I saw Russian tanks shoot down men and women
from Noel Barber
October 27, 1956
TONIGHT Budapest is a city that is dying. Black flags hang from every window. For during the past four days thousands of its citizens fighting to throw off the yoke of Russia have been killed.
The streets and once-beautiful squares are a shambles of broken glass, burned-out cars and tanks, and rubble. Food is scarce, petrol is running out.
But still the fight rages on. For five hours this morning until a misty dawn broke over Budapest I was in the thick of one of the battles. It was between Soviet troops and insurgents trying to force a passage across the famous Chain Bridge that links Buda with Pest across the Danube.
Two of the rebels into whose ranks I wandered died in the battle, one of them in my arms. Several were wounded. Tonight, as I write this dispatch, heavy firing is shaking the city.
Fighting has by now killed thousands of civilians. At least 1,000 were killed in the most ghastly massacre I have ever had to report. It happened yesterday morning when the Russians turned the guns of their tanks on to a crowd of unarmed demonstratÂors. They mowed them down.
Today, where formerly the trams ran, the insurgents have torn up the rails to use as antitank weapons. At least 30 tanks have been smashed so far, many with Molotov cocktails.
Their burnt- out skeletons seem everywhere. Even trees have been dug out as anti-tank barricades. Burned-out cars are used by rebels at every street corner, but still the Soviet tanks are rumbling through the city.
There are at least 50 still in action, together with armoured cars and troop carriers. They fire on anything, almost at sight. Travelling around the city is a nightmare, for no one knows who is friend or foe and all shoot at everybody. There is no doubt the revolt has been far more bloody than the official radio reports suggested. The Russians are unloosing murder at every street corner.
The massacre in Parliament Square is an example of the combined brutality of the Russians and their allies, the A.V.H., the Hungarian secret police.
What happened, in the cold sun of yesterday morning, was this. A quiet, orderly demonstratÂion of civilians, among them many women, started when a crowd saw a small group of Soviet troops hanging up the Hungarian flag on their tanks.
The crowd began to cheer and laugh. The Russians jumped out of the tanks and began to hug the Hungarians.
Then, with the tanks, the crowd moved on to Parliament Square, cheering and singing Hungarian national songs.
Women climbed on to the tanks, believing that they were on the side of the people. But the 12 tanks moved to the opposite side of the square.
There was no warning. No demand for the crowd to disperse. When the tanks were lined up their commander gave an order and the whole lot began to blaze away. It was murder.
THE Hungarian national football team, including its star Ferenc Puskas, has responded to the news by refusing to return home from Bilbao, Spain.