Page 12 - Microsoft Word - 01_A MÁSIK OLDAL English.doc

evicted during the night within an hour and were transported to
remote places of the country to live in barns and stables and
such.
On top of that, my father started to broaden our nice
house with his own bare hands, using the rubble from the
vicinity. That is, Pista joined in, a half-Gipsy, half-Tót man,
maybe partially Palóc, who refused to work for the new system,
and when my father gave him shelter, he helped in the
renovation. When he was not drunk that is. When he was
actually drunk, he even went up against my father, but being
weaker build, Pista had quite vague chances against him.
Nevertheless, he played a vital role in my life in the years to
come, since he was a warm-hearted fellow eventually. He was
the one to teach the family how to make strapacky (sheep
cheese potato dumplings), the national meal of the Palóc
community (The Palóc are a subgroup of Hungarians in
Northern Hungary), a meal that was unknown to many in
BudaPest at that time, and remained so for a long time. He
made ramas (painted frames made of glass to put photos in
them) in his free time. He sold them either in Palócland or in
Slovakia if he managed to sneak over the border, and returned
with a lot of food, it was of high merit in the times of need
during and after the War.
The new side wing of the house was built up
beautifully, which connected to the old house on three levels,
and since the hole made by the Germans was still there, they
2
made a door in place of it, which eventually led to a 45 m
study and library, and on the uppermost level a large laundry
was disposed temporarily. There was a garage and some small
rooms downstairs, to where my father let a Franciscan monk in
to live there, after the communists made his order disappear. He
remained living there until the 1960s, when he managed to flee
to West-Germany with one of the first passports, and after
saying goodbye to my father in a letter; he entered a monastery,
so that he could leave the conflicts of civil life behind. He had

12