Ervin Fornay

Ervin Fornay was born on 16 November 1912 in Losonc, his father was a professional military officer. After graduating from the Ludovika Academy, he was commissioned as a gunnery lieutenant in 1935. He changed his name from Redl at an unknown date. He served his entire service with the 9th Field Artillery Division in Nagykanizsa, as a battery commander from 1937 and as a division commander from 1944.

He participated in the 2nd Army's fighting in Don and was awarded the Governor's Commendation of the Sword and wounded twice.

In the Battle of Budapest, the artillery gun was first used in Csepel on 10 November 1944.

He was taken prisoner on 12 February 1945 at 36 Fő utca in Buda, and returned to Hungary on 27 July 1947. After a while he got a job at the Technology Company in District XIII.

On 25 March 1958 he was demoted, but surprisingly Fornay appealed against this and even more surprisingly it was upheld. The reasons, based essentially on a positive evaluation of his workplace, were as follows:

"He was not a party member, yet he was in the factory guard organised by the party. He was in the factory for several days at a time, on duty with the workers. The party secretary, personnel department head and the comrade director are of the opinion that he should (if possible) be given back his rank of reserve officer because of his behaviour and his stand. [...] The counter-revolutionary bandits demanded that he be put on the 'blacklist' of the Workers' Council for serving the 'Rákosi system'".

It is worth analysing this text, all the more so because in other cases the same acts have been presented as accusations. All the indications are that the company's managers covered up for each other and for Fornay. Nowhere were the factory guards organised by the 'party', which had completely disintegrated during the revolution and only began to organise itself at factory level in 1957. The factory guards were basically in the hands of the workers' councils, which did not draw up any blacklists.

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