Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary

The Little Entente Breaks Up

But for the time being, everything was going well for both the Reich and for Magyar ambitions. The cries of millions, Nem. nem, soha!" echoing in the Carpathian Basin seemed to be working. The walls of "Jericho" - Czechoslovakia - started to crumble. But the crumbling was caused not by the cries of protest from without, but from Czechoslovakia's inherent weakness within, being, as it was, the most unnatural state of the Little Entente. Although Benes had boasted during the war that "the Allies will find in it the basis of their resistance against the Germans," and that the country will constitute the very heart of the anti-German barrier," Czechoslovakia surrendered to the Germans without firing a shot. As a side-effect, through the so-called first Vienna Agreement arbitrated by Germany and Italy with Western recognition, Hungary regained most of the Hungarian-inhabited territories of Czechoslovakia in the fall of 1938. The next spring, when Slovakia became a separate state, Hungary recovered Ruthenia as well, establishing a common frontier with Poland.

The Magyars reacted to the recovery of the lost territories with delirious joy. When Regent Horthy, riding a white horse, led his troops first to the recovered city of Komárom and then to Kassa, he was greeted with indescribable jubilation.

Unfortunately, the sky that had begun brightening over Hungary was soon beclouded by the war launched when Hitler attacked Poland in September 1939. After Poland's defeat, Hungary gave asylum to nearly 100,000 Polish soldiers and helped most of them reach the West through Yugoslavia and Italy.

Although Rumania had an "offensive and defensive alliance" with Poland, she backed away from helping her ally. Instead, Bucharest joined the Berlin-Rome Axis on June 22, 1940, the very day the French surrendered to Germany at Compiegne. But the Russian nemesis caught up with the Rumanians a few days later when Rumania was obliged to bow to a Russian ultimatum and to relinquish Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union. On the same day, Hungary declined Stalins' offer to participate in the carving up of Rumania. Two months later Bucharest accepted the second Vienna Agreement arbitrated by Italy and Germany and, in doing so, returned northern Transylvania and the Székely provinces to Hungary. In Hungary, jubilation over this second agreement surpassed even the delirium caused by the first. Not one to miss a chance to bask in glory, Horthy repeated his triumphal ride on his white horse, this time to the recovered city of Kolozsvár (Cluj).

With two members of the Little Entente (Czechoslovakia and Rumania) down, it was now Yugoslavia's turn. But when it came, it was with some embarrassment and even tragedy, because Hungarian Prime Minister Count Pál Teleki had signed a treaty of "eternal friendship" with Yugoslavia at the end of 1940. This treaty had been concluded to help both nations resist excessive pressure from Germany without saying so, but it turned out to be a short-lived friendship: the Yugoslav government that had signed it was overthrown by a pro-Western military faction. Reacting to this coup, Hitler decided to attack Yugoslavia. What is more, the Führer demanded that Hungary scrap the friendship treaty and take part in the invasion of Yugoslavia. Although the validity of the treaty became questionable once the Yugoslav government was overthrown, Teleki still felt its terms binding for Hungary. Accordingly, Hitler's request was refused. However the transit of German troops through the country seemed inevitable and was actually permitted by the German-infiltrated Hungarian army command..

Teleki, unable to reverse this fait accompli, committed suicide on April 3, 1941, in a dramatic protest against what he considered a breach of faith on Hungary's part. His deed was also a symbolic call for help to the West on behalf of his nation. (After

the collapse of Yugoslavia, Hungary recovered the Hungarian-inhabited region, the Voivodina.)

Winston Churchill understood this message when he declared that the sacrifice of the Hungarian premier must not be forgotten and "at the coming peace conference a chair shall be reserved for him." But when the peace conference came after the war the Allies simply ignored Churchill's symbolic gesture; as a matter of fact, Churchill himself was deprived of a chair at the conference.

Teleki's suicide was an act of double self-sacrifice, because while he killed himself in a moral protest in defense of Hungary's honor as a devout Catholic he must have believed that his act would not only take his earthly life, but would also condemn him to eternal damnation.

