The assault on historical memory: Hungarian nationalists and the Holocaust

East European Quarterly

Volumn 33, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 411-425

  Braham, Randolph L ^a  

^a CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; ETHNOLOGY; HISTORY; HOLOCAUST; HUNGARY; JEW; LEGAL ASPECT; MEMORY; POLITICAL SYSTEM; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; SOCIAL STATUS; VIOLENCE; WAR;

HISTORIOGRAPHY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HOLOCAUST; HUNGARY; JEWS; MEMORY; POLITICAL SYSTEMS; SOCIAL CONDITIONS; VIOLENCE; WORLD WAR II;

EID: 1442316839     PISSN: 00128449     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. This study is limited to the identification of some of the approaches used in cleansing the historical record of Hungary during the Nazi era by denigrating, distorting, and, in some cases, denying the Holocaust. It does not aim at an overview of the various factions of the Right in contemporary Hungary.
2. One cannot, of course, determine how many among these "respectable" individuals also engage in Holocaust denial "secretly" for ideological or pecuniary reasons. Gábor Bencsik, the General Secretary of the Association of Hungarian Journalists (Magyar Ujságirok Szövetsége), for example, was caught in August 1998 selling Holocaust-denying videotapes stored, together with other Nazi-related literature, in the second-hand bookshop of his brother András, the editor in chief of "Hungarian Democrat" (Magyar Demokrata). Gábor was compelled to give up his position in the Association.
3. László Karsai, "A Shoah a magyar sajtóban, 1989-1991" (The Shoah in the Hungarian Press, 1989-1991) in Zsidóság, identitás, történelem (Jewry, Identity, History), Mária Kovács, Yitzhak M. Kashti, and Ferenc Erös, eds. (Budapest: T-Twins, 1992), pp. 68-69. The history cleansers characterize the yearly Holocaust commemorative events as propaganda against the Christian Hungarians.
4. Although members of the Axis Alliance, Bulgaria and Romania, after having "solved" some aspects of the Jewish question on their own, resisted the pressure by Nazi Germany to implement the Final Solution. In a different context, this was largely also the case with France and Slovakia.
5. For details, consult Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide. The Holocaust in Hungary (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 2 vols. (Cited hereafter as Braham, Politics.)
6. Among the most important of these publications are the three-volume Vádirat a nácizmus eilen (Indictment of Nazism) by Elek Karsai and Ilona Benoschofsky, (1960-1967); Karsai's two-volume "Fegyvertelen álltak az aknamezökön..." (They Stood Unarmed in the Mine Fields...; 1962); Mária Ember's Hajtükanyar (Hairpin Bend; 1974); György Száraz's Egy elöitélet nyomában (In the Footsteps of a Prejudice; 1976); and István Nemeskürty's Requiem egy hadseregért (Requiem for an Army; 1972).
7. Csoori's diatribe was part of his autobiographical series Nappali Hold (Daytime Moon) published in Hitel (Credit), Budapest, September 5, 1990, p. 6. Like other anti-Semites of his type, Csoóri felt compelled to single out a few noted writers and poets, including Antal Szerb, Miklós Radnóti, and György Konrád, as "good Hungarians." The contrasting of a few "prominent" Jews with the rest of Jewry was also the technique used by Bishop Ottokár Prohászka, the notorious Catholic Jew-baiter, and Miklós Horthy, the former Hungarian head of state.
8. Under a ruling by the Hungarian Constitutional Court of June 30, 1995, and Decree No. 118/1998 of the Council of Ministers, access to certain archival records has been greatly restricted and the duplication and removal of copies virtually prohibited. The "personal data protection" provisions of recent legislative acts, presumably designed to protect public officials who had formerly been associated with either the Nazi or the Communist regime, impose considerable restrictions on the activities of scholars, especially foreign historians. To cite just one example: Access to the archives of the National Central Alien Control Office (KEOKH), the agency responsible for the roundup and deportation of close to 18,000 "alien" Jews in the summer of 1941, most of whom were slaughtered near Kamenets Podolsk, was blocked for 90 years. László Varga, "A Holocaust és a rendszerváltás Magyarországon" (The Holocaust and the Systemic Change in Hungary) (forthcoming).
9. Péter Feldmajer, "Az osztogató igazságtalanság elve és gyakorlata" (The Principle and Practice of the Injustice of Distribution), Uj Elet (New Life), Budapest, January 15, 1999.
