Dilinkó Gábor
Born 8 February 1929, Budapest. He worked as an unskilled labourer, then became a freedom fighter at Corvin Alley during the Revolution. Because of his revolutionary activities he was arrested at the end of 1956. He was sentenced to eighteen years in prison, the sentence being reduced to seven years on appeal. After the Revolution he worked as a gardener and a hospital orderly.
One of my pals came along, too. I told him: "What's that machine gun and that armband? Who are you? What kind of a hussar are you?" He said: "I am at Corvin Alley. Fuzzy, your wife, is also there. She carries guns you wouldn't believe!" "Well", I said, "I'll give her guns!" Fuzzy was my common-law wife. How did we meet? Once when I was going home, it so happened that I glimpsed my greatest, dearest love, who was living at the House of Correction, by the way. She asked me, "Hey, fellow, do you have a cigarette?" I said, "Come here, you'll get one. Do you want to come with me?" "Yes, I do." "Well, get your coat, put it on and let's go." All Budapest knew she was my common-law wife. They knew it in Corvin Alley, too, so they took very good care of her.
On the twenty-eighth, an undercover ÁVO man named Kovács shot her. He shot her in the head from the back. Her memorial plaque is still there on the wall of the Corvin Cinema.
I was there at the rally* on Kossuth Square on the 25th. There were many dead. Blood was being hosed off the road; human remains everywhere. I asked my pal, "Well, what now?" He said, "Let's go back to where we work." We went back to Corvin Alley.
It was not the gentlemen of leisure but the children of the streets of Pest who won the revolution. Not the old geezers who walked up to you and said "I'm a retired colonel, reporting for service". A Hussar Colonel came up in full uniform, with a sword, and said he would take command. He was turned away. There was no command here, because there was no army. There is no command in a revolution. "Tomorrow at dawn; tomorrow we’ll win; tomorrow it shall dawn for us;" those were passwords at night. We had guard duty all night. A geezer came along in a jeep with a white flag. He said: "I'm a major general and a truce-bearer." So, I replied: "All right, you won't be shot dead, if you're a truce-bearer." As he went on yapping, I slapped him so hard his flat cap rotated five times on his head. "Right now, get out of the car!" We took him to the commander. Then he said that he came to tell us to put our weapons down. "Fuck you!", I told him. He then realized that he could not persuade us to surrender. Our commander, Iván Kovács**, told me to take him back to the car. So he told Iván Kovács: "Sir, anyone can take me to my car, but not him!" That's how our life was going.
Mary, Tiny, Fuzzy, Worm, Lace, Crumble, Duck – we had nicknames like those. That's why my invitation to the Parliament was addressed to Gábor Bijou.
That's not my name. But that was how everyone knew me because when I was young, I really liked brass rings and the like. Everything that glistened. I wore them around my neck to show the people what I had. That was how the nickname "Bijou" stuck.
* : Who actualy started shooting is disputed to this day, but it is a fact that someone opened fire on the crowd on Kossuth Square in front of the Parliament. The wild shooting caused several hundred casualties.
** : László Iván Kovács was the first commander at Corvin Alley. He was executed in December, 1957.