This was not the way to escape to Yugoslavia, I concluded, and started walking back. Leaving the tractor behind, I walked for a long time trying to find the road. When I finally saw the faint headlight of a vehicle far in the distance, I found my way back to the road.

Walking along the dark road, I was hoping I would not run into anyone, especially not a border patrol. I had to walk about a mile to get back to my car.

Driving home, I did not see another vehicle on the road until I left Szeged behind. Just a few miles north of Szeged, I saw two flashlights moving in circles, one on each side of the road. I pulled over and saw two policemen.

“We had to flag you down,” one of them said, “because your engine is awfully loud. We could hear you even before your headlights became visible.”

“Yes, unfortunately, there is a leak in my muffler,” I answered.

“Why don’t you get it fixed?”

“I fixed it with some sealing material designed for this purpose but recently it started leaking again. I asked the only Volkswagen service in Budapest if I could have the muffler replaced. I was told that the part is not available for another couple of months. Of course, I will seal the hole again soon.”

They asked for my registration and my driver’s license. When they saw my International Driving Permit, the tone of their voice changed.

“Drive carefully in the night,” both of them said very politely.

‘Wow!’ I sighed with relief as I drove on. I sure did not expect the encounter with the police to be so smooth.

During the following days in Eger, my mind worked feverishly trying to come up with a good idea about how to try my escape the next time.

About ten days after my first attempt, as I was eating my breakfast in the office, one of the secretaries received a phone call from the director. As soon she hung up, she told me that the director wanted to see me in his office.

I had no idea of what the director wanted from me. I was hoping it was not about the Rolling Stones records his wife bought from me. Some of those records had been badly scratched.

When I entered the office, I saw the director sitting on a sofa. His chair behind his desk was occupied by the military officer I met at the Command Station.

“What took you so long to get here?” the officer asked me in a threatening manner. I did not even have a chance to greet them.

“I came as soon as the secretary…”

“Well, you are too slow,” he interrupted me. “You should have already come to see me about your military ID book! I told you to find it and show it to me, didn’t I?”

While asking me the question, he reached into his pocket and adjusted something in it. Suddenly, I had the feeling that what he had there in his pocket was my military ID book.

“I must admit I don’t know how to go about trying to find it,” I replied in a polite voice. “In fact, after thinking about it, I realized that the police may have taken it from my apartment. If they did, they probably returned it to the Command Station. Of course, I could be wrong.”

“You are wrong! You are absolutely wrong!” He stood up and then he sat down again. “And you are currently in violation of the law. I could have you arrested right now.” He looked at the director. “He could be more useful making paper bags.”

The director did not say a word.

“Have you already abandoned your crazy idea about America?” he asked in a milder tone when he turned back to me.

I did not know what to say. It was clear that my exit visa was going nowhere. I even thought that perhaps I was not getting arrested yet because my American permanent resident status was still in effect and the communist regime wanted no diplomatic complications. ‘Well, would anyone really care if I was arrested?’ I thought then.

“I asked you a question!” the officer raised his voice.

“I guess… if I get no approval from you… I have to give up that idea,” I said.

“I am glad to hear you are coming to your senses. However, you still owe me your ID book. That’s the real problem here. I’ve already told you what you get for losing that book. Go find it and bring it to my office as soon as possible. You’re dismissed.”

‘If it’s in his pocket, there is no way of finding it,’ I thought on my way back to the office. ‘I’d better find a way out of this darn slave camp!’

It was already the beginning of September. Summer was pretty much over and the temperature turned cooler. There were days when it rained.

The weekend after being summoned to the director’s office, I drove south again. I was determined to do what it takes to sneak into Yugoslavia during the night.

As I now think about my desperate attempts, I realize I had no clear idea of how to get out of Hungary. I felt pressured by the time running out. At the same time, the regime managed to re-plant the fear into my mind. Feeling intimidated, I probably could not even think straight anymore.