10. Acting under the auspices of the Ministry (Nemzeti Kulturális Orökség Minisztériuma), the exhibit, including the script dated April 9, 1999, was prepared by István Ihász, an associate of the Hungarian National Museum (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum) in Budapest. The script identified the members of the advisory committee of experts as follows: Mária Schmidt, the Prime Minister's Office; József Schweitzer, the Chief Rabbi of Hungary; and Tamás Stark, Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The exhibit as planned by Ihász and his associates clearly aimed to whitewash the darkest chapter in Hungarian history and cleanse the historical record of the Horthy era, presumably to bring about its eventual rehabilitation. The historians and museum experts who were requested to review the script were unanimous in their critical evaluation and warned about the possible backlash of such an exhibit, which would in fact dishonor the memory of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Holocaust in Hungary. Reportedly, in light of the negative reaction, the Chief Rabbi and Stark withdrew from the committee. Although this plan appears to have been jettisoned after it was unmasked by the press in early September 1999, it will be reviewed in detail in a separate study.
11. Braham, Politics, passim.
12. The Regent's political rehabilitation began with the return of his remains from Portugal, together with those of his wife and youngest son and their reinternment in his home town of Kenderes on September 4, 1993. Among the tens of thousands of Hungarians attending the reburial were four leading members of the Antall government. Randolph L. Braham, "The Reinterment and Political Rehabilitation of Miklós Horthy," in Slavic Almanach, Vol. II. Henrietta Mondry and Paul Schweiger, eds. (Johannesburg: University of the Witwaterstand, 1993), pp. 137-40.
13. This view is espoused by, among others, Aron Mónus, a notorious Hitlerworshipping historical revisionist. See his epilogue to the 1996 Hungarian edition of Hitler's Mein Kampf (Harcom. Hódmezövásárhely: Interseas Editions, p. 366). He reiterated the same views in Uj Magyarország (New Hungary), August 13, 1994, p. 5.
14. See László Karsai, "The Radical Right in Hungary," a paper read at a conference in Seattle on March 23, 1996.
15. This view has been expressed, among others, by Dr. István Jáni, a former gendarmerie captain in charge of a unit guarding the ghetto of Szombathely. His views were aired on a TV program presumably designed to whitewash the anti-Jewish activities of the gendarmerie. Titled Híven, becsülettel, vitézül (Faithfully, With Honor, With Bravery) - the logo of the former gendarmerie - the documentary was aired on the Duna TV-station of Budapest on December 6, 1998.
16. This position was entertained by most of the "expert historians" featured in the documentary cited above.
17. Many communities in Hungary have erected plaques and monuments honoring the local martyrs of the war, listing them alphabetically irrespective of the circumstances of their death. The same approach is followed in many memorial books. See, for example, Somogy megye a II. világháborúban (Somogy County in the Second World War), Péter Szabó and Ferenc Szily, eds. (Kaposvár: A Somogy Megye Levéltár kiadása, 1993), 539 p. Pages 179-536 of the book, for which Sándor Szakály wrote the introduction and served as editorial consultant, contains the listing of the wartime casualties by communities. In this approach, the number of Christian casualties is almost three times as high as those of the Jews killed during the Holocaust: Soldiers, 5,916; civilians, 4,498; Jews, 3,539.
18. See, for example, "Osszehasonlitó véralgebra és a holocaust" (Comparative Blood Algebra and the Holocaust) by István Lovas in Népszabadság (People's Freedom), Budapest, March 5, 1999, p. 10.
19. Mr. Lovas revealed not only his malicious intent in the selective use of dubious sources, but also his ignorance as reflected by his "analysis" of the Wannsee Conference. One is perplexed not so much with the views of the author, identified as a "Rightist-nationalist-conservative" publicist, as with the explanations offered by Pál Eötvös, the editor-in-chief of Népszabadság, one of Hungary's most popular and respected daily, for publishing a piece that in his own admission would be liable to criminal prosecution in several other countries. Ibid. He clearly fails to recognize that not only the denial of the Holocaust, but even more its denigration and distortion - a practice engaged in by many "respectable" nationalist history cleansers - are among the primary sources and components of contemporary anti-Semitism in Hungary. Lovas' views were rejected by many reputable Hungarian scholars and intellectuals. See "Vita a vérröl és a holocaustról" (Debate About Blood and the Holocaust), Hetek (Weeks), Budapest, Vol. 4, No. 10, March 1999.
20. For a fully documented scholarly account of the uniqueness of the Holocaust, see Steven T. Katz, The Holocaust and Mass Death Before the Modern Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
21. (The Holocaust in Historical Context, Vol. I.)
