On February 20, 2015, the New York Hungarian House (213 East 82nd Street) will stage a reading of works by Mr. Albert Wass, the late Transylvanian writer, who was convicted of war crimes after World War II. The event is being organized by a New York-based, Hungarian émigré group, Széchenyi István Társaság, led by Hungarian-American Mr. Ákos Felsővályi. It is also being supported by Mr. Ferenc Kumin, Hungarian consul general in New York City, who recently worked closely with the Széchenyi István Társaság, to organize a fundraiser for the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian House.
Invitation to the NYC Wass-reading. Ferenc Kumin is a staunch supporter of the right-wing organizers of this event.
Most Hungarian Americans don’t know Mr. Wass; those who do reject the message of his work. One story, for example, The Conquest of the Rats, is currently available on neo-Nazi websites such as “White Pride World Wide.” This seeming simple tale of a good farmer reclaiming his house from a group of invading rats was published during the deportation of 18,000 Jews from Cluj, Transylvania. (You may read it here.) To celebrate a man who embraced fascism and was a rabid anti-Semite is a slap in the face of Hungarian-Americans.
Mr. Wass was a decorated officer of the pro-Hitler Hungarian army; he was also the recipient of the Nazi Iron-Cross. In 1946, he was tried and convicted in absentia for war crimes, and sentenced to death in Romania. Among other crimes, Mr. Wass was found guilty of involvement in the murder of two Jewish sisters, Eszter and Rozália Mihály, in September of 1940, when Hungarian forces reached Northern Transylvania. The sisters were murdered while they attempted to escape from the Wass family ranch.
Albert Wass
After the war, Wass retreated with the Nazi army, and went into hiding in Germany. Later he was able to enter the U.S. as a stateless refugee, married an American woman, and settled in Astor, Florida. The Justice Department caught up with him in the 1970s and started to investigate his wartime activities. In 1979 Eugene Theroff, a US Department of Justice official, stated that Wass was on the list of more than 200 suspected Nazi war criminals living in the US. Wass, 71 at that time claimed that he was the victim of a “Zionist-Romanian” conspiracy. US authorities also investigated whether he had broken the law by not mentioning his conviction on his 1951 displaced person application when he entered the US. Wass’s life ended in suicide in 1998.
Well-known Elie Wiesel has written that Wass “cooperated heavily with the fascist Hungarian regime.” Official documents of the United States Congress and the Holocaust Museum in Washington confirm that Wass was a “convicted war criminal”. On July 12, 2012, Senator Cardin noted in the Congressional Record that Wass was a convicted war criminal.
As a writer, Wass was virtually unknown in the United States, until recently. He self-published his writing since no commercial publisher would touch his work. Yet today in Hungary he has been rediscovered and become popular. Leading members of the Hungarian government frequently praise him; Prime Minister Mr. Orbán emphasized Wass’s “humanity” at the 2009 unveiling of a statue or him in the city of Pomáz. Over 50 Wass statues have been erected nationwide, and several schools and libraries have been named for him.
Last year the Hungarian government sent Mr. Mihály Takaró to New York City to lecture on Hungary’s writers of the interwar period. Mr. Takaró’s American tour covered pro-fascist Mr. Géza Nyirő, anti-Semitic hero Ms. Cécile Tormay, Mr. Jenő Dsida, Mr Dezső Szabó and Mr. Albert Wass. Mr. Takaró calls himself a “poet and literary historian.” His mission in life is to teach about Hungary’s “banished literature.” He thinks that these writers were extremely talented but unjustly excluded because of their political views. Last year Mr. Takaró received a state award for his efforts.
Mihály Takaró in NYC.
It is surreal that in 2015, almost 70 years after Nazi Germany was defeated in World War II, an event honoring Wass can take place in the heart of New York City. The event is unacceptable and the manager of the Hungarian House, Ms. Ildikó Nagy, should explain how this program was approved. It would be appropriate to clarify the relationship between the Hungarian House and Hungary’s Consulate in New York City. It seems that this historic facility is willing to assist the Hungarian Government in spreading distasteful nationalist and anti-Semitic propaganda.
Wass has become an important symbolic figure for the Hungarian Right. Despised in Romania as a war criminal and with a dead sentence on his head, he nevertheless represents a nationalistic fantasy of Hungarian nobility. This petty nobleman from Transylvania who fought for fascism never apologized for his actions, nor showed any remorse, and he was clever enough to escape punishment. Wass successfully got away with murder – literally.
György Lázár
Wow, are things really so black and white? I read Wass’ books without knowing about his war criminal past, or allegations thereof. I think the world is enriched by several of the jarring clashes of modernity and culture depicted in his Funtineli series, for example, or his reflections on religion and belief in “The Trail Perishes”. The fact that his writings (which have been read and interpreted as very nationalistic and patriotic by many, and “rejected” and “accepted” or indeed probably more accurately “mulled over” by many) have been picked up by neo-nazi websites does not mean that they were intended for that audience, or that his writings are of no literary or philosophical merit. Besides, many of his books preach tolerance and depict how the changing political winds, left Jews, Christians, rich and poor anchorless. These are the types of conversations that I think would re-invigorate social commentary in Hungary today, instead of vapid denouncements from all sides and such attempted censorship. Clearly, Wass should not be venerated as a fantastic Hungarian as the above are very serious allegations, but there has to be some middle ground to the above hyperbole.
György Lázár has smeared Albert Wass with the “fascist,” “anti-semitic,” and “war criminal” charges that were never substantiated or proven. These were the accusations perpetuated by the hirelings and secret service (Securitate) of Gheorghiu-Dej and Nicolae Ceausescu to discredit the work of a man who stood up for the rights of the Hungarian and other minority populations of Transylvania in Romania. He is unquestionably a popular writer among Hungarians on a global level. This is as true for American Hungarians as Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin. It is truely distateful that a “free Hungarian” is willing to continue the spadework of dead and discredited Red Fascists (i.e., Ceausescu and Co.).
Wiesenthal Center: Cancel Program Glorifying Hungarian Anti-Semitic Writer and World War II Nazi Collaborator
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=8776547&ct=14525243
Wass was a Nazi which he proudly proclaimed several times.
There is ” no middle ground” the Nazis should be on the trash heap of history and forgotten!