Miklós Gyöngyösi, 1929 to 1957
Born into a working-class family in Budapest, Gyöngyösi lost his parents in an air raid in 1943. After elementary school, he attended two years of upper elementary before training to be a plumber. In 1951, he was prosecuted for vagrancy and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for theft and embezzlement. In the following year, he was prosecuted on several charges, receiving a total sentence of six years and three months’ imprisonment from Budapest County Court. He was released provisionally in the summer of the following year, but soon sentenced again. On October 29, 1956, Gyöngyösi was freed from Ormospuszta and travelled to Budapest, where he joined the group of insurgents in the house at Landler Jenő utca 44 (7th District). He was conspicuously brave in the fighting after November 4 and soon took over command of the unit. The hopeless armed struggle was abandoned on November 8, after which Gyöngyösi joined in the political resistance, distributing leaflets and the illegal paper Élünk (We Are Alive). According to the verdict of the court, he murdered an unknown man on November 18, whom he and his associates thought was an ÁVH officer. He and Ferenc Gönczi were carrying a duplicating machine when they were arrested by Soviet soldiers on December 5, 1956. He was condemned to death for murder and incitement by the court of first instance on April 8, 1957. This was confirmed by the Council of the People’s Court of the Supreme Court on June 20, 1957, which increased the incitement charge to participation in a conspiracy. He was executed on June 26.
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