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Readers’ letter: The story of iconic 1956 freedom fighter
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In 1956 I was 15 years old. The same age as the poor girl Erika Szeles from Bezeredi Utca in Budapest. I lived in the peaceful suburbs of Copenhagen in Denmark.
In 1956 the approach to news and pictures was rather limited compared with today.
As the Hungarian revolution broke out in October 1956, it was difficult to find pictures of what happened in Hungary.
However I was very happy to find three editions of a Danish picture magazine covering the events in Hungary. I bought all three magazines, and one of them had a fantastic picture of a very young Hungarian freedom fighter carrying the name ERIKA. She was on the frontpage.
After the revolution the three magazines were forgotten and disappeared out of my life.
50 years later the magazines suddenly came up (!!). Then I decided to try to find ERIKA, in order to hand over the magazine with her photo on the frontpage to her. At that time she should be 65 years old.
I was 10 years old living in Texas. Nightly news showed crowds stopping tanks, citizens with gasoline bombs attacking Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers, civilians with submachine guns fighting Soviet soldiers. I remember after the Soviet Union crushed the freedom fighters, news reports showed Hungarian as refugees in Europe and in the United States. No other picture, though, captured the nature of Hungary’s freedom fighters as did the image of Erika Szeles. She was a young woman doing what needed be done.
requiescat in pace Erika …