Márosvásárhely, Székelyföld Autonomous Region, Romania
[Before the war, this city was officially referred to by its Romanian name "Târgu Mureș." Due to the significant contribution of the Hungarian minority to the war, the Romanian government has started using the city's Hungarian name. I meet Hunor Majzes in the center of the city, standing in front of the "Friendship Monument" which contains a bilingual plaque that reads "Long live the Hungarian-Romanian Friendship" in Hungarian (Éljen a Magyar-Román Barátság) and Romanian (Trăiască Prietenia Maghiară-Română).]
Before the war, the Romanians were our greatest enemy. We Magyars lived in this land since the Honfoglalás yet the Romanians wanted to strip us of our rights and assimilate us. When I was really young, we lived in a situation similar to the Czechs or our Polish brothers under Hitler with the only difference being that we didn't suffer a direct genocide; those Büdős Oláh tried to erase us through forced Romanianization and institutional discrimination in education by trying to ban our language and customs in contrast to the Nazis who just went for full-on massacre and starvation. This is one of the reasons my name is Hunor—there is no Romanian equivalent for my name. If my name was something like István or György, then they would've forcefully changed it to Stefan or Gheorge. Through methods like these, they even managed to completely phase out some of us!*
Although things started to improve after we got rid of that scumbag Ceaușescu in the Romanian Revolution of 1989, we still had to deal with idiots like Vadim Tudor and Gheorge Funar**. Though this was nowhere nearly as bad as what our fellow Magyars in Slovakia had to go through due to that dirty group of drunken vagabond Gypsies known as the SNP***, life in Romania was hard for us.
The zombie war changed everything.
As a result of this war, billions died, but hatred between the Romanians and us ended and the same happened in other parts of the world; Israel and Palestine, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and other areas. Those Romanians no longer call us Bozgor.
(*Under the rule of the Communist Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, the Hungarian minority in Romania suffered mass culture genocide that virtually annihilated the Csángó, an ethnic sub-group of Hungarians with their own distinct culture and dialect.)
(**Before the war, Vadim Tudor, the leader of the far-right, Anti-Hungarian, Greater Romania Party, advocated for Hungarian Genocide on several occasions. Gheorge Funar, the former mayor of Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár in Hungarian) was known for defacing Hungarian monuments in the city.)
(***Slovak National Party, an ultranationalist extreme far-right Slovak political party known for its profoundly Anti-Hungarian stance)
What does "Bozgor" mean?
One without a home. And it is an extremely offensive word to us because we in a way lost our homes to the Romanians in 1919, after that goddamn treaty*. Calling us "Bozgor" is like calling the Black people who live in your country "Nigger." I believe that during the Vietnam War, one of those Blacks said he isn't going to serve in the US army because [He tries his best African-American accent] "Them Viet Cong never called me Nigger." Well, in this war, the zombies never called us Bozgor, but that was completely irrelevant; it was either survive or die regardless of whether you were Hungarian, Romanian, or whatever.
We don't know how the infection first reached Romania but we do know that it started in Bucharest—specifically from the Chinatown. There was a report of "gang violence" in that area and although the Romanian authorities seemed to have everything under control, things seemed wrong. We heard that this "gang violence" involved Chinese people trying to bite other people and although we didn't pay this much attention at first, we also read in the news of Hungary itself that a similar incident involving Chinese businessmen and some Gypsies had occurred in Budapest. Afterwards, I heard from some of my friends—who're Hungarians living in Ukraine—that something similar had happened in Kiev.
(*The Treaty of Trianon, signed at the conclusion of World War I, utterly destroyed the Hungarian Empire and reduced the territory of Hungary by 72% and resulted in 3.3 million ethnic Hungarians being stranded outside of Hungary.)
Were you worried when you heard about these events?
I was somewhat worried at first but didn't really think of it too much. Before the war, gang violence was a big problem all over Europe—not just Romania, Hungary, and other former Communist states—there were plenty of gangs in Northern and Western Europe such as the Italian and Corsican mafias* and the Chinese mafia was widespread so we just dismissed it as their usual bootlegging and smuggling antics gone bad. Life went on as normal. Even though I mentioned earlier that we often had problems with the Romanians, we Magyars still managed to survive without a lot of problems compared to our brethren in other areas.
