Hungarian Refugees Meet Again 5 Boys Escaped Communism In 1957, Grew Up In Montana

Five men who escaped communist Hungary 40 years ago and spent boyhood years in Butte planned to gather in Montana over the weekend for a reunion.

“Somehow we stayed in touch and developed some sort kind of lifelong bond,” said Louis Budas of Chicago. “It was fantastic years for us.”

The men, now in their late 50s, are joined by memories of being together in a foreign country with a strange language.

At the time of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary in November 1956, about 200,000 Hungarians fled to Austria. Many others were killed or imprisoned by the occupying forces and the new government.

“I believe God was the only reason I made it,” said Mike Kecskes, a Helena resident and a participant in the reunion set for Fairmont Hot Springs near Butte. He said he crawled under razor wire to flee Hungary.

“We were shot at repeatedly, but we managed to get across by the grace of God,” Kecskes said.

For Bela Ledenyi of Chicago, leaving Hungary was simply a matter of walking in the right direction. Growing up in rural western Hungary, Ledenyi was far from the main action in Budapest.

He walked toward the border, and as it neared, a man emerged from a barn and pointed him and his three companions in the proper direction.

“He just smiled and pointed,” Ledenyi said. “There were little signs telling where the Austrian and Hungarian borders were.”

Then it was on to refugee camps.

Within a few months, the Roman Catholic Church in 1957 sent 20 refugees of high school age to New York and then to Butte, where they could finish their educations and be housed with local families.

When the boys arrived, priests trying to arrange English instruction found only one speaker of Hungarian in Butte: Laszlo Tetmajer, who had come to the United States after World War II and worked for Montana Power Co.

Tetmajer conducted English classes and helped the boys with homework they could not understand.

“The transition was very difficult,” said Tetmajer, who retired from Montana Power in 1984 and still resides in Butte. “It was a day-and-night job. After awhile, they could start communicating with the families.”

The men planning to be at the reunion were unable to track down others who came to Butte from Hungary years ago. Many of the 20 sent to Butte later went to live with relatives elsewhere in the United States.