This is the first time that Hungarian Spectrum is publishing a scholarly article. It is therefore considerably longer than my usual posts. It also contains footnotes, which are an important part of the article because they lead the reader to scholarly works on the subject as well as to relevant current newspaper articles.
The article is a detailed description of “the assault on the historical integrity of the Holocaust” with special emphasis on the period after 1990.
* * *
Memoria est thesaurus omnium rerum et custos
(Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things) Cicero
THE LAUNCHING OF THE CAMPAIGN
The Communist Era
As in many other countries in Nazi-dominated Europe, in Hungary, the assault on the historical integrity of the Holocaust began before the war had come to an end. While many thousands of Hungarian Jews still were lingering in concentration camps, those Jews liberated by the Red Army, including those of Budapest, soon were warned not to seek any advantages as a consequence of their suffering. This time the campaign was launched from the left. The Communists and their allies, who also had been persecuted by the Nazis, were engaged in a political struggle for the acquisition of state power. To acquire the support of those Christian masses who remained intoxicated with anti-Semitism, and with many of those in possession of stolen and/or “legally” allocated Jewish-owned property, leftist leaders were among the first to use the method of “generalization” in their attack on the facticity and specificity of the Holocaust. Claiming that the events that had befallen the Jews were part and parcel of the catastrophe that had engulfed most Europeans during the Second World War, they called upon the survivors to give up any particularist claims and participate instead in the building of a new “egalitarian” society. As early as late March 1945, József Darvas, the noted populist writer and leader of the National Peasant Party, asserted that “no one may claim any privileges on the basis of former suffering.” On August 26, 1945, he reiterated this anti-Jewish position by stating that “a certain group should not demand preferential treatment on the ground of racial prerogatives.” The incitements by the Communists soon led to the spread of blood-libel rumors and to pogroms in several cities, including Kunmadaras and Miskolc.[1]
Following their acquisition of power in 1949, the Communist-dominated government of Hungary largely put an end to physical attacks on Jews, but soon began an assault on the memory of the Holocaust. That regime pursued this goal concurrent with the Soviet-led anti-Semitic campaign against “cosmopolitanism” and Zionism, and soon began attempts that sought the de-legitimization of the State of Israel. As a consequence, the Holocaust, like the “the Jewish question” in general, were for many decades sunk in an Orwellian black hole of history.
Unlike in the West, however, where the campaign to distort, denigrate, and actually deny the Holocaust has been waged freely by so-called “historical revisionists,” the campaign in the Soviet bloc had been pursued under strict state control with its intensity varying in accordance with the changing political interests of the Kremlin.[2]
The Post-Communist Era
Following the dissolution of the Communist regimes and the disintegration of the Soviet bloc in the late 1980s, “historical revisionism” also infected the xenophobic nationalist stratum of Hungarian society. Ironically, this new strain came to the fore following the liberalization measures that the first democratically elected government adopted after the systemic change of 1989. The political stresses and socioeconomic dislocations engendered by the new administration’s privatization and marketization measures enabled the xenophobic nationalist-populist elements to revive both “the Jewish question” and anti-Semitism as convenient instruments of domestic politics. The number of Hungarian xenophobic champions of anti-Semitism has grown since the systemic change, constituting an increasing danger not only to the integrity of the historical record of the Holocaust but also to the newly established democratic system. The current danger is represented not so much by the “historical revisionists” who vocally deny the Holocaust – they will most probably end up in the dung-heap of history – but by “respectable public figures” – members and heads of government, parliamentarians, and high-ranking officers. The rhetoric and tactics of these respectable individuals vary in terms of their particular political-ideological group interests and personal ambitions. The leaders of the successive democratically elected Hungarian governments have, with a few exceptions, consistently pursued policies that aimed to:
Bring about the rehabilitation of the Horthy era and the revitalization of the national-Christian principles that had guided it;
Absolve Hungary of any guilt for the Holocaust by placing ultimate responsibility on the Germans;
Deflect attention from the Holocaust by focusing on the “positive” experiences of the Jews since their emancipation in 1867 and on the rescue activities of Christian Hungarians during the German occupation, including Horthy’s halting of the deportations in early July 1944.
To achieve these objectives the successive governments have supported with various degrees of enthusiasm the efforts of “patriotic-nationalist” groups and individuals who have dedicated themselves to cleansing the historical record of Hungary, that is, in effect, to falsifying the historical record of the Nazi era in general and of the Holocaust in particular. Like their counterparts elsewhere in the former Nazi-dominated world, the Hungarian history-cleansers have, among other things, adopted the historical technique of “denationalization,” to prove Hungary’s “innocence” during the Holocaust, and that of “relativization” and “trivialization,” to demonstrate that the number of the Nazi victims was dwarfed by that caused by Communism, and that the Holocaust was but a relatively minor factor during the Second World War.
This study documents the policies of the successive Hungarian governments since 1989, critically evaluating the various approaches they have used to reach their national self-exculpatory objectives. It also aims to identify the historical context in which these policies were formulated, focusing on the radical “constitutional” and other “legal” and politically oriented Holocaust-related measures that were introduced following the inauguration of the Viktor Orbán-led government in 2010.
