Franz Ferdinand’s three deaths

In the previous post about Sarajevo’s syagogues, a cuckoo’s egg slipped in about the Yugoslav memorial plaque of Gavrilo Princip, unscrewed from the wall by the German army marching into the city in April 1941, and sent to Hitler for his birthday. Now the cuckoo hatches from the egg and spreads its wings.

In fact, the removal of the plaque was considered so important by the German official newsreel Deutsche Wochenschau, that they dedicated an entire half minute to it out of the twenty-four-minute broadcast of the truly glamorous events of the week. By clicking on it, the video starts right at 11:38, at the beginning of the scene.


“In Sarajewo. Hier wurde am 28en Juni 1914 der österreichische Tronfolger Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand durch das feige Attentat eines serbischen Studenten niedergestreckt. Diese Schüsse waren das Signal zum Weltkrieg. – Die Marmortafel, die diesem Ort von Volksdeutschen entfernt, und dem deutschem Wehrmacht übergeben. Sie trägt die Inschrift: »An dieser historischen Stätte erkämpfte Gavrilo Princip Serbien die Freiheit.« Der Führer überwiest die Tafel der Berliner Zeughaus.”

“Sarajevo. On June 28, 1914, the infamous terror attack of a Serbian student killed Austrian Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand. This gunshot gave the signal to the Great War. – This marble plaque was removed by the Volksdeutsche and handed over to the German army. Its inscription: «In this historic place, Gavrilo Princip achieved freedom for Serbia.» The Führer forwarded the plaque to the Zeughaus in Berlin.”

The newsreel emphasizes that the plaque was removed not by the army, but by the Volksdeutsche, the local ethnic Germans, and it was they who then handed it to the army. However, the spontaneity of the dozen of young people, dressed in flawless white shirts and ties, and performing a well-choreographed little march, is quite questionable. Not to mention that the field musicians and officers of the Wehrmacht are assisting in this action, obviously just as spontaneously. And if we also know that the pictures were taken by Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s personal photographer, who then immediately boarded Hitler’s private train Sonderzug Amerika, especially sent for the plaque, to photograph the next day the Führer, celebrating his fifty-second birthday in Mönichkirchen, as he is intensely looking at the plaque, then it will be clear that it was a well-planned and prepared symbolic event.


Hitler is also beholding extremely spontaneously the plaque surrounded by two and half zombies. We know that only Hoffmann was allowed to take photos of him, and only while posing, in poses worthy of a great statesman. These poses were borrowed from the topos repository created by classical and romantic painting and sculpture, which also offer us a clue to understanding them. The one we see here is “the great general contemplating the ruins of Rome” pose. Which also suggests that this plaque meant more to him than merely spoils of war from an unnatural state created by Versailles.

Hitler agreed with Franz Ferdinand’s removal from the throne, even though he condemned the assassins. The Slavic-friendly crown prince, who had a Czech consort, meant to him and to his associates the danger of a compromise with the Slavs and the diminution of the weight of the German element. It is no wonder that he celebrated with relief on Munich’s Odeonplatz the war that settles accounts with Serbia and Russia threatening the German Lebensraum. By accident, this moment was photographed by Hoffmann, who, twenty years later, found the future Führer it in, at his request. No matter whether the figure is really the young Adolf, or, as some say, some retouching by Hoffmann was also necessary to make the identification. The point is that Hitler wanted be in that picture, he wanted to be at the starting point of the glorious German Sturm. It was the zero point of the Sarajevo pistol shot that launched him and the German people on the right track, and now that this track – despite the humiliation of Versailles and through its obliteration – would soon reach its zenith with the overcoming of Russia, the Führer looks back at this starting point when contemplating the Princip plaque.


In 1930 the Yugoslav state, by placing a plaque on the spot of the Princip attempt – albeit setting it as a private initiative – with the inscription “На овом историјском мјесту Гаврило Принцип навијести слободу на Видов-дан 15. јуна 1914” – “From this historical place Gavrilo Princip brought us freedom on St. Vitus’ Day, 15 June 1914” (that is, on the 28th of the Gregorian calendar), managed to achieve the outbreaks of not only its former World War enemies, but also of its own allies. That Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung calls it a “monstrous and intolerable provocation”, is just natural from the German side. But also London Times wrote, that the plaque immortalizes “an act which was the immediate cause of the Great War, of its attendant horrors, and of the general suffering which has been its sequel”. Churchill, in his contemporary The Unknown War calls it the monument of infamy, which, erected by Princip’s fellow countrymen, “records his infamy and their own”. And according to the contemporary British historian Robert William Seton-Watson, the plaque “was an affront to all right-thinking people”.

