'LETTERS TO THE EDITOR': WORLDWIDE REACTION FOLLOWING HORTHY'S RE-BURIAL IN HUNGARY ON SEPTEMBER 4, 1993.

János Blumgrund of Vienna, Austria, a Hungarian Jew, appeared on a Hungarian TV interview on the occasion of Regent Horthy's re-burial in Hungary, with a caption "Jewish wreaths on Horthy's grave". A news photo was published widely at the time showing hand held placard at the scene, with the legend: "The Grateful Jewry" on it. It was Mr. Blumgrund who held the sign. Letters to editors criticizing Mr. Blumgrund's action were written by other Hungarian Jews. One of them was written by György Gadó. Gadó's letter follows:

"To Mr. János Blumgrund

Vienna, Austria

Dear Mr. Blumgrund:

I saw with some astonishment in the September 16th issue of the Pesti Hirlap the information under the title "Jewish wreaths of Horthy's grave" along with your photograph.

I wouldn't have believed from the champion of human rights as I have known you , and for what I respected you until now, that you would stand up for someone like Horthy who have gravely limited human as well as civil rights (and not only in regard of Jews) from the beginning of his reign until the very end.

And you did it right at the time when the extreme right, and their allies in all practicality, the Hungarian right wing of Antall⁽¹⁾, with the name of "Christian Nationalist Alliance", essentially continue the rebuilding of the counter-revolutionary regime (counter-revolution in terms of countering the 1919 revolution too). The re-burial of Horthy in the prevailing circumstances, that is, not as a family ceremony but in an pseudo-official one, is one of the campaign actions of an ever more obvious counter-revolutionary politics.

As to Horthy's relationship with the Jews, only those can consider it good who are not familiar with the facts; and others who, in their assimilative and "Christian-National" enthusiasm consider it important to have credence among the supporters and beneficiaries of the anti-Semitic Hungarian right-wing.

By the way, on what right do you call yourself a "Hungarian Jew"? Perhaps by the right of your baptism and under the blessing of the Pope? Only those should call themselves who are faithful to the Jewry. You are not.

September 21, 1993

Sincerely:

György Gadó"

This is Mr Blumgrund's reply as it appeared in the Budapest daily "Pesti Hirlap", on October 11, 1993:

"Dear Mr. Gadó:

I stood up in defense of Regent Nicholas Horthy explicitly as a advocate of human rights. One of the fundamental human rights is to be buried according to one's last wishes. It is a fact of history that Nicholas Horthy has never been convicted of any crime, not even been charged with one.

Even the 'great Stalin', who can not be labeled as soft hearted, advised our prime minister, Ferenc Nagy "to leave the old gentleman alone".

It is true that Regent Nicholas Horthy restricted the operation of the Communist Party (as well as that of the Arrow Cross), but interestingly so did the United States, until the 1940's, for example. And I have not heard that President Roosevelt was called a Fascist for that.

In 1919 there was, of course, a Counter-Revolution in Hungary. It followed the Károlyi Government's Fall revolution that turned into the bloody terrorist dictatorship of Béla Kun.

During the 133 days of the Soviet Republic of Hungary, the Lenin Boys of Tibor Szamuely executed 590 people, 44 of whom were Jews. That reign of horror could only be swept away by a Counter-Revolution. This, as is known, began in Arad, Vienna, and Szeged. It was so 'anti-Semitic' that the first counter-revolutionary government's Minister of Justice in Arad was Lajos Pálmai Jewish notary. (See Hungarian Jewish Lexicon, Budapest, 1929, page 220.) It's administrative and propaganda expenses were procured by János Wolf and Samu Krausz, both Jews. Samu Biedl, the president of the local Jewish community, had a large share in the establishment of the Anti-Bolshevik Committee of Szeged. The earliest formation of the Nationalist Battalions that occupied the barracks had 72 officers; 15 of these were Jewish. (op. cit.)

From the many other references available, I quote a segment of the diary of General Harry Hill Bandholtz, who was the commander of the American Military Mission in Hungary. He refers to the report by Colonel Horowitz upon visiting Admiral Horthy in Transdanubia (September 29, 1919), in which Horowitz claims that Horthy does everything possible to prevent the persecution of Jews. "Indeed", he goes on, " there were many Jews among the Bolsheviks, hence there is a strong anti-Jewish sentiment.

