In March 1945, the chief notary of the Simontornya district in Tolna County reported that 60 per cent of the female population of the village of Nagyszékely was infected with venereal disease, and that girls aged 12–13 were among the victims of rape.
The Germans had demanded the deportation of the Hungarian Jewry long before the German occupation. A note in October 1942, in which German Deputy Foreign Minister Martin Luther summarised his negotiations with Sztójay, the Hungarian ambassador in Berlin at the time, openly mentions the German demand and the fact that it had come directly from Adolf Hitler. According to the text, the ‘handling’ of Jews in Hungary is ‘urgent’.
‘The Fundamental Law of 2011 defines 2 May 1990 as the reinstatement of the sovereign status of Hungary, which was broken by the German occupation on 19 March 1944 and continued by the Soviets when they soon invaded and, in turn, Sovietized the country.’
‘Chief Rabbi Béla Berend was considered a black sheep in the history of Hungarian Jewish leadership. His controversial activities within the Budapest Jewish Council during the German occupation and the Holocaust of 1944–45, followed by his trial before the People’s Tribunal, left a mark on his legacy.’ The following article provides some additional details about Berend’s activities in the US.
Iconic social democrat politician Anna Kéthly was the second woman to serve in the Hungarian National Assembly. Born into a working-class family, she dedicated her life to advocating for the rights of workers and women in particular. Forced into hiding during the German occupation of Hungary due to her brave anti-Nazi stance and imprisoned by the Communists in 1954, and freed in 1956, she epitomizes resistance to all forms of totalitarianism.
‘There are plenty of [contemporary] artists at home who are prepared and would otherwise fit in with the trend, but as it costs a lot to bring and keep their work here, [they] cannot really be present…they would rather have it in their portfolio that their work was out in New York.’
‘The normalization of the targeting of Israel leads to the normalization of the targeting of Jews,’ State Secretary Péter Sztáray warned during a commemoration held on Holocaust Memorial Day. Between 1941 and 1945, approximately 564,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, representing more than two-thirds of the country’s Jewish community at the time.
‘Borsa first came to the attention of state security in 1960, and from 1962 onward, he became a target of internal counterintelligence under the code name “Milliomos” (Millionaire). Initially, he was monitored within the group file titled “Együttműködők” (The Collaborators), and later a personal file was opened on him.’
‘4 April was a day of paying fealty to the “Heroic Army of the Soviets” and celebrating the military force upholding the Iron Curtain. Celebrating the same army that plundered its way through our homeland, and the system that was born from it, be it already watered down by the 70s and 80s: it was a holiday that never quite fit into the organic Hungarian tradition.’
‘The final assessment in terms of the policy of appeasement would be that at the diplomatic and political level, the allies did indeed achieve their goals of buying time, mobilizing, as well as isolating Germany in the first months of the war from either Japan or Italy. They made Germany dependent on Soviet resources to sustain short-term operations, and pushed its economy on the brink of collapse.’
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.
