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Budapest, 24 November 1976.
Tibor Cirkos, Police Lt.
Budapest, district III, 22 Kerék street, 6th floor, Flat 35
1 In the course of the reports she has been summoned to provide we have received eight pieces of political information, Department 6 deeming them valuable.
2 During the next couple of meetings we will determine what the reason is for the weak performance MRS PÁPAI has demonstrated in the realm of political intelligence-gathering, and in the course of directing and educating the network individual we will seek to spur MRS PÁPAI to more objective political judgements.
3 MRS PÁPAI gave the impression of being a worn-out, broken individual, and the problems she related certainly explained this appearance. Despite this, she gladly took on the resolution of the assignment she received, and moreover she added: if the school gave her more opportunities she could get to know the target individuals even better.
4 MRS PÁPAI reported that Rofus Khoza sought to borrow a lot of money from his fellow students. His views are wholly acceptable.
5 He is a member of a reportedly progressive party and acts not on the basis of strict, tribal perspectives. In his workplace and before readers he does not wear his party affiliation on his sleeve, because according to him, a journalist in Nigeria must appear completely neutral. He is a very religious Presbyterian. He saw the Csiksomlyó Passion Play twice, but only from a religious perspective. He said it made him happy, proving that religious freedom can be had in a socialist country. He would like to acquire photos of various scenes from the play so he can use them in his paper at home. His religiousness is very deep; he believes in hell and in the judgement of God. Virtually every act of his is a trial run of religiousness. His older sister is presently enrolled in continuing education in Rome. She is a nurse-dietician (?). ALAWODE wanted to travel there to visit her.
6 MRS PÁPAI feels that the students have regarded her as a faculty member, too, and so they haven’t been as open with her, either, as they were earlier. Moreover, this hostile mood limited her operative activities as well.
Compounding the above is the fact that caring for her husband, whose health keeps declining, represents an increasing burden for MRS PÁPAI in her private life.
The husband dreads the thought of MRS PÁPAI wanting to leave their home, fearing as he does that she will be arrested on the street. The symptoms of paranoia have so consumed him that sometimes he steps out of the flat and looks around to be sure no one is watching.
7 In the students’ opinion the school did not fulfil its task: the lectures were boring, and they passed the time during lectures by reading newspapers and writing letters.
8 On my arrival I congratulated MRS PÁPAI with flowers on the occasion of her birthday. MRS PÁPAI was very moved by the gesture, and ensuing from the family holiday she began to talk about her children.
It troubles her very much that her children are not following their parents’ example by engaging in politics in the spirit of Marxism–Leninism. She analysed her parenting principles in detail and not even now can she understand why her children have turned to other ideas or abandoned politics altogether.
I sought to counterbalance MRS PÁPAI’s despair by emphasizing her children’s positive achievements, noting that if a doctor who is not of Marxist convictions can practise medicine successfully here, in socialist Hungary, that is to the credit of socialist health care, and so even this work is very useful for our society.
9 Although MRS PÁPAI is politically extremely biased, the soundness of her assessments could still be influenced by the opinions and wide knowledge of facts voiced by her father – who, despite his illness, is still politically active.
10 MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR
TOP SECRET
Sub-department III/III-4-a
Attn: Com. Dóra
Comrade Oszkár Kiss, Pol. Colonel
Head of Department III/I-3
Intra-departmental memo
In our counter-intelligence domain we are keeping under surveillance the writer György Petri (Born: Budapest, 1943; mother’s name: Kornélia Butter Walter), resident of 23 Batthány Street, District I, Budapest.
According to our reliable information this individual recently moved to 22 Kerék Street, 6th floor, flat 35, District III, Budapest.
As per the oral conversation we had with Pol. Lt. Comrade Dr József Dóra, we request that the surveillance of György Petri by 3/e be made possible at the above address; that is, that through the SC CN MRS PÁPAI our access to the flat be ensured.
Budapest, 12 December 1983
Miklós Esvégh,
István Nagy,
Pol. Lieutenant Colonel
Pol. Captain
Department Head
Sub-department Head
11 Comrade Beider (MRS PÁPAI’s previous handler) recalled that MRS PÁPAI’s flat was in the neighbourhood and recommended that we ask her for help in resolving our problem. To this MRS PÁPAI gave the address and in reply to my question, said the windows look out on Szentendrei Street.
I was very glad to hear that, and asked if the flat afforded a view of the grocery store on Szentendrei Street.
MRS PÁPAI then asked, in surprise, wasn’t it the third-floor flat of the building opposite theirs that we wanted to watch? After my evasive reply she said that rather elegantly furnished flat had caught her eye ever since she’d moved in, for it nearly always has its curtains drawn. For a long time no one had used the flat, whose owner had probably been abroad.
Following this I posed several questions pertaining to the lay-out of her own flat and the habits of the residents. MRS PÁPAI replied genially to each of them, adding that her son András lives in the flat, and because he is usually at home she doesn’t know how the flat could be made empty for long.
As a solution she proposed that she will say she needs to clean the flat on 20 December 1983, and then her son surely won’t be home. I accepted her proposal but asked whether, when there are performances every night at the theatre, her son participates in them.
