keeper! “Difficult times – people would pick quarrels, and form lynch-mobs.” But only a few years later (1956) the Russians invade, and there’s chaos.

The Canadians send a delegation to Budapest – who don’t speak Hungarian!! (Typical.) One of them spoke German, and went around asking “Anyone speaks German?” When my story-teller says “Ja” the Canadian tells him “See if you can find some men who would like to go to Canada – I’ll contact you soon”. So he goes into the high-school, and tells boys if you want to go to Canada sign this paper. The same evening the Canadian calls back and says “How many you got?” and he says 252! The Canadian gulps and says OK, have them all ready at 5am tomorrow in the square, I’ll send buses, but make sure only your 252 signed-up people get on the – we won’t have room for more.

Sure enough next morning there are the buses – and a huge crowd of teenagers, many more having heard the rumour. Nasty fights are narrowly avoided. The buses take them to the station, where two empty coaches have been attached to the express from Romania to Paris. The coaches are transferred to another train to Le Havre. A Portuguese cruise-ship has been redirected there to pick them up, and the lads embark to the strains of the Hungarian national anthem (and some tears). The RCMP board the ship in the St. Laurence to take their names … and they’re Canadians! (and shattered by the cold.)

My informant is himself a bit tearful by this time. He recalls fondly how 5 years ago the lads invited him and his wife to a 50th anniversary reunion in Winnipeg. About 30 of them met, coming from all over this continent and all kinds of lifestyles, including a retired police director from a southern State and a retired American army officer.

Maybe I’ll go on asking about accents… GK