My second attempt produced a surprise outcome that I view today as another miracle. I drove over to the western part of Hungary as I wanted to try my escape in the region of Pecs, the southernmost big city. I had looked at the map and saw that south of Pecs, the village of Villany was very close to the border, about five miles.

When I left Pecs, it was already getting dark. Driving through Villany, I found a grassy area along the road under a faint streetlight where I could park my car. It was in front of the last house at the edge of the village. I walked a few yards away from the village and then I crossed over to the south side of the road. It was very dark and everything was wet from the light rain that was steadily coming down.

As soon as I stepped off the road, onto the grassy roadside, I slipped and fell into a deep hole of some sort. The hole was at least ten feet deep with almost vertical walls. It was kind of round with a diameter of about six feet. Fortunately, it had deep grass on the bottom. I did hurt my ankle but it was not too painful.

I tried to climb out but the wet grass on the side of the hole was very slippery, I just kept sliding back to the bottom. I tried over and over again without success.

‘Is this how far I get tonight?’ I wondered with a bitter sense of humor.

I tried again and again. ‘This is ridiculous!’ I thought. ‘I can’t possible stay in here for the night and wait until someone discovers me the next day. I must be able to get out!’

After being in the hole for about half an hour, I decided to give it all I had. Finally, I was able to grab a bunch of long grass that did not leave the roots as I pulled myself up.

Out of the hole, I started my walk south. Well, at least I thought that was the direction. The lights of the village quickly disappeared behind me. After passing through what I thought was an orchard, where the ground was still grassy, I had to walk across a plowed up field. After only a few steps, my shoes were packed with mud. Lifting my feet proved to be quite laborious with several pounds of the sticky mud on each shoe. The mud often pulled my shoes off and I had to find them in the dark. Of course, my socks were all muddy, too, which made the inside of my shoes muddy and uncomfortable to walk in.

Finally, out of the muddy soil, I entered a corn field. The corn was taller than me and very wet. Anytime I brushed the long hanging leaves with my shoulders, I got heavy drops of water falling on me. At least I had a waterproof semi-long jacket that stopped most of the water from entering around my neck.

The rows of the cornfield appeared straight and they seemed never ending. The mud was somewhat different here. After my shoes got so packed that I could not lift them anymore, I just had to kick in front of me to get the bulk of it off. When I was not careful enough, my shoe flew off my foot and it took me some time to find it.

All in all, I was having a lot of ‘fun’.

When I crossed a road and saw a faint light approaching, I thought it was a bicycle that could have belonged to a border guard.

The corn field continued on the other side of the narrow paved road and I walked on believing that every step was getting me closer to the Yugoslav border. Of course, due to my struggle with the mud, I could not walk fast. After about an hour, I thought I could have about two miles behind me already.

The rain was getting heavier. This actually helped as the mud stopped packing on my shoes. Of course, I was already soaked.

I kept on trekking.

‘How would I know if I crossed into Yugoslavia?’ I wondered many times.

The rain was turning colder. I was shivering and I was getting exhausted.

‘How long before I am out of this corn field?’ I wondered as I was getting tired of the long sharp leaves trying to slash my face.

After about two hours of walking, finally I was out of the corn.

Once again, a plowed up area slowed me down tremendously as the heavier rain made the soil very soft.

After I fought my way across the mud, walking on grass again felt such a great relief. Finally, the mud was not packing on my shoes and I could walk much easier.

I saw some trees.

‘Wow! Just like the orchard I crossed a couple of hours ago,’ I thought.

Leaving the orchard and seeing a faint light next to a house gave me a déjà vu kind of feeling.

Getting closer to the house, I suddenly realized where I was. I arrived back exactly where I started from.

‘Well, now, let me make sure I don’t fall into that darn hole again,’ I tried to cheer myself up.

I had a hard time believing what I had just gone through.

“At least I did not get lost somewhere in the middle of nowhere,’ I thought later.

Back in my car, I started driving home the same way I came. I turned on the heat full blast to warm myself up. It took a long time before I stopped shivering.

