A Piece of Living History
of First Baptist Church
Albemarle, N.C.

In the Sunday, March 29, 1998 edition of The Charlotte Observer there was the announcement that an outstanding Cardiologist and heart surgeon, Dr. Francis Robischek, was retiring. For almost half a century, Dr. Robischek has been one of the leading heart surgeons in America. He was a true pioneer in the development of the heart-lung machine and made giant strides in improving the techniques of open-heart surgery. Dr. Robischek has been the surgeon or consultant in a number of members of First Baptist Church in by-pass or other heart related surgeries. But aside from these important facts, what would the retirement of such an imminent surgeon in Charlotte have to do with First Baptist Church of Albemarle? Many times great stories lie behind bare and simple facts. Such is this story buried in the annals of our church history.

In the winter of 1956, Rev. J. Boyce Brooks, then pastor of First Baptist Church, became aware of two refugees from war-torn, Russian-dominated Hungary, who had made their way to the United States and were residing at the resettlement camp known as Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. The man and woman had fled from Hungary where he had been targeted for immediate arrest. The couple had long been in love and desired to marry but had been forbidden to do so by the Hungarian government. When he learned of the plans for his arrest, the woman readily agreed to flee the country with him and seek a new life in America. Reverend Brooks shared the story of the couple with the church and the church agreed to sponsor the couple: On January 13, 1957, Frank Kolonits and Eva Reiss arrived in the city of Albemarle. They spoke very little English and had virtually no material possessions. Shortly after they arrived, they were married in the First Baptist Church by Reverend Brooks and were provided with one of the apartments in the building across from the Copple House. For some time the couple worked at jobs far beneath their skill levels in order to get a financial base for their new lives. Eventually, at the urging of Reverend Brooks, they moved to Charlotte where St. Johns Baptist Church took up their sponsorship. Frank found work as a mechanical engineer and his wife became a dietician. In Charlotte, Frank met a fellow Hungarian by the name of Francis Robischek. Each had known of the other in Hungary and had formed a strong dislike for each other because of their various positions in the medical field. Once they met face to face and discovered the pressures under which each had worked, they became fast friends.

Together, the two Hungarians began to work on a radically new heart-lung machine, utilizing the surgical skills and requirements of Dr. Robischek and the mechanical engineering abilities of Frank Kolonits. Beginning shortly after Christmas, the machine was completed in the middle of March. So advanced was thew machine that it was to set the standards for the heart-lung machines which would follow.

Some time later, Frank and Eva Kolonits moved to Florida where their fairy-tale story took a very tragic turn. Frank gained a great love for the ocean and the exploration of its beauties in scuba diving. At the prime of his life, he descended into the beautiful waters of the Gulf of Mexico to explore the wonders of undersea life. There his story ends, shrouded in mystery. He never returned to the surface nor was his body ever found. At this time, March 31, 1998, Eva Kolonits is still alive and has but recently been in contact with Ruth Brooks, the widow of the pastor who led First Baptist Church to sponsor a refugee couple from Hungary - a mission effort which contributed greatly to one of modem medicine’s greatest advances.

In the Tuesday, July 14, 1959 edition of The Stanly News and Press, George Weaver wrote an extensive story concerning Mr. and Mrs. Frank Kolonits which is impressive enough to be included in the historical records of our church. There follows the lengthy story just as it was written by Mr. Weaver:

Maker of Outstanding Heart-Lung Machine is
Former Albemarle Hungarian Refugee of 1957

Tuesday, July 12, 1959

Frank and Eva Kolonits are radiantly happy. They say they have been among the luckiest people in the world. Further, they recognize the hand of God in their good fortune. Three years ago they were struggling against the terrors of communism in their native city of Budapest. They were doing what they were told by the government ministry - at least what they had to do to get by. They were in love and unable to marry because the government would provide them no living quarters and would not permit them to have any.

Today they are living in Charlotte, both are working, and they love America. Their address in 2545 East Seventh Street. The United States are lucky, too, that they chose to come here. For both are highly skilled and both are making real contribution to the life of their adopted nation. The outstanding contribution thus far has been the making of a heart-lung machine - 1959 model; he calls it - by Frank, in collaboration with Dr. Francis Robischek, another Hungarian fugitive from communist tyranny.

