Hungary’s future will depend on its citizens, but who will those citizens be? What will be their mindset, who will teach them, how will they remember our past? Outside Hungary’s borders, about five million people live throughout the world, who are Hungarians or have a Hungarian ancestry. Hungarians, due to their history, have settled across the globe and will likely continue to do so in today’s mobile world. Therefore, it may be called a “worldwide” nation. I am certain that today’s youth and future generations, sooner or later, will be interested in their roots, the history of their family and Hungary. We Hungarians should be proud of our past; one of the unquestionable pinnacles of the country’s history was the 1956 Revolution and freedom fight, an example for the whole world. During the Hungarian Revolution of 23 October, the impossible happened: a small nation shook the foundations of the Communist world. How can one explain this Revolution in which most participants were aware that they were potentially putting their lives at risk? In retrospect, one may reasonably question whether the revolutionaries acted rationally when they confronted a superpower. In all certainty, this was not the case. It is interesting how Nobel Laureate François Mauriac, the French novelist and member of the Académie française, assessed the historical achievement of a Revolution: “When the stronger side is systematically inhumane, then perhaps the course of history is set by the will of the weaker.” Indeed, the young students and people from all walks of life from across the country were brave enough to fight against the Communist regime and a global superpower. The uprising was initiated by students, who were soon joined by workers, soldiers, ordinary people and intellectuals, as the whole nation united. The 1956 events in Poland, where workers revolted against the government in Poznań and other cities, was instrumental in motivating the Hungarian students to also articulate their demands in sixteen points. On 23 October, after the students heard that the Hungarian Writers’ Union wanted to express solidarity with the movements in Poland, they marched from the Technical University of Budapest to lay a wreath at the statue of Polish General Bem, a hero of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Then the crowd marched to the Parliament building and peacefully demonstrated. At 8:00 in the evening, the Hungarian state radio broadcast the speech of the First Secretary of the Communist Party, Ernő Gerő, in which he condemned the demands of the crowd. Later that evening, at the building of the Hungarian Radio, the State Secret Police (ÁVH) opened fire on the protesters, who asked their demands to be broadcast. The Revolution thus began, and days of victory followed. Besides spontaneously organised fighting groups all over the city, the National Guard was established under the command of General Béla Király, and the uprising started to succeed against the ÁVH and the Soviet troops. Thousands of Revolutionary and Workers’ Councils were established, and a ceasefire was declared. The Soviet troops withdrew from Budapest and other cities, and went back to their countryside garrisons. The new coalition government, headed by Prime Minister Imre Nagy, declared the country’s neutrality, and announced Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. While Soviet diplomats were still in talks with Hungarian officials about the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Hungary, the second Russian intervention was launched on 4 November. Relying on troops stationed in Hungary and new units, the Soviet Army began crushing the uprising with 200,000 troops and over 1,000 tanks. The New York Times, in a front page story, reported the following on 7 November 1956: “Stubborn Hungarian revolutionary forces are continuing to fight the Soviet Army in Budapest… Women and children were said to be fighting alongside the men in a house-to-house struggle…” The uprising was finally brutally crushed. Casualties and losses were very high among both Soviet forces (722 killed, 1251 wounded) and Hungarian freedom fighters (3,000 killed, 13,000 wounded). In addition, many civilians lost their lives during the fighting. About 200,000 people left Hungary as refugees and were welcomed by countries across the globe, where they became productive and grateful citizens in their second homelands. These Hungarian refugees informed and galvanised world opinion against the totalitarian Soviet system. The Soviet-installed Kádár government took cruel revenge: mass arrests, executions and denunciations continued for years thereafter. 350 Hungarians were executed – more than in Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War – thousands were sent to forced labour camps and 13,000 were imprisoned. In 1958, Imre Nagy, the Prime Minister of the Revolution, was executed together with Pál Maléter, the military leader of the uprising, and journalist Miklós Gimes. Senator John F. Kennedy, later President of the United States, commented on the anniversary of the uprising as follows: “23 October 1956 is a day that will live forever in the annals of free men and nations. It was a day of courage, conscience and triumph. No other day since history began has shown more clearly the eternal unquenchability of man’s desire to be free, whatever the odds against success, whatever the sacrifice required.” Not only Boris Pasternak and François Mauriac, but other European intellectuals were also shocked, having learned what happened in Hungary. Albert Camus wrote in “The Blood of the Hungarians” on 23 October 1957: “In Europe’s isolation today, we have only one way of being true to Hungary, and that is never to betray, among ourselves and everywhere, what the Hungarian heroes died for, never to condone, among ourselves and everywhere, even indirectly, those who killed them.” While sixty years can provide enough distance from the Revolution to contemplate, at the same time we are still close enough to 1956 to recognise that there are events in history which must be evaluated not just rationally, but also on a deeply personal level. The Soviet Army had been stationed in the country “temporarily”, but finally withdrew in 1991, restoring sovereignty and freedom for which the revolutionaries had fought. The writings appearing here are the personal stories of some members of the Friends of Hungary community. These are their personal or their parents’ or friends’ remembrances, which they are sharing in order to commemorate the heroic events of the 1956 Revolution and freedom fight.