Let me take a leap in time. In September, 1940, I had my bar mitzvah in Pozsony (Bratislava); that is when a Jewish boy becomes adult in a religious sense. After the ceremony at the synagogue the whole family and friends celebrated at our home. As this went on, three Hlinka guards rushed into our home and took away our radio. Because from that day on in the independent Slovak state Jews were not allowed to own radios. This was only one of the many other restrictions. And when a few months later we managed to get over to what is now referred to as "Fascist Hungary" we felt like new persons. And while around Hungary the deportation, and killing of Jews went on, the Government of Hungary has done everything possible to save not only the 800,000 Jews in Hungary, but Hungarian citizens of Jewish religion living on areas occupied by the Nazis. In 1945 Mr. Ruben Hecht, who later assisted Israeli Prime Minister Begin, expressed his personal thanks to Nicholas Horthy for this.

I consider ungratefulness a particularly ugly personal treat. I considered it natural to show my gratefulness and respect by giving my last regards to Mr. Nicholas Horthy. I believe that those surviving Jews who think in a honorable manner could have done likewise.

By the way, if you would have watched my TV interview with greater attention, you would know on what ground I can call myself a Hungarian Jew.

With the regard that you deserve:

János Blumgrund"

From the Israeli Hungarian weekly: "A Hét Tükre" ('mirror of the week') [Republished in the September 30, 1993, issue of the "Magyar Élet" Hungarian-American weekly.]

"Hungary and the Jews:

The collapse of Communism has a great deal of consequences. Most are positive. That Syria, with assorted contingencies, is willing to make peace with us is one of them. Another is, that the former Soviet state's Jewish citizens are free to travel to Israel, or practice their religion wherever they are. So is the fact that Hungary turned into a democratic country, first time in her history, such that the Jews there can be Jews, without the benefit of secret police agent "rabbis".

So is the fact that day after tomorrow, Saturday the earthly remains of Nicholas Horthy will be buried in Kenderes. It's so because the former Regent asked in his last testament from his daughter-in-law and his grandson, that as soon as the last Soviet soldier gets out of Hungary, make sure that he be buried in the ground of his country. The former regent had absolute right to this.

Based on the foregoings, I do not agree with the cripto-Communists, and with those sophisticates, with some Jews among them, who raise objections, show disgust, display rancor, and, in connection with the burial, call Horthy every bad name using the defunct Rákosi-Kádár regime's whole collection of negative expressions.

It would take a long essay to analyze what the Horthy regime meant, that is, Horthy's 25 years of reign in Hungary. I am not authorized to do this, wouldn't do it here and now. Perhaps I only comment that to determine such things concerns the Hungarian people, and not to György Gadó and his former Communist colleagues. They brought enough trouble on us already, and the time would be right for them to take on discrete silence. I include here the Communist newspapermen of Israel, who are educating the Hungarians about democracy.

What rightfully interests me is Horthy and the Jews. How can one summarize the Horthy regime from a Jewish point of view? What was the condition of the Jews between 1920 and 1945 in Horthy-Hungary?

The Horthy regime inherited in 1920 not only Trianon but the 133 day reign of terror that was defined by the names of Béla Kun and Tibor Szamuely, in which the Magyars, with some justification, have seen a Jewish dictatorship. In spite of this, the regime soon consolidated: there were no significant anti-Jewish atrocities. With the exception of the numerus clausus there were no anti-Jewish manifestations until 1939, that is, until the first Jewish laws. Although Horthy boasted here and there saying that "he was the first anti-Semite head of state in Europe", but this had no concrete manifestations. The Jews were behaving as Magyars as before, on the freed lands of Transylvania. Northern areas, etc. the Jews were welcoming the re-entering Horthy on his white horse with enthusiasm. The Jewish Laws, were made in order to conform to the "spirit of the age", or to German pressure, or with the secret intention to take the wind out of the sails of the German Nazis. Until the German occupation, that is, until March 19, 1944, this was more or less successful. A fact: Dr. József Antall, Sr., for whom his son planted a tree at Yad Vasem, could only be a Rightous Gentile, could only save (Polish) Jews in 1942, as it was the Horthy regime and it's Minister of Interior, Ferenc Keresztes-Fisher made it possible for him. I know: there were atrocities with the labor servicemen, there was Kamenec-Podolsk, etc., but I know as well that until the German occupation Hungary appeared almost the oasis of peace and quiet in the eyes of the Jews in the neighboring countries. I was not the Hungarian Jews to escapes to Tiso's Slovakia, but in reverse; it was not the Hungarian Jews that were escaping to Antonescu's Romania, but in reverse.

