Foreign News: Out of the Mines

In Salzburg, Austria, a sickly, frightened Hungarian girl named Ilonka Nagy, 18, told her story:

“The government employment office sent me to the Komlo coal mine, in Barany county near the Yugoslav border. There were about 300 girls and boys in the mine between 14 and 21. When I went down in the shaft the first time, I was not afraid, but I looked around and said to myself: ‘What kind of work is this—this is not for a girl.’

“It was terribly hot, and we worked half-naked beside the men. The girls did all kinds of work like drilling and loading. Another girl and I worked with two men pushing cars on a 25-yard slip to the dump. In eight hours we pushed around 900 cars. We lived in a house near the mine, six girls to a room. The men couldn’t come to our house but the girls could go to the men’s dormitory.

“The men had ways of favoring the girls who spent the night with them. They gave them the best jobs, or reported they had loaded twelve cars to meet their work norm, when they loaded only ten. There was no regular hospital at the mine, but they had a twelve-bed lying-in hospital for the pregnant girls. The girls kept the children in the house till they were about five. After that, the children were put in the state school. It was a big thing to have a baby. They told us it was a work for peace. When the Imperialists killed a Hungarian in the next war, one of our children would be there to take his place.

“There were no Sunday or church holidays, only the Communist holidays, and we worked so hard to make these up that we were happier when they didn’t come. To get a free day we had to work two shifts in a row, or 16 hours. About the only way to get out of work was to break an arm or leg. What frightened us most was tuberculosis. I knew of at least 60 cases in six months.

“When we decided to escape, nine of us were finally in the party. At the frontier, my sister led, cutting the barbed wire and pointing: ‘There is a mine, and there—go between them.’ I want to go to Australia. I hope the women there will not be treated like me. I would rather be hung than work in the mines again.”