Tibor Pákh

„The opposition to the abuses of Moscow’s Leninism was intensively felt in Poland in 1980. Different organizations had been formed by then. There were the institutions of of the Catholic church, as well as, there were social organizations of different political trends, the Confederation of Indipendent Poland, KOR, which had been formed to defend the interests of the workers. The organizations together began a hunger-strike in the church of Podkowa Lesna.The mass media reported on it, obviously not the Polish, but the foreign ones. –What was the precise reason for the strike? –The Polish had a samizdat publishing house called Nowa. Its editor Mirek Chojecki was arrested and the hunger-strike originally was organized in order to free him. But when the strike was successful and Chojecki was freed in a few days, the hunger-strike was continued to obtain the redress for the injustices in Central Europe.This was the moment when I left for Podkowa Lesna travelling through Warsaw. –Where is exacty Podkowa Lesna geographically? –It is near to Warsaw, it is situated as near to Warsaw as Dunaharaszti is to Budapest. There is a small railway which connects it to Warsaw, I took it, too, to get there. At the station I looked around to find the church tower, so I found the church easily. I looked for the vicar, I presented myself and I told him that I wanted to join them in the spirit of Saint Adalbert because it was St. Adalbert who at the end of the first millennium had evangelized in the spirit of christianism. Adalbert was bishop of Prague, he was present at the confirmation ceremony of our king St. Stephen, then he went to Poland and he died martyr for his faith in Prussia. He is the patron saint of Esztergom and Gniezno. And he is considered to be patron saint of Central Europe by a few people besides me. So I decided to join them in his spirit at the end of the second millenary especially to protest against the crual leninism of Moscow’s empire hoping to regain our national independences. That is to say I wanted to protest against the injustices the Polish protested. The priest allowed me to join them. I was with them, I enjoyed myself because it was clear that every political trend found a common house in that church. There was a mass every evening where old and young of the town came, also the garden of the church was full, the place was too small for them. Podkowa Lesna is the nest both of the Polish and of the common Polish and Hungarian opposition. When I was there I was told that Polish people held the Hungarian in great esteem, they wanted to act in the spirit of 1956 and every political current showed interest towards 1956 and the Hungarian events.”

„In June 1966 I was told that the Human Rights’ Committee of UN was to hold a seminar of two weeks in Hungary. So I caught the occasion and I wrote again my complaint addressed to the Chief Prosecutor on the regular abuses on human rights. I repeated, as I used to, that Kádár had denied us when he stated that there weren’t anyone in prison for political reasons. I demanded the disbanding of the operative forces, I demanded open, ordinary hearing at court that I could prove my truth. I denounced seclusions, abuses and similar atrocities. And I announced in the same time that I was starting hunger-strike. On these occasions prisoners are regularly separated and punished immediately. 48 hours can pass in the course of which the striker is offered drink and meal in every occasion. I kept to refuse them saying that I wanted to continue my protest. I didn’t drink either. After 48 hours hunger-strikers are brought to be feeded. It is called artificial nourishing. A liquid of 960 calories is mixed with milk. The prisoner is brought to the sick-room, this mixture is made, one litre of milk is mixed with sugar and with some butter and egg. It is made right in front of the striker. It is the physician of the prison who offers it saying that „even if you drink it, we take as if you continued the strike”. He tries to talk him out of his strike, then he tells to drink it at least. I told I wouldn’t drink it, it was part of my protest. Then a rubber pipe is pushed in the throat which has a funnel at the end and this liquid is poured in it. It was done twice or three times to me and when I experienced this type of feeding I gave up the hunger-strike in 1964. This is a very painful treatment. Well, I had enough of it. In 1966 however I didn’t finish, I continued it for about five weeks. There were obviously short periods of four-five days when I wasn’t feeded because they thought I would give it up. After five weeks when I was brought again to the sick-room a doctor came from the observation center and he told me that there were harsher methods, too. This person already died, I can tell you his name, he was called Balogh. He said that there were harsher methods and they thought to take me to the observation room. I knew well that there was forced treatment and observation, too, but I didn’t know that it was right there and it was only a short way to bring me there. They feeded me for another week and then I was brought to the observation room. […] First I was brought to the chief medical officers’ room. He asked me: „Do you drink?” I answered that I was determined to protest and they shouldn’t have to intervene in it, especially physicians shouldn’t have to since I did my hunger-strike because of the abuses committed against my elementary human rights. I was put immediately on the operating board, my mouth was gagged, I was tied, I was kept and the electrodes were pushed to my temples from two sides and electricity was switched on. This was the first time when I got electric shock. I fainted immediately of course. It was made me directly. On principle one can get electric shock only if he is given an injection before which switches off one’s consciousness. But I was always given the shock directly. When you come to your senses, you just lie, you feel yourself between being and not being. You don’t understand what is around. At first the nearest images return to memory, later the older ones, too. I don’t know how others lived it, it is how I experienced it. God however saved me, I received electric shock several times but my consciousness always returned.