15. BLACK SUNDAY
[About the Russian invasion of Hungary, in October,
1956.]
It was a Sunday in 1956. Black Sunday in Hungary.
The Russians invaded with tanks and cannons, determined to extinguish the flame
of Hungarian freedom with blood.
That Sunday was so dark. It was such a dark Sunday.
On that fateful day, significant events unfolded in
Hungary. But noteworthy things also happened among our Dutch immigrant people
in Canada.
In Hungary, the first tanks stormed into Budapest.
A house, suspected by the Russians of hiding “rebels,” was reduced to rubble. A
grandfather, his daughter, and two of her children, perished.
At the same moment, there was trouble in an
immigrant family in Canada. A father and three children wanted to sleep in,
thinking the church would still be there next week. A grandfather, his daughter,
and two of her children went to church, but without a song of praise on their
lips.
*
Somewhere in a provincial town in Hungary, in a
square behind the pillars of the town hall and in the doorways of closed shops,
children, boys and girls aged fourteen to twenty, are covertly positioned with
sten guns, pistols, and Molotov cocktails. The Russians are approaching. Some of
the children are very young. Some are very frightened. One soils his pants.
Some pray, “God, help us, protect us! We are still so young!”
Somewhere in a Canadian town, at the back of the
church, there are children, lanky lads of fourteen years. A few are yawning, a
few are sleeping during the sermon. Some secretly show each other forbidden pictures
of naughty girls.
In a town square in Hungary, embittered women hold
a demonstration beside the bodies of some freedom fighters. They sing their
national anthem. It sounds like a lament. At the same moment, in one of the
houses in Canada, a record player wails. Excited girls scream, shriek, and
howl: Rock and Roll! Elvis Presley!
*
In a Canadian city, believers find the church doors open and they attentively listen to the sermon of the orthodox Dutch pastor, who fervently warns his flock about the traps and deceit of the church down the street—where another pastor preaches, who is also Dutch, and also orthodox.
*
On a pile of rubble in
Hungary, a desperate mother cries and laments. She just found an arm of her
missing child.
Somewhere in Canada
Brother A complains about his hemorrhoids and Brother B complains about his
pastor.
*
Hungary: Five boys are tied to poles. The
firing squad takes position. Two boys cry out for their mother; one cries out
to Mary; two can no longer cry. The command is given . . . shots ring out. . .
.
Canada: At the youth club, five boys debate
passionately about the doctrine of Common Grace, each bracing himself to
triumph in the debate.
In Hungary, strangers become friends in their
hopeless fight for freedom. People find each other in their common distress. People
kneel and cry out together to God.
In Canada, friends become strangers as
conversations once again revolve around the question: Should our church here be
modeled along Dutch lines, or not? Should we call an American, or a Dutch
pastor?
*
In Budapest, the Russians set fire to a house
of “terrorists.” A family runs out into the street in panic and is mowed down
by a machine gun.
In Canada, Arie Dof lights a cigarette and
sulks because Katrien forgot to buy cigars for him.
In Hungary. . . . In Canada. . . .
One question, O God: Why was that Sunday so
pitch black for the Hungarians and only colourless for us in Canada?
God does not answer . . . not yet.
<><><>
Dof, Arie. (1958). “Zwarte Zondag.”
(George van Popta, Trans., 2024). In Arie en Katrien in Canada (pp.
61-63). Hamilton, Ontario: Guardian. (Original work published in Calvinist
Contact [Christian Courier]).
