What was life like under Communism? The story of a Hungarian. 

I left Hungary with my brother Frank in 1969 when we were 16 years old, lucky for us swimming at the place is called Kopper, Yugoslavia was mentioned in this video.After acrossing it was sheewering coming out of the water, remember got in the water around midnight,no moon and no patrol boats just on the left seeing huge barrels by the boarders to Italy.Waiting 5 months in the refugee camp before moved to America. Since,50 years ago never forget the feeling of being free,as a 'Gaya rob' mean a person a slave on a Roman merchant row boat for life got a new beginning. Tremendous amount of relief ran true your body .I learned one thing for sure in the Western world, freedom is God's eternal blessings.

I recall Professor Forgas’ lectures as a psychology student of his. A very engaging and noble man.

I vividly remember when the news came out here that a Hungarian couple with an 8 month baby tried to escape the country to the west in a hidden section of a truck. The mother wanted to smother the cries of the child at the Hungarian border but was so afraid to be detected she suffocated it. They did manage to make it to Austria but with their child being dead. It hounded me for weeks coz at the time our son was that age and now when I am writing this it still does have its impact on me. How can a mother live on after such a tragedy?

I grew up in the 70s in Hungary, for me socialism was the norm. Because I lived in a small village i didn't experience any fear of the communist party. In fact i was the member of the KISZ, we had great school activities and travels in the country. I had a great childhood, considering the circumstances. When i traveled to US in 1986 the first time i was amazed the things people enjoyed. I kept asking why can't we have them in Hungary? Even while the country is socialist we could enjoy life the way the Americans do. I ended up living in California, now Hungary is so different. When I go visit my family I miss the old country, the one I left. We have grown a lot in a positive direction, but we also adapted so many bad lifestyle and ideas. I am really sad about that.

I left as a 1 year old with my parents in February 2, 1957, when the border was almost sealed. An incredible story that could have been a movie script ,(I am currently translating his memoirs of the escape). I returned in 1966, 1967, 1969, 1970 and 1971 , as a young teen. I saw the Lunar landing in a youth camp on Lake Balaton, ironic in the sense that no communist official dared to tell us it was a fantasy filmed in Hollywood (which many conspiracy theorists in the West still believe). I remember having to sing Beatles songs at the campfire for all the to enjoy , as it was considered deliciously subversive. Also getting requests for sending packages from Canada with Nestle's Quick (a huge sensation) as well as "even empty" Dunhill cigarette packaging to put their Bulgarian smokes in! and blue jeans were the most sought after Western commodity....With my dad, we met a Hungarian CP minister in a famous Budapest restaurant, who once plied with enough alcohol, got up ON the table and shouted" Me, a Communist? hahahaha! How else can I get a Rolex, Gucci shoes, suits from Saville Row and a BMW? " . Ironic again that the approval rate for the Kadar regime rose after his death, though truth is that it really was the happiest Soviet barrack, but still a barrack run by an elite group of Party hacks.

Great interview

I grew up 15 minutes walk from a river that's still the border to the West. Back then there were huge lights, barbed wires, and armed officers with dogs 24/7. If they caught you trying to swim across, they did not rescue you, they let the dogs on you and killed you. Those living in these border areas had to get a permit and explain whenever they were to receive a visitor who did not live there. Yay happy times.

His observations of the attitude towards Communism hold true to this day!

...yeah! - they "LIBERATED" Hungary, alright! Just in the same way as they "LIBERATED" us Poles!... All the Very Best to my Hungarian brethren! Polak, Wegier- dwa bratanki!

I always wondered how Hungary was in the 1970’s-80’s. We’re most people satisfied with Kadar’s “goulash Communism “ ? Economic relative prosperity even within the one party State ?

My dad was born/raised around Szeged/Szentes and fled in 1948, three years as a DP in the then W Germany and, was sponsored to come here in 1951.

My comment was deleted !! Why ? Censorship is working.This is free speech in capitalism.

There has never been any communist state in history of mankind. It was socialisem,variety of different kind,like in kapitalisem. What life looks in capitalist countries, of many different kinds? Is it nice to live in bangladesh,ukraine, niger,libiya,albania,romania........ Ups,the list is simply too long. Homeless in the richest of all, Usa? I beleive some Jose,mahmud,nbwana and jusuf can provide you with juicy stories of their miserable life.

Almost the same in Slovakia

Great video!

Very good video.I learned whith it

I was born in 1972 and grew up at the lake Balaton. That was the small west in the east. The socialism was kinda soft.

1963, "Shopping ! Bastards left the great retail stores intact in Buda, destination for party leader's families, can't buy crap in Moscow" remarked a high school friend whose family escaped as the country fell.

that hunglish accent uhnmmm beautiful

Escaped with 11 members of my family from Romania in 1980.

