The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/Budapest in September
Budapest in September[1]
The Bolshevik government left as its legacy to Hungary, next to general disruption, tremendously high prices which exceed anything that one may have expected. I speak only of the prices in Pest; I have not sampled the cost of living in the country, but country people tell me that the difference is not great.
A kilogram of white flour costs 20 crowns (nearly two dollars a pound nominally), and bread cannot be obtained at all. Roumanian soldiers who have plenty of bread trade it for jewelry and other valuable objects. A kilogram of beef costs 80 crowns, of veal 70, pork 85. A live goose from 1200 to 2000 crowns, lard and butter cannot be got; a kilo of sausages from 300 to 400, ham 700, salt 20 crowns a kilo, a can of sardines 48 crowns, grapes 35 cr. a kilo.
People cat for the most part vegetables which are still brought to the market, although even vegetables are very high; thus tomatoes cost 5 crowns per kilogram, green pepper 1 crown, melons 14 crowns per kilo, plums 25, pears and apples 15; a liter of beer costs 5 crowns, of wine 30 crowns. Of course the beer has no taste and is really not fit to drink. No coal can be had, as the railroads use what little there is; heating is done by wood which is sold at a crown per kilogram.
We dined at the Ritz Hotel. It is the finest hotel in Budapest. We had soup, a bit of meat with a vegetable and a trace of pudding; that cost 95 crowns; they serve another dinner for 120 crowns, but even that is not a satisfying meal. The great majority of the restaurants serve no meals at all this time.
All the prices I gave here are maximum prices, dictated by the government and enforced by Roumanian soldiers. But even so few people pay strict attention to them. Foodstuffs are bought secretly and prices go up so high that an egg is sold for 28 crowns (nominally $5.60). Most stores are empty and closed. The city is closed hermetically by the army and nobody can go more than four miles from the city without a permit from the Roumanian command which is extremely difficult to secure. Order is maintained with great energy by the Roumanians.
All the factories in Budapest are idle; they have neither raw material nor coal nor even machinery. The Roumanians grabbed everything that could be moved. Nothing is left of the factories but the walls. Even the metal roofs were taken down and sent off to Roumania, in payment of damages for destruction done during the war by the Magyars. Only a few flour mills are grinding grain and so strictly are they controlled by the Roumanians that not a pound of flour is unaccounted for. President Bacher of the biggest flour mill company, a millionaire, told us that he cannot get a single kilogram of flour for himself.
The saddest sight in all Budapest is begging, caused by war and by the destruction of economic life of the country as a result of the bolshevist episode. The streets are full of war invalids, clad in rags and barefooted, begging for something to eat. There are also thousands of children, terribly neglected, appealing to your mercy. Even the educated classes have to resort to beggary, and you will see former state officials and ex-army officers openly beg alms on the streets. Nobody is ashamed of begging; it has become a matter of course.
Roumanian field kitchens are besieged all day by crowds of all classes who beg for scraps of food; similar crowds are found around the Roumanian barracks.
The office of our diplomatic representative in Budapest, Mr. Hodža, is filled all day long with applicants for passports to our republic and with petitioners for help of all kind. Most of them are Jews, and that presents a serious problem to us. Jews from Hungary flock in thousands into our state. The cause of migration is to be sought in pogroms which have lately occured in all Magyarland against the Jews. In Ostřihom a few days ago several Jews were killed, and the pogrom was suppressd by the Roumanians with much difficulty. In other places the Roumanians themselves started a pogrom or incited the people to it. The people feel very bitter toward the Jews, looking upon them as the organizers of bolshevism and the authors of the present Magyar misery.
The Jews realize their dangerous position and besiege our legation with requests for passports so as to get into our republic. They get priests to baptize them, carry baptismal certificates with them and produce them on every occasion. Christenings are done in a wholesale manner, and it is a startling sight to watch the ceremony performed in a Catholic church on large numbers of young and old Jews. As soon as they get passports, they go straight north to our territory. In one day, August 30, 600 Jews crossed the bridge at Komárno, to the great displeasure of the Komárno Jews who did not care to be swamped by their kinsmen from Budapest.
Our government will have to pay attention to this migration. These Jews are no friends of the Czechoslovak epublic. They were for the most part bolsheviks during the reign of Bela Kuhn, the more energetic ones were people’s commissaries; they led the invasion into Slovakia in June, they counterfeited our stamped money, they are stirring up the Slovaks against the Czechs, they bribe, corrupt and demoralize. Our legation is bothered with them terribly.
Not merely Jews, but all kinds of people go to the Czechoslovak legation, and Hodža is today one of the biggest persons in Budapest. His influence is immense and his word goes far. They look on him as the representative of one of the Great Powers, and many speak of him as the boss of Hungary.
Nobody pays attention to politics; there is general apathy toward all political questions. Roumanians made themselves at home in Budapest. Aristocrats and clericals are glad of their presence, but the rest of the people would like to see them go back to Bucharest. They maintain strict order, and I feel positive that as soon as they leave, there will be at once new bolshevik outbreaks and another revolution.
- ↑ Translated from the “Národní Politika”, Sept. 29, 1919.
This work was published before January 1, 1929 and is anonymous or pseudonymous due to unknown authorship. It is in the public domain in the United States as well as countries and areas where the copyright terms of anonymous or pseudonymous works are 95 years or less since publication.
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