It was only when I heard about this new vaccine for rabies being released in the US that I started to grow suspicious. I started to grow suspicious when I did some research about this new strain of "rabies" and found an article about an outbreak in South Africa. This article mentioned a mob of insane people attacking others and biting them. I did some more research and found some reports of hospital victims in the area dying instantly and then "going crazy."
I then noticed how similar this mob of biting attackers was to reports I heard earlier. It was only a matter of time before they would reach Érdely** and start to impact us. Eventually, I encountered the zombies myself, and this changed everything.
(*Fighting between regional groups of the Corsican Mafia has resulted in more than 102 murders)
(** The Hungarian name for Transylvania)
Where and when did you encounter them?
I was in Kolozsvár. I was running some errands for some of my family members in Márosvásárhely and I was on my way home when I suddenly heard some moaning coming from an alley next to where I was walking. It was night time and I was tempted to dismiss it as a bunch of drunkards and quickly walked pass when I heard the moans get louder and seemingly closer. I quickly turned around and couldn't believe what I saw.
There were two of them, with gray, rotting skin. Their arms were stretched forward and their mouths were open; revealing a mass of rotten teeth and what appeared to be blood. Their blood curdling moans paralyzed me with fear at first but I managed to walk back slowly. This turned out to be a horrible mistake.
There was another zombie behind me. I turned around when I heard its moan. I was trapped and it looked like it would be my end. Things looked helpless so I closed my eyes and screamed. Segítség!
Suddenly I heard gunshots and lots of footsteps. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the zombies had fallen—there were bullet holes in their skulls. I looked around saw some police officers approaching me. I immediately thanked them in Romanian and they were very cordial, which I found surprising—from what I've experienced, many Romanian police officers are anti-Hungarian.
What I found even more surprising was how they offered me a ride back to Márosvásárhely.
I didn't know why they were being so hospitable but I later found out after a week.
What was the reason?
The Targoviste Plan*.
I was watching the news when the TV switched to an announcement from the Romanian government. The surprising part was that they were broadcasting in Hungarian!—they always tried to broadcast in Romanian to assimilate us or to force us to use our own money to broadcast in Hungarian. What the broadcast said specifically was a lot more surprising; the Romanian government announced that there was a new disease that brought back the dead and that parts of the country were being overrun and that we've already lost parts of Banat. It was then announced that parts of Hungary were being overrun by zombies and that the Romanian government had formed an alliance with them in order to combat the undead together.
They then announced that the Hungarian government had enacted "Operation Turul**" and that they had fled to Tatabánya after Budapest was overrun and the Honvéd was decimated at Székesfehérvár. The broadcast then explained the details of the Targoviste plan and what I found most shocking was that the government intended to evacuate to Márosvásárhely! In a way this made sense; Székelyföld is a perfect place for the government to seek refuge—our position in the middle of the Carpathian mountains and a population of Székely Magyars ready to fight to the death in order to defend their homes; this is why we managed to repel the Turks back in the 16th century while the rest of Hungary was annexed by them and the Austrians.
I then realized why the Romanian government was being so kind; they were planning on evacuating to Székelyföld. I was actually a bit worried at first that when the Romanian government comes to Székelyföld a civil war would occur; many of us Magyars still harbored a deep feeling of enmity towards the government for past actions and the fact that they were coming to Székelyföld with refuge and also intending to bring several hundred thousand Romanians with them would cause a civil war.
Fortunately, a civil war was the last thing anyone wanted—half of Romania was already overrun by the zombies—so the Romanian government came up with the perfect solution to protect themselves and keep us and the Romanians from fighting.
(*Romania's version of the Redeker Plan.)
(**Hungary's version of the Redeker Plan)
How so?
Their idea was to only bring 200,000 Romanians—mostly soldiers—to Székelyföld while the rest of the population was to either fend for themselves like most people around the world did or find their way to special isolated zones: Kolozsvár, Arad, Targoviste, Bucovina, and Dobrogea. In this way, the Magyars of Székelyföld were assured that they wouldn't be forced to assimilate due to an influx of Romanians.
However, the really good part of their idea—the one that probably contributed to the massive improvement of Romanian-Hungarian relations both in Romania and abroad—was the idea of promising us autonomy after the war!
Before the war, the people of Székelyföld had campaigned for an autonomous region on several occasions but the government never accepted our proposals. This time, they gave us a written agreement that as soon as Romania was cleared of zombies, Székelyföld would become an autonomous region and Hungarian would become the official language. The government even announced an official apology for all acts against us in the past in order to gain our trust.