The Sarajevo Volksdeutsche handing the Princip plaque to the German Army

However, we cannot understand the real cause of the establishing of the plaque if we do not know the myth that it fits within. The clue is offered by the seemingly unnecessary archaism of Vidovdan, St. Vitus’ day, in the text. On this day, 15 June 1318, the whole Serb nation, led by Prince Lazar, was martyred on the plane of Kosovo, confronting the Ottoman army to the last warrior. This is the zero point of Serbian history. One has to get back here, and here one has to restart history, which at that point took a regrettably wrong turn. This is the so-called Kosovo Myth, which was coined by 19th-c. Serbian romanticism, and to which we can lead back all the 20th-century Balkan wars that started from Belgrade. To kill a tyrant on St. Vitus’ Day is an archetypal act, as was done by the legendary Serbian warrior Miloš Obilić, who struck the Sultan after his victory. And vice versa: if a Serbian warrior kills someone on Vidovdan, it symbolically attests that he was a tyrant. Princip’s Vidovdan bullet in one moment produced the archetypal constellation required by the Serbian military leadership to represent the fight for the re-devision of the Balkans as a sacred national war. From then on, the struggle for Bosnia was not just a dog-fight over the territories left by the Turks, but a necessary historical act leading to the correction of national history, which had taken a wrong turn in 1389. This zero point and this myth was faced with the myth and zero point of the Führer contemplating it in the railway wagon in Mönchkirchen.

Princip and his fellow conspirators as Vinovdan heroes. Below: The “chapel of the Vinovdan hroes”, erected upon Princip’s ashes, in Sarajevo’s old Orthodox cemetery

The plaque was then moved to the Zeughaus in Berlin, which was then a military museum called Arsenal. Here, a huge exhibition of the symbolic booty was organized, with Princip’s plaque in the middle. They also brought here the French rail car, in which in 1918 the German capitulation was signed, thus washing away the shame of Versailles. The building is today Deutsches Historisches Museum, where similar objects still often pop up, now of course as exhibition objects. Like the Zagreb bronze plaque, which attempted to give a new consciousness to the young South Slavic state by stamping the Hungarian coat of arm under its figures’ feet.

The Gravrilo Princip plaque on the booty exhibition in the Zeughaus

During the siege of Berlin, the plaque was destroyed together with the German myth. In Sarajevo, the Yugoslav partisans replaced it on 7 May 1945, a day before the German capitulation, with this inscription: “With eternal thanks to Gavrilo Princip and his comrades fighting against the German invasion.” For now, the Serbian myth gained the upper hand, in a new, popular tuning. In 1953, when the building was converted into a museum of the Young Bosnia movement, which had organized the assassination, a new plaque was set up with a new text: “On June 28, 1914, from this place Gavrilo Princip expressed with his pistol shot the people’s protest and centuries-old aspirations for freedom.” This plaque disappeared between 1992 and 1996, when the people of Sarajevo also expressed with machine gun shots from this place their aspirations for freedom and protest against the tyranny of Serbian nationalism, keeping the city under a bloody siege. Today it only says in Bosnian and English: “From this place on 28 June 1914 Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Austro-Hungarian throne Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia.”

On 28 June 2014, when this  plaque was inaugurated, another monument was also solemnly set up in Sarajevo. The small square is located at the westernmost end of Sarajevo, which is nevertheless called East Sarajevo. This is the part of the town where the Serbs moved out during the siege, and where, after the war, new housing estates were built for them from international aid. There are no physical boundaries between the two parts of the city, yet there is virtually no contact and no public transport between them. Here, a new, heroic statue of Gavrilo Princip was set up, and at the same time one of the first public spaces of the new district in formation was also named Gavrilo Princip Park. The myth lives on.

