A Student's Diary: Budapest, October 16-November 1, 1956 [antikvár]

emeThe men, women, and children of Budapest began writing a diary in blood at 11 p.m., October 23, 1956, when the first bullets fired by Hungarian AVH secret police screamed through a crowd of thousands of people jammed in front of the Radio Budapest Building. They struck the signal for the most heroic and desperate outcry for freedom the Hungarian nation has seen in a thousand years.But my personal diary of the revolt began one week earlier. I can remember four months of student unrest before the actual revolt flared up, but details of student action began to crystallize October 16.I am in Canada now. My namemy real nameis on the Communist roster of most-wanted persons in Hungary, as one of forty-three students who organized the Free Students' Council, which later became the Students' Revolutionary Council.I am not a writer, and I never wanted to be one. But now, in the warmth of Canada's freedoms, I have tried to piece together student activities before the revolt struck, and the heroic fight of the students, workers, and young people I witnessed during the first week of battle, when Hungary's candle of freedom burned bright for a brief moment, then was snuffed out.