Ferenc T. Tamás: Tombstone

I'm just standing and tearing. Because of a familiar yet unknown. I don't know why, but I'm in tears.

In 1925, my grandmother, Terike, was born in a small south-western Hungarian border village. He already had so many children for his father. Maybe the last one. He wanted a boy to help her grow up in the leggings parcel, but Terike unfortunately became a girl. He crept into great poverty, then his father agreed with another poor man and their children were added up. There was a wedding in 1943, but due to the Great War there were hardly any guests and there were only occasional men among them. Everyone was taken to the front: some as soldiers, some as forced laborers. My grandfather received the summons two weeks after his wedding. He had nothing to do: he had to go. That was the law of war times. Barely a month later, he was on the front, serving in a tank. It was officially ammunition, but since the car was standing more than it was going and there wasn't ammunition on it many times, it was more of a jerk for the others. Although they were barely trained, they were sent into battle against the outnumbered Soviet Army. He said this when he was once sent home because his son was born: my father.
My grandmother said she hugged her newborn son, then went drinking with her buddies. He barely spoke to him. He had to go back to the front the next day. Then any news came about him for a long time. For a very long time. Suddenly he brought a letter from the postman that her husband had died on the front. The Soviets were already here by then, so it was impossible to know when and where he died. The only thing in the letter was that he died. My father was 4 months old at the time. The letter is no longer there because my grandmother tore it up a few years later. He didn't want his dripping son to find him.

My grandmother had always been sick so she couldn’t work much. He was more of a war widow's pension. My grandmother never told me about my grandfather. When I asked, all he said was that my grandfather was taken away by the Great War and I shouldn’t ask him more because she can never say more about him. Whether she was afraid of punishment or of her uplifting memories, I didn’t know. She didn't even have a photo of my grandfather. Sometimes I heard her sound in her sleep, but when she was awake, she always denied it. She told us from time to time that she had long since forgotten his lord, my grandfather.

It passed almost 50 years. We were already after the regime change, maybe in ’91 or ’92. My grandmother was old and had a sunken face. After the death of her husband, she never had anyone; she became such an old woman to herself. He’s lived with us since I was a kid because she never had enough money for a small hole on her own. Once the postman brought an official letter. From a Military History Research Institute or someone else. According to the letter, my grandfather's grave was probably found! Thus, 47 years after his death, he had his grave. He rests in the Pécel (Hungary) cemetery, but the information is uncertain. In any case, there lies a patrolman, Ferenc Tamás, who served as a tank driver and died a heroic death.

We traveled to Pécel on Saturday morning. The journey was not easy! My father, who never cried, kept wiping his tears. As the car approached the cemetery, he breathed harder and harder. Stopping at the entrance to the cemetery, he could barely get out of the car, all his strength left him. In front of the cemetery we bought a bouquet and looked for the name “Ferenc Tamás soldier” among the graves. We couldn't find it. The cemetery guard living there came. We asked her for advice on where the Hungarian soldier dead of World War II could be buried.
The grave was on the lower edge of the cemetery. According to the caretaker lady, there could be about ten of them in it. He was still 10 years old at the time of the fights, so she barely remembers. His father was the mourner. It was a big battle. The Soviets were many times outnumbered, firing Hungarian tanks one by one. Even before the hit, my grandfathers could jump out of their immobilized tanks as they were all taken away by a single series of submachine guns. Almost all of them received headshots. Ten young Hungarian soldier were buried there. Since there weren't even a coffin-long tree back then, they were just twisted into tent sheets and quickly buried on each other's tops and backs; so that the victorious Russians would not notice the Hungarian mourners, because they liked to shoot at them, just as a pastime.
The head tree stood on the tomb: 10 Hungarian soldiers rest here, then the names. Among them is my grandfather's. The tomb was about 3-4 people long. According to the caretaker lady, they were able to bury it faster then. After his front retreated, his father, the mourner, took out the dog sticks secretly stolen from the Hungarian soldiers and he engraved their names on the headboard. Then a few years later they were carved with a decent headstone with the nicely engraved names of the dead on them. At that time, they could no longer be heroes, as the Communists were already in political power and it was not appropriate to talk about the war dead of the Hungarian army. A few yards away, there was another head tree on the tomb, with my grandfather's name on it, too.

I just stood there and wept. Because of a familiar yet unknown. Because of my grandfather, whom I could never know. I don't know why, but I was in tears.

My father stroked both heads, to see if his never-known father, my grandfather, lay beneath him. My grandmother didn't come. She didn't want to. When we went again after almost half a year, she didn’t want to come to his husband's supposed tomb either. She never went to Pécel, to the cemetery. She finally became a bitter old woman.

A few years later, on the day of the dead, we went to the grave again. We searched for the characteristically long, strange tomb, but found it nowhere. According to the old women scurrying there, the graves had been plowed just a few months ago. There is only one headstone left of my grandfather, with the inscription: “Here rested for 50 years ten Hungarian soldiers of World War II. ” That's it. No name, no message, no farewell. Just those few words. We turned and went home immediately. When my father got home, he tore up the letter of notification and burned it. He never went out to Pécel, the cemetery again.

It's been several years since we buried my grandmother. She never looked at my grandfather's grave. She only mourned in his soul. Her husband was the dream of her young ages, the father of her only child. This autumn I made my way to Pécel. I was in no hurry, so I went to the cemetery to look for the headboard. Disappeared. Someone took it, maybe a for a burner. They were not replaced. I just stood there and wept. Because of a familiar yet unknown. Because of the memory of my grandfather, whom I could never know. I don't know why, but I was in tears.

Sometimes, in the evenings, around the day of the dead, I think of my never-known grandfather, whom his homeland forgot and kept secret for so long. Here I am, his grandson and I am just in tears. I'm tearing for him. Now I know why I'm in tears.


Ferenc T. Tamás, 2015.