The next day we started again.

This time it was snowing.

George looked at the snow and said that we should go home. His reasoning made sense. Tracks would be visible. Movement would be harder. Our chances of being caught again seemed very high.

I agreed that it looked bad.

But something inside me was not ready to turn around.

I said:

“All right, let's try one more time and let's start walking.”

So we walked.

Eventually we made our way into the city.

Then, by chance, we saw a large truck filled with people.

We asked where they were going.

They told us they were truck drivers.

Many Hungarian truck drivers had apparently escaped into Austria and abandoned their trucks. These men were being sent toward the border to retrieve them.

That truck was going exactly where we needed to go.

We climbed aboard.

This time we traveled much farther west, eventually reaching the area near Sopron.

The drivers dropped us perhaps five miles from the border.

Everything was covered with snow.

We did not know exactly where we were.

Someone advised us to follow railroad tracks running through a depression in the land. Russian soldiers were positioned higher up, so if we remained below the surrounding ground perhaps they would not see us.

We started walking.

Then suddenly there was a border guard standing in front of us.

He had a machine gun.

He asked where we were going.

George answered:

“We are going to the movie.”

The guard was not impressed.

“Seriously, where are you going?”

There was no longer much point in inventing a story.

We told him the truth.

We wanted to leave Hungary.

The guard began discussing the matter almost philosophically. Hungary was a nice country, he told us. Why would we want to leave?

We explained that we were students. We said we wanted to study abroad and planned eventually to return.

Finally, I offered him all the money we had.

If we reached Austria, Hungarian money was not going to be very useful anyway.

He agreed.

Then he gave us a warning.

The Austrian border was approximately five miles away.

We had forty-five minutes.

An Express train to Vienna would soon be coming along those tracks.

If we were still there when it arrived, we would either have to climb out of the railroad cut and risk capture or remain beside the tracks and be run over.

We started running.

Along the way, we passed perhaps one hundred and fifty other people who were also trying to escape.

George and I were in excellent physical condition.

That probably saved us.

There was Austria ahead.

There was a train behind.

So we ran.

By the time we reached the Austrian side, we were completely exhausted.

We collapsed.

Three more people crossed after us.

Then the train came.

After that, nobody else appeared.

We had barely made it.

That is how I left Hungary.