The premier, in his farewell letter to Regent Horthy, expressed the hope that "with my death I may perhaps perform a last service to my country." In retrospect it seems that Teleki could have done a much greater service to Hungary by choosing exile in the West. Using his international prestige and vast knowledge, he might have been able to counterbalance anti-Hungarian propaganda in Western capitals, and resume his post after the war.

A Noble Hungarian

Teleki had been perhaps the noblest figure of the Horthy era. Physically a small, bespectacled man, he was, intellectually, a giant personality. As a true representative of Hungarian tolerance, he had much in common with Baron József Eötvös, the great Magyar liberal of the 19th century. Teleki advocated mutual understanding among the peoples of the Carpathian Basin, which he considered a God-created natural unity. In addition to being an internationally famous authority in geography, Teleki also had a profound knowledge of the history and sociography of many lands. He spoke six languages fluently.

In foreign policy, Teleki recognized that only Germany could break the Little Entente, but at the same time he feared the German expansion which he felt in the long run could swallow Hungary whole. He shared Horthy's view that in a conflict between the Reich and the West, Germany would be defeated. When Hitler declared war on Poland in September. 1939, Teleki and Horthy turned down a German request to use Hungarian territory as a military springboard against Poland. Upon Poland's collapse, Hungary opened her frontiers to a tidal wave of refugees, including 100,000 Polish soldiers and many thousands of Jews. Those who wanted to go to England to join the Polish liberation army were supplied with passports. Teleki's government provided housing for refugee families and established schools for their children. Between 1940-44, the only free Polish high school in Europe was operating in Hungary.

A national movement called "Hungarians for the Poles" (Magyarok a lengyelekért) had been launched and it became fashionable for all strata of society - from peasants to aristocrats - to help the Poles in one way or another.

Under the coordination of the Magyar-Lengyel Menekültügyi Bizottság (Committee for Hungarian-Polish Refugee Affairs), various administrative bodies were set up to care for the military and civilian refugees by way of provisioning, medical care, cultural activities and employment. Associations such as the Hungarian Mickiewicz Society, the Hungarian Polish University Alliance, and the Hungarian-Polish Scouts Circle sprang up, In Budapest, official representations of the Polish Red Cross and the Polish Catholic Church were allowed to operate openly. Clandestinely, about 30,000 Poles were smuggled out across the Yugoslav frontier to the West by the Polish political and military government in exile in London and through an undercover Polish-Hungarian network.

In this collective effort, the individual who played perhaps the most remarkable role was Msgr. Béla Varga, who was to become the speaker of the parliament after the war. Msgr. Varga also distinguished himself during the war by protecting hundreds of Frenchmen stranded in Hungary from the Nazis, an act which later earned him membership as Comman-

der in the French Legion d'Honneur.

Balatonboglár, where Msgr. Béla Varga's parish was located, became the center of the Polish Youth Movement with the monsignor's active help. A Polish high school and a lycée were organized under his tutelage.

The Polish people did not forget these manifestations of brotherly assistance and the Polish phrase Polak Wengier dwa bratanki (Magyar-lengyel - két testvér: "The Poles and Hungarians are two brothers") has been etched into Polish hearts.

Intermezzo in Copenhagen

In his concern and love for Hungarian youth, Pál Teleki also headed the national Boy Scout movement, and in his free time he could often be seen among them, dressed in their uniform. It was during his stewardship that the Hungarian Boy Scouts established an international reputation.

The world took its first surprised notice of these scouts during the World Boy Scout Jamboree of 1924, held in Copenhagen, in which boy scout teams from 33 nations competed in eleven outdoor skills. The 48-member Hungarian team was scorned at first by its peers, and indeed the Hungarian scouts - lacking the funds of wealthier nations' sons - were pitifully ill-equipped compared to their competitors. The fact that Hungary, after a lost war was unpopular in Europe added an intangible handicap for her sons in Copenhagen. In the words of the writer Sándor Sik:

The little group representing a people from the East, the ostracized nation of the Magyars, came to the West to find itself before the "iron gate" of indifference of another world. Beyond it they saw a sprawling opulence displaying all the comforts that Western feats of engineering could offer. This ''gate" looked down on us as if it were saying: "You don't belong here. You cannot enter this gate, you are poor as a church mouse, sons of a nation that is dreaming impossible dreams."