The new Princip monument in Google Street View, and its inauguration at the centenary

However, the first souvenirs of the assassination were much earlier than the 1930 memorial plaque. Already a hundred years ago, the local paper shops entered into the service of catastrophe tourism, and immediately started publishing picture postcards, which do not merely represent the Latin Bridge and its environs as a city view, but rather as the scene of the assassination, sometimes marking the exact spot with a small cross.

The souvenir postcards were usually provided with the Franz Ferdinand memorial stamps, which represented, besides the princely consorts, the Sarajevo Basilica, planned but never realized in their memory (see below).

And in 1917, on the third anniversary of the attempt, the first plaque appeared on the spot, marking the location for all subsequent plaques. This plaque was set up by the Austro-Hungarian government on Moritz Schiller’s deli, from which Princip stepped out to shoot the crown prince. The only Bosnian-language plaque with cross and imperial crown said: “In this place, Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand and his consort, Duchess Sophie Hohenberg suffered a martyr’s death at an assassin’s hand.”

The plaque in front view, and seen from the quay and from Franz Josef street.
Last photo: the scaffolding used to affix the plaque.

Already in 1916, the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina announced a competition for a grand martyr’s monument of the princely couple. It had a Hungarian winner, the excellent Art Nouveau sculptor and architect Jenő Bory (1879-1959), later rector of the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, who in January 1915 was commissioned to Sarajevo as a military engineer. Here Pater Puntigam, the director of the archbishop’s seminary, and the chief promoter of the Archduke’s cult, showed him the Archduke’s bloody shirt, and introduced him to the conception of the story which was to be visualized in the memorial.

Since there was no room for a monument in the narrow Franz Josef Street, only a 2×1-meter cast steel plate was sunk into the pavement, with the Latin inscription: “Hoc loco die 28. Junie 1914. vitam et sanquinem fuderunt pro Deo et patria Franciscus Ferdinandus archidux eiusque uxor ducissa Sophia de Hohenberg.” (“In this place Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Duchess Sophie Hohenberg gave their lives and blood for God and the homeland.”) Probably this sunken panel gave the idea of that much later, post-1953 monument, which sank the assassin’s footprints into the pavement of the walkway.

No legible photo of the sunken panel has survived, and different sources remember slightly different texts. This one is from Belgischer Kurier, a local version of Deutsche Kurier published in occupied Belgium.

The actual monument was set up on the opposite side of the quay, at the head of the Latin Bridge opposite the house. Two tall columns held the bronze relief of the princely couple, with a small Pietà statue and an eternal flame under it. For the sake of symmetry, a semicircular marble bench was also built at the other bridgehead, where it was possible to meditate on the historical scene.

The memorial column with the relief, and with different mourning groups

The model of Jenő Bory’s relief. Tolnai Világlapja, Aug. 10, 1916

The three units of the monument at inauguration

And this was just the beginning. Pater Puntigam began collecting more tribute to erect even larger memorial buildings to the princely couple: a huge Neo-Romanesque church in memory of Franz Ferdinand, and a youth home named for Duchess Sophie. Both were designed by Jenő Bory. The first three million golden crowns were collected, and Bory was already involved in the execution, when the Monarchy was forced to armistice, and then to retire from Sarajevo. The church was never realized. However, Jenő Bory recalled to have been inspired by it for his own home and studio in Székesfehérvár, the famous Bory Castle. The Serbian troops marching in Sarajevo removed both memorial plaques and the monument. Only the arched bench remained in the site, as an apparently innocent abbreviation of the story, which, however, spoke volumes to the initiates.

The model of the Franz Ferdinand memorial church, and a summary of Jenő Bory’s other monumental designs in Sarajevo. Új Idők, 1916/2, 21-22.

But the story is not over yet. It turned out that the original bronze relief of the monument also survived the stormy century in the cellar of the museum. In 2001, it was proposed in the City Council to restore the columns, and set it up in its original location. For the time being, they erected a plexi plate at the memorial site, with a small drawing of the original sculpture, and a historical explanation.



All this fits well with the new conception of Bosnian history outlined in recent decades, the three pillars of which are the independent medieval Bosnian kingdom, the rich culture and tolerance of Ottoman Sarajevo, and the Austro-Hungarian era of economic and intellectual revival. The public buildings and achievements of Austrian times are emphasized throughout the city. The former Young Bosnia Museum has been converted into a museum presenting the Austro-Hungarian Golden Age in Bosnia. At the centenary ceremony in Sarajevo, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra played Haydn’s Imperial Hymn. The epoch of Austria Felix has become a new zero point for Bosnian history. The monument of the assassination stood in the service of a new myth.