THE FACTS UNDER SIEGE
In March 1944, Hungary had a Jewish population of more than 800,000 (including the approximately 100,000 Christians and converts who were identified as Jews under the racial laws then in effect). They constituted the last relatively intact Jewish community in Nazi-dominated Europe. Having survived throughout most of the war, they were destroyed on the eve of Allied victory with the connivance of their own government. An ally of Nazi Germany, Hungary, beginning in early 1938, instituted a series of increasingly severe anti-Jewish measures that not only curtailed the basic civil and socioeconomic rights of the Jews[3] but also claimed approximately 60,000 Jewish lives by early 1944.[4] Nevertheless, the bulk of Hungarian Jewry survived the first four and a half years of the war “thanks” to their physical protection by the conservative-aristocratic government of Miklós Kállay. After the German occupation of March 19, 1944, however, it was this relatively intact Jewish community that was subjected to the most concentrated and brutal ghettoization and deportation process of the Nazis’ Final Solution program.[5] The murderous drive against the Hungarian Jews was launched almost immediately after the beginning of the occupation that was welcomed not only by the military but also by a large stratum of the population.[6] By that time the leaders of the world, including those of Hungary, already were familiar with the realities of Auschwitz. By that time even many among the Nazis realized that the Axis would lose the war. It was precisely because of this prospect that the Germans and their Hungarian accomplices decided to win at least the campaign against the Jews. Time was clearly of the essence. The Red Army was fast approaching Romania, and the Western Allies were expected to launch their invasion of Europe soon.
The Nazis’ machinery of destruction was already well oiled by 1944. With experience gained through the mass murder of Jews from almost all over German-dominated Europe, the Nazis were ready and well prepared for a lightning operation in Hungary. Their initial fear at that juncture of the losing war was that Miklós Horthy, the Hungarian head of state, might emulate the latter-day position of Marshal Ion Antonescu of Romania, and prevent the full implementation of the Final Solution by identifying the Jewish question as a domestic issue. The German’s concern was dissipated soon after the occupation began. Adolf Eichmann, the experienced head of a small but efficient SS unit, was amazed at the enthusiasm with which members of the new Döme Sztójay government – all constitutionally appointed by Horthy – proved ready to “solve” the Jewish question.[7] This new government placed the instruments of state power – the gendarmerie, police, and civil service – at the disposal of the Hungarian and German Nazis bent on the swiftest possible implementation of the Final Solution. With Horthy still at the helm and providing the symbol of national sovereignty, the approximately 200,000 Hungarian policemen, gendarmes, civil servants, and “patriotic” volunteers had collaborated in the anti-Jewish drive with a routine and efficiency that impressed even the relatively few SS who had served as “advisors.” Within less than two months – that is from late March to mid-May, 1944 – those in charge of the Final Solution completed the first phase of the anti-Jewish drive. Acting in accordance with the provisions of the many “laws, decrees, and orders,” issued by the central and the regional governmental organs, the Jews were isolated, marked, robbed of their possessions, and placed into ghettos. During the next two months – from May 15 through July 9 – they were subjected to the most barbaric and speedy deportation and extermination program of the war. It was so massive and so swift that the crematoria in Auschwitz-Birkenau, updated as they were, could not cope. Special ditches had to be dug to burn the thousands of victims the crematoria could not handle. When Winston Churchill was informed about this catastrophe, he referred to it as “probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the history of the world.”[8] In sheer numbers the mass murder of the Hungarian Jews overshadowed the losses of many major combatants of the Second World War![9]
STAGES OF THE ASSAULT
The Hungarian chapter of the Holocaust of European Jewry constitutes not only the greatest tragedy in the history of Hungarian Jewry but also the darkest chapter in the history of Hungary. Never before in the history of the Hungarian nation were so many people expropriated and murdered in so short a time as in 1944. Most of the hundreds of thousands of victims were Hungarian citizens who had proudly considered themselves “Magyars of the Jewish faith.” To the chagrin of the other ethnic-national minorities of Hungary, most Jews were patriotic and had been firmly committed to the Magyar cause since 1848. They were the forerunners of Hungary’s modernization and champions of the Hungarian language and culture even in the territories Hungary lost in 1918. At the end, however, they fared less well than the other ethnic and national groups. They were destroyed with the connivance of the Magyars they had so eagerly supported and implicitly trusted.
The details of this apocalyptic chapter in the history of Hungary have not yet sunk into the national consciousness of the Hungarian people. The reasons are many and complex. The wartime history of Hungary, including the Holocaust, has been manipulated by the successive postwar regimes to serve their particular political interests.
