For 1956, Time magazine named as its Man of the Year someone who “had many faces, but was not faceless.”
History, said the article published Jan. 7, 1957, “would know him by the name he had chosen for himself during his dauntless contest with Soviet tanks: The Hungarian Freedom Fighter.”
When 60-year-old Istvan Kocsis died last month, few could have known he’d been part of a singular group recognized as Time Man of the Year.
Troy Ott knew. Ott was Kocsis’ landlord at an apartment complex he owns in Sultan, where the Hungarian native stayed 21 years in the same unit.
“He got to be like a brother to me,” said Ott, 63, who lives in Startup with his wife, Marta.
Kocsis died July 30 at Valley General Hospital in Monroe after suffering heatstroke, Ott said. Unmarried with no children, he left his landlord to handle final arrangements.
He also left Ott with dramatic tales of a boyhood struggle for freedom and of later years as a merchant seaman.
First, a history lesson. On Oct. 23, 1956, Hungary’s population rose up against the communist government, winning control over some social institutions and territory. By Nov. 4, 1956, the Soviet army had brutally suppressed the uprising, killing thousands of Hungarians.
“About 200,000 people fled, nearly 38,000 to the United States,” said Helen Szablya, of Kirkland, honorary Hungarian consul for Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Szablya, 69, escaped Hungary in December 1956 with her husband, John, a retired engineer and professor.
Szablya said Kocsis’ stories are common for many who came to this country from Hungary.
Kocsis – friends here knew him as “Steve the Hungarian” – told Ott he was 12 and hurling Molotov cocktails at Soviet tanks during the uprising. “They’d eat fruit just to get jars and bottles, then fill them with gasoline and rags and drop them on tanks,” Ott said.
His Hungarian friend told Ott he fled his village of Tinnye because he feared retaliation against his family. He and a 14-year-old trekked four days to Austria. They escaped a refugee camp there and made their way to Switzerland, to another camp.
Eventually, Kocsis was taken in by a Swiss family, Ott said. His career as a seaman began when he emigrated to Sweden at 16 and signed on as a deckhand aboard a Swedish cargo ship.
In New York in the 1970s, he was briefly married, Ott said. He joined the military and in 1980 became a U.S. citizen, which is documented on his U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Mariner’s card.
In the early ’80s, Ott said, Kocsis lived in Los Angeles and worked on oil tankers. Kocsis had told Ott he lost huge sums, upwards of a half-million dollars, betting on horseracing in California, and later on casino gambling and day-trading in stocks here.
Ott said his friend came to the Northwest to get away from gambling, yet boredom would draw him back to it. He loved the mountains, and they’d hike to old mining sites.
In death, Kocsis has a friend shouldering final arrangements and the matters of a family torn by decades of separation.
Through the Consulate of the Republic of Hungary in Kirkland, Ott located Kocsis’ sister and his elderly mother in Budapest. With Szablya translating, he has spoken with Julianna Szucs Istvanne, the sister. Julianna Kocsis, the mother, believed her son died long ago, Ott said.
Ott knew his friend’s hope was to be buried in Hungary, next to his father. Sadly, the family has not accepted the ashes. “They were bitter and shocked he was alive,” Ott said.
He persists in trying to bring a meaningful end to a fascinating story.
Saturday, Ott held a memorial service for Kocsis in Gold Bar. He is working with Everett attorney Victor Haglund to settle Kocsis’ estate. He plans to send his friend’s possessions and pictures to the family in Hungary.
Ott can’t understand why, with all of Kocsis’ retirement money, he never returned to visit family after the fall of communism 15 years ago. He doesn’t see why his friend stayed in that Sultan apartment, alone.
“He could have had everything – family, love, a home. It seemed there was a secret, something he would never let me touch,” Ott said. “Steve died kind of an enigma to me.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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