Volume V, No. 2: Frank Koszorus
“Reflections on March 19, 1944 and Its Aftermath:
A Perfect Storm of Tragedy and Folly”
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AHF History
The “Free Hungary Movement” seeking to extract Hungary from the Axis sphere [read more]
The American Hungarian Federation’s statement regarding the occupation of Hungary by Hitler on March 19, 1944 and its horrific consequences: “We are concerned that a political agenda has replaced a debate based on historical facts relating to the Hungarian Holocaust and Nazi Germany’s invasion and occupation of Hungary,” said Frank Koszorus, Jr., the Federation’s president. “We condemn not only whitewashing but the blackening of this historical record as well. Both forms of revisionism does a great disservice to the memory of the victims of evil and those who opposed it at a treacherous time in Hungary’s history. These considerations prompted us to issue our statement,” he added. [read more]
Volume V, No. 2: John O’Sullivan
Editorial Note
“‘Yes’, replied Clemenceau, ‘future historians will say many things that we today might disagree with. But …they will not say… that Belgium invaded Germany…’ They do not say that Hungary occupied Germany.”
Some years ago Simon Green, the English cultural critic, wrote a paper on the evolution of war monuments in Britain. Earlier monuments tended to be local and narrow in their ambit of concern. They memorialised the men of the village who had fought and died. And that was it. Ideally that spirit of reconciliation should animate monuments and memorials where it can.
It seems to us that something like this sentiment originally inspired the proposed monument to all the Hungarian victims of the German Occupation of 1944. But it has run up against the fact that different historical interpretations of the German Occupation and of Hungary’s role in the Second World War still divide Hungarians. A monument intended to reconcile thus risks becoming a further cause of division. The fact that its unveiling has been postponed gives everyone the opportunity to consider how to restore its original purpose. Simon Green’s work tells us that the solution may be simply a matter of words. For, as Ataturk demonstrated, words can heal as well as hurt. [read more]
Volume V, No. 2: John Lukács
“An Other Hungary Existed”
“Szent-Iványi was both witness and principal actor in Hungary’s very great tragedy. His documents and descriptions of those weeks and months are valuable for us…”
For many reasons, too long to detail or even sum up here, Hungary was a natural and expectable minor ally of the German Third Reich. Both of them were defeated and truncated after the First World War (Hungary lost two-thirds of its ancient kingdom). Hungary’s desire of revisionism had no results, while Hitler’s indeed did. In 1938 he annexed Austria, Hungary’s close neighbour. The effects of this condition were wide and deep, they included also a considerable empathy for the Third Reich among a large portion of Hungarians. But there was a minority among Hungarians, mostly among the upper classes, that opposed to such atendency. They included the former Prime Minister István Bethlen, whom Szent-Iványi had met years before, they had a mutual esteem for each other. And as early as 1936 something like a Hungarian Independence Movement was beginning to form, meaning primarily the maintaining of a considerable amount of Hungarian independence from Germany. Its very existence is extensively documented in this book. Szent-Iványi was in the midst of it. But to understand something of its difficulties is hardly separable from the complex nature of Hungarian politics and statesmanship during the Second World War. [read more]
Volume V, No. 2: Géza Jeszenszky
“Hungary in the Second World War: Tragic Blunders or Destiny?”
“Horthy in his Memoirs wrote that when Hitler told him that Germany would occupy Hungary, he should have shot the dictator. Why did he not do that, he had a pistol on him…”
Among the many unfair or exaggerated criticisms Hungary has received recently it is often brought up that Horthy, Hungary’s Head of State (Regent) from 1920 to 1944, was an ally of Nazi Germany, who, with Hitler’s help, annexed territories from the neighbours, and permitted the murder of half a million Jewish Hungarians. Few of the journalists, let alone their readers, would take the trouble to look into the intricate story of how Hungary (together with all the states of Central Europe) became the victim first of Hitler and then of Stalin, and what was the background of the terrible crimes perpetrated during and immediately after the Second World War. Here is a summary of those fateful years. [read more]
Volume III, No. 3: Frank Koszorus
“The Soldier Who Saved the Lives of Budapest’s Jews: Col. Ferenc Koszorus.” The United States, Hungary, Sweden and others are commemorating the centennial of the birth of Raoul Wallenberg. the Swedish diplomat who exhibited incredible heroism and saved tens of thusands of Hungarian Jews from deportation during the Holocaust. Less known is the courageous intervention of Col. Ferenc Koszorus and his loyal First Armored Division on July 6, 1944 to block the deportation of the more than 250,000 Jews of Budapest. In paying tribute to Col. Koszorus, former Congressman Tom Lantos, a survivor of the Holocaust, noted that the Koszorus intervention “permitted… Wallenberg, who arrived in Budapest on July 9, 1944, to coordinate his successful and effective rescue mission.” Congressman Lantos’ statement, as entered into the Congressional record. [read more]