By the time I was back in Eger, it was early Sunday morning. My clothes were all dry but I looked like someone returning from a war. I was hoping to get into the room I rented without meeting the landlord or his wife but I was not that lucky. As I threw my totally ruined pair of shoes and my socks into the garbage container in front of the big panel building, I was walking into the flat barefoot.

“Wow! You don’t look like someone who spent the night in bed,’ the landlady said laughing. She happened to be sweeping the floor in the hall when I entered. Her husband was standing next to her sipping his morning coffee.

“You don’t want to know,” I replied, “and I urgently need to take a hot bath.”

“It’s all yours,” the man said pointing at the bathroom door.

Back in my room, I quickly fell asleep and slept through the whole day. I got up only to have dinner and then I slept through the night as well.

When I woke up Monday morning, I had a very interesting feeling. My mind was completely at ease and my worries about whether I would be able to return to the USA disappeared. As if I had received some sort of reassurance that everything would work out just right. I was puzzled by the state of my mind but I went about my daily business as usual. I drove to work, I sampled the tobacco bales, and when my boss called me into his office and asked me whether I was up to doing another translation for him I said of course. He asked me whether I am upset if I am unable to return to the USA and I happened to say:

“Who are we, pitiable humans, to decide the fate of another person? Let me just say that if I really want to be back in America, I will be back in America.”

He smiled and gave me the new assignment.

About two more weeks passed. During these two weeks, I never thought about leaving the country. I completed the translation for my boss and I even went to play some chess in the club at nights.

When I woke up on the nineteenth (of September, 1977), it was almost noon. The first thought I had on my mind was: ‘This is it. The day has arrived. It’s time to go.’

I grabbed my knapsack, put some extra cloths, my papers, some food and a bottle of orange juice in it, and drove out of the city heading south.

By evening, I reached Szeged. I drove west on the road that ran parallel with the Yugoslav border and stopped in front of a three (or four) story panel house in the small town of Morahalom only about five miles from Szeged. I parked next to another car, and then walked by the building to reach the field. It was already dark and lighting around the building was very poor. I did not have to worry about being seen.

The city of Szeged, the small town of Morahalom and the border crossing at Roszke formed a triangle. I only knew one side of this triangle, the road between Szeged and Morahalom. The other side between Szeged and Roszke was part of the major highway which I thought was heavily guarded. I sure would not have dared driving out of Szeged in the direction of the border crossing. Walking towards the checkpoint along that road could have been equally dangerous. ‘If anywhere, there, one could surely run into border guards with their guard dogs,’ I thought.

Leaving Morahalom behind, walking south in the field in the dark, I knew I had a good chance of making my escape. In the distance, I could see a dome of light on the horizon. That light had to be that of the border crossing station.

The night was mild. The sky was covered with clouds and the moon was visible once in a while. There was no serious threat of rain.

The dome of light, however faint from such a distance, was a very clear direction for me. ‘No way getting lost this time,’ I kept telling myself.

I walked through grassy fields, plowed up fields, even fields covered with all kinds of bushes. After about an hour of walking, I ran into a wire fence. The moon just peeped out so I could see that the fence was at least twenty feet tall. I walked left and then I walked right but the fence was never ending. I had to climb over it. I continued in what appeared to be an apricot orchard. The crowns of the trees blocked my view and I was no longer sure I was not going in circles again. Fortunately, soon I was in a vineyard and once again I was able to see the light on the horizon. Out of the vineyard, another fence blocked my way, same height, about twenty feet tall. I climbed again. At this time, however, I tripped right on top of it and, losing my balance, I had to jump. When I landed on the ground, one of my ankles got hurt so badly, I thought I would not be able to walk on. Fortunately, the pain began to subside after a few minutes.

I heard a dog barking somewhere in the distance to my right. Looking that way I saw some dim lights. ‘Must be a farm,’ I thought.

The entire area was rather flat with only slight elevations here and there.

I began to see more and more farms so I often had to take big detours.

From time to time, I sat down to rest my painful ankle.