The Immediate Postwar Era
During the immediate postwar period, the needs and interests of the survivors came into conflict with the political aspirations of the various parties. It is one of the ironies of history that, at the end, the surviving remnant of Hungarian Jewry suffered most at the hands of the very political party that many of them had trusted as their genuine supporter and whose members, like the Jews, had been a main target of the Nazis and of the Horthy regime: the Communist Party. During the immediate postwar era, many of the victimized Jews placed their faith in the Party, believing that it was the only one that was genuinely free of any stain of Fascism. They also considered it reliable for the advancement of their legitimate interests, including the roundup and prosecution of war criminals, the effectuation of an equitable restitution and reparation program, and the building of a just and egalitarian society. The Jewish survivors were soon awakened to the political realities of the postwar power struggle. Small and generally mistrusted by the ethnic majority, the Communist Party had no scruples about sacrificing the interests of the Jews in order to build a popular base for the acquisition of state power. Driven by political expediency, the party leadership, which included a proportionately large number of Communists of Jewish origin, urged the survivors to forget about their past suffering, abandon their demands for restitution, and subordinate their special needs to the building of the new socialist society. With the exception of the relatively few diehards who remained loyal to their ideology and newly acquired power, the survivors soon discovered that it was the Communist Party’s search for mass support that was in fact largely behind the anti-Semitic agitation and the many “spontaneous” anti-Jewish outbursts and pogroms that occurred during the immediate postwar period.[10]
During the Stalinist era, the Holocaust was virtually sunk into the Orwellian black hole of history. The Jewish martyrs were subsumed as part of the losses incurred by the population at large. The survivors themselves were subjected to many inequities. Many of them found themselves persecuted on both social and religious-political grounds. They were either identified as members of “the exploiting bourgeoisie” or accused of the sins of Zionism and cosmopolitanism. Many among these Jews were once again deported to concentration camps for “re-education,” often in the company of their former tormentors. Others were either jailed or deprived of a livelihood. In the course of time even the Communist Party itself was purged of its Jewish component to make it more attractive to the ethnic majority.[11]
During the National Communist era that followed the Uprising of 1956, the Jewish question and the issue of anti-Semitism, while persistent at the popular level, were kept under control by the government. Consistent with the policies of the previous governments, public awareness of the Holocaust continued to remain low even though Hungary – unlike the other Soviet bloc countries – witnessed the appearance of several important documentary and historical publications on the tragedy of Hungarian Jewry.[12]
The Post-Communist Era
The systemic change in the Soviet bloc nations began in Hungary as early as 1987. It was spearheaded by the reformist group within the ruling Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt). Defying the Kremlin, Imre Pozsgay, one of the leaders of this group, identified the Hungarian revolution of 1956 as a popular uprising rather than a counterrevolution, leading thereby to a public discussion of other hitherto prohibited topics such as Trianon and gradually even the Holocaust. Since the triumph of democracy in 1989, the Holocaust has emerged as an “embarrassing” topic for the various governments that succeeded the Communist regime. Driven largely by domestic and international political considerations, the elected national leaders of the new democratic society have reacted to the Holocaust in a different manner, which, in turn, determined the level and intensity of the assault on historical memory during their administration. They all publicly acknowledged the wartime tragedy of the Jews and have consistently committed themselves, especially during Holocaust remembrance occasions, to combatting the scourge of anti-Semitism.
In the absence of unambiguous and unequivocal moral guidance on the Holocaust, the history-cleansers appear to have been given a green light to “safeguard the national honor of Hungary” by absolving that nation of any responsibility. The offensive against the historical memory of the Holocaust was spearheaded not only by the “historical revisionists,” but also – and more important – by an ever-larger group of sophisticated degree-holding history–cleansers. These “patriotic” professionals have dedicated themselves to rewriting the Horthy era, ostensibly “to enable conservative Hungarians to become once again proud of their history.”
The initial steps in this direction were taken during the tenure of József Antall, Jr., the first democratically elected prime minister of post-Communist Hungary (May 23, 1990 – December 12, 1993).[13] A leader of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (Magyar Demokrata Fórum – MDF), a political party he co-founded with notorious anti-Semitic figures such as István Csurka[14] and Sándor Csoóri, Antall had dedicated himself to rebuilding Hungary along national-Christian lines reminiscent of the Horthy era. He spearheaded the rehabilitation of former prime minister Pál Teleki, the author of several major anti-Jewish laws, and launched the campaign to bring about the rehabilitation of the former Regent as well. It was he in fact who first aimed to unburden the national conscience over the Holocaust by consistently repudiating the idea of any official apology. It was also Antall who first suggested that in any discussion of the Holocaust, if it must be discussed at all, emphasis should be placed on the rescue activities of the Righteous rather than the on perpetrators.[15]
It was during Antall’s administration that the drive to bring about the rehabilitation of Miklós Horthy gained momentum. A major step in this direction was the political resurrection of the former Regent by returning his and his family’s remains from Portugal and reburying them with the pomp and circumstance befitting a former head of state.[16] Antall’s informal guidelines relating to the treatment of the Holocaust were soon abused by neo-anti-Semitic nationalists. Taking advantage of the new democratic freedoms, some of them openly resorted to anti-Jewish diatribes. Sándor Csoóri, one of Hungary’s most celebrated writers of the period, for example, aimed to demonstrate that “liberal Hungarian Jewry wanted to ‘assimilate’ the Magyars in style and thought.” Reminiscent of the anti-Jewish campaign of the Horthy era, he clearly implied that the surviving remnant of Hungarian Jewry had become a threat to the Christian Magyars.[17]
Antall’s successor, Prime Minister Péter Boross (December 12, 1993 – July 15, 1994) was considerably more active in encouraging and supporting the history-cleansers. As the spiritus rector of the neo-Fascist drive to rehabilitate the Horthy regime, Boross has become a leading champion for the restoration of the national-Christian tradition in Hungary. He also emerged as one of the most vocal supporters of the Holocaust-denigrating drive not only during his administration but also during the tenure of Viktor Orbán as prime minister.[18]
The historical memory of the survivors was jolted early in 1994, when the Constitutional Court (Alkotmánybíróság) that was established in late 1989 nullified many provisions of the People’s Tribunals Act (Law No. VII of 1945). It soon led to the reversal in the conviction of many individuals who had been involved in various degrees in the implementation of the Final Solution program.[19] Concluding that the wartime activities of the convicted individuals were not deemed criminally punishable at the time of their commission, the Court enabled the rehabilitation of many of those who had been involved in the roundup, expropriation, ghettoization, and deportation of the Jews.
