Mutter
The film tells the emotional story of a Hungarian woman who fled to Switzerland with her six-year old son after the uprising in 1956, while her husband is executed by the Communist regime in Hungary because he was thought to be a leading counter-revolutionary. She leads the life of an emigrant in Switzerland until she is once again dramatically confronted with history when she visits the old homeland, where her husband became a hero posthumously following the end of the Cold War. It is the director mothers dramatical life between love and politics.
Why this film?
By Miklós Gimes
In the Summer of 1989, I looked up Peter Frey, my former editor in chief of ‘TA-Magazine’, who had since retired. I told him about the forthcoming rehabilitation of my father and asked him if I should go to Hungary as a private individual or as a journalist.
“Go as you want, but write something”, says Frey, “that’s what I would have requested if I were your boss”. I didn’t write anything. Neither at the funeral nor later or earlier. I never wrote anything. The subject of my origins was no subject for the public.
Maybe some of my relatives are right in saying that the seed of my mother has sprouted. Lucy purposely held me apart from the past so as not to be confronted with unpleasant questions. All these years I didn’t want to be aware of the fact, that at least in Hungary I belong to a well known circle of people who consider me somewhat as an official figure, that represents a myth, the myth of a man who would die at all costs. In actual fact, my origins were rather embarrassing. I felt privileged compared to the Hungarian children who remained as repressed victims of the Hungarian uprising, who were discriminated against for years and who sometimes never found the path to a fulfilling life.
My father’s friends and relatives were astounded at my lack of interest in my father’s origins.
I noticed that in the scope of the groundwork for this film, I had my first intensive discussions with them since my childhood. It seemed as though they had been waiting a long time for me. Most important to them had always been my father’s heir, the comrades and political ideals of their youths and yet finally now the interest in a film about my mother. Evidently I had had to wait until I was fifty years old to find a personal visual angle. Did my private story appeal to the general public? To that I can only say: the general background is the personal side. In other words: the interplay of history and privacy gives the theme it’s authenticity. Because for my mother, the political moment of the uprising is inseparably connected with the personal moment of the personal crisis, exactly this intense personal side creates a film that could appeal to the general public.
Historical Background
A summing up of Hungary and it’s history by Miklós Gimes
In one or two years, the middle east European nations will enter the European Union,- what do we know about their history? What do we know about Hungary, which will strengthen the circle of the European Union countries, those who haven’t experienced any civil revolution.
1921-1945: Shadows of k. and k monarchy
Lucy Gimes was born in 1921 in a bankrupted country of the k.a k. monarchy, which the victorious forces of the First World War abused for their good. Hungary lost about one half of their territory and a third of its population to the surrounding countries.
In this mood of abasement, any democracy would have had it hard, not to mention a land that had been ruled for ages by aristocrats and wealthy landowners.
Therefore, not surprisingly, after the collapse of the monarchy a communist Soviet republic, after the soviet example, would come into power. That nonetheless after a hundred days from English, French and Rumanian armed forces, would be captured from all sides. The resulting dictator, a reactionary military junta under the rule of Miklós Horthy, the last rear-admiral of the k. a k. Fleet, promised the western authorities to respect the new boundaries. Horthy managed with a coalition from the upper class, clergymen and the military, a kind of enlightened pseudo parliamentary dictatorship. This gave the country a certain stability, but at the same time bestowed upon it a formidable constriction of the spirit, even though Horthy had an amity with England.
Anti Semitism
That the question of the lost Hungarian territories dominated the public lives, is best evident by the fact that the country under Horty’s regime was the first country in Europe during the early twenties to have initiated anti Semitic laws. For example, the number of restricted entries in the universities calculated for a country which was way ahead in Jewish assimilation.
And even so, Horthy had to find a new picture of hostility to drain the bottled nationalistic feelings. The socially successful Jews, a tenth of the Hungarian population, were given the blame. The result of the Jewish laws was a devastating outflow of academics and artists to the west. This was the country in which Lucy grew up.
