In the crossfire
Bálint Ordódy, having heard the news on the Hungarian revolution at the end of October 1956, decided to return to Hungary from Paris where he had been living since 1948. He took a train with his Dutch friend and they arrived to the Hungarian border via Wien. That part of the border was controlled by units of the national guard of the town of Sopron recruited among students. They let the Dutch guy enter Hungary without any problem but Bálint Ordódy who had refugee documents with him was sent back to Austria: ’We are revolutionaries, we’re socialists! You are a bloody capitalist counter-revolutionary. We don’t want you.’ – he was told. The Austrian border guards on the other side thought that the returning young man was a political policeman escaping from Hungary. „They came to catch me with their dogs. I showed them my documents and they could see that I had come from Paris. So I could spend the night in the border station.” He didn’t give up, he returned to the Hungarian border the following day. There was an other group of students on duty. This time he could enter Hungary but „a stamp ’entered’ was put on my document” and this is why I was refused to get the French citizenship until 1968! Bálint Ordódy joined the national guard in Sopron. He got a gun, he patrolled the streets and he took part in the arrest of a political policeman. After the Soviet invasion on November 4 he fled to Austria across the uncontrolled frontier with hundreds of students from Sopron. Since he kept his gun he was considered a soldier and he was sent to a POW camp. He escaped after a while. He could return to France with the help of his family and the good offices of the French ambassador.
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Bálint Ordódy
Bálint Ordódy (Balint Ordody de Ordod) was born on February 13, 1931 in Budapest. His father Béla Ordódy who came from a family of landholders became the executive director of Palatinus Joint Stock Company thanks to his marriage with one of the daughters of the founder of the company. The company built and possessed elegant blocks of flats in the Hungarian capital, among others also the so called Palatinus buildings on the Danube bank. Bálint Ordódy was private pupil, then he was sent to the secondary school of the Piarist Order. After WWII his father was arrested several times by the Soviet forces. Finally he got a passport and he emigrated to Switzerland in 1947. After the nationalization of the properties of the family company the same year they had difficulties of subsistence. His mother Erzsébet Schiffer was smuggled out of the country by the French minister in Budapest, Olivier de Sayve, in the diplomatic car of the legation in 1948. Bálint Ordódy with his half-sister and his brother-in-law fled Hungary near to Sopron by a stock train in September 1948. He settled down with his family in Paris. His parents made a new living by renovating old flats and being agents for Primtemps stores. He finished his secondary school studies at the Hungarian Secondary School in Innsbruck in 1949. Then he moved to Great Britain temporarily with his parents. He worked for Thomas Cook's and he tried to continue his studies at a British university. He tried also to get in the Hungarian staff of BBC. Finally he got a scholarship from the Free Europe Committee and he could study political sciences at the university in Strassbourg. He managed to change his scholarship for a French one and thank to it he graduated at Hautes Études Commerciales in Paris. In the meantime he had begun to work for American Express, too. Having heard the news of the fightings in Hungary at the end of October, 1956, he returned to his motherland with a Dutch friend. He joined the national guard of Sopron. After the suppression of the revolution he was in a POW camp in Austria for some time. Having returned to Paris, he worked as a volunteer for the French Red Cross. Between 1958 and 1960 he was marketing assistant at the French Tin Syndicate. In 1960 he married Marthe de Levis de Mirepoix. They had two children, Stanislas and Mariella. He worked as product manager for different companies for different times. He applied for French citizenship three times but since in 1956 he had returned to Hungary and thus he broke his status of refugee, he became French citizen only in 1968. Thank to his citizenship it was easier for him to find jobs. He continued as product manager at various firms. Finally he was employed by Promexport, an affiliated company of BRED Banque Populaire in 1971. He organized the sale of French enterprises’ products abroad. In 1978 he made himself moved to BRED, Department of Big Affairs, where he worked for one and a half decade. Beside his job he was active in a number of social organizations. He was the founder of the French organization of English Speaking Union, then he founded an ESU unit also in Anjou. He retired in 1990 and he moved to St-Clément-des-Levées (Anjou) with his wife. He tried to build cultural and political relationship between Anjou and Hungary. Together with his wife he’s joined a few caritative, cultural and heritage saving initiatives.
