While generational differences pushed one group of young men into the camp of the contemporary nationalist right, that did not necessarily determine their later life choices. Generational experiences did define men to some extent—but it was political and moral choices that had the final say.

According to an anti-Zionist pamphlet published during the Republic of Councils, Zionism ‘is nothing but a Jewish version of clerical reaction’ and was to be ‘fully eradicated.’

When Arrow Cross dictator Ferenc Szálasi took over on 15 October 1944, the new authorities required all civil servants to pledge allegiance to them. It was then that Mindszenty prepared a document entitled ‘Juramentum non’ (‘no oath’ in Latin.) The motto of the document was: ‘One cannot serve the [Arrow Cross] revolution and the Church at the same time.’

Budaváry’s biography needs to be amended to also include his actions during the Holocaust, which distinguish him from other antisemitic politicians.

The death rate in the French camps was horribly high: historian Tamás Stark estimates that 10,000 of the 40,000 Hungarian POWs died.

The scaremongering about the deterioration of US-Israeli relations is odd, since the relationship started to worsen first after Barack Obama threw the Middle East under the bus for Iran, and now Joe Biden wants to restore a nuclear deal whose only apparent purpose is to give Iran easy and quick access to nuclear weapons.

The approach of Weis to welfare, an attitude that in fact prevailed under the Teleki government, was not only sensitive to social issues, but also subscribed to the idea of an ‘anti-capitalist democracy’, and also to ‘progress’ and ‘social justice’.

Radnóti’s memory was soon hijacked by the Communist Party’s unsolicited worshippers. In a certain sense, of course, the poet was a natural choice for Communist memory politics.

The public discourse of the time, spearheaded by the left-wing press, was bloodthirstily demanding the holding accountable of those responsible for the horrors of WWII, forming an opinion first and only asking questions afterwards.

In the wake of the victory of the Italian right in the recent elections, much has been written in the international press about the return of ’fascism’.