The text discusses the fate of János Esterházy, an aristocrat and activist of the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia. Arrested in 1945 and deported to the Soviet Union, he returned to Czechoslovakia in 1949. Pardoned from the death sentence, he spent the rest of his life in prison, where he died of exhaustion in 1957. The essential part of his life (?) is his deep inner spiritual transformation, which took place in the most difficult period of his life. It led to the search for the meaning of suffering in the cross of Christ. Its fruit was a steadfast attitude of forgiveness and reconciliation in the spirit of mercy, confirmed by numerous accounts.