MRS PÁPAI said that as far as she knows, even if her son is on duty he stays only for the start of the play before heading home. The other obstacle is that he has often let friends and acquaintances stay in the flat, and he has never kept MRS PÁPAI apprised.
Finally we agreed that if MRS PÁPAI learns that her son will leave the flat unoccupied for a longer period then she will notify us and ensure our free access to the flat.
Barring that, while she is cleaning on 20 December 1983, we can carry out the necessary work.
I separately brought it to MRS PÁPAI’s attention that it would not be appropriate if her son András, his friends or other residents of the building were to learn of our plans, for the matter is very sensitive, so adhering to conspiratorial rules is most important of all in the course of our work.
MRS PÁPAI said she understood, and declared that her children have not known of her work and her ties to us, and cannot know in the future, either, for they profess a different view in this matter, too, than do their parents.
At the end of the meeting we spoke of the Palestinian civil strife and we agreed that MRS PÁPAI would telephone us if the flat is unoccupied.
We finished the meeting, whose cost was 122 forints, at 11:45.
Assessment
At the start of the meeting it became clear that MRS PÁPAI loves her children very much and would do anything for them. She is aware of their ideological errors and seeks to neutralize those, but her effort has thus far met with failure.
On account of the above facts MRS PÁPAI’s involvement could be realized only by our employing a cover story acceptable to her by which to gain access to the flat. In this case it is the surveillance of the flat opposite – a flat that has also caught MRS PÁPAI’s attention – which can provide the cover story by which our specialists can manage the technical infiltration.
Recommendation
I recommend that we notify Department III/II
I-5 about the prospect of the technical infiltration.
12 I report that at 8:00 on 21 December 1983, in the Ferenc Rózsa Home, I held a meeting with the secret colleague CD MRS PÁPAI.
At the meeting we wished to discuss the following topics:
– Possible reverberations of the action carried out at the Kerék Street flat.
– Assessment of MRS PÁPAI’s operative activity in 1983
13 I told MRS PÁPAI that we thank her very much for having let us use her flat, for we could thus successfully carry out our task.
Following this I briefly assessed MRS PÁPAI’S operative activity in 1983.
I thanked her for the help she’s provided us, and in symbolic recognition of her work I presented her with a book.
MRS PÁPAI was very happy for the gift, thanking our comrades for having thought of her and announcing: she hopes that in the years to come she can also contribute to making our work more successful. Finally we discussed her husband’s condition.
We finished the meeting, whose cost was 225 forints, at 9:30.
14 Their activities outside of official programmes;
Their private lives;
Their contacts;
Their personal characteristics, habits;
Possible compromising information;
Political views, education, professional skills;
Their character, behaviour, poise;
Their state of health.
15 Assessment:
MRS PÁPAI received me with her usual charm, and neither is the discussion of political issues a new aspect of our conversations.
And yet it is worthy of mention that MRS PÁPAI steered the subject to the opposition, and explicitly got to the subject of events between her and György Petri.
It is with virtually sympathetic indulgence that MRS PÁPAI views the activities of the opposition, which she does not assume to be ill-intentioned.
She listened to my explication and raised no objection, but it was apparent that she did not accept my perspective.
She Ends Her Activities
16 What is Mrs Pápai ending, Stöckl? And what’s ‘It seems’ supposed to mean? Screw you.
17 What did you say, you bastard, you rat? ‘Only discreetly’? What else do you want to do ‘discreetly’ with my mother? What business do you have with my mother, anyway? Take your grubby hands off my mother or else you’ll have to answer to me, you steaming pile of shit, you discreet little slimeball.
18 In what sense did you presume to use this word?
19 ‘Performed for us’? Are you shitting me?
20 It was ten years in all – come on, you moron, get with it – and not even that many, if I’m not mistaken. Let’s not play here with the numbers, for the love of – pardon my language – motherfucking God.
21 A bad joke! ‘Even . . . 2,000 forints’? Is this how you people want to fuck over my dear mother? Is this what you call generosity?
22 It took you five days to write this, you dickhead?
23 The height of audacity, to put a dying woman to work for a pittance.
24 Well now, if there’s something you have no business poking your nose into, you animal, it’s precisely that. Oh, what a sophisticated way of putting it, à la Wittgenstein: ‘her situation, circumstances’ – circumstantiality. Fuck off.
25 My mother has hay fever: flowers are deadly to her. Do you want to kill her?
26 Mother, you let this piece of shit into your room? Mother! Throw him out! Tell him he’s a depraved stinking bastard.
27 My dear, sweet mother is lying and she knows it.
28 Listen here, Mum! Let’s talk this over now. How many times have I told you to leave him in the hospital? How many times have I told you to put him away in a isolation ward and leave him there, or else you’ll die of his illness? How many times? Well, how many? Not once. That wasn’t me. And if I did say it, I knew there was no use.
29 Maybe you dictated this letter, Mr Nobody, but you might have added the commas, at least subsequently.
30 What housing problem? You want to trade the hovel in the council block for what – for two stamps? There’s nothing to trade. You were only able to get something done – ‘crawling on your bloodied belly’, as you liked to say – while you still had ‘contacts’ in Party Central. You crawled on your belly and begged. Who do you want to beg from now?