But the little group from the East did not budge; it rolled up its sleeves to achieve the impossible: with discipline, determination and Hungarian spirit they managed to break through that imaginary "iron gate"...

Even discounting the pathos emanating from these lines, the Hungarian Boy Scouts succeeded indeed. On the first day of the Jamboree they achieved a psychological breakthrough with their modest and quietly dignified appearance, spotlighted by a little episode: When all kinds of goodies were thrown among the teams from a passing truck, the Hungarian Scouts stood by quietly while members of other teams scrambled wildly for their share.

From there the Hungarians went on to surprise the gathered nations by building the best camp of the jamboree,. garnering the best camp-routine award, winning two more first place award, and finishing third in the overall competition - behind only the United States and England, and ahead of such larger nations as France, Italy and India.

The astonishing achievements of this "Cinderella" team gave Hungarians at home a much-needed psychological lift, and they accorded their sons a triumphal reception on their return. No one was prouder of their victory than Chief Scout Pál Teleki.

Between the wars the Hungarian Boy Scout Movement established itself as the nation's torch of traditional values and patriotism, under the motto:

Emberebb ember és magyarabb magyar ("A more humane man, a more Magyar Magyar"). No wonder that one of the first measures of Rákosi's red dictatorship in 1947 was to abolish the Scout movement in Hungary. Rákosi's ban, however, was not the end of the movement. Some of its most dedicated leaders, disciples of Teleki, went into exile, and inspired by his spirit, re-established the Hungarian Scout movement abroad with amazing success. Today it is by far the largest and most effective Hungarian organization in the free world, with 6000 members in 90 troops distributed throughout Europe, North America, South America and Australia. The movement, under the leadership of Gábor Bodnár, the father of eight children, is devoted not only to routine scouting, but also to spreading the knowledge of the Magyar language and culture with missionary zeal among second and third generations of Hungarian boys and girls.

Hungary is Tied to the Axis

After Teleki's suicide, Horthy appointed László Bárdossy as premier. Bárdossy began his term as a liberal Anglophile, but the German victories convinced him that the only way to keep Hungary independent - and joined with the returned territories - was through limited cooperation with Germany. Bárdossy was instrumental in declaring war on the Soviet Union on June 26, 1940, and also on the United States on December 12, 1941. This latter act occurred in a peculiar way through an unofficial letter from Bárdossy to the American ambassador. In it he stated that it was not a declaration of war, but that the Hungarian government considered a state of war to exist between the two countries. Horthy reminded the American chargé-d'affaires of this letter's oddly unofficial nature when he said, "Remember that his so-called declaration or war is not legal: not approved by parliament, not signed by me."

Hungary's fortune was now tied to the Axis powers with such allies as Finland, Slovakia. Croatia,

Bulgaria and Rumania. Hungary and Rumania were strange bedfellows, indeed, considering the animosity between the two countries. Actually, Rumania, a former ally of France, Poland and Czechoslovakia, seemed to be Germany's staunchest ally and as such invited German troops to train the Rumanian army. As Field-Marshal Manstein wrote in 1952: "The Rumanians were our best allies, whereas we more or less forced the Hungarians into war."

Still, since the Allied Powers of Europe were advocating the restoration of the Trianon frontiers, many Hungarians thought that fighting with the Axis was the only course to keep the regained territories. Horthy viewed the situation differently, but the war against the Soviet Union corresponded with his anti-Bolshevist feelings. As the former American ambassador to Hungary, J.F. Montgomery, later remarked: "Hungary fought on the wrong side as Hitler's ally, but on the right side as an opponent of Soviet Russia."

A Devastating Military Defeat at the Don

In 1942, Horthy, foreseeing the defeat of the Axis powers, replaced Bárdossy with Miklós Kállay, giving him the secret task of extricating Hungary from the war. Horthy's instructions to Kállay were to preserve Hungary's independence, to develop spiritual resistance against Nazi Germany, and to keep concessions to the latter to the minimum, while sparing the Army as much as possible. Seeking secret contact with the British and calling a halt to anti-Semitic measures were also among the instructions. Later Horthy authorized Kállay to initiate armistice negotiations with the Western powers, but insisted as a point of honor, on giving Germany advance notice on an eventual armistice agreement.

