Hungary’s young and photogenic Justice Minister Judit Varga recently visited Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp and declared her “zero tolerance for antisemitism.” Hungary has “taken several steps to prevent our country’s Jews from being exposed to any kind of antisemitism that has become more and more widespread in the world.”
What Varga did not mention is her government’s institutionalized efforts to rewrite World War II history. Hungary has praised Albert Wass a convicted WWII criminal who murdered Jews. Numerous statues and memorials of WWII criminals have been installed and fake testimonials were fabricated to transform some anti-Semites, such as János Esterházy into “Jewsavers.”
Justice Minister Judit Varga (in the middle) in Auschwitz.
Varga boasts how Budapest has the third largest Jewish community in Europe, the second largest synagogue in the world, and “Jews can walk around proudly as they head to the streets.” The Jewish community can always count on the Orbán government’s “protection.” The West, including the United States is utterly anti-Semitic while White Christian Hungary is “the most secure country for Jews in Europe.”
Almost ten years ago 14 Holocaust survivors have filed a lawsuit against Hungary and its national railway for its role in the deaths of more than 600,000 Hungarian Jews. (Twelve of the survivors were in Auschwitz.) Now it seems that Budapest is trying to intimidate them. As part of the legal maneuvering Justice Minister Varga is countersuing the Holocaust victims in the US Supreme Court by requesting a lengthy judicial review of the decisions of the lower courts.
Hungary’s legal action in the US Supreme Court.
Judge Sri Srinivasan has already rejected Hungary’s arguments that the case raises political questions that should not be resolved in US courts. Orbán’s legal experts are portraying the plaintiffs as political actors. In Hungary those who raise objections about the country’s Holocaust falsification are branded as “leftists” or even as “Soros agents.”
In 1944 Winston Churchill wrote about the Hungary’s Holocaust: There is no doubt in my mind that we are in the presence of one of the greatest and most horrible crimes ever committed. It has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilized men in the name of a great state and one of the leading races of Europe. I need not assure you that the situation has received and will receive the most earnest consideration from my colleagues and myself but, as the Foreign Secretary said, the principal hope of terminating it must remain the speedy victory of the Allied Nations.
According to Hungary’s revised WWII history the Allies were “occupiers” and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s name was recently removed from a central square in Budapest. On the other hand, Orbán declared that pro-Hitler Hungarian ruler Miklós Horthy who collaborated in the deportations was a “great statesman.”
The fundamental issue is that Budapest is still not willing to admit to its wartime leaders’ responsibility for the systematic murder of the Hungarian population. Beyond the Jews, the Roma, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, 200,000+ soldiers of the Hungarian Second Army and many others were butchered during the shameful Horthy’s regime.
Today, the perpetrators of war crimes are hailed as patriots and respected heroes of the nation.
György Lázár
György great article -eyewitness survivors had the following experience: they were lulled into the following lies from the workers of MAV. Get onboard with your belongings, valises, all dear to you that you can carry.
(secret, final destination was Auschwitz, which was not mentioned of course – Some (my aunts, grandparents were told eventually Madagascar, or Germany for family labor). Onboard, a few short 2-3 stations later told to get off leave everything behind – (MAV workers all around), told to get into the trains in front of you, your belongings will follow. The cattle trains wide open – they were forcibly pushed into them -70-90 standing like sardines. 4-5 day “travel” to final destination – Auschwitz. Some carried a little food, some water for the children and babies (not enough for 4-5 days) – all valises, suitcases left behind – MAV took over.
Should they be sued? Absolutely!
Why is it the “Republic of Hungary”? Was it not nearly the first act of the government to get rid of the “köztársaság” status?
