Ferenc Schlaffer

„I crossed the border line in Pornóapáti. Q.: And what was the name of the village on the other side of the frontier? A.: Deutsch Schützen. Q.: Pardon? A.: Deutsch Schützen. Q.: Deutsch Schützen? A.: Yes. Then I was brought to Eisenberg, I could sleep there and after it... let me see, I left Hungary on the 18th... Q.: In which month? A.: No, I was wrong, I left on the 25th… Q.: I see, but in which month? A.: It was the 25th of October. It left in five day time after my birthday. Q.: Did you have a special reason to leave that day? Did this date mean somything? Why did you schedule your leaving after your birthday? A.: It was absolutely necessary to do it after my birthday because if I had left the country as a juvenile, I might have been given back to the Hungarian state. Q.: But why, was there any bilateral agreement on it you knew? A.: Young people under the age of 18 was transported back to Hungary to the parents. Austria had to hand them over because they were juvenile and they couldn’t... Q.: Couldn’t they decide, couldn’t they act on their own? A.: Right, they couldn’t act and couldn’t decide on their own future.”

„Pornóapáti was near to the border line, to the frontier between Hungary and Austria. This is why the village was closed between two wires… how could I explain it better… the inhabitants of the village were living between two fences of wire. The village was separated and protected by an electric fencing against those who arrived from the outside, that is against those Hungarians who came one at a time towards the west. Q.: That is to say that those who lived to the east of Pornó, Pornóapáti, coming there they met an obstacle before arriving to the village. A.: That’s correct. There was an electric guard. Q.: So there was an electric borderline. A.: Also here, at the railway station in Szombathely, there were patrols of the border guards. They asked documents, they controlled the number of the identity cards. There were identity cards with number 1, 2 and 3, you know. Number 1 was given to those who lived in Vas county very close to the frontier. Pornóapáti for example was in this region. Then Szombathely or Nára were number 2. Farer you lived in the country, the bigger number you had on your passport. If somebody wanted to come to Pornó to visit somebody, or for else, he had to ask a permission at the Ministry of the Interior… Q.: Was it an entrance permission? A.: ... yes, it was, to the place where he wanted to go near the border. Sometimes the permission was given, sometimes it was denied. The person who asked it was always strictly controlled, for what reason, for which point he wanted to enter the zone. To visit relatives, which relatives, when and at what time? Thus it was a difficult situation if somebody who lived in Hungary, a Hungarian citizen who was living farer from here, let’s say, wanted to come here. Q.: And those who entered the zone, for example, to visit relatives in Pornóapáti, was usually controlled in the territory of the village? A.: Certainly. But not only the outsiders, also local people of Pornó was obliged to have his identity card with his 500 meter-permission in it with him to every where he went in the village, if he went to the field to work, to hoe. You had to have it in your pocket or in your bag in case you had to show it, to proof you were a local inhabitant. Q.: Let’s return to the border structure. So there was a border defence line to the east of the village, it was an electric one, and the other one you had to cross, you said, it was a simple wire fence that years, if I’m right. A.: Yes, it was a wire fence… it wasn’t a big obstacle anymore then. You could well see in the Iron Curtain Museum what sort of defence systems were in general, but that part of the frontier where I lived there weren’t either mines or anything else, because it would have caused danger for the foreigners who lived very close, just on the other side of the border. Q.: If there had been an explosion, also foreigners would have been wounded, am I right? A.: Exactly. Because a mine could have had such an impact that it could have broken every windows and everything. But not only, Austrian citizens could have been wounded easily. So mines couldn’t be used there.”

„After my work shift I returned home, I handed my wage over to my Mum, and then I decided it was the day to… Q.: To leave. And did you mention it to your mother? A.: No, I didn’t. Q.: Did you go home, did you give her your money and..? A.: Well, I said simply that I was leaving but I didn’t add that I was leaving the country. Q.: Did you go straight to the border line? A.: First I took my bike, then I got it off and… in the meantime I met my sister and her young daughter, and then I turned to go to the border. Q.: Where did you cross it? A.: In Pornóapáti between the Hungarian custom house and the station where the Austrian custom officers were. Q.: Weren’t there any patrols? A. : There were, certainly there were, but for those who had borned and lived there it wasn’t a problem where and when there was any chance to leave the country across the green border. Q.: So you knew the border defence structure, didn’t you? A.: Right, how could we not know it?! We was living there, I had been born there, I saw the defence system for eighteen years. Q.: Was it really so simple? Did you just go there and..? A.: Yes, I went there, I climbed up to the wire fencing and I crossed it. Q.: Didn’t it give a sign of alert? A.: No, it didn’t. It was a simple wire, it was an ordinary wire… of which usually fences are made at family houses. Q.: Did you look around to see where the guards were or did you just climb up? A.: I knew well where they were. There were some of them also in the wooden tower. Q.: Could they see you? A.: Yes, I think they could if they had turned into that direction, but... Q.: Did you check where they were looking at? Didn’t you fear of being shot at? A.: I was sure they didn’t shoot at me because I was exactly the custom house and they would have shot in it. Q.: You crossed the border very quickly then, didn’t you? A.: Yes, I did. Q.: Did it happen in some seconds? A.: Right, it was an event of some seconds. A young boy climbed up to the fence and he jumped over to the neighbours’. It happened simply like that.”