The policies deemed detrimental to the survivors of the Holocaust continued even during the administration of Gyula Horn, a leading figure of the Hungarian Socialist Party.[20] It was during his tenure (July 15, 1994 – July 8, 1998) that the issue of restitution and reparation, virtually overlooked since 1945, finally came to the fore. The Communists when in power, had ignored the issue almost altogether, citing the requirements of socialist construction. The post-Communist regimes, for their part, became more concerned with the compensation for the victims of Communism than for those of Nazism. To add insult to injury, an indeterminate number of the Christian victims who were compensated for properties nationalized by the Communist regime had, in fact, “legally” or fraudulently acquired them from Jews during the Nazi era.[21]
It was also during the Horn administration that the historical memory of the Holocaust was subjected to another challenge. A ruling by the Constitutional Court and the many governmental rules and regulations issued during his tenure virtually prohibited many scholars from pursuing their work on the preservation and/or acquisition of archival materials relating to the Holocaust. The “personal data protection” provisions of various legislative acts and judicial decisions, plausibly designed to protect public officials who had formerly been associated with either the Nazi-collaborationist or the Communist regime, not surprisingly had the ancillary effect of restricting the Holocaust-related research activities of scholars in general and of foreign nationals in particular.[22] The issue continued to remain unsolved.[23]
THE INTENSIFICATION OF THE ASSAULT
The assault on historical memory gradually exacerbated during the first administration of Viktor Orbán (July 8, 1998 – May 27, 2002) and took an ominous turn during his second term (May 29, 2010 – ).
Even though Orbán’s party, the League of Young Democrats (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége – FIDESZ), had only won a narrow parliamentary majority following the elections of May 1998,[24] he and his right-of-center coalition government had given a free hand to the history-cleansers dedicated to the rehabilitation of the Horthy era. While reportedly not an anti-Semite himself, it appears that political expediency has compelled Orbán to condone the activities of the ultra-right and to encourage, if not actually support, those dedicated to cleansing Hungary’s wartime history. In was during his tenure that the history falsifying technique of “denationalization” gained general acceptance. Using this technique, history-cleansers have dedicated themselves to absolving Hungary of all guilt by transferring exclusive responsibility for the Holocaust onto the Germans. To assure a guilt-free national continuity in Hungary’s history, the Orbán administration decided to revitalize the national-Christian values of the Horthy era by re-introducing its national symbols.[25] One of the most forceful spokesmen for the need to return to these values was Ibolya Dávid, Orbán’s minister of justice.[26]
It was also around this time that the history-cleansers were indirectly encouraged to “re-evaluate” the Hungarian state security agencies that had been involved in the Final Solution and to focus on the “positive” contribution of Hungarians to the rescuing of Jews.
As part of their re-evaluation drive, history-cleansers expended considerable effort to bring about the absolution of the gendarmerie, which had played a crucial role in the roundup, ghettoization, and deportation of the Jews.[27] Toward this end, they produced a documentary that was first shown on Hungarian television in early December 1998.[28] The “historians” featured in the documentary were seen in effect to exonerate the gendarmerie not only by placing ultimate responsibility on the Germans but also by focusing on the law-abiding attitude of the Jews. Sándor Szakály, one of the “experts” associated with the documentary, advanced the obscene argument that there was no need for the gendarmerie to use force because the Jews – law-abiding citizens that they were – carried out the anti-Jewish measures of their own volition. Another “expert” advanced the thesis that the gendarmes were, in fact, engaged in a form of resistance by carrying out the anti-Jewish measures “humanely.” All of the participants in the documentary appeared to conclude that the gendarmes were guided by the Christian spirit and were highly appreciated by the people they had served for the preservation of law and order. The gendarmes who were interviewed for the documentary – all of whom were veterans of the anti-Jewish drive – offered a variety of extenuating “explanations” for their own involvement.[29] Less than a year later, a plaque honoring the gendarmes who died during the war was unveiled by Zsolt Lányi, head of the armed services committee of the Hungarian Parliament, in the courtyard of the Institute of War History and Museum (Hadtörténelmi Intézet és Múzeum), headed by Szakály.
The escalation in the activities of history-cleansers appears to have been indirectly encouraged by governmental policies that increasingly reflect the “national-Christian” course of the interwar period. Despite its very brief tradition of civil liberties, Hungary has permitted the dissemination of hate literature[30] and, until recently, the denial of the Holocaust – acts that are deemed illegal and severely punished in France and many other countries with a much longer record of liberal democracy.[31]
Ultra-nationalists seem to have been encouraged in history-cleansing activities by the attitude of some of the highest-ranking officials. A few among these have not only expressed sympathy for the objective pursued by many of the cleansers but have also occasionally engaged in such practices themselves.[32]
One of the most brazen attempts to falsify the history of Hungarian Jewry in general and the Holocaust record in particular was a plan that was initiated by the Hungarian Ministry of Culture for a new exhibition in Auschwitz. The idea originated in the fall of 1998, when during a trip to Poland, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited the death camp and found the current exhibit in the Hungarian pavilion – established by the Communist regime in 1979-80 – both “inappropriate and neglected.”
The original plan called merely for the reconstruction of the exhibit, but the experts in the Ministry of Culture subsequently decided to shelve it altogether and create a new one to be opened, with appropriate pomp and circumstance, by the prime minister on May 9, 2000. The Ministry entrusted the planning and creation of the new exhibit to the Hungarian National Museum. The head of that museum, Dr. Tibor Kovács, had no problem in finding the “right person” for the job: István Ihász, the chief of the museum’s Contemporary History Division. An unabashed rightist, Ihász had already established his nationalist credentials as the creator of that museum’s highly controversial “Twentieth Century Hungary” exhibit. Still one of the museum’s most popular exhibits, it virtually glorifies the Horthy era and denigrates the tragedy of Hungarian Jewry.