Your article is excellent; however, it does omit some very basic history. In 2010 suit was filed in the district courts in Chicago, on behalf of a group of survivors and their rightful heirs against the Hungarian National Railroad. It is now entitled Paul Shlomo Fischer vs. Hungarian National Railroad. Lead counsel is Robert J Pavich. The Hungarian attorneys for the MAV, with mutiple falsifications and inventions, worthy of their employer’s aims and lack of scruples , succeeded in convincing the judges as far as the Appeals’ Court, that remedies in Hungary should be exhausted prior to a suit in the American courts and no statute of limitations would be invoked. . Thus, in the name of these survivors and their heirs. the late survivor, Mrs . Iren Kellner in 2015 sued in the Budapest district court for her injuries and the expropriation of her possessions by the MAV workers at the train station, when she boarded the train to Auschwitz. Her case was thrown out as it pertained to crimes committed before 1978, as per the Hungarian consitution. We have followed every instruction issued by the US Appeals court and still cannot return to the American courts, although the Appeals’ court had informed us that if we sought relief in Hungary and were not satisfied, we could reapply to the US court sytem. Since 2010, we have lost as has the Simon suit, scores upon scores of survivor plaintiffs. The greatest crime of the Hungarian government is procrastination, as it invariably will lead to their victory. Both suits are equally important, and overlap only partially. The US supreme court has within its power, the means to proclaim justice. We hope it does. We also hope that the courts, the attorneys, and all connected realize that in view of Roosevelt’s refusal to bomb the train track to Auschwitz in 1944 (and thus save Hungarian Jewry) the US owes us a historical monstrous debt, a subject so far not broached in this context until albeit in a different tone. this article evoked his malfeasance.
Lazar Ur,
I just love to read the frustrated neo-communist garbage your miserable rag contains.
First of all Wass Albert was convicted by a government which has no credibility currently when it comes to correctly handling judicial cases involving ethnic Hungarians, and it had even less credibility back then. I brought this to author’s attention before, yet he keeps up this obnoxious line of attack, with no attempt to justify or address the issue.
Second, when it comes to Hungary and the holocaust the history of it is incredibly complex. Yes, Horthy was a rabid antisemite. Yes, there were many Hungarians who out of hate helped round up and send Hungarian Jews to concentration camps. A very dark part of Hungary’s history. But there was also Horthy who ordered the police to shoot at German soldiers who tried to round up Jews, and the Horthy who saved Hungarian Jews living in Netherlands from being deported to concentration camps. He arranged for a train and travel papers to bring them to Hungary. Horthy and Hungary clearly were against Hitler’s extermination campaign. Jews from Hungary only started being deported to extermination camps after March, 1944 when Hungary effectively became a German ally and an occupied country simultaneously. Till then Hungary’s government resisted the initiative.
That brings us to the last issue, namely the lawsuit. Given the complex history, hard to justify demand for reparations if one can be honest about the actual historical facts, so Hungary has a point.
Once more a grossly biased, article, lacking any objectivity. Only rabid hate for Hungary and Hungarians.
WE say: he who saves one Jew saves the entire Jewish People. Horthy’s “rescue” however of several scores of Hungarian Jews living in Holland albeit praiseworthy, does nothing, veritably to counterbalance the delivery of Hungarian Jewry to Auschwitz. By Hungarian trains, driven from Hungary to the border by Hungarian conductors, paid for by the deported Jews themselves. Horthy is yes, a very complex case. It is also a progressive case–as time went on, he felt more pressure, found Germany more and more appealing in its goals, and caved. It is a very logical conclusion to the life of a rabid anti Semite, who played with human lives just to show his powers.
And why in any case, would Horthy’s philosophy or whatever one wishes to call his contorted thoughts, have any bearing on the right to sue Hungary? Jews of Hungary were exterminated, which happened only because at such a late date, the Hungarians collaborated. Those not deported, in Budapest for example: the Arrrow Cros is a Hungarian phenomenon, is it not? As the Danube is a Hungarian river. Look at hUngarian legislation, measures against Jews far back as 1938. There is no german influence then, is there?
I am not denying the fact that many Hungarians committed gross atrocities. And many were punished, some were not. But at this point all who did commit such atrocities are dead, one way or another. Going after Hungary’s national railway for compensation is a demand for current Hungarian taxpayers to pay for the sins of their ancestors, which I find to be unethical. If you do think it is ethical, in that case we have to go after all past historical injustice and have everyone pay. For instance, thanks to the Muslim wars and invasion of Hungary between 1400 and 1700 the Hungarian population suffered a decline of 1/3. For perspective, French population quadrupled in the same period. By some estimates, as many as 3 million Hungarians were sold into slavery in the Muslim world during the period. So Muslim world should pony up some reparations then?