22. Anti-Semites and ultranationalists continuously emphasize that most of the leaders of the short-lived proletarian dictatorship of 1919 were "Jews," overlooking the fact that these Communists of Jewish origin were in reality "magyarized internationalists" whose class-oriented social and economic policies hurt the Jewish community even more than the Christian society. And, of course, these anti-Semitic elements always fail to note that the counterrevolutionary forces that succeeded the proletarian dictatorship killed many more human beings, Jews and non-Jews alike, than the Communists. As to the postwar Communist era, they fail to note that the Communist Party of Hungary had over 800,000 members in the late 1980s, among whom the percentage of Jews was relatively small (the total Hungarian Jewish population was only around 80,000). Moreover, the top leadership of the Party, like its membership in general, consisted overwhelmingly of ethnic Hungarians, the Jews having been largely purged in the wake of the anti-Zionist and anti-cosmopolitan campaign that began in the Stalinist era.
23. A notorious example of this was the comment by G. Nagyné Maczó Agnes, a representative of the Smallholder's Party and one of the vice-presidents of the Hungarian Parliament. During a speech on March 17, 1997, the former member of the right-of-center Hungarian Democratic Forum, reminded Mr. Imre Szekcres, the leader of the Hungarian Socialist Party faction, that his predecessor was "the Hungarian-hating Manó Roth" - a clear reference to Mátyás Rákosi, the Stalinist leader of Jewish origin. Ignoring the fact that Rákosi was perhaps an even greater Jew-hater, the parliamentary vice-president clearly didn't even know that Rákosi's original name was Rosenfeld. For some details on this incident, see Péter Regös, "Zsidózó '56-os vendég" (An Anti-Semitic Guest of the '56 [Generation]) Menóra, October 3-10, 1997.
24. Horrible and murderous as the Gulags were, the inmates were overwhelmingly political and performed tasks deemed useful by the Soviet state. The history cleansers ignore the fact that, unlike the Jews deported to Auschwitz, the Gulag inmates, identified as "enemies of the people," were allowed to receive mail, food packages, medical care, and occasionally visits during the period of their incarceration. While millions of Gulag inmates died or were killed during the 70-year history of the Soviet Union, the families of the victims were not subjected to the treatment the Jews were during the Holocaust. For a balanced overview of the basic differences between Auschwitz and the Gulag, see Steven T. Katz, The Holocaust and Comparative History (New York: Leo Baeck Institute, 1993), pp. 18-25.
25. (Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture 37.)
26. Sándor Püski, a publisher and bookdealer identified with pro-Rightist activities, went even further, claiming that the Horthy regime entered the Second World War to save the Hungarian Jews and it was the same reason why it could not end the alliance with Hitler. For some details on this bizarre position, see Ivan Berend, "Jobbra át [Right Face]. Eight-Wing Trends in Post-Communist Hungary" in Democracy and Right-Wing Politics in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, Joseph Held, ed. (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1993), pp. 127-28.
27. Braham, Politics, pp. 393, 397-401
28. Braham, Politics, Ibid., pp. 1063-64.
29. While myth-makers operating at opposite ends of the political spectrum also claim credit for Heinrich Himmler and Raoul Wallenberg very few find it politically fashionable to acknowledge the decisive role the Red Army played in the liberation of the Jews. The chief spokesman for Himmler's alleged role in rescuing the Jews of Budapest is SS-Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Höttl (Walter Hagen), former Head of the Intelligence Service of the Security Service in Vienna (which covered Hungary). See his interview in Péter Bokor's Végjáték a Duna mentén (End Game Along the Danube) (Budapest: RTV-Minerva-Kossuth, 1982) p. 192.
30. See also Braham, Politics, p. 939 (note 152) Wallenberg's transformation from an authentic hero of the Holocaust, the savior of some 4,000 to 7,000 Jews, into a myth has taken place during the Cold War. Killed by the Soviets, many writers and politicians identify him as the "savior of 100,000," if not all of the Jews of Budapest.
31. Tamás Stark, Péter Szabó, and Sándor Szakály, "Második világháború. A magyar munkaszolgálat" (The Second World War. The Hungarian Labor Service), Magyar Nemzet (Hungarian Nation), Budapest, February 20, 1992 and February 28, 1992.
32. See also Randolph L. Braham, "Nyugtalanitó gyakorlatok Magyarországon a Holocausttal kapcsolatban" (Disturbing Research Practices on the Holocaust in Hungary), Menóra, May 29, 1992, pp. 3-4.
