We ran, swept up in a tide of angry men and women, to the Hungarian Radio building. It was already a fortress, guarded by ÁVH secret police with submachine guns.
​”Let us in! Let the students speak!” our leaders cried.
​The ÁVH raised their rifles. The crowd surged, a wave of unarmed humanity against a wall of steel. A scuffle. A scream.
​And then, the sound that split the night in two.
​A dry, sickening pop-pop-pop-pop.
​They were firing from the windows. Into us.
​A boy next to me, no older than sixteen, gasped and crumpled to the cobblestones, his hand still holding a small paper flag.
​”They’re killing us!” a woman shrieked, her voice breaking. „My God, they are killing us!”
​That was the moment. The instant the demonstration died, and the Revolution was born in blood and gunfire.