Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority

The attention of the Czech public focused on the Slovak question only in the spring of 1946 Fat the time of the elections]. All of a sudden it assumed primary importance, requiring quick and decisive solutions. The [Fascist] L'udák's - thought by the Czechs to have been liquidated long ago - sided openly and totally with the Democratic Party during the election campaign, resorting to L'udák methods to the fullest. It turned out that, with a few exceptions, all former members of parliament of the HSLS [HIinková Slovenská L'udová Strana - Hlinka's Slovak People's Party] were at liberty, that all important officials of the Hlinka Guard and of the Party were free to move about in Slovakia-what is more, that many of them still occupied posts in central offices, on the [Slovak] national committees at the county level, in the army, in the security agencies, at the universities, in the schools. These destroyers of the Republic, thought to be sitting behind bars, continue to work and interfere in the public affairs of Slovakia and of the Republic . . . In the editorial offices of Èas and of the other papers of the Democratic Party there are twelve newsmen who had worked formerly for Hlinka's Slovák or Gardista. ¹⁸

In reply to Czech criticism, Dr. Juraj sujan, the Slovak State Attorney of the famous Tuka trial of 1929, published a critical survey of the Slovak people's courts:

Forty percent of the total [145] cases was not tried by the [Bratislava] National Court, and some of these were major cases . . . What is the reason? Why even some of the most important cases were not tried by the National Court? After the Tiso trial . . . [conflict] had arisen between the presidency of the National Court and the presidency of the Slovak National Council. [it was rumored that the cause of conflict was the Slovak National Council's effort to save Tiso's life]. The leadership of the Slovak National Council dismissed Dr. Daxner, President of the National Court. Dr. Daxner refused to leave his office, and while he had the backing of the [Czechoslovak] Government, the leadership of the Slovak National Council stuck to its decision. This . . . [conflict] continued to the end [of the existence of the National Court]. ¹⁹

Dr. sujan then listed the biased acquittals and mild sentences. However, in a follow-up study of the people's courts, Dr. sujan himself came to the biased conclusion that actually the Hungarians bear the main responsibility for the very existence of Slovak Fascism:

It seems that we did not fully understand the significance of the people's courts. We did not appreciate fully the fact that the task of this judicial process was to consolidate our politically still not fully mature and gravely ill [Slovak] nation. For, as a result of long [Hungarian] oppression, our nation was dragged into a policy of collaboration with Hitler by Hungarians, Magyarons [Hungarized Slovaks] and irresponsible persons.²⁰

The effort to blame the Hungarians for the misdeeds of Slovak Fascism was, of course, nothing new. It was voiced during the peace conference in Paris. It was present at the Tiso trial in Bratislava. The defense attorney, Dr. Greèo, tried to prove that Tiso and his Slovaks were actually not responsible for Czechoslovakia's destruction. For, in Dr. Greèo's words: "The causes of Czechoslovakia's disintegration were pan-German expansionism and Hungarian revisionism."²¹ In such an atmosphere it was illusionary indeed to expect any measure of fairness from the Slovak people's courts toward the Hungarians.

The trial of János Esterházy, head of the Hungarian Parry in Tiso's Slovakia, was one of the most glaring examples of the double standards practiced by the Slovak people's courts against the Hungarians.

Postwar Czechoslovak policy regarded the Hungarian Party in Tiso Slovakia as the legal successor of the United Hungarian Party in prewar Czechoslovakia. The intention was to burden Esterházy and his Party with responsibility for the destruction of Czechoslovakia and with charges of collaboration with the Sudeten Germans and Nazi Germany. The Hungarian Party's critical attitude toward the Fascist Tiso regime was never recognized. In particular, its opposition to the Slovak Fascist atrocities that got under way in 1942 was kept under silence. János Esterházy was the only member in the Slovak Parliament who voted against the deportation of the Jews in 1942. At the time of the Slovak uprising in 1944, Esterházy was in Hungary. He was arrested by the Hungarian Fascist Arrow Cross regime after October 15, 1944, because he refused to allow the Hungarian Party of Slovakia to be affiliated with Arrow Cross organization. Following his release, he returned to Bratislava and announced his resignation as head of the Party which - or, rather the little that was left of it-came by then under the control of a handful of local pro-Nazis.

Pursued by the Gestapo, Esterházy went into hiding in Slovakia. He chose to stay with his people, rejecting exile. After Slovakia's liberation, captured by the Russians, he was taken to the Soviet Union as a "war criminal. " So say the Slovak sources, which also purport to know that "in the Soviet Union half of his sentence was remitted and he was able to return to Slovakia by 1948."²² Meanwhile, in 1947, the National Court in Bratislava sentenced Esterházy to death in his absence. Upon his return from the Soviet Union, his death sentence was commuted to life in prison. He died in 1957 in a prison hospital.