Letter to the frontline

“Жди меня и я вернусь” – “Wait for me, and I will come”, wrote Konstantin Simonov in 1941 in his letter from the front to his girlfriend and later wife, the Soviet movie star Valentina Serova (who, however, did not wait for him, but mixed up with Marshal Rokossovsky). The poem, that became public only months later, together with the music of Matvey Blanter, became one of the unofficial hymns of the Great Patriotic War, and kept up the soul and hope of millions of soldiers and soldier’s wives.

In the now-running Ukrainian patriotic war, the tables turn, and women left at home send letters to the frontline, to urge their beloved ones to endure, and to foster patriotism in every Ukrainian. This is how the letter is introduced by filmmaker Ivan Kravchyshyn, who, together with his wife Natalia, designed and photographed each page of it, and whose films – such as Політ золотої мушки (The flight of the golden fly, 2014) – fit together with the visual world of the album..


Because the letter is nothing but a twelve-page album. On each page, a beautiful Ukrainian girl is looking at the reader, dressed in the costume of a different Ukrainian historical region. The pieces of the costume are authentic: most of them come from museums in Kolomea, Tarnopol and Prelesne, as well as from the private collections of Natalia Kravchishin and three of the girls photographed. On the back of each photo they give a detailed description of each piece of clothing, they mark their place of origin on the map of the traditional regions of Ukraine, and add archival photos to show how they were worn at that time.

To encourage our sons fighting on the front with girls dressed in national costumes, and at the same time to fasten national cohesion, may seem archaic to us, who saw similar publications from the time of the First World War. But the idea fits well with the nation-building endeavor of a belated nation. The photos, the girls, the costumes are beautiful, the typography tasteful, and the archive photos and texts well-rounded and informative.

What a pity that the letter has not been signed by the whole of Ukraine. The Bukovinian Romanian, Galician Pole, Black Sea Russian, Holichian Karaim, Crimean Tatar, Subcarpathian Hungarian soldiers perishing on the eastern front are looking in vain for the pictures of their loved ones in the album. These ethnic fragments shredded from here and there into Ukraine have been forgotten in the heyday of nation-building.

For them, pars pro toto, plays the Hungarian version of Wait for me and I will come, which may be a surprise to the speakers of the other languages, too. In fact, this is not identical with the well-known version of Blanter. Inasmuch as it sounds authentically Russian, it comes from the Hungarian composer Henrik Negrelli. You can make a hit, singing it with a Russian text in a Russian company. The Hungarian translation was done by Sarolta Lányi, who probably did not have the front in mind, but rather her husband Ernő Czóbel, who kept her in countenance with his letters from the Siberian Gulag. It is sung by the great Hungarian actor Iván Darvas, whose mother was a Tsarist Russian emigrant in Prague, and who in 1945 served as an interpreter to the Red Army, and in 1956, organized a revolutionary committee against the Soviet invaders, for which he spent two years in prison and worked for years as a factory laborer; and then in 1965 he featured in the pro-Soviet cult film The Corporal and Others, so he also might have had a multifaceted relationship with what he sings about.


Konstantin Simonov: Wait for me. Hungarian translation by Sarolta Lányi, music by Henrik Negrelli, sung by Iván Darvas

Жди меня, и я вернусь. Только очень жди, Жди, когда наводят грусть Желтые дожди, Жди, когда снега метут, Жди, когда жара, Жди, когда других не ждут, Позабыв вчера. Жди, когда из дальних мест Писем не придет, Жди, когда уж надоест Всем, кто вместе ждет. Жди меня, и я вернусь, Не желай добра Всем, кто знает наизусть, Что забыть пора. Пусть поверят сын и мать В то, что нет меня, Пусть друзья устанут ждать, Сядут у огня, Выпьют горькое вино На помин души... Жди. И с ними заодно Выпить не спеши. Жди меня, и я вернусь, Всем смертям назло. Кто не ждал меня, тот пусть Скажет: - Повезло. Не понять, не ждавшим им, Как среди огня Ожиданием своим Ты спасла меня. Как я выжил, будем знать Только мы с тобой,- Просто ты умела ждать, Как никто другой.

