I am grateful for having received a fascinating newspaper clipping from Tomas Korper, in response to a piece appearing in HFP entitled The Genocidal Priest — The Last Interview with András Kun. The letter writer’s father, trying to survive the Holocaust by posing as a military officer, was captured by Kun in Budapest and was brutally beaten by him and his band of Arrow Cross thugs. The letter writer’s father, in the article scanned in below, is credited with having stood up to András Kun and he also survived his captivity.
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Good morning Christopher,
Yesterday I did some research on András Kun and I found your posting on your Hungarian Free Press.
My father, Imrich Korper was caught by Kun on October 18 or 19, 1944 on the Endresz Gyorgy Square.
My mother, Gertrude Ernst kept the newspaper article that describes the event (attached).
You mention the book Fascist Souls by Rezső Szirmai that contains the last interview with Kun…is this book available in English?
I’m sure you are interested in this story and I would greatly appreciate if you have any other information about my Dad….as the article reads: “Körpernek hivják a bátor fiút”.
Sincerely,
Tomas Korper
Behind that clipping from an newspaper article from Hungary, which openly documents the inhuman brutality of Hungary’s Nazis towards Hungary’s Jews, Nazis who were led by Ferenc Szálasi, one should juxtapose that Szálasi’s personal bodyguard and the head of his security detail, Vitéz Gyula Detre, escaped to Canada after the war, where he became a prominent leader of the Montreal Hungarian community, where he is, to this day , an esteemed member of the local Hungarian Catholic Parish.
Szàlasi’s short lived fascist regime stood out with its brutality and monstrosity even in comparison with the Nazies. If you have the stomach for it try “Orgy” by Gàbor Zoltàn (in Hungarian). Come to think about it that nos some try to white wash this unspeakable episode as well!
To paraphrase an old joke: there’s no fascism in Hu now, but there’s a great demand for it.
According to young, Montreal born literary fénom, David Szalay, who now calls Budapest his home, it’s “premature to call Orbán an autocrat.” (Read his calm, laid back and so very dispassionate excuses for the inexcusable, in the Globe and Mail.)
According to Szalay, Hungarians never had it so good (wonder why more young Hungarians have left their homeland during the years after Orbán came to power, than during the 100 years before). According to Szalay, the man who considers Admiral Horthy – the Hungarian Regent who arrested Hungary’s democratic development after WWI, turned Hungary into a vassal of the Nazi war machine, tied Hungary’s cart to Hitler’s and Mussolini’s and shipped close to 600,000 of Hungary’s Jews to the gas-chambers – Orbán is not an autocrat, not a criminal, not an affinity-fraud artist but the architect of Hungary’s economic boom, and the defender of Hungary’s thousand year old Christian civilization from callous, ill informed and incompetent Western liberals. According to the young novelist, we misguided liberals should wake up: Orbán is the man doing the heavy lifting for God west of Austria.
I suppose it’s now Conrad Black’s turn to tell us we should get rid of our Liberals, elect a new Conservative chief and invite Orbán to open the next session of Parliament in Ottawa. Too bad, Peter Munk is no longer around to foot the bill for Orbán’s short-stop to Ottawa, and Bay Street, before he heads south to hobnob with the Donald, with Steve Bannon and the white-supremacist, alt-right Christian nationalists, who are defending Christianity in that country and generating a “boom” that’s based on another fairy tale.
Well that Szalay already can write, now he should also learn to read … hopefully he does not scare when he reads what he has written.
“According to Szalay, Hungarians never had it so good (wonder why more young Hungarians have left their homeland during the years after Orbán came to power, than during the 100 years before).”
This argument reminds me of Obama opponents in the early years of his presidency, pointing to the unemployment, poverty and deficits, with complete disregard of what he inherited.
Yes, many Hungarians left Hungary in the early years of Orban’s government, but it is mostly due to the economic mess left by the previous government, which took a long time to stabilize and get back on the right path. Things are now on the right path. In fact, the exodus story is increasingly BS.
We have known this for a few years now. Eurostat suggests that Hungary had a net influx of over 30,000 in 2018, given overall population decline of 6,000, while natural decline (births/deaths) was 38,000.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/9967985/3-10072019-BP-EN.pdf/e152399b-cb9e-4a42-a155-c5de6dfe25d1
So your argument is both disingenuous in not keeping in mind that Hungary in 2010 was an economic mess, as well as being out of date, given that you are not looking at recent realities and trends.
I read that article, I thought it was a rare moment of objectivity in today’s Western media, which I am surprised that it squeaked past editorial. A rare moment indeed!