"In contumaciam," János Esterházy was sentenced to death by hanging on September 16, 1947, by the National Court in Bratislava. The correspondent of Èas filed this report on the verdict:

The main trial of János Esterházy, deputy of the former Slovak National Assembly, took place before the National Court in Bratislava on Tuesday under the presidency of K. Bedrna. The whereabouts of the accused are unknown, he is probably in the Soviet Union. He was charged with crimes for the destruction of the [Czechoslovak] Republic, as well as for his activities as leader of the Hungarian Party and its Deputy in the National Assembly of the Slovak State. Dr. M. Èikvonova, the defense attorney appointed by the State, moved that the trial be adjourned, considering that the accused was not present, and to make it possible to prepare the material for defense. After deliberations, the Court rejected the motion of the defense. After the presentation of the evidence the Court reached a verdict in contumacian, according to which the accused János Esterházy was condemned to death by hanging, furthermore to the loss of his rights as citizen and to the confiscation of his property.²³

The later commutation of János Esterházy's death sentence to life imprisonment should be regarded as fortunate. His execution would have been one of the most shameful acts of postwar Czechoslovak policy against the Hungarian minority. Even some contemporary Slovak historians admitted Esterházy's anti-Fascist record. Moreover, even Communist historiography in Hungary, the country most eager of the Soviet bloc to be critical of its own nationals, has occasionally ranked Count János Esterházy among "opponents of the Germans and the Arrow Cross."²⁴

The Esterházy trial has stirred up spontaneous indignation among Hungarians everywhere, overpowering the scattered voices of official Hungarian Communist approval. Esterházy's anti-Fascist stand, his person, has never been rehabilitated. However, the facts of his political activity in opposition to the Tiso regime in Slovakia was at least publicly recorded in the memoirs of Zoltán Fábry, the distinguished Hungarian Communist writer, a witness and victim of the tragedy of the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia:

When Fascism had triumphed, János Esterházy and his party, the Hungarian Party of Slovakia, did not collaborate; thus the Hungarian minority of Slovakia became the sole collective carrier of anti-Hitlerism in this country. But who knows about this? . . . He [Esterházy] held out to the last moment though his cause was lost. He did not flee, he did not evacuate. He faced without fear the judgment he expected . . . What had to happen to a Hungarian count, and to his "nation of gentlemen," that he should be waiting for the Russians to come? That he should be rooting for them, even if they should be the harbingers of an avalanche which would eventually bury him?²⁵

The Hungarians of the territories returned to Hungary in 1938 - and re-annexed by Czechoslovakia after the war - found themselves even in a worse situation than the Hungarians who remained in Tiso's Slovakia. The so-called "support of the Fascist occupying forces" section of the Slovak retribution law was the easiest to apply against these Hungarians. They could be accused of "loyalty to the Horthy regime." The "Fascist-nation" theory could reap among them a rich harvest of "war criminals" by pronouncing them just guilty of "passivity."

I have called attention several times to the complex psychological causes of the apathy of the Hungarian masses during the last stages of the war. But to the Slovak historian, this was simply evidence of the "Fascist integration almost of the entire Hungarian society."²⁶

Serious researchers and eye witnesses know that, after 1941, the Hungarian Fascist Arrow Cross organization in "occupied" Southern Slovakia fell apart and lost mass support. Decline began with Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union already in 1941. Disintegration became complete by 1944. Under the impact of military developments on the eastern front of the war, branches of the Arrow Cross in some regions stopped their activities already in late 1941.²⁷ In Eastern Slovakia, according to a Slovak researcher, active Arrow Cross members in the Hungarian-populated regions dropped from 2,000 in 1941 to 200 in 1944.²⁸ These figures could hardly support the Slovak thesis of almost total "Fascist integration" of the Hungarian society.

Yet Slovak historiography consistently treats the postwar policy of discrimination against the Hungarians as an "anti-Fascist" accomplishment. Manifestly reactionary and inhumane nationalist actions against the Hungarians are described as "progressive and revolutionary." Furthermore, Slovak historians maintain that the policy toward the Hungarians in liberated Czechoslovakia was more democratic than the policy of the Horthy regime had been toward the Slovaks. For, "the regime of the people's democracy of Slovakia never behaved as roughly towards the Hungarians as did the Horthy regime vis-à-vis the Slovaks in occupied areas."²⁹

One particularly favorite theme of Slovak historiography is the alleged "mass" expulsion of Slovaks from "occupied" Southern Slovakia under the Horthy regime. We have dealt with this myth, proving how groundless it is. As we have shown, the "mass" expulsion amounted to no more than 5000 Slovaks. Yet, Slovak historiography still keeps silent about the 81,000 Czechs and Slovaks who left Southern Slovakia before the Hungarian "Occupation forces" arrived. They lump the 81,000 together with the 5000-or, rather, arbitrarily quote astronomical figures about "mass" expulsions as if they were solid statistics. Why? Most likely, because it is necessary to maintain such myths in order to support the "Fascist-nation" theory against the Hungarians, in order to vindicate the collective deprival of the Hungarians' civil rights, in order to justify the entire policy of retribution.