Ihász began working on the new assignment in December 1998, preparing a script and collecting the visual and archival materials he wanted to use in the new pavilion. He pursued his task with the assistance of a committee of three experts: Mária Schmidt, then a counselor to the prime minister; Tamás Stark, an associate of the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; and József Schweitzer, then the chief rabbi of Hungary. The first draft of the script was finished early in the spring of 1998. Following the experts’ input during several consultations, a second draft – dated April 9, 1999, and bearing the names of the three experts – was forwarded to the Ministry of Culture early in June. Convinced that the main purpose of the script was informational rather than educational, Ihász reportedly recommended that no further experts be consulted. The Ministry, however, followed a more cautious approach and forwarded the script for evaluation to three well-known historians and museology experts: Szabolcs Szita, the chief historian of the Hungarian Auschwitz Foundation of Budapest; Ilona Radnóti, the historian associated with the Janus Pannonius Museum of Pécs; and Róbert Turán, the head of the Jewish Museum of Budapest. Shocked after its first reading, Turán decided to forward copies of the draft to László Karsai, a leading expert on the Holocaust, and Emil Horn, an expert in museology with many museum exhibits to his credit.
The reaction of all five experts was prompt and virtually unanimous. They individually concluded that the script basically falsified the history of the Jews in Hungary in general and of the Holocaust era in particular, and that it appeared to have a political objective: the rehabilitation of the Horthy era by transferring virtually all responsibility for whatever crimes were committed in Hungary almost exclusively to the Germans. Collectively, the evaluations of Ihász’s script exposed not only his shortcomings as a historian but also his apparent political agenda as a museologist. His deficiencies as a historian were revealed by Karsai and four fellow historians in a lengthy collective report dated August 4, 1999; his perceived political objectives and museological shortcomings were demonstrated by Horn, in a lengthy and cogently argued report dated August 6.[33]
Almost three weeks after these reports were forwarded to the leadership of the Jewish community, the chief rabbi decided to resign from Ihász’s committee. Stark, reportedly upset that his name appeared on the second draft of the script without his authorization, informed Mária Schmidt about his displeasure. Only Schmidt, a historian who formerly specialized in Holocaust studies, continued to express her basic satisfaction with the unfortunate script. Ihász, on his part, must have felt vindicated: on August 20, a national holiday, he received a prestigious state award on the recommendation of the prime minister’s office.
The reaction of the official leadership of the Jewish community was prompt and forthright. In a letter dated August 25, 1999, Péter Tordai, the president of the Association of the Jewish Communities of Hungary (a Magyarországi Zsidó Hitközségek Szövetsége – Mazsihisz), informed the Ministry of Culture that in the view of the community the script was unacceptable. He expressed his doubts about whether it was the intention of the Hungarian government to establish a pro-Horthy, Holocaust denigrating, and covertly anti-Semitic exhibit in Auschwitz – “the emblematic scene of Nazi genocide and the largest mass grave of Hungarian Jewry.” Tordai coupled his bewilderment with a warning: Should Ihász’s script, nevertheless, become the basis of the planned exhibit, “it will elicit an international scandal that would extend from Jerusalem to Washington and from Budapest to Berlin.”[34]
In addition to the technique of “denationalization” by which exclusive responsibility for the Holocaust is transferred onto the Germans, the Orbán-supported experts on the national-Christian traditions of Hungary have also employed the method of “generalization.” This approach is used by those claiming that the tragedy of the Jews was part and parcel of the general catastrophic consequences of a war in which many others suffered as well. Some among the history-cleansers go so far as to identify the Jews themselves as primarily responsible for their own tragic fate. Others claim that the Holocaust was in fact intentionally brought about by rich Jews who had supported Hitler.[35] Still others in this group attempt to absolve the Christian Hungarians from any guilt by blaming the Jewish Councils for the suffering the Jews.[36]
Another favorite history-cleansing technique is that of “generalization.” Some of the “patriotic” individuals in this category try to mitigate the magnitude of the Holocaust by linking the tragedy of the Jews and the trauma endured by Hungary at Trianon.[37] Others in this category have dedicated themselves to the whitewashing of Hungary’s close alliance with Nazi Germany, including the fact that it was the last satellite to fight along its side until the end of the Second World War, by arguing that the Hungarians had in fact been the Third Reich’s last victims and as such had suffered as much as the Jews, if not more.[38]
Insisting on the commonality of suffering, many history-cleansers have dedicated themselves to the preservation of “collective” historical memory. They generalize the Holocaust by homogenizing the losses of Jewry with those incurred by the military forces and the civilian population during the war. Toward this end they erected a large number of monuments, unveiled many plaques, and published many monographs in memory of communal casualties, transmogrifying the Holocaust victims into war casualties. The equation of the martyrdom of armed soldiers, who died as heroes in the service of their country, and of Christian civilians, who were killed in the wake of the hostilities, with that of the Jews, who were murdered irrespective of their age or sex, is clearly politically motivated. This approach enables history-cleansers to demonstrate that the combined military-civilian casualties incurred by the Christian population during the Second World War far exceeded those suffered by the Jews.[39]
Still another technique frequently employed by history-cleansers is that of “trivialization and relativization.” Denying the uniqueness of the Holocaust, the destruction of the Jews is viewed as just another chapter in the long history of man’s inhumanity to man. The apparent main objective of this group of cleansers is to safeguard Hungary’s honor by demonstrating not only that the Holocaust, to the extent that it took place, was in fact preceded by other examples of mass murder (e.g., the massacre of Indians in the Americas and the genocide of the Armenians by the Turks), but also and above all that the destruction of the Jews was dwarfed in scope and magnitude by the atrocities committed by Communist regimes the world over. In this context, many in this group also argue that the Jewish suffering, like that of many other ethnic-national groups, was war-related.[40]