Wait for me, and I’ll come back! Wait with all you’ve got! Wait, when dreary yellow rains Tell you, you should not. Wait when snow is falling fast, Wait when summer’s hot, Wait when yesterdays are past, Others are forgot. Wait, when from that far-off place, Letters don’t arrive. Wait, when those with whom you wait Doubt if I’m alive. Wait for me, and I’ll come back! Wait in patience yet When they tell you off by heart That you should forget. Even when my dearest ones Say that I am lost, Even when my friends give up, Sit and count the cost, Drink a glass of bitter wine To the fallen friend – Wait! And do not drink with them! Wait until the end! Wait for me and I’ll come back, Dodging every fate! “What a bit of luck!” they’ll say, Those that would not wait. They will never understand How amidst the strife, By your waiting for me, dear, You had saved my life. Only you and I will know How you got me through. Simply – you knew how to wait – No one else but you.

The long voyage

Kelt 1945 Agusztus 8kán Kedves anyukám élek Eszt a levelet Buda Pesten Irom Hogy hova Megyunk nem tudjuk hogy hova visznek Aszt csak ök tudjak Csokolak Szászor Apud Karasz Pálné Részére Békés Megye Orosháza Köségi posta 133/31

Dated on 8th Agust Dear Mommy I am living This letter I write On Buda Pest. We do not Know where we go where they take us Only they know it I kiss you A hundret times Daddy For Mrs. Karasz Békés county Orosháza Post office 133/31

Kelt 1945 Agusztus 9kén Kedves anyukán hálistenek életben vagyok Semi bajom nem történt csak az fáj Nagyon hogy Magyar országon keresztül Visznek benünket Romániába valami munkára De majdcsak megsegit a Jó Isten hogy egyszer Viszont látjuk egymást, hogyha megérjük Üdvözlöm nénémet Böncikét Mamájékat És az Öszes rokonokat és barátokat Akik élnek, Csokolak Milioszor ate Apukád Sógoromrol semitsem tudok 1 holnapja Karasz Pálné Részére, Békés Megye Orosháza köségi posta 133/31 Karasz Pálné Részére Békés Megye Orosháza Köségi posta 133/31 Aki megtalálja Sziveskedjék A cimzetnek Elküldemi

Dated on 9th Agust Dear Mommy thanks God I’m alive I’m healthy, it only hurts that They take us through Hungary To Romania to some work But the Good God will help me that once We will see us again, if we live to see it I greet my sister, Böncike, my Mum And all the relatives and friends Who are alive. A million kisses from Daddy I know nothing of my brother-in-law since a month For Mrs. Karasz, Békés county Orosháza, village post office, 133/31 For Mrs. Karasz Békés county Orosháza Post office 133/31 If you find it Please send it To the Addressee

Kedves férje aug. 10én Szolnokon utazott keresztül a fogoly vonattal Románia felé, de reméljük rövidesen visszasegíti őket a jó Isten és újra viszontláthatják egymást! Szeretettel köszönti Csikos Imréné Hadifogolylevél T. Karasz Pálné Orosháza Községi posta 133/31 Békés megye [Feladó:] Csikos Imréné, Karczag, Petőfi u. 14.

Your dear husband traveled through Szolnok with the prisoners’ train to Romania on Aug 10, but he will be hopefully brought back soon by the good God, and you can see each other again! Warm greetings from Mrs. Imre Csikos POW letter To Mrs. Karasz Orosháza Post office 133/31 Békés county [Sender:] Mrs. Imre Csikos, Karcag, Petőfi 14

Kelt 1945 Agusztus 10kén Kedves anyukám ezt a levelet Mezőturol irom a lezárt vagonbol Sajnos hogy nemtudok haza Jöni Semi bajom nincsen Csak nagyon fáj hogy még csak Nemis láthatlak újra hoszu távollét után de hogy Mikor látjuk viszont egymást Az utunk Romániába vezet munkára Édes anyukám Csokolak Milioszor Apukad Csokolom Mamájékat Csokolom Nénémet Kis Böncikét Pali, Ha a Jo Isten hazasegit életben Akorboldogokleszunk Karasz Pálné Reszére Békés Megye Orosháza Köségi posta 133/31