The new appointment did not sit well with the Nazi leadership, who regarded Kállay as anti-German. Kállay was a shrewd man, who "danced the Kállay-ketts (Kállay twostep)" - adroitly taking two steps to the left, two steps to the right as the political atmosphere required.

"Sparing the army as much as possible" was one of the most important directions Kállay received from the regent. Fate willed, however, that in the first year of Kállay's premiership, Hungary would suffer the worst military catastrophe in her history. In mid-January, 1943, the Second Hungarian Army fought the Soviet war machine in the Battle of the Don and suffered casualties as high as 50,000 dead (some estimates reach 100,000), 50,000 wounded, and another 50,000 taken prisoner.

Even before this devastating blow, Hungary's part in the war had been a protracted and losing undertaking. The main reasons were the soldiers' lack of motivation to fight so far from their homeland, and their utterly inadequate equipment. These were unsurpassable handicaps against an enemy that was defending its homeland, and helped by a terrible ally: the Russian winter.

On the other hand, among Hungary's "allies" in this war were Rumanians, Slovaks and Croats - basically her enemies because of unsettled territorial disputes. Hitler himself hated the Magyars and had no sympathy for Regent Horthy. As far as the Führer was concerned, Horthy was a "petrified" Austro-Hungarian admiral, who relied on Anglophile and Jewish advisors, while nurturing a dislike for National Socialism.

Professor C.A. Macartney described Hungary's situation at the time thus:

"So Hungary was now actually near-surrounded by a double ring of ill-wishers: the one consisting of the existing Slovak, Rumanian, Serb and Croat states, not mutually allied, but all anti-Hungarian; the other composed of the former Little Entente countries now established in London, From the latter the Rumanian link was still technically missing. but her friends represented Rumania so effectively that her absence was hardly noticed.

"The Rumanians possessed in London friends who had the ear not only of the Pink Press but of the B.B.S. and the Foreign Office itself. Most important of all these friends was President Benes, who was already by now thinking again in terms of a revived Little Entente, and encouraged the Rumanians to do likewise." (October 15. Vol. II. p. 179)

"We are alone" (egyedül vagyunk) a phrase coined by Count István Széchenyi, reflected the country's situation during World War II. It also could characterize the abandonment of the Second Hungarian Army in the Battle of the Don, over which German and Hungarian historians have long debated.

It can hardly be disputed that the Hungarian Second Army was not in the proper fighting spirit. The soldiers' attitude was further depressed by a lack of winter uniforms and adequate weapons to fight the Russian steamroller. Lack of proper clothing and winter boots alone caused over 7000 soldiers to freeze to death in temperatures ranging between 40-50 Cdeg. degrees below zero. The front assigned to the Second Army was 196 kilometers long and therefore could be held only very thinly. Compounding the problems of distance, the Hungarian motor transports were mostly out of action because of frozen oil and batteries. When the crisis came, the Hungarians had not a single armored vehicle, nor a single airplane of their own. Although two German armored divisions (the Cramer Army Corps) were standing by in tactical reserve, their intervention was delayed until it was too late.

Despite these terrible odds, there were flashes of

Magyar valor. Some units, according to German communiqués, sacrificed themselves by acting as rearguard as the Germans retreated. Among these was the Hungarian 9th Division, which was ordered by the German General Siebert to hold the line while German units drew back. A similar act of heroism was performed by the airborne brigade of the Second Army. Their planes being out of order all members of the brigade chose to fight in hand-to hand combat on the ground. and to die with their commander, Lt. Colonel Kálmán Csukás. (István Nemeskürty: Requiem egy hadseregért Requiem for an Army, Magvet, Budapest, 1972. p. 177).