During the first Orbán administration, the nationalists dedicated to the cleansing of the Horthy era have found, in addition to Szakály, a new ally – Dr. Mária Schmidt. A rising young scholar in Holocaust studies during the Communist era, Dr. Schmidt changed her original academic ambitions soon after the systemic change of 1989. She appears to have dedicated herself to the “nationalist” reinterpretation of Hungary’s history after World War I, shifting her interest to the unmasking of the crimes of the Communist era. This soon proved to be a somewhat politically risky undertaking in a country in which Communism has been claimed by sundry anti-Semites since 1919 to be Jewish in origin and character. One may wonder, like many other nationalists, Dr. Schmidt may have concluded that by unmasking the crimes of the Soviet-dominated Communist regimes in general and those perpetrated by the Hungarian Communists in particular, she might not only help mitigate the impact of the Holocaust but also contribute to the defense of the domestic and foreign policies of Horthy’s Hungary. Whatever her motivations, she emerged as a vociferous advocate of the idea that the same yardsticks must be used in the assessment of the Nazi and Communist-type totalitarian regimes and of the crimes perpetrated by them.[41] By mechanically applying this methodology, Schmidt, like many among some ideologically-oriented colleagues, seems to overlook the many historical, socioeconomic, and moral factors that differentiate these totalitarian regimes, correctly concluding that in terms of numbers the crimes committed by the Communists the world over far exceeded those perpetrated by the Nazis.[42] Among the crimes and injustices committed by the Communists, she also includes many of the verdicts of the People’s Courts of the immediate postwar period.[43]
Ms. Schmidt caused a considerable political uproar in early November 1999 when she spoke extensively before a largely rightist group on an accustomed theme: the supposed use of two yardsticks in the evaluation of Nazi and Communist crimes. She expressed profound disappointment that only the Holocaust of the Jews was being recalled in connection with World War II. In her view, the idea that the Holocaust was unique and indisputable was being advanced and propagated by a segment of the intelligentsia who dominated the mass media, whereas, in fact, “the Holocaust, the extermination or rescue of the Jews represented but a secondary, marginal point of view not among the war aims of either belligerent.”[44] The reaction of the Jewish community leaders and many intellectuals was immediate and caustic. In a press release, the Jewish leaders characterized Ms. Schmidt as “the best Hungarian student of Jean-Marie Le Pen,” the French far-right leader who referred to the Holocaust as a “detail” of history.[45] Others questioned her historical analysis and intellectual integrity.[46] Still others expressed disapproval of her activities as head of the newly established and financially well-endowed Twentieth Century Institute.[47] The numerous protests and criticisms notwithstanding, she has continued to play an influential role because of the support she receives from various nationalists and, above all, because she continued to enjoy the confidence and support of the prime minister.[48]
Many Hungarian history-cleansers have taken Schmidt’s anti-Communist crusade a step further. Counterbalancing the accounts of the Holocaust, they concentrate and emphasize almost exclusively the crimes perpetrated by the Communists. Identifying Communism and Bolshevism as Jewish in origin and character, these historical revisionists insist that the wartime suffering of the Jews was matched, if not actually exceeded, by the pain the Jews supposedly inflicted upon the Christian world during the Communist era.[49] This was particularly the case during the Stalinist period when, in their view, “the Jews” exploited their power to avenge the suffering they had endured during the Holocaust. In parliamentary debates and other public forums, even “moderate” politicians occasionally feel compelled to remind their compatriots of the Jewish factor during the Soviet era by selectively identifying former Communist leaders by their original Jewish names.[50]
Another ploy in this context is the tendency to equate Auschwitz with the Gulag, “balancing” the suffering of the Jews with that endured by Hungarian POWs and other political prisoners in Soviet camps. Borrowing a page from their counterparts elsewhere, some Hungarian revisionists claim that Auschwitz was modeled on the Gulag, revealing their ignorance or intentional misrepresentation of the fundamental differences in the operation and objectives of the Nazi death camps and the Soviet penal establishments.[51]
The campaign for the rehabilitation of the Horthy era coupled with the drive to falsify the history of the Holocaust gained momentum during Prime Minister Orbán’s second administration. Emboldened by the landslide victory of his party in the elections of April 2010,[52] Orbán provided both the legal framework and the political directives for the successful pursuit of this campaign. The legal façade for his grand design was provided by the following provision of the preamble to the new constitution that was adopted on April 25, 2011:
We date the restoration of our country’s self-determination, lost on the nineteenth day of March 1944, from the second day of May 1990, when the first freely elected organ of popular representation was formed. We shall consider this date to be the beginning of our country’s new democracy and constitutional order.
By this constitutional provision, the Orbán government appears to pursue two major objectives: to establish a historical continuity between the Hungarian state of the Horthy era and the Hungarian state of the post-communist period and to convince the world that Hungary had lost its sovereignty in the wake of the beginning of the German occupation and, as a victim itself, not responsible for the subsequent destruction of the Jews. By using this big lie technique, he and the history-cleansers he supports have proceeded to erase the historical fact that the German occupiers were well-received by most Hungarians, civilians and the military alike. They seem to be particularly dedicated to falsify the fact that the occupation took place without any resistance in the wake of a Horthy-Hitler agreement at Schloss Klessheim (March 18–19, 1944), that the Hungarian army and the law enforcement agencies continued to serve the Axis war effort, and that the Horthy-appointed government placed the instruments of state power – the gendarmerie, police, and civil service – at the disposal of those in charge of the Final Solution – while he, the Regent, continued to represent the sovereignty of the nation as head of state.
The Hungarian history-cleansers could not, in the age of the Internet while Hungary is a member of NATO and the European Union, deny the realities of the catastrophe that befell the Hungarian Jews. As a result, concurrent with blaming exclusively the Germans for the Holocaust, they are engaged in covering up Hungary’s involvement by focusing on the “positive” aspects of its history – the help Hungarians had provided for the Jews since 1867 in general and during the Second World War in particular. In connection with the latter, the history-cleansers usually have focused on the protection of labor servicemen following the beginning of the German occupation, the rescue activities of the Righteous, and the saving of the Jews of Budapest.
It is true that the Jewish labor servicemen were, with a few exceptions, exempted from the ghettoization and deportation measures and had the “protection” of the armed forces, which continued to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the labor service system even after the beginning of the German occupation. It is also true that quite a number of military commanders recruited “strong-looking” Jewish men from within the ghettos in order to save them from deportation and almost certain death – still another indication of their awareness of the realities of the anti-Jewish drive. The history-cleansers fail to deal with the basically discriminatory nature of the system and the horrors to which many of the labor servicemen were subjected along the Soviet front lines, in the copper mines of Serbia, and during the Nyilas era. A few well-known “patriotic” historians, including Sándor Szakály, went so far as to describe the labor service system as quite equitable, emphasizing that the treatment of the Jewish labor servicemen was tolerable, and that their losses were far fewer than generally claimed.[53]
In accordance with the guidelines originally formulated by former prime minister József Antall, Jr., the history-cleansers, like many among the “respectable” governmental and political leaders of contemporary Hungary, have tried to deflect attention from the Hungarians’ involvement in the Holocaust by focusing attention on the rescue activities of the relatively few Christians who had been identified by Yad Vashem as Righteous among the Nations. This politically directed overemphasis on the Righteous, in the absence of the historical context of the Final Solution, is presumably designed to inculcate in the postwar generations the belief that the practitioners of righteous conduct, rather than the perpetrators, were the dominant elements of the Holocaust era.[54]
One of the major arguments used by the history-cleansers in their drive to rehabilitate the Horthy era has been the Regent’s decision of July 6-7, 1944 to halt the deportations and thereby save the Jews of Budapest.[55] While this is basically true, history-cleansers fail to identify the political and military factors that induced the Regent to act at a time when all of Hungary, with the notable exception of the capital, already had been made judenrein. They also fail to acknowledge Horthy’s own responsibility for the liquidation of the provincial Jewish communities. He did so by consenting, during his March 18, 1944 meeting with Hitler at Schloss Klessheim, to the delivery of hundreds of thousands of Jews “for labor in Germany.”[56] After constitutionally appointing his new pro-German government, he decided not to be involved in Jewish matters thereby giving a free hand to those involved in the Final Solution program.[57] The argument advanced by Edmund Veesenmayer, the Führer”s former plenipotentiary in Hungary, is quite persuasive. In his testimony at the 1946 war crimes trial of the so-called “deportation trio” – Andor Jaross, László Endre, and László Baky – Veesenmayer declared that Horthy, who as head of state, had demonstrated his ability to halt the deportations at a particular time could have prevented their initiation in the first place – had he really wanted to do so.[58] Horthy’s champions also overlook the fact that credit for the rescuing of the Jews of Budapest has also been claimed by or attributed to many others, including the commander of the troops that foiled an anti-Horthy coup early in July 1944.[59]
As part of the drive to focus attention on the Righteous, the Orbán government decided to celebrate Raoul Wallenberg’s centenary in 2012 by organizing a series of commemorative events both at home and abroad. One of these events was planned for New York.[60] Among the many events organized in Budapest, one featured Kati Marton, the well-known Hungarian-born author of a book on Wallenberg, focusing on his disappearance in the Soviet Union. In an interview following her lecture, she claimed that Wallenberg “was in fact a Hungarian hero… who was honored because he had in fact saved Hungarians in Budapest” (emphasis added).[61] Presumably designed to please her official hosts, these claims were properly rebuffed by those interested in protecting the historical integrity of the Holocaust era.[62] The commemoration of the centenary of Raoul Wallenberg, one of the first rescuers to be identified by Yad Vashem as a Righteous among the Nations, provided an opportunity to highlight the rescue activities of the Hungarian righteous – all diverting attention from Hungary’s involvement in the Holocaust.
The drive to bring about the rehabilitation of the Horthy era continued to be pursued along seemingly two conflicting paths: the encouragement of activities relating to the revitalization of the national-Christian spirit of the interwar period and the commemoration of its national heroes concurrent with the adoption of some policies relating to the Holocaust. Along the former path, the Orbán government consented to, if not actually encouraged, the renaming of streets and the erection of statues for Horthy in many parts of the country and condoned the “positive” reevaluation of notorious anti-Semites such as the writers Albert Wass and József Nyirő, and Bishop Ottokár Prohászka.
Along the second path, the Orbán government adopted a number of positive measures relating to the commemoration of the Holocaust. It was during his administration that April 16 was designated as the day of remembrance of the Hungarian chapter of the Holocaust.[63] It also supports the Holocaust Memorial Center (Holokauszt Emlékközpont), which was established on July 1, 2002 and inaugurated on April 16, 2004 under the auspices of Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy (May 27, 2002 – September 29, 2004).[64] As a state agency, the Center depends almost exclusively on the financial support by the government. As a result, its leaders, like the members of the Board of Directors (Kurátorium), appear not to be totally free and independent in determining the agenda of their research and other activities. They had managed, so far at least, to retain relatively intact the permanent exhibition that was organized during the Medgyessy era, and this in spite of occasional public criticism by high officials of the Orbán government. In 2011, for example, they were subjected to an attack by András Levente Gál, then state secretary in the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice (a Küzigazgatási és Igazságügyi Minisztérium) – an official with jurisdiction over the Center. Gál, a non-historian and a well-known nationalist politician, had publicly objected to some aspects of the Center’s permanent exhibition. He was particularly angered by the correlation he had found between Hungary’s territorial acquisitions between 1938 and 1941 and the Holocaust, he reportedly suggested that appropriate changes be effectuated in the exhibition. The suggestion aroused vocal protests in Hungary and elsewhere, forcing Gál to retreat. In addition to Gál, Cardinal Péter Erdő, the Archbishop of Esztergom, objected to the placement of a portrait of the anti-Semitic Ottokár Prohászka, the bishop of Székesfehérvár, next to that of Hitler.
One of the major conflicts between the remnant Jewish community and the successive Hungarian governments during the 70 years following the Holocaust has revolved around the issue of responsibility. In contrast to the leaders of many states in former Nazi-dominated Europe, those of Hungary so far have lacked the courage to confront the Holocaust openly and honestly. In the course of the past few decades, quite a number of officials, including members of the various successive governments, have expressed sorrow and even apologized for the tragedy that befell Hungarian Jewry.[65] These expressions of contrition usually have been made during official national or international commemorative events, especially those organized by Jewish or democratically-oriented civic organizations. The hopes of the surviving remnant of Hungarian Jewry that one day the leaders of the government and state will – in an official address to the nation – admit responsibility and perhaps even apologize, however belatedly, for the Hungarians’ involvement in the destruction of their fellow citizens of the Jewish faith have virtually faded. Ironically, they were shattered by the very measures the Orbán government had initiated for the remembrance of that tragedy.
Early in 2013, the Orbán government decided to make 2014 the year for the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary. Toward this end, it brought about the establishment of a “2014 Memorial Committee on the Holocaust in Hungary” (a Magyar Holokauszt – 2014 Emlékbizottság ).[66] It was placed under the leadership of János Lázár, a state secretary in charge of the prime minister’s office – a controversial political figure whose previous activities raised a number of agonizing questions about his suitability for the job. In June 2010, for example, Lázár, then mayor of Hódmezővásárhely, unveiled a statue honoring Albert Wass, a Hungarian writer who, in 1946, a people’s court in Romania convicted for war crimes.
Following the first organizational meeting of the Committee, which came into existence on January 1, 2013, Lázár attempted to disarm his critics by publicly stating, among other things:
2014 must the year for facing up to the fact and for apologizing… . Facing up to the fact denotes a command for remembrance and under law, a prohibition of forgetting; we must make the apology a part of our national identity… . The remembrance year must be the time for the national facing up to the Holocaust and for apologizing rather than the time for individual or intellectual confrontations and apologies… . We owe an apology to the victims; the Hungarian state was guilty during the Holocaust. Doubly guilty: first because it failed to save its own citizens from destruction and, second, because it assisted and provided instruments of power for the genocide.[67]
Lázár’s statement was welcomed by those who were interested in setting the Holocaust-related historical record straight; others were more skeptical not only because of the anti-democratic policies of the Orbán-led government, but also and primarily because it has condoned the glaringly anti-Semitic and racist policies and activities of several extremist political parties and movements.
To assist the work of the 2014 Memorial Committee, the government created a Civil Fund of 1.5 billion forints (approximately 6.8 million US dollars) for the support of civil and municipal initiatives and commemorative program proposals. Shortly after the deadline of November 15, 2013, the hundreds of proposals submitted by Jewish community organizations, branches of the Christian churches, cultural institutions, and individuals were reviewed and ranked by the Commission for Culture and Media of the Hungarian Parliament.[68]
The government’s Holocaust commemoration plans were not universally applauded. Some argued that, given the political climate in the country and the dire economic conditions with high levels of unemployment, the allocation of such funds for the remembrance of the Holocaust might only stoke the fire of anti-Semitism and could be better used for helping the needy. Many others expressed their suspicion that the grandiose remembrance program had been designed to detract attention from the government’s intentions to “denationalize” the Holocaust by transferring exclusive responsibility onto the Germans and concurrently to rehabilitate the Horthy era.
One of the most controversial projects in the government’s commemoration plans was a decision to transform the former Józsefvárosi Railway Station into a museum honoring the children who were murdered during the Holocaust.[69] Early in July 2013, the Orbán government authorized the building of such a museum to be named “House of Fates – European Education Center” (Sorsok Háza – Európai Oktatási Központ).[70] To the dismay of many, the government entrusted Mária Schmidt, the controversial founder and director of the House of Terror (Terror Háza), with the realization of the new museum plans. As a visionary and director of the House of Terror, Schmidt has, in the view of many historians, used this richly funded institution to denigrate and minimize the Holocaust and emphasize the crimes that had been committed during the communist era.[71] Following her new assignment, Schmidt, assured of a large budgetary allocation, soon established an International Advisory Body (Nemzetközi Tanácsadó Testület – NTT) that included a number of reputable individuals, including a few scholars and several top Jewish community leaders.[72]
The appointment of Schmidt to build and lead a Holocaust-related museum aroused the ire not only of the official leaders of Hungarian Jewry but also of many individuals familiar with her professional background.<a title="" href="http://hungarianspe