Interview with Kalman Magyar

Interview with Kalman Magyar

1956-er Generation

Kálmán Magyar was born in Kiksunhalas on January 24, 1945. This city is in Southern Hungary. Rumor has It that the evening he was born the city was bombed. First the Soviet planes dropped torches – the so called “Stálin’s candles”, followed by a second air raid but this time dropping real bombs, to the already illuminated enclave. This must have been a mesmerized site, but also a big surprise to the inhabitants of the city. All this to celebrate his birth? Unlikely! Soon his family moved to Szeged and when his father’s drug store was “nationalized” by the Communist government, in 1950, they moved to Budapest. In 1956 he was a young boy attending the National Ballet School across the Opera House, when he witnessed, to his astonishment, the demonstrations in front of his school.

Subsequent to the 1956 Uprising, his mother and two sisters escaped to the West and ended up in the New York area. It has taken 6 years before his father and he could join the family. In the USA, after difficult years of adjustment, he completed his studies in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Marketing.

Reka Pigniczky, Memory Project

Memory Project

American Hungarian Library and Historical Society

This interview was conducted in 2010 in Budapest as part of the documentary film "Megmaradni/Heritage" by Réka Pigniczky (click here for more information about the film: http://rekapigniczky.com/documentary/heritage/)

Memory Project

Video

MM_KM_001

Reka Pigniczky

Kalman Magyar