After about three hours of walking, I estimated having half of the distance behind me. The dome of light was getting bigger and bigger on the horizon.

The cloud cover became thicker and I no longer saw the moon. It started raining but only a few drops fell.

I came upon a corn field. The rows were not running exactly in the direction of the border crossing but I had to get through it.

Very unexpectedly in the dark, the corn field ended. There was a dirt road at the edge and I was just about to step onto that road when I heard music approaching. I stepped back and froze instantly about three feet from the road. A bicycle passed right in front of my nose and I saw a flashlight scanning the darkness ahead of the bicycle.

‘Whoever was riding that bike had a transistor radio, and I was very lucky to hear it in time,’ I concluded. ‘What a disaster it could have been if I had stepped right in front that bicycle.’

I calmed down soon as I realized the person had no way of hearing the noise I made when moving the corn leaves out of my way.

After the music died in the distance, I emerged from the corn field. Crossing the road, my shoes sank into muddy water at least a foot deep. Out of the mud puddle, I walked into another corn field. I was not sure I was still heading in the right direction but continued on hoping that the corn field would end at one point.

I was getting somewhat nervous after walking in that corn field for a long time.

Finally, I reached the edge.

I was stunned by what I saw. Nothing blocked my view anymore as I looked at the border crossing station about a mile ahead of me. I could clearly see the green and the red lights, some buildings and what appeared to be long trucks in a line.

On the left, I saw tiny spots of lights moving to and from the checkpoint. ‘Vehicles on the main highway,’ I figured. I also saw headlights moving on the right side of the crossing station. I followed those lights with my eyes as they distanced away from the checkpoint and discovered several brighter lights that had to come from windows of an at least two-story building. ‘That building must be a military base for the border patrol,’ I thought.

The two roads on the two sides of the crossing station formed a V shape in an angle that appeared to be over ninety degrees. I was somewhere in the middle of the V.

‘Now what am I going to do?’ I wondered. ‘I can not possibly try to pass left of the checkpoint because that would mean crossing the major highway.’

That gave me only one option, going around the military base on my right.

As I continued, first I walked on grassland, then for quite some time I struggled on in knee deep, dry weed.

Was I getting sleepy and losing my concentration? Suddenly, I found myself on a dirt road passing between two farmhouses. Of course, the moon had to come out just then. The houses were dark and I saw the moonlight shining on a door handle. I could actually see my own shadow on the ground.

A dog started growling. It was a huge white ‘komondor’, a typical Hungarian guard dog, sitting at the entrance to one of the houses.

My first instinct was that I should duck but then I changed my mind as I realized that I would immediately make myself suspicious doing that in case anyone saw me. I walked on in an upright position imagining that I was one of the farmers from the neighborhood, heading home from one of the neighbors.

The dirt road was leading straight to the military building and it was impossible for me to take a detour on the right because the farms were too close to one another. Luckily, the moon was behind cloud cover again, so I felt safe continuing on that road. In the dark, I could no longer see the farm houses as there was not a single light in any of those windows.

I was getting very close to the military building. I saw a vehicle leaving in the direction of the crossing point.

I bumped into a wire fence. The dirt road ended. I moved to the right along the fence keeping en eye on the lights coming from the open windows of the building that was probably not farther from me than two hundred feet. I could actually hear soldiers talking in the shower room.

The fence made a corner. I was now distancing away from the building walking on grassy land. The moon peeped out again and a dog started barking not too far away on my right.

Suddenly, the sky lit up above me and there was bright daylight for a few seconds. First, I thought it was lightening but when I looked up I saw remnants of a flare bomb falling from above, burning out in several pieces. At the same time, I heard a dog barking and the sound of someone running in heavy boots.

I threw myself on the ground and became motionless.

‘If they are after me, it’s over,’ I concluded.

Fortunately, the boots were not running in my direction. The dog barked again but the noise distanced away on the other side of the base.

I took a deep breath and crawled on my knees for a while.

I almost crawled into a narrow brook. The water was only a couple of feet wide. I could easily jump over onto the other side.