33. Sándor Szakály served as the expert historian as well as the chair of a discussion forum in the TV documentary cited in note 14.
34. See László Karsai's piece cited in note 13.
35. See also Rabbi Marvin Hier, "Remembrance Needs to Emphasize Villains, not Heroes," Martyrdom and Resistance, New York, March-April 1995, p. 12.
36. In addition to permitting the publication of such venomously anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying periodicals as Hunnia and Szent Korona, the Hungarian authorities also consented to the reissuing of Hitler's Mein Kampf (see note 13) and of the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, works that were effectively exploited by the Nazis and their Hungarian hirelings in the drive against the Jews.
37. In late May 1999, for example, a Munich court convicted the French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen for inciting racial hatred by referring to the Holocaust as "a detail in the history of World War II" during a press conference in Munich.
38. In the late 1990s, the popularity of such extremist parties as the Hungarian Justice and Life Party (Magyar Igazság és Elet Pártja) of István Csurka, a notorious anti-Semite and self-confessed informer of the Communist secret police, and the Hungarian League for the People's Welfare (Magyar Népjóléti Szövetség), led by Albert Szabó, a semi-illiterate demagogue, appears to have grown. In February 1999, some of their followers, enjoying the protection of the Hungarian police, gathered in the Buda Fort area together with skinhead and neo-Nazi elements from abroad to commemorate the SS and their Hungarian allies who had fallen in the defense of the fort. For some details, see Tamás Barabás, "A Sieg Heil - szabad" (The Sieg Heil Is Permitted), Uj Elet, March 15, 1999.
39. See also Karl Pfeifer, "Nyilt levél Orbán Viktor miniszterelnök úrnak" (Open Letter to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán), Hetek, Vol. 3, No. 10, March 1999.
40. In the forefront of chauvinistic nationalists, Csurka - to enhance his popularity - also called for the reannexation of Vojvodina (Vajdácska) during the war in Kosovo. "Right Wing Call for Vojvodina's Return," The Budapest Sun, September 1, 1999.
41. See, for example, "Szaporodnak az antiszemita megnyilvánulások" (The Anti-Semitic Manifestations Are Multiplying), Hetek, Vol. 3, No. 11, March 1999.
42. Germany had come to grips with the Holocaust already in the era of Konrad Adenauer. On July 16, 1995, two months after taking office, President Jacques Chirac publicly recognized France's responsibility for deporting some 70,000 Jews to Nazi death camps during the German occupation in World War II. On August 21, 1997, Croatia apologized to the Jews for the crimes committed by the Ustashi regime during the Nazi era. On October 8, 1998, November 26, 1998, Japan formally extended its apologies to Korea, and on November 28, 1998, to China, for the crimes committed by the Japanese occupation forces.
43. A few Hungarian politicians spoke quite eloquently about the need to honestly confront the past without admitting, however, the crucial role the various Hungarian governments had played in the destruction of the Jews. A more forceful position was taken by the Hungarian ecclesiastical leaders. In a joint declaration issued in late November 1994, the Hungarian Catholic Bishops' Conference and the Ecumenical Council of the Churches of Hungary (A Magyar Katolikus Püspöki Konferencia és a Nagyarországi Egyházak Okumenikus Tanácsa) acknowledged that responsibility must be borne by those Christians who, for a variety of reasons, remained silent during the tragedy that engulfed Jewry. The declaration was published, among others, in Magyar Hirlap (Hungarian Journal), November 30, 1994. Eloquent as the statement was, it failed to acknowledge the role the Christian churches themselves had played in laying the ground for the tragedy.
44. By far the most honest expression of sorrow was made by former Prime Minister Gyula Horn. In a letter addressed to László Keller, an advisor on Eastern Europe to the World Jewish Congress, on July 3, 1994, Horn expressed the need not only to confront the past, but also "to apologize for the destruction of 600,000 of our fellow citizens." The letter was reproduced, among others, in Uj Kelet (New East), Tel Aviv, July 8, 1994. Gratifying as this letter was, however, it failed to achieve the desired impact, primarily because - as a ruling of a Budapest District Court (A Pesti Központi Kerületi Biróság 29. P.92. 750/1884/13) so aptly indicated - the then prime minister-elect merely expressed his personal views. A similar statement issued by the head of state or the government, expressing official public policy, would not only undercut the legitimacy of the history cleansers and Holocaust deniers, but possibly also lead to the catharsis and reconciliation people of good will so deeply desire.