This machine, which makes possible open-heart surgery unheard of a few years ago, is being used in the Charlotte hospitals with marked success. It was on display at the meeting of the North Carolina Medical Society in Asheville in April. The fact that this machine must take over the functions of the human heart and lungs while surgeons repair the real heart gives some indication of its intricacy and the necessity for accuracy and exactness. It keeps the blood flowing through the patient's body and provides it with the life-sustaining oxygen, which would be normally obtained through the lungs. Blood pressure must be maintained at a constant level. The temperature must be that of the normal body. All danger of infection from outside contamination must be eliminated. It must maintain essentially the rhythm of the human heart but do it through the use of electric power instead of normal muscular contractions. When an open-heart operation must be performed, the machine is connected to the principal artery and vein in such a way that the blood bypasses the stricken heart. The normal beating of the heart is stopped while surgeons make the repairs. Then the flow of blood is returned to its normal channel through the heart and the beat of the heart started again.

To make such a machine, Frank worked after hours and nights for two and a half months - from shortly after Christmas until the middle of March. He was given permission to use the equipment and facilities of Terrell Machine Company, where he is employed regularly as a mechanical engineer. Some doctors who have examined the new heart-lung machine say that it has some features that make it superior to the other two now in use in North Carolina. The others are at Duke Hospital in Durham and Baptist Hospital, Winston-Salem. "This machine is very complicated," Frank said emphatically. "It must be accurate. Any mistake may cost a life." He is understandably proud of his work on the machine and the success that it has achieved. But he is also modest, preferring to say little about it. Eva, on the other hand, exhibits great pride in her husband’s accomplishments. Frank and Eva have come a long way in the past three years. They have been through experiences unknown in America. Although they have traveled thousands of miles from native Budapest, the distance is but one little facet of their experiences.

They came to Charlotte by way of Albemarle, under the sponsorship of Rev. J. Boyce Brooks and the First Baptist Church. It was January 13, 1957 - a Sunday morning - that the two reached Albemarle after a trip from the resettlement camp at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. They could speak scarcely any English and found it hard to understand anything that was said to them. A few days later they were wed in a simple and beautiful ceremony in the First Baptist Church, with many friends on hand to see them launched upon their now life together. Because of the recent blood bath, which had been given Hungary, it was not possible at that time to give much publicity to much of their background, except to state that Frank was an engineer and Eva - her maiden name was Eva Reiss - was a dietitian in a hospital. Frank is from a prominent European. His father was economic inspector for the city of Budapest, with a population of two million. A strapping 260-pound man, the elder Kolonits was in charge of the food supply for the city during World War II. He secured and preserved a reserve supply to guard against starvation in the event supply lines were disrupted. When the German Army ran short of supplies toward the end of the war, the Germans found out he had been hiding supplies for Budapest and had him arrested. He was thrown into the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp, where thousands died. When released he weighed less than half his normal amount. He slowly regained his health but never all his strength.

It happened that one of the men with some authority in the camp at Buchenwald was a friend and comrade in arms of the elder Kolonits in World War I days. He assigned his Hungarian friend to a job to perform in the camp, which meant that his ration of food would be double that of those who had no tasks. It is to this friendly gesture that he attributes his survival. When Hitler overran central Europe on his way to attack Russia, Frank was conscripted into the German Army, just as were many other Hungarians. "We hated the Russians," Frank said with a vengeance. "We hated the Germans, too. And we knew this was Germany's war." In fighting in 1944, Frank was wounded and sent to a German hospital. In December 1944, when the Americans were closing in on Germany, Frank and several friends were given orders to report to the front for action. This they had no intention of doing. By means of faked orders they made their way around Germany until they managed to get into contact with the Americans and give themselves up. He was, of course, sent to an American prisoner of war camp, and it was about a year before he was sent back to Hungary.

Frank tells the following story of post-war events in Hungary: "In 1945 free elections were held in Hungary and the communists got only three percent of the votes. They were, however, allowed to have the Ministry of the Interior. This had control of the police. Before long the people were being imprisoned. At first it was Americans and Hungarians connected with foreign companies. Then, more and more persons disappeared. In 1948 phony elections were held under the rules of the communists and they took over. It became the police against the people. The shiftless and the indolent obtained the good jobs and responsible positions, both in the government and in industrial plants. Many good citizens were sent to jail - literally forever. In the event a persona named Anton had a nice apartment and another person wanted it, the other person could telephone the government and say, 'Anton is against the government.' In a short time a truck would stop in front of Anton's apartment and he would be given one hour to load up his belongings. Maybe, it was on the fourth or fifth floor. Anyway, whatever he did not get loaded on the truck in one hour became the property of the government. The informer took over the apartment and Anton and his family would be lodged in a barn somewhere. Others were given the choice of spying or going to jail. They had to report on activities of their own brothers, sisters, neighbors and friends and boss men. Each table in a restaurant had a microphone and the conversation of those at the table was put on a tape."Such treatment built in the people tremendous nervous tension. They lived under such tyranny until in October 1956 it exploded. The people of Budapest almost as one person flocked into the streets and attacked their communist oppressors. The communist leaders, of course, defended their jobs. The fighting was tremendous for about three days. In one hour after it started people clogged the streets by the thousands. It was grim and bloody. Soviet tanks charged the crowds and ran them down. The dead and dying lay in the streets. Bloodstains were everywhere. Hardly a building escaped the havoc of gunfire, ranging from small arms to tank artillery shells. 'The Russian occupation troops, having been in Hungary for a year or so, for the most part had no great desire to fight against the Hungarians, whom they had come to feel friendly toward. Because of this, the Hungarians wee able to seize control. The Russian troops were withdrawn from the city, and there was a lull of about four days, during which Budapest and its aroused inhabitants enjoyed the freedom of which they had been dreaming. Then came fresh Soviet troops, right out of Russia, with direct orders to put down the uprising and to crush the Freedom Fighters.