The dice turned on March 19, 1944. The Germans occupied Hungary. Horthy was pushed aside and from that moment the matter of his responsibility is rather doubtful. Not so that of the Hungarian people, which enthusiastically assisted the commandos of Eichmann in deporting the Jews in record time.

Obvious, and it was revealed during the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem that without the cooperation of Hungary's power-organizations (police, gendarmes, soldiers) and the railways it would have been impossible to carry out the deportation of nearly a million Jews.

Horthy, when he could, stopped the deportations, blocked the Baky-Eichmann Plan to move the Jews of Budapest to Auswitz. He was not a lover of the Jews, he was not a "cadik", could not claim the title of Righteous Gentile, but he was not the devil either as the Communist propaganda painted him. Fact: the Americans did not hand him over to Tito's hoods, and Stalin himself suggested to Rákosi not to ask for his extradition to Hungary as a war criminal. He knew why.

The Horthy regime, as is, was not worse from a Jewish point of view than Kun-Kohn's Commune, or the Rákosi Terror. Such rememberance was drilled into the public opinion by the Communist brainwash. Horthy was anti-Communist. That is true. And so what? So am I. The majority of the world's population is that. This is why this cruelly inhumane system collapsed.

We Jews are not vengeful, neither do we vilify the dead. If Horthy wants to rest in Hungarian soil, may he rest in peace. Peace on his ashes."

Naftali Kraus

Israel

The following letter was originally published in the Op/Ed pages of The New York Times and was reprinted in the January 22, 1994 issue of the Kanadai Magyarság.

"Hungary Was the First European Fascist State?

There were two letters published in the January 1^st (1994) issue of The New York Times, "Horthy and Hitler" and "Hungary and the Serbs", which are potentially misleading.

The first letter states that "Hungary was the first European Fascist State whatever that word means". I suggest that if the writer does not know what Fascism means then he should not use the term in such an accusatory sense!

His statement that Horthy in 1938 took part in "dismembering" Czechoslovakia is highly misleading without pointing out that Czechoslovakia (which recently dismembered itself) was an artificial creation which did not exist until the end of the First World War. Slovakia was a part of Hungary for a thousand years and Horthy re-occupied only that part which had an overwhelming (86.5 %) Hungarian majority population.

The second letter refers to the Hungarian occupation of the Vojvodina section of Yugoslavia as "one of the most shameful episodes of Hungarian history". Indeed, there were atrocities committed by some Hungarian troops in January 1942 but it was not Horthy's doing. The outraged Minister of Defence, Vilmos Nagybaczoni-Nagy initiated an investigation and court-martial proceedings commenced against the ringleaders of the pogrom. The officers responsible for the killings, however, with German help, managed to escape to Germany where they joined the SS and thus were beyond the reach of Hungarian justice.

Horthy was no Nazi and Hungary was not a Fascist State except during the last months of the war after Horthy's futile attempt at an armistice on October 15^th, 1944. By that time the Germans occupied the country and their fanatic henchmen, Szálasi and members of his Arrow-Cross Party let all hell loose. Horthy was placed under house arrest guarded by the SS in Hirschberg Castle in Bavaria and his son was kidnapped and deported to Mauthausen.

The tragedy of Horthy and that of Hungary itself was that it was clearly impossible to regain any of the territories lost in the disastrous 1920 treaty of Trianon, without German help. Border revision was the top agenda supported by the whole nation and no leader could survive without advocating it. Horthy's reluctant alliance with Germany did result in recovering the bulk of the Hungarian inhabited lands from surrounding countries, which were of course, lost again at the end of the war.

The Allies recognized this reality and while the Hungarian nation paid a heavy price for its role during the war, Horthy himself was not tried nor was he ever treated as a war criminal.

Dr. Thomas Nonn
Professor and Chairman of the Art Department
Kingsborough College, New York

1. Refers to József Antall, then prime minister of Hungary.

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