Those of us who are gathered here know that all life ends in death. Now some of you might be thinking, that is nothing new, but, as the poet said, there really is nothing new under the sun. Death is our destiny, it’s the full stop at the end of the line, and not a child born today can hope to escape it. We are all aware of this, and yet, even now, it is not altogether sadness that we feel, but a kind of determination, a raising of the spirits, for the woman we are burying, my fellow citizens, was far from ordinary. I don’t like grand gestures or fancy phrases, so all I say is that, today, we are taking leave of a real human being. Here we stand at the graveside, all of us, large and small, old and young, because this is where we want to be, at the end of someone’s life. Someone we loved, someone who did what she had to do, someone to whom modesty was a byword, someone whose life we all celebrate, particularly now, at her death. And in her life we celebrate courage, courage that puts us all — you, me, even her own self — to shame, because, my fellow citizens, this simple woman was the only one among us who dared to resist those whom none of us opposed. Was she a hero? I ask myself. Yes, most certainly: that noble word is the right one for Mrs József Plauf, and with all my heart I endorse it. It was her son she set out to find on that night of tribulation, her son, but, my fellow citizens, I know, you know, and indeed she herself knew, that she did so on behalf of us all, to show us that courage and the spirit of battle were not altogether dead in our sheltered age. She showed us how to live; she showed us what it is to retain our humanity in the most adverse of circumstances; she showed us and all succeeding generations how we may behave provided our hearts are in the right place. Today we bid farewell to a mother with an ungrateful son, a widow who remained faithful after the death of two husbands, a simple woman who loved beauty, a woman who sacrificed her life so that we may better enjoy ours. I see her now on that dreadful night, saying to herself: this is truly unbearable. I see her now, putting on her coat to struggle against overwhelming odds. My fellow citizens: she knew that she might fail; she knew that her frail limbs were inadequate to the inevitable conflict with those desperate and evil men; she knew it all, and yet she did not flinch from danger because she was a human being, a human being who never gave up. The power of the many triumphed and she perished, but I say to you, it is she who was the victor and it was her murderers who perished, because she, in her isolation, was capable of inflicting defeat on them, in that all the assailants became objects of ridicule. She humiliated them. How? By her resistance, by her unwillingness to surrender without a fight, she, who all by herself took up the battle, which is why I say victory is hers. Go then, Mrs József Plauf, go to your well-deserved resting place, rest from your suffering: your spirit, your memory, your strength set us a truly heroic example and remain with us. You belong to us: it is only your body that perishes. We return you to the earth that bore you, not weeping that your bones must turn to dust, not weeping because we have your real presence here with us, for ever, and the workers of decay have nothing but your dust to thrive on.