Dated on 10th Agust Dear Mommy I write this letter From Mezőtúr, the sealed cattle car I am so sorry I cannot come Home I have no problem, only It hurts that I even canot see You again after such a long absence, but When will we see us again Our trip leads to Romania for work Dear Mommy, a milion kisses From Daddy Kisses to Mum Kisses to my Sister To Little Böncike Pali. If the good God helps me home Then wewillbehappy For Mrs. Karasz Békés county Orosháza Village post 133/31

Kedves ismeretlen magyar testvér A mezőturi állomáson pénteken este 7 orakor be érkezett egy magyar fogoj vonat, én is kint voltam és fel vettem ezt az üzenetet, és sietek minél hamarab eljutatni önek, hogy meg tudja hogy férje él, románia felé vitték öket. Beszélni nem lehetet velök, sem nem lehet látni honan dobták ki a levelet. Mikor el megy a vonat akor lehet oda menni a céduláér. Maradok tisztelettel Erzsike Kérem legyen szives értesíteni megkapták e üzenetemet cimem. Mezőtúr. Székeskert 19.a Rima Erzsike Nagyságos Kárász Pálné részére Békés megye Orosháza Köségi posta 133/131 Fel. Rima Erzsébet. Mezőtúr. Székeskert 19 fogojlevél

Dear unknown Hungarian sister On Friday at 7 p.m. a Hungarian POW train arrived at the station of Mezőtúr. I was also there and I picked up this message, and I hurry to send it to you so you would know that your husband is alive, they are taken towards Romania. It was impossible to speak with them, one could not even see from where the letter was thrown out. Only when the train leaves, you can go there to pick up the letters. Respectfully, Erzsike Please be so kind to inform me whether you got my message my address: Mezőtúr, Székeskert str. 19/a, Erzsike Rima For Respected Mrs. Kárász Békés county Orosháza Post office 133/131 Sender: Erzsébet Rima, Mezőtúr, Székeskert 19 POW letter

Kelt 1945 Agusztus 11kén Kedves anyukám ez a levél Márt vagy a hatodik amit Irok eszt márt a határtól Irom Édes anyukám nagyon Vigyáz magadra Mert csak Te érted érdemes enyit szenved Ni Elképzelheted hogy menyit Szenved az Ember Eben a nagy Hőségben mikor rázárják az Ajtot és alig kapunk vizet A Vörös keresztes növérek Hoztak egykis csomagokat De az Oroszok nemengeték Be adni igy hát az idén Semi féle gyümölcsöt nemetünk Edés anyukám hálistenek énekem Semi bajom nincsen egésegesvagyok Ha a Jo Isten haza segit majd Majd mindent elmesélek Csak megtudod várni aszt az idöt Csokolak Milioszor Apud Csokolom Növéremet Böncikétis Legközelebi Viszont látásig Pali Karasz Pálné Részére Békés Megye Orosháza Köségi posta 133/31

Dated on 11 Agust 1945 Dear Mommy this letter Is about the sixth which I Write, this one from the border I write. Dear Mommy, please Take care. Because it is only Worth for you so much to suf Fer You can imagine how much One suffers in this great heat When they close the doors and we Hardly get any water. The Red Cross sisters brought Us some little packages But The Russians did not let Them give it to us, so this year We did not eat any kind of fruit Dear Mommy thanks God I Have no problem, healthyiam If the Good God helps me home I will tell everything May you wait that time! A million kisses from Daddy Kisses to my Sister, also Böncike, Till nearest Goodbye. Pali For Mrs. Karasz Békés county Orosháza Village post 133/31

Kedves ismeretlen Karaszné, ha a levelet megkapja legyen szives válaszolni. Maradok tisztelettel Simonka Tudom hogy meg örül a levélnek Fogolylevél Cim. Karasz Pálné részére Békés megye Orosháza Községi posta 133/31 [Feladó:] ifj. Simonka Péter Kétegyháza N[agy]váradi ú. 98. Békés megye

Dear unknown Mrs. Karasz, if you get this mail, be so kind to answer me Respectfully Simonka I know you will be happy to get this letter POW letter Address: For Mrs. Karasz Békés county Orosháza Post office 133/31 [Sender:] Péter Simonka Jr. Kétegyháza Nagyváradi út 98 Békés county

The Hungarian soldiers commanded by the Germans to the defense of the Reich west of Hungary, and there captured by the Red Army, were transported to the Soviet Gulag on two routes in the summer of 1945. The first led through Debrecen to the collecting camp of Máramarossziget/Sighetu Marmației, and from there by train to Kiev. The other through Arad to the collecting camp of Focșani, and from there through Constanța to Odessa by boat. The “sender” of the above letters, Pál Karasz from Orosháza was brought along the latter route.