How did most Romanians respond?
They were surprisingly agreeable. With the exception of a few far-right extremists and the Greater Romania Party—which the government banned—most of the Romanians within the Székelyföld safe zone and also within the isolated zones didn't really complain about this new decree.
It makes sense since we were all united against our undead enemy—the government also encouraged cooperation between Romanians and ethnic minorities in other areas such as the Crimeans in Dobrogea and the Ukrainians of Bucovina and, most surprisingly, the Gypsies! The Gypsies were perhaps the most hated people in Romania before the war—there were hated so much that in the 1990s, there were reports of Romanians and Magyars cooperating* against them—yet the government was now encouraging cooperation with them. I guess we had no other choice—anyone is better than a zombie.
However, the most noticeable consequence of the Romanian government's solution of autonomy for Székelyföld was the improvement of Romanian-Hungarian relations. This was achieved because Hungary and Romania—along with Bulgaria—were part of a "united front" to combat the undead hordes coming from the Balkans. The Balkans were overflowing with zombies because even before the war, illegal Chinese immigrants simply loved to use this route to enter Western and Central Europe for some reason. But before we could unify our forces to combat these hordes, we first had to secure our own nations.
This was much easier said than done, but Romania was the first nation to be cleared, and the government puts a lot of credit on us for this. This is why they decided to change the names of settlements in Székelyföld to their Hungarian versions instead of the Romanian ones.
(*In 1993, the village of Hădăreni (Hadrév in Hungarian) had a racial conflict that involved Romanians and Hungarians teaming up against ethnic Roma in the village and ended with three Romas being lynched by a mixed Hungarian-Romanian mob)
How did the Hungarian minority contribute?
We first worked for the government manufacturing weapons in Székelyföld. But this kind of activity happened in safe zones everywhere worldwide so this wasn't the reason we got so much credit. The main reason is that when the Romanian army was reorganized, 450,000 soldiers out of a total force of 650,000 were Magyars. Some Romanians were still worried that the Magyars would rebel and start a civil war as soon as the opportunity presented itself. We proved them wrong. In the same way Japanese-Americans* serving in your forces during World War II proved that they would fight for America in order to secure more rights for their community and prove that they weren't a fifth column, we would do the same.
I joined the Romanian Army as soon as they asked for volunteers. During the training session, we were surprised to find that we would be serving in mixed Hungarian-Romanian units and that Romanian soldiers were actually encouraged to learn our language in spite of the fact that most of us already knew Romanian.
When we went on the offensive, the enmity between our two peoples probably ended for good.
Our first mission was to move out from Székelyföld into Érdely and clear the entire region. Afterwards, we would recruit more soldiers from the survivors there and then split into two groups; one to move northeast and liberate Bucovina and one to move south towards Banat and Wallachia.
Our first battle was Brassó. It was during this battle that I befriended the Romanians in my unit and I lost my hatred towards them.
We reached the outskirts of the city and then got into a massive square formation, similar to one used by your country during their march towards New York. The military played the Romanian national anthem and the anthem of the Székely people to attract the zombies. This part of the battle went just like most of the ones you Americans experienced. After we were done and the bodies were buried, we proceeded to enter the city itself, and that's where things started to get difficult.
(*During the Second World War, the 442nd Infantry Regiment of the US Army—which consisted almost exclusively of Japanese-Americans—became the most decorated unit in the entire US armed forces.)
How so?
We had to clear all the buildings, subway tunnels, and other areas in the city that could be hiding zombies. There was no way of knowing when a zombie would just appear all of a sudden so we split into small groups of 30 and started to clear each building individually.
When we were searching the station, I accidentally got separated from my group and I ended of running into an undead horde of zombies. [Shudders at the memory]
There had to be at least 25 of them. There was no way I could take them all so I turned back to retreat when I saw about half a dozen of them blocking my way. Things looked hopeless so I just started firing away at the smaller group in the hopes of clearing a passage when I suddenly heard more gunshots coming from the direction of the larger group.
I initially ignored it and kept on shooting the zombies in front of me and only when I managed to dispatch them did I turn around. I was surprised to see that almost all of the zombies were down and that the few remaining were being rapidly dispatched by my fellow soldiers!
