1956 Hungarian Revolution in Photos
These pages offer an audio and visual glimpse of the heroic fight for liberation in Hungary during the 1956 Revolution.
Some photos have a larger version. Click the photos for the larger image. Click [here] to send us photos!
* Note: AHF believes that all pictures shown below are in the public domain, if there are any issues please contact us to discuss.
AHF would like to thank the 1956 Institute, Dr. Paul Szilagyi, Sgt. Ed Parauka of the US Embassy Marine Guard in Budapest, and others who assisted in the collection of these photographs.
The demonstrators marched carrying signs (a felvonulás jelszavai):
- Lengyelország példát mutat, kövessük
a magyar utat!
(Poland gives us the example, let us follow the Magyar Path!) - Munkás-paraszt gyerekek, együtt megyünk veletek!
(Worker-farmer children, we go forward together!) - Új vezetést akarunk, Nagy Imrében bizalmunk!
(We want new leadership, we trust in Imre Nagy) - Nem állunk meg félúton, sztálinizmus pusztuljon!
(We won’t stop halfway, let Stalinism rot and die!) - Szovjet sereg menjen haza, Sztálin-szobrot vigye haza!
(Soviet troops go home, take the Stalin statue home!) - Függetlenség, szabadság!
(Freedom, Independence) - Rákosit a Dunába, Nagy Imrét a kormányba!
(Rakosi to the Danube, Imre Nagy to the government) - Ruszkik haza!
(Russians go home!) - Vesszen az önkény, éljen a törvény!
(May tyranny lose and long live the law!)
Translations by Bryan Dawson-Szilagyi – please send any corrections to bryandawson@americanhungarianfederation.org
1956 Hungarian Revolution in Audio and Visual Files
“Five
Days of Freedom in Budapest” – “Budapest is in revolt.
With uncontrolled fury, crowds set fire to Russian flags… The impossible
has happened. A handful of heroes has shaken the communist world to
its foundations.” (5.2 Mb)- “News
Magazine of the Screen” presented “Flight from Hungary”
in early 1957 featuring video taken after the brutal Soviet re-occupation.
“This is battered Budapest under the brutal Russian boot, Soviet
tanks roam the streets under the ruins they laid as communist secret
police hunt down heroic Freedom Fighters. 25,000 Hungarians are dead.”
A fascinating video, it also includes news about the Suez Crisis and
more glimpes into life during this time. (ATTN DIAL-UP USERS: this file
is 62 Mb)
- November
12, 1956 – BBC News Report: Smuggled
Video (no audio) 
- October,
1956 – BBC Panorama Special: Mikes
reports from the Austrian frontier. “We found the Rebels confident
that their fight was nearly won. The long road to Budpapest was in Hungarian
hands..from the Red Army there was no sign.”
October 23, 1956 – Free
Hungarian Radio broadcast about the “mass demonstrations”
in Budapest. This was the beginning as students stormed the formerly
state-controlled radio. (in Hungarian)- November
6, 1956 – George
Urban interviews Oakshott, a Britain recently returned from Hungary
about what he witnessed. “We saw tanks manned by 14-year-old children.”
- Hungarian
Prime Minister Imre
Nagy makes his appeal to the West. It fell on deaf ears, the Russians
returned, and he was executed. “At dawn today, Soviet troops attacked
the capital with the intention of overthrowing the legitimate government
of Hungary. This communication is made to our people and to the whole
world.”
Memorials Dedicated to 1956
“October 23, 1956, is a day that will live forever in the annals
of free men and nations. It was a day of courage, conscience and triumph.
No other day since history began has shown more clearly the eternal unquenchability
of man’s desire to be free, whatever the odds against success, whatever
the sacrifice required.“– President John
F. Kennedy,
on the first anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution.