The four letters which survived from the ones thrown out from the cattle car and entrusted to the solidarity of the fellow compatriots were written from 8 to 11 August 1945 in Budapest, Szolnok, Mezőtúr and Kétegyháza (marked in red on the contemporary railway map below). This road is now two hours by train. Then it was nearly four days. And then four times more followed to Focșani, where the prisoners could first get out of the crowded cattle car. I mean, the ones who survived the long voyage.

The solidarity post worked surprisingly well in the occupied and devastated country. From the six letters written until Kétegyháza, four ones reached the addressee. The route of the one written in Budapest is uncertain, but the one of Szolnok was forwarded by an inhabitant of Karcag (marked in blue), and the two other were posted by locals, accompanied with their sympathetic letters, to Mrs. Karasz in Orosháza (marked in green). To the prisoner, as he writes, it was especially painful that the train passed near his home, and he could not even look out of the wagon.


The train followed the same way as the hero of Pál Závada’s best-selling novel Yadviga’s Pillow (1997), Márton Osztatní, who was captured in Brno. He also “wrote tiny letters”, he was also from Békés county, he was also carried near his home to Focșani through Budapest, Szolnok and Mezőtúr. He also arrived there on 10 August. But he never reached Kétegyháza.

“[1945] July 17. We sleep squatting through the night. The toalet is a conic stovepipe across the floor. It’s dark and stuffy hot. I’m learning Russian, I have a Russian dictionary and grammar. I don’t follow the days. We have been traveling for five or six days, I don’t know. I press my mouth on the door fissure to get some fresh air. The food is constantly corn, sometimes cracked, bran, salted fish, suchar, that is, rock hard dried bread. Dysentery is spreading, First me, then Lieutenant Sárközi became commanders of the toalet. We let the people come three times a day, but it did not work. Many people had to come at night. Finally, there was no half hour without someone suffering. Two of the four windows of the wagon are nailed. A stench that puts to shame a ferret farm. I start my last notebook page, but only if we stand. I mostly think about my poor son, little Jancsika. Outside, the hottest summer heat. Some are fainting. Several weeks without a bath; beards, and distant, deranged glances, skinny, half-nude bodies. My God, at least we should not look at each other! I think my friend Bandi got crazy. Crying, loud praying. Some are talking in their sleep and are at home. The border! The thousand-year-old Hungarian border! We start writing tiny letters, and we throw them out when we see civilians. Some frightening news. We are not going home, but to Focșani, Romania! Then good bye, civilian life! First Romania, then Russia – slow death. They do not accept us at the frontier. Are we so vile villains? Had I not gone out because it was ordered? In our wagon, some 30-35 persons suffer from dysentery, including me. One is almost dying. We have already traveled some 20 days. Szolnok, Szajol, Mezőtúr. Oh, familiar countryside! I feel that I have no force any more. We are constantly lying. There is no more place.

And finally this was the last note of my Mother, Mrs. András Osztatní, née Mária Jadviga Palkovits: Yesterday, on August 10, 1945 I received the news, of which no more terrible can be received by a mother. My beloved son Marci died. And on the train, when he was the nearest to me! My God, how could you allow it? And how could I allow him to go to the war? I should have had to forbid it, I should have had to hide him or bring him out of the hell on my two arms. I was not where I should have been, I did not do what I should have done. We immediately run with Misu to see him. And I saw him. But I cannot describe it. I should have perished instead of him!”

Mrs. Pál Karasz preserved until her death the letters of her husband thrown out of the cattle car, along with the cover letters of the goodwill senders. From her estate they got to the collector János Fellner, who recently presented them in the Facebook group “Collectors of camp post cards”. Here we publish them with his permission.