Futile Efforts to Quit the War

The catastrophe at the Don had profound consequences, although its magnitude was kept from the Hungarian public at large. While Chief of General Staff Ferenc Szombathelyi quietly gave out the slogan, "Not a nail for the Don," Kállay's efforts to quit the war intensified. Hungarian emissaries began to extend secret feelers towards the Western allies to pave the way towards a break-away from the Axis. Secret meetings took place in Ankara,. Lisbon,. Bern, Quebec and Washington. In March, 1943, even Archduke Otto von Habsburg joined these efforts - at Kállay's request - with Tibor Eckhardt serving as go-between. Archduke Otto was received by both Churchill and President Roosevelt, who showed a certain interest in a political reorganization of the Danube area after the war. Although Anthony Eden, British foreign secretary and no friend of Hungary opposed such ideas, he did show a willingness to modify the rigid policy of "unconditional surrender" towards Hitler's smaller satellites. In a letter to Britain's envoys in Moscow and Washington, he wrote in part:

"Hungary has succeeded more than other satellite in South-Eastern Europe to preserve her independence.

It allowed the formation of a relatively strong, democratic opposition composed of Smallholders, and Social Democrats, labor unions and intellectuals. A right wing opposition led by anti-German nationalists with ties to Count Bethlen also exists. These organizations are surprisingly outspoken and speeches are delivered in and outside of Parliament condemning the present orientation of the Hungarian government... Efforts to mitigate persecution of the Jews are not without success..."

Such nice words and sympathetic listening notwithstanding,. the secret Hungarian feelers were destined to fail for a variety of reasons.

The Magyars are not good conspirators, and their involvement in "secret" negotiations soon became known to the German Secret Service, which consequently kept a close eye on developments.

The Kállay government's feelers were exclusively oriented towards the West in the belief that the Anglo-Saxons would not let the Soviet Union into Central Europe, and that their armies could and would reach Hungary's borders before the Russians.

The Allied emissaries sent to negotiate with Hungarian representatives were - with a few exceptions - minor figures in various special services, such as the S.O.E. (Special Operations Executive) of Great Britain. Many of these agents were Soviet sympathizers who had little good-will for such an intransigent anti-Communist state as Horthy's Hungary certainly was.

The Kállay government, while pursuing the pipe dream of an Anglo-Saxon occupation of Hungary, was unable to bring itself to turn to the Soviet Union in terms of surrender. While the Western Allies did receive such an offer from Budapest as early as September 9, 1943, it was only in the first days of March, l944, that the Kállay government moved to secretly contact the Soviets regarding Hungary's pullout from the war. By then, however, it was too late.

The Nazis Occupy Hungary

Hitler, having had enough of Kállay's "dance," decided to invade Hungary. In his rage, the Führer first wanted to have the country occupied by Rumanian, Slovak and Croat forces in addition to the Germans - an idea which was greeted by President Tiso of Slovakia and Marshal Antonescu of Rumania with enthusiasm. Not so, however, by the German Secret Service in whose name an urgent memorandum was submitted to Hitler by envoy Walter Heuwel.

The memorandum pointed out that should such a combination of forces occupy Hungary, the Carpathian Basin would instantly erupt in furious warfare. The Hungarians would not only desert Germany, but they would fight their invaders, -especially the Rumanians, their arch enemy - tooth and nail, resisting occupation to the last breath. This, in turn, would create indescribable military, political and economic chaos. The Hungarians would form "a united defense front. extending from the Communists to the Arrow Cross," the memorandum stated. It also predicted that the resulting resistance and partisan activity would tie down numerous German divisions for a long time.

Hitler, overwhelmed by such powerful arguments, decided to take a different course of action. Using a ruse, he invited Horthy and his staff to "important negotiations" in Klessheim. During the visit, which began on March 19, 1944, the regent and his entourage were kept incommunicado from the out-

side world, and their departure was delayed by various pretexts (air-raid alert, blackout, etc.).

Then and there Horthy was told by Hitler that because of Hungary's intention to quit the war, he had ordered German troops to march into Hungary in order to protect the Reich's interests there. Regent Horthy,. after a sharp quarrel with the Führer, wanted to abdicate on the spot, but then changed his mind, bowing to the advice of his entourage. By staying in power he hoped he would be able to prevent instant Nazification of his country - not without reason.