Myths and lies are the ugly legacy of war. Unfortunately, they are being spread long after the war, deliberately and consistently. For instance, Dr. Daniel Okáli, head of the Slovak Government Department in charge of postwar resettlement, in 1968 was talking of the expulsion of "hundreds of thousands" of Czechs and Slovaks from "occupied" Southern Slovakia.³⁰ Nor did he sober up by 1969, when he asserted that "one-third" of Slovakia had been attached to Hungary in 1938, that the Hungarians evicted "hundreds of thousands" of Slovaks and Czechs from their homes, and that further "hundreds of thousands" of Slovaks were inducted into the armies of Horthy and used as cannon fodder.³¹

The mood of reprisals in the aftermath of a war may be regarded as understandable. However, under no circumstances should lies born in that postwar mood be treated forever as historical facts, as it became common practice in Slovak historiography.

In Czech lands the spontaneous desire for vengeance against the Germans was much more blood-thirsty than the anti-Hungarian mood in Slovakia. The Slovak public, in fact, as I have shown in my earlier chapters, had to be manipulated from above in order to burst out in an unprecedented fury of anti-Hungarian emotions. Yet, unlike in Slovakia, the political trials in the Czech lands were much less dominated by vindictiveness.

So much so that the Czech people's courts came under criticism for their lack of understanding of the purpose of "political justice":

The new Republic basically adopted the pre-Munich judicial system of the Republic. It became obvious that some of the judges do not understand the requirement of the times and hand down sentences which are incomprehensible to our citizens . . . If we compare our political trials with those in other countries, with France or the Soviet Union . . . we can see that our judicial system leaves a lot to be desired. The purpose of a political trial is different from the trial of a common felony; in a political suit we are passing judgment not over a single culprit but over a movement and an ideology from which the actions of the accused stem.³²

There was no ground for similar complaints regarding Slovak "political justice." The trials of Hungarians took place in an atmosphere of political prejudice. The sentences depended on nationality, on political party or movement; unlike the Czech practice, the Slovak people's courts in action were over-politicized. Also, the basic purpose of the People's courts in Slovakia differed from its purpose in the Czech lands. In the Czech land, after the expulsion of the Germans, the prosecution was directed mainly against the Czech traitors, whereas in Slovakia it was aimed all the way against the Hungarian minority and in support of its expulsion.

The divergence between the administration of Czech and Slovak justice was apparent to the Minister of Justice, a Czech. However, he sought the explanation of this divergence in the "divergent laws" governing retribution in the Czech and Slovak parts of the country. In Slovakia, the Slovak National Council reserved the right of considerable autonomy for itself: "The leading officials of the Ministry of Justice were unwilling to defend the independence of the judge . . . Since the [Daxner] affair of the President of the National Court in Bratislava, judicial independence was indeed threatened."³³

The Communist deputies in the National Assembly were generally dissatisfied with the activities of the People's courts in Slovakia, but only because of Slovak leniency toward their own Fascists: "How can it be that the traitors are running free, that leading figures of the Fascist regime not only were not punished, but occupy important positions in the national economy or in the State administration and use their positions of power to become centers of underground anti-State L'udák activities?"³⁴

The administration of justice by the people's courts was corrupt. However, corruption also enabled quite a few Hungarians to escape sentences the corrupt courts meted out against them. Corrupt practices of the people's courts followed from the very role they were assigned to play in the Government's efforts to expel the Hungarian minority from Czechoslovakia.

Thus, many Hungarians, sometimes even those condemned to as much as ten years for ''war crimes'' were allowed to go free if they pledged to leave the country. Often, after sentencing, the Hungarians were discreetly told that their sentences would be carried out only if they refused to move to Hungary. I myself was witness to such an incident in 1947. Of course, in order to force a condemned Hungarian to flee to Hungary, it was necessary to reach harsh verdicts. Nobody surrendered his home to avoid a few months in jail. This has never been written about, yet only in the context of the expulsion policy can the people's courts' actions against the Hungarians be properly understood.

The corrupt system enabled still another mode of escape. In view of the large number of Hungarians convicted, it was impossible to find room for them in the prisons. Therefore, those condemned to shorter times, one or two years, usually were sent to labor camps. There, within a few months, the guards told them not to return "necessarily" after next Sunday's furlough.

Much as nationalist propaganda from above was disseminating hatred against the Hungarians, relations among Slovakia's peoples of mixed nationality did not always correspond to the chauvinist spirit of official policy. And, despite the hate propaganda, unlike in the German populated regions of the Czech lands, no lynchings ever occurred in the Hungarian populated regions of Slovakia following liberation from Nazi occupation

Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority