Jim Balogh is a now retired successful businessman in Cleveland Ohio but his story features some of the iconic events of post-World War II history.
As you will see, Jim (Imre in Hungarian) was just a teenager when the Hungarian Revolution broke out on October 23, 1956. When he and his friends heard of the resistance against the country’s subordination to the Soviet Union they went to Budapest and joined in. Soon he and the other students were shot at and may were killed. Jim was shot in the back and was 1 mm away from having his main artery hit and being killed. He tells the story of his arrest, the “surgery” to remove the bullet and subsequent events such as throwing Molotov cocktails on Russian tanks, tearing down the statue of Stalin, ripping the Russian symbol out of the Hungarian flag and more.
The Revolution was short-lived and unsuccessful but Jim’s adventures continued. About 3000 Hungarian teens like him joined the US Army in Yugoslavia and was eventually sent to New York on a ship and for basic training in South Carolina. He spoke Hungarian and Russian but very little English so that was a struggle. He was sent to Korea twice where he fought the Chinese in the DMZ in freezing temperatures. At the Army base he told a friend that he had a taste for Hungarian food and the friend steered him to Cleveland Ohio which had the largest number of Hungarians in the world outside of Budapest. He met his wife there, worked the night shift, went to college and became a mechanical engineer and started a business in 1970.
The video includes many more interesting stories such as his first visit back to Hungary in 1975 and being arrested. Jim has had a fascinating life and the stories he tell are worth watching. The video begins with a quick look at Mindszenty Plaza in Cleveland where there is a powerful statue of the Hungarian Freedom Fighter holding the flag of Hungary with the Russian start torn out. That’s Ernie Mihaly, Jim Balogh and his wife Carolyn in front of the Freedom Fighter statue in 2016.
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