After Hitler’s massive takeover, Horthy looked for contact with the Fuhrer who had honoured the alliance partner with the restoration of it’s lost state territories. By the time the war broke out, Horthy tried to wriggle out and to keep the Germans clear of the Hungarian border by sending them troops to use as cannon-fodder in Russia. However in the Spring of 1944, as Horthy aspired for a special peace with England, the Germans took possession of Hungary. It was Adolf Eichman’s hour, who with the energetic support of robust anti Semitic Hungarian Police soldiers, in a matter of a few months, deported about half a million Hungarian Jews to Ausschwitz. Already in the years before, Hungary had hurriedly and obediently erected labour camps for the Jewish men. In one of these, Lucy’s brother died.
From 1945 until today: Salami –Tactic
In the winter of 1944/45 after the embittered battle around Budapest, Hungary was occupied by the Russians. Hungary was attached to the to the Russian authoritarian zone of the victorious power. In the first free elections, the civilians dominated the coalition and the communists won only a sixth of the votes received. During Horthy’s dictatorship, the communist faction was practically shattered. Hungary’s newly constructed party was supported by the presence of the Russian army, the in Moscow formed commanding stratum, and the thousands of young idealists like my mother and father, who after the second world war dreamed of a better future. In the following years a communist peoples republic was generated through intentional terror and rigged elections. Party leader Rakosi called what preceded the prowling power takeover “Salami tactic”. It came to an end in 1948.
In Stalinist Times
Between 1949 and 1953, a Russian model of Stalin show trials came to Hungary. Innocent people were forced to confess through torture, to serve as a warning to propagandists. Enemies of the classes of all kinds were confined to camps similar to KZ. Most of the victims found themselves within the communist party, of whose members would be intimidated to unsuspecting party soldiers. The most prominent victim of this cleansing was the Secretary of State for foreign affairs Làszlo Rajk. After Stalin’s death in 1953, all the jails and camps were emptied, for which the reformed communist Imre Nagy won great popularity. But a turn about in Moscow brought the old Stalinists back to the rudder in 1955.
The 1956 Uprising
In the autumn of 1956, an explosion of fury amongst the people broke out in Poland and then in Hungary. The vehemence of the Hungarian uprising also surprised the reformed communists. Within 24 hours a peaceful demonstration became an armed mass rebellion. The reform communists yet again at the helm, allowed the forbidden civil and social democrats to shout out their national neutralities. After four days of bloody fighting the first Russian troops left the country. A hardening of the international situation by an attack of the English and French on the Suez Canal caused the Russians to make an about turn. In a few days Hungary was inundated with Russian troops and the revolt was broken up. (America had given the Russians free way). An appeal to the passive opposition and a general strike gave the new Russian affable government lead by the deserted Nagy follower Janos Kadar, a few more months of wind. But already in the spring of 1957, the new regime had the country under its control.
The Kádár-Regime and the Change
After dark years and inexorable repression, thousands of victims killed, the Kádár -regime was so well established that it could begin with careful reforms (private property, travel abroad). In the following years, Hungary was considered the “amusing barrack” of socialism. The memory of the 1956 uprising was systematically dislodged by the regime. In the 1989 summer of the changeover, as the deceased from the uprising were buried, the first opportunity came for many people, to speak about the displaced past. Today the 23 October, the first day of the uprising, is the official National Day of Hungary.
The Hungarian Uprising and the West
The Hungarian uprising was in the western head lines for many weeks. The communist movement had experienced a short recoil, thousands resigned from the communist party.
For Switzerland the Hungarian uprising was also an incisive event. From the more than hundred thousand refugees, ten thousand found entrance to Switzerland. The Swiss showed great solidarity to the suppressed minor state in the east. Sporadically it came to anti communistic pogroms.
Because the revolt signalled the beginning of the end of the Soviet power, historians believe the Hungarian uprising to be one of the central events of the second half of the twentieth century. Hungary in 1956 was the start of a long line of revolts in Eastern Europe, finding only an end in Belgrade in the autumn of 2000.