Denver, Colorado – statue and “Hungarian Freedom Park”
Toronto, Ont – statue and park
Erie, PA – Memorial and square (Thanks to v. Juhasz Ferenc, AHF, VP)
Bridgeport – Statue
Fairfield, CT – Memorial plaque in Town Hall (2003)
Berkeley Springs, WV – plaque, cemetery, and church (TX to Mrs. ‘Sally’ Gyorik, Ft Vitez Baan OFP)
Boston, Mass – Liberty Square statue and square by George Hollosy
Los Angeles, CA – statue by Arpad Domjan (1966)
(TX to Czene Ferenc and LA Hungarians)New York – Plaque at East River/92d Str
Passaic, NJ – statue
Lorantffy House, Akron, Ohio 1956 – Plaque
North Olmstead , Ohio – Plaque and cemetery (Thanks to Dobolyi Arpad & Juhasz Ferenc AHF VP)
New Orleans, LA – plaque
Loraine, Ohio – Statue under construction
Miami, Fl – First Hungarian Church Stained Glass Windows
Camp Kilmer – plaque now in New Brunswick, New Jersey
Cleveland, Ohio – Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty statue and square
New Brunswick, NJ – Mindszenty statue and square
Miami – Mindszenty Str. (27th Str) NW (TX to Tarr Sandor, Honorary Consul)
Budapest – statue/plaque at the Chain bridge in Buda by Ocsay Karoly
Korvin koz – statue of the young freedom fighter
Eger – Memorial to 1956
Budapest, Prime Minister Imre Nagy Gravsite and Memorial
Budapest, Szena Ter
Budapest, II kerulet; Manheimer Statue
Budapest, XIII kerulet: Park of Statues: granite obelisk
Budapest, XIII kerulet: Park of Statues: Plaque of the martyrs (2000 Oct. 23)
Albert Camus’ Stirring Letter to the World:
“The Blood of the Hungarians”
I am not one of those who wish to see the people of Hungary take up arms again in a rising certain to be crushed, under the eyes of the nations of the world, who would spare them neither applause nor pious tears, but who would go back at one to their slippers by the fireside like a football crowd on a Sunday evening after a cup final.
There are already too many dead on the field, and we cannot be generous with any but our own blood. The blood of Hungary has re-emerged too precious to Europe and to freedom for us not to be jealous of it to the last drop.
But I am not one of those who think that there can be a compromise, even one made with resignation, even provisional, with a regime of terror which has as much right to call itself socialist as the executioners of the Inquisition had to call themselves Christians.
And on this anniversary of liberty, I hope with all my heart that the silent resistance of the people of Hungary will endure, will grow stronger, and, reinforced by all the voices which we can raise on their behalf, will induce unanimous international opinion to boycott their oppressors.
And if world opinion is too feeble or egoistical to do justice to a martyred people, and if our voices also are too weak, I hope that Hungary’s resistance will endure until the counter-revolutionary State collapses everywhere in the East under the weight of its lies and contradictions.
Hungary conquered and in chains has done more for freedom and justice than any people for twenty years. But for this lesson to get through and convince those in the West who shut their eyes and ears, it was necessary, and it can be no comfort to us, for the people of Hungary to shed so much blood which is already drying in our memories.
In Europe’s isolation today, we have only one way of being true to Hungary, and that is never to betray, among ourselves and everywhere, what the Hungarian heroes died for, never to condone, among ourselves and everywhere, even indirectly, those who killed them.
It would indeed be difficult for us to be worthy of such sacrifices. But we can try to be so, in uniting Europe at last, in forgetting our quarrels, in correcting our own errors, in increasing our creativeness, and our solidarity. We have faith that there is on the march in the world, parallel with the forces of oppression and death which are darkening our history, a force of conviction and life, an immense movement of emancipation which is culture and which is born of freedom to create and of freedom to work.
Those Hungarian workers and intellectuals, beside whom we stand today with such impotent sorrow, understood this and have made us the better understand it. That is why, if their distress is ours, their hope is ours also. In spite of their misery, their chains, their exile, they have left us a glorious heritage which we must deserve: freedom, which they did not win, but which in one single day they gave back to us. (October 23, 1957)
AHF dedicates this work
to the memory of all our comrades who passed during those faithful days
of October, 1956.
- Read this in German, Hungarian, French, and Spanish on this AHF member site, the [American Hungarian Museum]
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