I am from Poland ♥️

Australia gained a remarkable person. Why is it that Hungarians seem to a man , so intelligent And street smart

How almost unbelievable everything sounds to someone born in the 2000s

Well since I'm much younger I could only leave in 85. But I was lucky cause for no reason I applied for the blue passport that is title you to go to the West. So in 1984 was the time that Austria and Hungary got rid of duty and the visa between the 2 countries. They thought I just turned 18 just fresh out of the school no money and just wanted for the next round when the mandatory army service you have to do. 1 1/2 years. So in 85 April, I got my passport and by June 15 I left legally. But they accepted me as a refugee cause it was still communist. I came to Canada before I was 19 so I came as a minor who didn't need any reason to come. Oh, I left by myself. I was a smoker back then and as an adult, I enjoyed life but for 6 weeks upon my arrival I couldn't cause in Canadian law I was still a miner. But by 87 or 89 they lowered the age to 18. Though smoking and drinking still 19. I got a job in my trade cause I had schooling and trade and I did learn the language and in a year's time my English was at the conversational level. I wanted to go to school but it was expensive and at the same time I had to live pay rent work so I could eat, so it was impossible for me to go to school never mind pay for it. Yes, I'm safe now and made a life here a family on my own with 2 daughters and now a granddaughter. But as a new immigrant/refugee back then there wasn't any help or how to blend into Canadian society. Only helps how to get a job but that is all. Especially when you're a young man. For 5-6 years I struggled cause "Oh, you're just a boy your whole life is ahead of you" etc. None of them knew I was all alone and needed an apartment a job a car (in 86 I went to get my driver's license) Just think even today a single 19 years old kid knocks on your door looking for a full-time job or wants to rent an apartment or how many years of experience you have? Any reference for the apartment? How long have you working full time how much do you make and your banking and first and last month? So this was when Canada should've helped me out to start in life cause nobody would rent me out an apartment so as a new Refugee be on the street it was okay cause by then I wasn't a kid so as a 19-year-old teenager what to do? So unlike today, they get spending money on school like English as a second language and housing and you only pay 1/3 of your pay until you get on your feet and are on your own as others. So as a young adult even today there's no help in Canada. Only to families and women. Even in shelters, you can only stay a few weeks then they kick you out. For housing takes 20 years to wait. As a young single;e guy forget it. Families are priorities. So I struggled to make it and I'm proud of what I accomplished cause I got no help from anybody, especially from the Dear Canadian government. BTW to open a bank account or have credit you need ID and then an address it's an all-wishes circle. Only time you know if you lose your wallet. But when you just arrived in the country you have nothing so where to start? All I had was my Hungarian passport and the yellow blended immigrant paper in it without an address there you go. where you start BTW I wasn't speaking any English back then. BS "Welcome to Canada" the land of the free! BS is not for Big Smile! lol.

Fascinating video. Thank you!

The Western form called liberalism today is very similar to communism. I am Hungarian, I have experience.

I left Hungary in 1982, as a 17 year old young man with my brother, he was 23. We had a decent life in Hungary under that regime, but it was light years behind Austria and Germany and the US. To get Levi's jeans we had to go to a black market to buy some. Most people could only buy 1 per year. I visited most parts of Hungary as a young guy with my friends, we hitchhiked everywhere, we had sleeping bags and our change of clothing was rolled inside it. Had very little money, but we could recycle other people's empty beer bottles and that was enough money for food. We slept outskirts of town in parks, on rainy days we slept in bus stops. We went to Lake Balaton, Debrecen, Holloko, Eger, Tokaly, Pecs, Niregyhaza, etc. Those were so much fun times as a young man. We never knew that there was such thing as 6 puttonyos Tokaly Aszu, because in the stores you could only buy 3 puttonyos. Now I sleep in nice hotels, but still have lots of fun with my four children and great wife, we visit as many countries as we can in Europe and still spend some time in Hungary with them every few years. The cars were horrendous, the two stroke engines spewed toxic fumes everywhere. I didn't realize while living there why all the buildings in Budapest were grey and the air bad smelling. Anything you touched left a thin layer of dirty film on your hand. After the regime change in the '90s when I visited again and walked the streets of Budapest I realized that those houses were not grey anymore, people pressure washed them, and you could see yellow, blue, green, red, white etc buildings. It blew my mind how pretty the city looked with all that awesome architecture. The air was cleaner as well, because most of the East German and Russian and Romanian cars were replaced by West German and Italian cars with much cleaner burning engines. By the way, the education system was quite decent, but to get a college degree you either had to be a genius or needed political connection, otherwise you wouldn't get in. I had neither, my b+ average wasn't good enough to get in a university. Luckily, it was good enough for the US and I got a college degree, the first in my family.

In former Yu, have All for time of Socialisam, today have Casting Society like in India before 2000 year

So, most of it is right on target, but getting so many signatures for a passport is a lie. You did need a signature from the Union and the Communist Party office, but that was it. It took me 3 try before I was able to leave and consequently escape from the (tour) group before they returned to Hungary. I spent 9 months in a refugee camp in Capua, Italy, before getting a visa to come to the USA (legally).

"Liberated". Like when my dog liberates my steak off the dinner table.

I'm sure "The Museum of Communist Terror" is a good place to get unbiased, even handed information about this subject. Next I'll learn about meat production from the Army of Vegan Warriors.