When the regent returned to Hungary, he found the land occupied, with many anti-Nazi leaders already arrested by the Gestapo. (The hero of March 19, 1944, was Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky, a liberal member of parliament. When Gestapo troopers broke into his home, Bajcsy-Zsilinszky resisted arrest by firing until his last bullet. No fewer than 36 shots were needed to subdue this man, who, bleeding from several wounds, shouted defiantly, "Long live free and independent Hungary" as he was carried away, Bajcsy was to meet a tragic end at the hands of Hungarian Nazis nine months later)

A Sanctuary for Jews

One of the main reasons for this dramatic German move against an ally was that as the war years progressed, Hungary was becoming a veritable sanctuary for Jews. As Anne O'Hare McCormick wrote in the New York Times of July 15, 1944:

It must count in the score of Hungary that until the Germans took control it was the last refuge in Central Europe for the Jews able to escape from Germany, Austria, Poland and Rumania... As long as they exercised authority in their own house, the Hungarians tried to protect the Jews.

J.F. Montgomery devotes several pages in his book Hungary, the Unwilling Satellite to praising Hungary for its humane treatment of the Jews, remarking:

Not even the puppet regime which the Germans set up in 1944 dared to follow openly the German method of deportation and extermination. When the German Gestapo took it upon itself to start the deportation of Jews, tens of thousands of Christians are known to have rushed to the aid of Jews in distress, trying to shield and hide them...

Peter Meyer, a Jewish author wrote about the fate of Jews in Hungary thus:

...We must bear in mind that Hungary had proved, for at least two generations and up until the end of World War II, an island of resistance to both of the two great anti-Semitic currents engulfing Eastern and Central Europe: the semi-Asiatic and feudal anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia, and the middle-class socio-economic and nationalistic anti-Semitism of Germany and Austria.

On this island the Jews of Hungary lived and progressed, without danger, decline or even disturbance; it was a life of slight anxieties and barely noticeable transitions which seemed to be sheltered from the uncertainties of history.

The Magyars, led and controlled by the landed aristocracy, considered the Hungarian-speaking Jews as members of the "state-forming" Magyar element, and allowed them to work and prosper in commerce, industry, and finance...

...The anti-Jewish legislation (of 1941 and 1942) did not mean the total economic ruin of the Jews in Hungary. Large sections of the Jewish population were able to continue in their businesses, professions, and employment; Jewish property and its proceeds remained, in the main, intact and available. These laws represented a calculated compromise: the Nazi mob was thrown the sop of thousands of jobs wrested from individual Jews, while the Jewish community was permitted to await with its property rights intact against the day of Hitler's defeat. Because of the relative mildness of Hungary's anti-Semitic legislation, Jews in the neighboring countries where Nazi extermination was in full swing, looked to Hungary as a haven. (The Jews in the Soviet Satellites, 1953, Syracuse University Press, on pp. 379-385)

The Red Star Rises Again

Although the occupation of Hungary by the Germans severely limited Horthy's freedom of action, he was still able to exert considerable influence on state affairs. During the months of agony that followed, he desperately tried to extricate his country from the war through secret peace envoys sent to the West. With the Soviet Russian army approaching the Carpathians,. much depended on the attitude of Rumania which, in 1941, had recovered Bessarabia and Bukovina from the Soviet Union with German help. At Stalingrad, however. the Rumanians suffered catastrophic losses from which they could not fully recover.

But as in the past, Rumanian "flexibility" once again was able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. "When the Soviet army reached Rumania's frontiers in August, 1944, its government suddenly switched sides and joined the Russians against the Germans and also declared war on Hungary.

This about-face allowed the Soviet forces to execute a giant pincer movement against the Hungarian Plain from Transylvania and southern Hungary. Even so, it was to take the Russians eight months, from the summer of 1944 to the spring of 1945, to overcome resistance in Hungary.

In a final desperate attempt to save Hungary, Horthy, on October 15, 1944, proclaimed on radio an armistice. It was a case of too little, too late, again.