31 Even in her last hours she’s got to torturously ‘prepare a review of the contents’ of your shitty little articles? Does no one else in this whole damn town know Hebrew?
32 Mum, there’s no need for this. For 2,000 forints? Just say the word, and I’ll give you 2,000 forints. Here you are. Here. Take it! Money is khara, Mum, khara!
33 Fuck off and never come back. My mother won’t let you in, anyway. I’ll forbid her to let you in. My dear, dumb mother. That wonderful woman! From now on you’ll call in vain. We won’t pick up the phone, that’s for sure. We’ll tear to pieces the little reports, the confirmations of receipt, the pictures, the minutes of meetings, the assessments – you’d do well to take a good look at your own home instead, because there will be trouble!
34 I know nothing about ‘stable’ circumstances. Where did you put them? I looked around but couldn’t find them anywhere. Not in any of your bags, not in the wardrobe, not in any of the drawers, nowhere. Nothing but endless disarray and chaos, Mum, nothing but a cold, horrendous void, Mum, a terrible mess, and dust, and battles, and horrendous strife, and fratricide, and treason, nothing but lie after lie! Mum!
35 What good will that do? To drag my diamond of a mother deeper into the muck? You can pour your poison all you want on my beautiful flower – her hair fallen out, my tender mother with her brilliant smile – you can’t besmirch her no matter how much you’d like to, you dog, no, you don’t come anywhere near her, idiot!
36 You people know nothing.
37 Mrs Marcell Forgács, 30 November 1985
2 slippers
1 pair shoes
1 robe
1 coat
2 nightshirts
toiletries
silverware
personal ID
Kútovölgyi hospital card
1 alarm clock
1 glass mug
3 books (Games People Play: The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales; Tutankhamun)
3 pairs glasses
2 small pillows + 4 bedsheets
1 knitted shawl
1 scarf
2 sweaters
1 pair sweatpants
1 T-shirt + 5 panties + stockings + 2 pairs socks
2 towels
1 lower denture
1,000 forints
Inventory prepared by
” received by András Forgách
38 I wouldn’t be so sure about that. But, Mother, look, this poem is ready, too.
II. Bruria and Marcell
Marcell
1 19 June 1975
I will exorcise my fears of persecution as of midnight on 20 June 1975 if the committee does not look me up. I promise to no longer bother with phantasms and to acquire my knowledge of objective reality from Bruria’s recommendations. In the morning I awake in a pleasant and calm frame of mind, and I deal with the tasks a normal life entails and do not allow wanton phantasms and fantasies to get the better of me. I accept the laboratory findings without argument. No longer will I persecute myself. In the interest of saving myself I will strive to get to lay bare my past and to lay bare those events and actions that were dictated by my communist convictions.
signed by: Marcell forgács [sic]
I did not steal I did not swindle I did not embezzle
19 June 1975 – Marcell forgács [sic]
2 I don’t know how I gave cause for them to re-assess my past activities, to ‘expose me as someone who operated within Montgomery’s general staff’ when I had noted in my every resumé that it was at the direction of the Palestine Communist Party that I enlisted in the English army where as a
private and later a cartographer at the Middle East command (in a map warehouse at the lowest rank, because as a communist I did not get promoted) and Montgomery wasn’t even there at the time (1944–46). I request the party organization to investigate this and also whose interest it is in to brand me and equate me and hang me on a shoemaker’s last with all sorts of unreliable elements.
3 Why do Jews eat ham from paper? Just not to stain a plate with treif.
4 According to my husband Marcell Forgács, in the functioning ward of the national psychiatric hospital, on Völgy Street, he was infected with syphilis, which entered his system via the pillow of a syphilis patient. He contracted it around the end of February 1975. It was a certain committee that ordered this syphilis to be devised, a committee that, according to my husband, is tasked with bringing him to ruin by way of various measures (which until 12 December 1975 had not once been proved). The ‘committee’ had tasked the health care staff at Völgy Street inject this disease by all means into my husband, and so to compel him to expose his relationships with a dozen female acquaintances and so the crimes he commited be proven. . ..
If the Wa. [Wasserman – trans.] test is negative, my husband, Marcell Forgács, obliges himself to do everything he can in the interest of ceasing the operation of the ‘committee’, which he has used in numerous cases to justify his fears, and to focus on acquainting himself with reality through his own power.
Mrs Marcell Forgács
12 July 1975
I oblige myself to eradicate the committee, which in reality does not exist, and is the product of my mind, in the event of a negative Wa.
Marcell forgács [sic]
5 ‘Long since her body flew – light smoke – away
German meadows were cloaked with sooty grey . . .’
6 Her activization was implemented only in the event of her husband’s serious illness, to substitute for him.
7 ‘Long since her body flew – light smoke – away
German meadows were cloaked with sooty grey. . .’
8 ‘My name is still in the phonebook,
But my grave is in the Jewish cemetery,
A charming zany baby
Lived 53 years and forgot to grow up.