As I moved on again in an upright position, passing the base on my left, and then passing a small hill that was also to my left, I began to see rays of light over the ground coming from the checkpoint.

The moon was out for one last time during the night.

The swamp

All of a sudden, I saw a shining strip of the ground in front of me, probably not wider than ten feet. Running in the direction of the checkpoint, the strip was visible for hundreds of feet as it reflected the lights.

‘Wow! This must be the border,’ I thought.

Without hesitation, I turned around and walked through the strip backwards.

‘In case they inspect it in the morning, let them think someone escaped into Hungary,’ I thought with a big smile on my face.

After I stepped out of that plowed and finely harrowed strip, I stopped for a moment and wondered: ‘Is that all?’

Well, today I wonder whether I was just extremely lucky in case there were wires in the strip to trigger warnings or even a mine that could have blown me to pieces.

Leaving the border behind, I had to make my way to Horgos, the first Yugoslav village on the main highway less than a mile from the border. I had a pretty good idea of the direction I had to take as I could clearly see the lights of the crossing station.

As I walked on, a hill to the left began to block the lights. The moon disappeared and I was in darkness again. I could not see what lay ahead of me but I could tell that I was going slightly down on a slope.

The ground became wet and soon my shoes dipped into deep mud.

Today I am wondering why I did not change direction, why I did not try to find dry ground. I am wondering because continuing straight on I walked into a swamp that almost ended my adventure. First I had to fight my way through thick reed in the total darkness. Once the reed thinned out, I was already in muddy water knee deep. It was getting more and more difficult for me to pull my feet out of the ever deepening mud on the bottom. When I was already in water that reached up to my waist, I thought I would sink because there was no more solid ground under my feet. I could not even attempt swimming because both my legs were stuck in thick mud. While trying to free one of my legs, the other one just kept sinking.

I had some very scary minutes until finally the bottom began to firm up again.

I also had a headache, probably from all the gas that bubbled up to the surface from the rotting mud.

The water was getting shallower and finally I was out of the swamp.

I smelled awful from all that mud on my legs.

Just in time, it started raining. What started as a light rain, soon turned into a heavy downpour, exactly what I needed to wash the mud off my legs after I threw away my jeans and my tennis shoes. I had to put on the dressing shoes and the dressing pants I had in my knapsack which I wanted to save for later on.

The rain stopped as I was walking up the hill. When I reached the top, once again I saw the crossing point. Soon, I reached the highway not far from the edge of the village. I lurked along the road until I could get on a narrow sidewalk that began in front of the first house. There were a few faint streetlights but the trees kept the sidewalk in darkness just about everywhere.

I saw a bench between two trees. One half of it was lit by a streetlight. I sat down on the dark end and waited. I started shivering so I pulled the last piece of cloth I had packed into my knapsack, a sweater, and put it on. There was no traffic on the road, everything was quiet. I fell asleep. I do not know how long I slept but when the engine of a truck woke me up, it was already dawn.

After the truck passed, heading towards the Hungarian border, I heard some commotion. When the noise of the truck completely died down, I could make out the sound of a broom. Someone was sweeping in the backyard of the house on the other side of the road.

I stood up and walked on staying close to the fences that were made mainly of plywood. Soon I reached a fork in the road where another highway joined in from the east.

The village was still quiet but more and more windows had lights in them.

A truck was coming slowly from the south. I quickly walked over to the east branch of the fork and when I saw the vehicle turning onto that branch, I hailed it down. I did not really expect the driver to stop but he did. I climbed up on the passenger side, smiled at the driver, an older man, and then, sinking into the seat, I closed my eyes signaling that I was ready to fall asleep. I was hoping he would not ask questions. He did not.

Heading east was not the direction I eventually needed to go but I wanted to get out of Horgos. The village was way too close to the Hungarian border to get me worried. I did not want to be seen by the village people when they leave their houses going to work. Anyone could have been an informer for the border police and a stranger on the street early in the morning could have surely sparked suspicion.

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