CARDINAL IN COMMUNIST CAPTIVITY

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28160, 26 December 1956, Page 5

CARDINAL IN COMMUNIST CAPTIVITY

“They Tortured Both My Soul And My Body” INCESSANT QUESTIONING FOR 16 DAYS AND NIGHTS II (World Copyright—New York Herald Tribune, Inc.) (By JOSEF CARDINAL MINDSZENTY, as told to FATHER JOSEF VECSEY] (This is the second of six articles in which Father Josef Vecsey, a lifelong friend of Cardinal Mindszenty, recounts the Cardinals experiences in Communist captivity. This material was given Father Vecsey by the Cardinal in a series of conversations. The Cardinal gave Father Vecsey full authorisation to tell his story to the world).

I had been convinced that sooner or later the Bolsheviks would arrest me. This is their way. On November 19, 1948, my secretary, Father Andrew Zakar, had been arrested just after he had said Mass in a convent in Esztergom. He was picked up on the street by the political police. They gave no reason. They have taken many others in this way.

On December 23, my residence in Esztergom was searched bv the political police. During the search two of my priests were arrested in my home—Father John Fabian and Father Imre Boka. They were arrested to be prepared to support charges against me, I am sure. I protested to the political police, but it meant nothing.

Often I had made it clearly understood that the Church would not'abide by tyrannical orders and would especially never allow the Government to take over the church schools. As long as they left me free, I was determined ‘ that the Church would not compromise. Whenever there was the opportunity, which came often, I spoke out against them and their Godlessness, particularly after they went ahead and took over the schools in the summer of 1948. I was not afraid. Neither prison nor the Bolsheviks were strangers to me. (Twice before the Cardinal had been arrested, once as a young priest in 1919, when he wrote a political weekly, attacking Bela Kun during a four-month Communist reign of terlor, and again for five months in 194445 by the Nazis. He was liberated just before the Russians approached the city.) When the day came—it was the day after Christmas, 1948—1 was in my residence in Esdtergom. The political police came for me in a car. There was time to put some things into a bag and then they drove me straight to their headquarters at 60 Andrassy street, in Budapest. (He was arrested early in the evening by a squad of 16 officers armed with automatic rifles. His mother was staying at Esdtergom with him. She asked to accompany him, but the police refused.) Possessions Seized

One of the things they did to me at Andrassy street was to take away all the possessions I carried with me. my breviary, my rosary, and the sou-

tane I was wearing they ripped from my body. I was forced to dress in civilian clothing. They called me “you,” in the rude form of the word. This was how they started. (Ed. Note.— In European language, it is a marked discourtesy to use the familiar form of the word “you” to a man of the Cardinal’s position.) For 16 days and nights they hammered at me, squeezed me with questions. My interrogators worked in shifts and only occasionally did they give me a minute’s peace. A minute to sleep. Several of them would question me at one time, then they would work one after the other.

My cell, when I was allowed to return to it, was relatively comfortable. It was not in the cellar. I got very little to eat and the interrogations went on, day and night. I slept very little. I shall write down more details some day. I shall at that time tell everything which happened to me that I can still remember in those 45 days between my arrest and trial. But now I do not choose to speak of them in more detail than this.

“Expert In Their Work” My torturers were expert in their work. They tortured both my soul and my body. (The Rev. Bela Ispanky, who was one of the six other priests arrested with the Cardinal as accomplices, was in a basement cell at- 60 Andrassy. He was questioned at the same time as Cardinal Mindszenty and also sentenced to life imprisonment.

(On October 29, during the Hungarian revolution, he was freed. Not

trusting the Russians, he escaped immediately to Austria, where he asked political asylum. (I met Father Ispanky in Vienna and he told me two kinds of drugs were used by the A VO. The AVO is the Hungarian abbreviation for the department for the security of the State, which is the political police. It is patterned after the Russian MVD and was founded by a Hungarian named Gabor Peter, who was a personal protege of Stalin. (The ranks of the AVO were recruited from immoral and uneducated people and were given handsome uniforms military rank and a hurried education. One branch of the organisation wore green uniforms, the other blue. But there was a saying in Hungary that the only difference between them was that the blue AVO beat you until you were blue, and the green AVO until you were green. (One kind of drug made people extremely talkative. The other filled them with fear which mounted to terror. A prisoner, Ispanky said, to whom this latter drug was given, became frantic with claustrophobia and would pound the walls with his fists and head. He said the drugs were often put into soup and he is certain the Cardinal was given at least one of these drugs.

(The Cardinal, however, at least while I talked to him. did not mention drugs, but indicated he had more to tell of his treatment during the days before the trial.) “In A Daze”

There are some things I am sure I do not remember exactly. I know that I was in a daze for a great part of the time because of the continuous questioning. But then one day, it was about the sixteenth day, they put many sheets of type-written paper before me and told me to sign. 1 did what they asked and I remember clearly that I put the two letters "C.F.”, after my name. My torturers were surprised at this and asked me what the letters C.F. meant.

Despite my dazed state, the defence mechanism of the human body worked and even smiling at them I answered, “It means a Cardinal without an office.” They did not seem to believe it, but they were so pleased with having my signature at all that they left me alone and allowed me to be taken back to my cell. But I was mistaken in believing that they would not find out precisely what those two leters meant. C.F. is the abbreviation of the Latin “coactus feci,’’ which means “this I have done through force.” During the 150 years of Turkish occupation of Hungary, our people used to sign in this manner confessions that had been tortured from them.

It was no more than an hour after I signed before the interrogators had me brought back for more questions. One of them, a member of the AVO, laughed at me uneasily and warned me not to pull such tricks on them again. Then they continued my painful interrogation. (The trial took place between February 3-8, 1949, at the People’s Tribunal located at the Marko Street Court. During this week, Cardinal Mindszenty was imprisoned at the Marko Street prison attached to the court.)

[This was the second in a series of six articles by Josef Cardinal Mindszenty as told to the Rev. Josef Vecsey. The content of these articles was given Father Vecsey in several different conversations with the Cardinal, which, for the purposes of serialisation, have been put in chronological order. The paragraphs in brackets are explanatory, descriptive or connective passages added by Father Vecsey.]