It was Socialism, not comunism as well as in other East block countries. Perfect education - for free, high level of health care system - for free, no beggars, no homeless, most of families had a home and additional weekend home, no problem with drag addiction, childhood full of joy

I'm different here in view. Capitalism or socialism, always the same. Humans are constructed corrupt. I see horrors of both sides. Both system's weaknesses can be exploited because humans will try to move above the system. Caring for each other must be taught starting from birth. Minimize the competition, maximize the cooperation and empathy. Majority of Old people will be a part of the past they can't be taught new things unlike children.

Interesting journey to get out from the terror of communism .. Greetings from Australia, Perth.... //

Whatever he is saying is currently going on in Indian occupied Kashmir. And this is fully supported and suppressed by European Union

4:27 4:55 5:28 8:38 14:59

Lol "the soviet army liberated Hungary"... Yeah just like Bela Kohn did in 1919?! I think if I lived I would take my chances with the Naizs!!

how many of us has threaded this path

Thank you to all who tell the truth about socialism/communism. The west is in trouble.

Yugoslavia was not a litlle bit liberal than hungary but was instead 100% free and with our red passport we travelled all around the world. From eastern block to all westeren world!!! There was no teror in our comunist homeland

Liberated

Based on what I think of my personality I may have lived a content life in a Socialist country. In a way I think it would have been okay but of course such a life is easy to romanticise such a life when living a comparatively easy life with material wealth. Too many people think Socialism will help us. It may in the short term. However in the long term the lack of freedom Socialism requires will lead to poverty and unhappiness.

Fascinating story - those who grew up in a liberal democracy probably can't even imagine what it is like to live in a totalitarian communist state where as a person you have absolutely no rights, and a single monolithic state bureaucracy controls everything around you - the media, churches, corporations, housing, sports clubs, social services, unions and every other social institution is run by the same party apparatus. The state has absolute control over where you can live, where you can work, if and where you can study, if you are allowed to travel, what you can buy, who you are allowed to meet, what you can read and listen to.... This nightmare society is the direct implementation of marxist doctrine, perhaps the most noxious and murderous ideology in all of human history, directly responsible for a hundred million deaths and untold human misery. All the claims and predictions of Marx have been conclusively falsified long ago, as Karl Popper convincingly showed - yet many left-wing Western intellectual still adhere to this inhumane belief system, posing as well-intentioned proponents of progress and equality. It is high time to wake up and realize that marxism represents a deadly threat to human liberty and well-being, and its more recent tribal incarnations - woke-ism, cancel culture, political correctness, identity politics and 'critical theory' should be emphatically rejected by everyone who cares about human liberty and flourishing. This video is a historical reminder of what is at risk - we must learn from history so we don't have to repeat it!

When he mentioned the desire for Hungary to have social democracy, that's exactly what the US needs right now

This is truly fascinating. So glad to live in the US with the freedom we have.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8E3R6tlIYbg.html footage of Hungary in 1969.

''Museum of Communist Terror'' Really unbiased source I bet

I wonder what Mr. Forgas thinks of Orbán (current "mini Putin" of Hungary). 🤔

Clock went backwards.

15:54 perfectly sums up why fascism is classicalist in nature and is anti-socialist or “white” (as in “anti-red”), despite the “National Socialist” name in Germany, which came about at a time when the Nazis included both left and right wing extremists, in power the Nazis were not social revolutionaries, in fact their rise to power was based off the growing danger of communist social revolution, unfortunately when a country is on the edge of sliding to communism you don’t really get to choose your leaders, it’s basically whoever is left that will protect business and save classical society, sometimes you get a benign bureaucrat like Salazar, sometimes you get a genocidal maniac like Hitler, whoever will save the country from collapse to communism. It’s an incentive to not come too close to Communism. The system he speaks of is currently still wreaking havoc on the world as the CCP attempts to censor the entire world and take over global trade, economy and thought

Szégyelld magad!!! Én is kiszöktem de az anyanyelvet soha nem feledtem !!! Az ilyen típusú magyarok jöttek haza 1960-as években és ezt mondták “nem beszélni magyar” én meg köptem egyet.. 43 éve hagytam el hazámat akarsz magyarul beszélni velem..

Sounds like what Zelensky is doing in Ukraine 0:48

So called communism (rather, the social revolution) in USSR improved living conditions and education for the vast majority of people. There was terrible poverty and illiteracy throughout Russia in 1917 and the revolution transformed life expectancy, health, education and dignity for most people profoundly by the 1960s. The story is similar in China, with average life expectancy 40 years old in 1950 and 75 years old when Mao returned, with similar improvements in literacy from 10% to 75% over the same period. The advances in China today are almost small compared to the major advances early on when imperialist capitalism was overcome, no small feat.

Ask my father, you'll get diffrent response

Ask the hungarians today and a majority of them will say that they had a better life then than now! In reality oppression in a socialist country was never a propblem for a communist only for right wingers!

There are always 2 sides to a story, though communism failed , it did have its own glory days . The regimes had secure jobs but unfortunately no one was rich , only if Communism provided more freedom to the people , would have been a different story.