Once they were all gone, one of them, a new Romanian friend of mine named Petru, came up to me and asked if I was alright. This was enough—they saved my life, therefore I decided I should appreciate the Romanians more. Events like the one I went through happened in other battles too and led to the cooling of ethnic tensions everywhere.
After Brassó, we advanced towards Banat and liberated several cities there before going towards Wallachia. When we reached Bucharest, we had one hell of a difficult time but we still managed to win. It was simply amazing that we had worked together and liberated the capital of Romania.
Whenever we encountered some of the safe zones we were always given a hero's welcome and referred to as true Romanian patriots. I just find it amazing that some of these people thought we were a fifth column before the war.
The only problem we had was Dobrogea. Even though the people there all got along and were so successful that they managed to annex the Bulgarian part of the region as well, they did not want to reintegrate back into Romania again. They were doing well as some trilingual Romanian-Bulgarian-Crimean Tatar federation and didn't want that to change. The fact that they had fortified all of their land borders with naval guns taken from ships in the Romanian and Bulgarian navies didn't help either. So the government reluctantly left them to their own devices and this is the reason Romania currently doesn't have a coastline now.
Anyways, by the time we had reached Dobrogea, the Hungarian and Bulgarian armed forces had already liberated most of their territory so we teamed up as a united front to defend our borders from further zombie attacks.
So you didn't have any more offensive operations?
No we didn't. Liberating our countries had already cost us too much. Romania had lost 9 million people, Hungary 3.5 million, and Bulgaria 3 million. We had lost so much so we just decided to go on the defensive until the rest of the world was cleared. The only exception was Hungary; they still sent about half of their armed forces to Slovakia in order to help clear it so they could then enter Poland and dispatch the zombies there since the Polish army was doing badly against German and Belarusian born swarms.
In the end, the war had a positive consequence in spite of the fact that billions of people dying.
And what was that consequence?
The thawing of ethnic and racial tensions worldwide. At first I thought this was a selfish way to think, but things similar to the situation in Romania happened in other parts of the world too.
Look at the situation between Jews and Palestinians before and after the war. The Palestinians were oppressed by Israeli forces and gradually lost their territories, to which they responded by suicide-bombing Israel on several occasions. The Israelis knew that they would have to reconcile with the Palestinians if they were to survive so they decided to withdraw from Palestinian land. They then allowed the Palestinians to seek refuge in Israel so they could assure them and the world that they meant no harm.
That is just the most famous example. What I found to be even more shocking was the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan! Can you imagine?! Armenia and Azerbaijan! Two countries that simply hated each other! Their conflict was many times worse than the conflict between Israel and Palestine, Hungarians and Romanians, and even the conflict between India and Pakistan—at the very least those two countries had all the diplomatic machinery and a substantial Hindu minority in Pakistan and a Muslim community in India to prevent a war from happening. If Armenia and Azerbaijan had nukes, they would've erased each other off the globe at the slightest provocation; before the war, they didn't have any diplomatic relations—Iran and Russia were responsible for negotiations between them—and after that war in the 1990s over that strip of land in Azerbaijan with an Armenian majority*, there were virtually no Armenians in Azerbaijan and vice versa. When Iran became a nuclear wasteland, and Russia declared martial law, this led to a change in their relations. When the zombies started to take over Turkey and the Caucasus, the two countries formed an alliance and decided to combine their armed forces. This was an ingenious idea as Armenia and Azerbaijan had very low casualty rates as a result. Presently, the two countries are at peace and they've gotten rid of their territorial disputes via Armenia annexing that strip of land and Azerbaijan tolerating it in exchange for Azeri sovereignty over parts of Iran.
(*The Nagorno-Karabakh War, 1990-1994, was a war fought over the ethnically Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan known as Nagorno-Karabakh. The war ended in a decisive Armenian victory but economically destroyed both countries. Ethnic massacres occurred on both sides and managed to virtually erase the presence of Azerbaijanis in Armenia and Armenians in Azerbaijan, except for Nagorno-Karabakh, which was occupied by Armenia.)
What do you think about World War Z overall?
I think it was a horrible catastrophe that nearly wiped out the human race. However, only an event like this would've been able to unify people and end ethnic and racial tensions worldwide.
It's shamefully true, but only an event on this scale would end hatred between people and unify them against the real enemy.