How to cross a border: our Iron Curtain escapade

Crossing borders is no big deal. Sometimes you might not even notice it. We certainly failed to spot any frontier when by accident my wife, Marianne, and I skied from Cervinia in Italy to Zermatt in Switzerland. By this time the children refused to ski with us, saying that they couldn’t possibly go at our speed, slower than that of a sloth at its most slothful. In a way I feel sorry for my children’s generation. They have everything the eye can see or the taste buds savour, but they have never experienced the thrill of crossing a border illegally. We did it three times. In this article I shall describe the first of those three cases.

It happened towards the end of 1956, a few weeks after Russian tanks devastated Budapest. To reach the West in those times by crossing the Iron Curtain was known to be a near-impossible task, although not for lack of trying. Many an attempt was made: crawl under the Curtain by digging a tunnel, fly above the Curtain in a balloon, or crash through it with a lorry or a sturdy car. Alas, most of these attempts were unsuccessful, resulting at best in lengthy prison sentences. 

However, in Hungary at that time, the situation was much more favourable. In the wake of Khrushchev’s revelations of Stalin’s crimes and the subsequent thaw in the Soviet Union, the Hungarian Communist government took some independent steps to reduce tension with the West in general, and particularly with neighbouring Austria, a country with which Hungary had long historical associations. The most important decision was to enable East German holidaymakers to claim asylum in Austria by opening the Hungarian border for them. The next friendly gesture towards Austria was to remove the mines and the barbed wires from the border zone. 

Alas, this was not to last. The Russians did not like it. They realised that, after all, old-fashioned totalitarianism was the best. The Hungarian Uprising was crushed while the West was busy in Suez. The Russians were quick to put in place a new Hungarian government that tried to reverse the decisions of its predecessors, but building new barriers on the border takes time and that was a commodity they lacked. So the situation remained fluid. 

For us, there was still a lot of uncertainty. We had the optimism of youth, but for the last eight years all we had heard from the authorities was the presence of massive unemployment in the West. Would we be welcomed or rejected? And would we even get there? None of us possessed the special permit required to visit a border town. Would we be arrested on the train? Would we find guides to lead us across the border? Would we have to swim across Lake Ferto, which spans the border?

We didn’t fancy going on our own. After a few telephone calls we found some kindred spirits: two couples who were willing to take the train with us to Sopron (a city very near to the border) the following day. We got to the railway station early without difficulty. It was literally surrounded by tanks standing so close to each other that a man with a beer belly would have found it hard to enter the station. It seemed this was the only parking space the Russians could find in Budapest. The train to Sopron was full. It was a couple of hours late in leaving, but otherwise ran normally, stopping at the places it would normally stop. At the last but one station most of the passengers got off. We six discussed whether it was better to join the multitudes and continue on foot, or risk arriving at Sopron and falling into the arms of the secret police. While we were weighing up the pros and cons, the train started. 

Sopron was a pleasant surprise: dreamy and innocent, with houses and streets covered by snow: a Christmas card. We counted only two frightened Russian soldiers. They kept looking round at a group of border guards who sat on benches in the park opposite the station eating cold sandwiches. Both Russians had a submachine gun which they tried unsuccessfully to hide. They were obviously worried that the border guards might not be particularly friendly.

Marianne quickly sat down on the bench next to a young border guard. She came straight to the point. “Would you shoot us?” she asked. The young man, more boy than man, was embarrassed. He thought for a few seconds and said, “No, we wouldn’t. Not us. But there are three other companies here in Sopron. I don’t know. Don’t try to cross the border. It is too dangerous.” 

Marianne thanked the boy and suggested to the rest of us that we go to the café by the park to have lunch. We asked the waiter: “Where can we find a guard who will take us to the border?” “You don’t need a guard,” said the waiter. “In 25 minutes, a bus leaves from right here to a village on the border. I think everything is alright now, but the situation may change any moment. Be careful.” We spent the next 25 minutes ordering cakes that could compete with the best in Budapest. 

The bus arrived. It filled up quickly. Just like the train, everybody got off at the last but one stop. We stayed on. There was nobody at the terminus. The conductor and the bus driver disappeared immediately, leaving us standing in the snow. We knew that Austria lay to the West, but not one of us had a compass. So we stood at the stop and waited for a miracle.

 We did not wait in vain. Within a few minutes an angel appeared. He was blonde, cherubic and aged about six or seven. He lacked wings and spoke Hungarian, which is definitely not a biblical language. Nor was his turn of phrase particularly holy: “If you give me some money I shall ask the border guards how much they want for letting you through.” 

Instinctively, we trusted the little angel and gave him plenty of money. He turned up ten minutes later with a disappointed expression saying that he could not find the border guards. “Never mind,” we said, “keep the money, just tell us which way to Austria.” “Austria is very near,” quoth the angel, “just go up the hill this way.” He showed the direction. 

Our dark coats made us easy targets in the snow. Fortunately, the boy was right: there were no border guards around. No shots were directed at us. We were in Austria in 20 minutes. We spent the night in Eisenstadt, a refugee camp. In the morning we were taken by bus to Vienna railway station, and climbed into a carriage. Fifty hours later we got to Aldershot in England. I got a job within ten days. For Marianne it took another week.

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