The battle raged from house to house and through the streets for about three weeks. In the end the Communists, with their tanks and artillery had proved too strong for the brave Hungarians, many of whom fought with their bare hands. Frank estimates that some 60,000 Hungarians died during the effort to gain freedom. How many Russians also fell it is not known. Of course, all transportation was at a standstill during this time. Frank, who had been living with his parents on the outskirts of the city, stayed at his sister's apartment. It was about seven miles from his home. The police, bent on putting down the uprising and capturing those responsible, went to the Kolonits home looking for Frank but he was not there. His mother got word to him that the police were looking for him. "That is when I went to Eva's apartment and asked her if she would go away with me" he said. "We had planned many times that if it were possible we would go together. She agreed and we packed what few belongings we dared to try to take."There was still one train running from Budapest to the Austrian border each day, leaving early in the morning. That night I hid in the big hospital where Eva worked and in the morning we caught the train. Almost every day the Russians searched that train four or five times and took off anyone they suspected. God was with us. They did not search it a single time that day.' Frank and Eva tell of how many of the passengers got off the train at a city near the border, the usual place for leaving the train. There was one more small town where the train would stop before reaching the border. Frank and Eva decided to stay on until the last stop. They learned after that just as the train pulled out of the city where so many had gotten off the Russian soldiers came up and took everyone prisoner. They emphasize that the story of their escape is a story of constantly being watched over by Providence. Here is Frank's version:

'We left the train at a little town and were met by a minister. We told him we wanted to get through the border and he carried us to a boy who had been getting refugees across, but when we found him he was drunk - dead drunk. We learned he was celebrating his leaving. The Russians had found out he was aiding refugees and he was about to depart, so he was celebrating. Hungarians celebrate anything, you know. We had some caffeine pills brought from the hospital and I sobered him somewhat and we set out in a freezing fog, with around 20 in the group. The boy, for some unexplained reason, cried all the way. Just as we reached the border we ran into a Russian outpost, but there, were only two men in it and when they saw such a large group hey knew they would never live if they attacked us. Soon we breathed the free air of Austria. It was a happy day.'

Frank had some friends in Vienna, and by sheer chance they happened to enter the American Embassy. "We had dreamed," he said, "of maybe getting to South Africa or Australia - anywhere so that we could live in peace away from the tyranny of communism. It was beyond our fondest hope to get to America, but once inside the embassy everything was soon arranged and we found ourselves on our way to Camp Kilmer, N.C., the refugee center." Most of the rest of their story is pretty well known locally - how Reverend J. Boyce Brooks and the First Baptist Church spearheaded a community effort to take care of them, how a wedding was arranged for them, and how they sought suitable jobs in Albemarle. Unable to obtain suitable employment in Albemarle, they moved to Charlotte under the sponsorship of the St. John Baptist Church. Frank is now working as a mechanical engineer and Eva as a dietitian. Oddly enough, the greatest recognition given to Frank has come from the heart-lung machine that he made during his off-duty hours. In Charlotte, Frank met Dr. Francis Robischek. It turned out the Dr.. Robischek was a Hungarian, that he was from Budapest, that he was, in fact, the same doctor which Frank had grown to hate under the communist regime, because his work orders for surgical instruments kept coming insistently to Frank in his position as plant engineer.

Dr. Robischek, it turned out, had hated Frank, also, because he failed to deliver the instruments, which he had ordered. Now they are the best of friends. Each has discovered that the other, given an opportunity to enjoy freedom, is a pretty good fellow, quite capable in his won right. Frank and Dr. Robischek began work on the heart-lung machine shortly after Christmas and completed it around the middle of March. Here are two Hungarian refugees who are proving their worth to their new land of freedom.