Horthy's belated move was also ill-prepared and not coordinated with the operational staff of the Hungarian army, whose units thus remained without clear instructions. Strong anti-Soviet feelings throughout Hungary also contributed to Horthy's failure to quit the war.

The regent's unsuccessful attempt actually did more harm than good. It resulted in his capture and resignation, a resignation forced by the Germans who then helped Ferenc Szálasi assume power under a deceptive semblance of constitutionality. Horthy and his family were taken to Bavaria.

For the next six months Hungary became a scene of horror and devastation. The Russians' advance was slowed by a 51-day siege of Budapest. During the slow but inexorable advance of the Soviet war machine, legions of Hungarian youths were thrown into battles of a lost war to delay the inevitable, while tens or thousands of Jews were sent in a forced death-march from Budapest to Nazi concentration camps. (It was revealed only at the trial of Adolf Eichman in Jerusalem, that this death-march had been engineered by Eichman himself. At the trial, Israel's Attorney General Gideon Hausner pointed out that

the horrors attained such proportion that even the escorting Hungarian officers and soldiers began to mutiny, and requested that they be sent to the front. The intervention of Ferenc Szálasi to put an end to the march had no effect. (London Times, April 18, 1961)

Still, this march was but a minor operation compared to the mass deportations (also organized by Eichman) that began after Hitler's army had occupied Hungary. The bulk of the country's Jewish population was deported in the late spring of l944. Only the Jewish inhabitants of Budapest were spared, thanks to Hungarian resistance and the pressure of world opinion.

Accounts of Hungarian efforts to resist Nazi deportations abound. On March 11, 1974, Washington Star carried this story about the Nazi-fighter, Colonel Ferenc Koszorus:

In early July, 1944, Col. Koszorus and the Hungarian First Army division he commanded took up a position confronting 5000 German-controlled gendarmes.

Col. Koszorus then offered his troops to Admiral Horthy to keep the gendarmes from carrying out the orders of Adolf Eichman to deport 300,000 Jews from Budapest. For a day a clash seemed inevitable, but the Nazis gave in and withdrew. (The Jews of Budapest were saved because the German forces could not be spared from the front in adequate numbers to deport such a mass of people.)

Regent Horthy in his memoirs also mentions the outmost importance of Co. Koszorus' courageous stand in saving Jews. In addition, he points to the behavior of General Lajos Csatay, "the courageous and loyal secretary of defense, who repeatedly set himself against Nazi inhumanity." Csatay was arrested after the Nazi takeover on October 15, 1944. In prison, he and his wife chose the ultimate form of protest: suicide.

The heroics of another colonel of the Hungarian Army, Imre Reviczky, are marked by memorials in Budapest, Israel and Australia. In a synagogue in Sydney a tablet honoring Reviczky quotes the Talmud: 'The righteous Gentiles have a share in the world to come."

In Budapest the Catholic authorities, headed by Papal Nunzio Angelo Rotta worked around the clock for months in issuing bogus baptismal certificates to tens of thousands of Jews. His right hand man, and executive director of the Protection of Jews movement was Tibor Baranski. Rotta and Baranski worked in close cooperation with Raoul Wallenberg and the Swedish Red Cross. After the war, Baranski became a U.S. citizen. He received an award as "a righteous gentile" from a grateful Israeli government, and in 1980 President Carter invited him to be a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. A book by Harvey Rosenfeld, published in 1982, Wallenberg-Angel of Rescue, devotes almost an entire chapter to Baranski's heroics.

Such anti-Nazi activities took place with the knowledge and approval of Regent Horthy. He may have had his political and social shortcomings, but his deportment in saving the Jews was of redeeming value. This is why Horthy was never tried at Nuremberg or at any other tribunal, but allowed to live a free man in exile. He died in 1954 in Estoril, Portugal.

The apocalyptic days that marked the end of the Horthy era strongly resembled the days before November 1919, when Horthy first rode into Budapest on his white horse to rebuild his country. Then, as his star rose,. the Red Star declined. But now it was the other way around: As Horthy's rule ended, the Red Star began to rise.

Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary