BUDAPEST, Hungary---In a small playground on Vorosmarty Square, the children we saw happily chasing one another in a circle could not have been aware of what happened here more than 40 years ago. Unless their elders told them.

"My in-laws had an apartment near here," said Julianna Ramotsa, our guide. "They took in some of the people when the shooting started." Julianna was 18 then.

About 200 Hungarians died in the square, shot by the KGB Oct. 25, 1956, forever remembered as "Bloody Thursday", the first day of the short-lived Hungarian Uprising against Communist occupation. CONTINUE

© John Hilferty 1997