The Orbán government has always been super-sensitive any time the charge of anti-Semitism is leveled against it. The allegation is usually made in connection with the regime’s anti-Soros campaigns, which naturally the government and its supporters hotly deny. George Soros’s Jewish origin has nothing to do with the Hungarian government’s opposition to him, we often hear. The only problem with Soros is his support of “illegal” immigration to Europe. In fact, years ago Hungary declared “zero tolerance” of anti-Semitism, which can be vouched for by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Viktor Orbán addressed the topic of anti-Semitism at some length on the opening day of parliament on September 17 when he called attention to all the lies of the Sargentini Report, including that of anti-Semitism, which the government found most objectionable. Anti-Semitism is a problem in the West, not in Central Europe, Orbán claimed. As he put it, “modern anti-Semitism exists in Brussels because it is there that anti-Israeli activities are financed.”
Although it is true that physical or even verbal attacks on Jews are rare in Hungary, an undercurrent of anti-Semitism does exist, even among government and party officials. A few telling words here and there reveal the truth of that claim. It is enough to recall some of the Fidesz attempts to rewrite history in which the prime minister himself was involved. He was, for example, the most ardent supporter of erecting a statue to honor the anti-Semitic Bálint Hóman, minister of education between 1932 and 1942. He also publicly praised Governor Miklós Horthy, whose role in the Hungarian Holocaust was most inglorious for a “great statesman.” But these occasional remarks pale in comparison to a book that was published recently on Iván Héjjas (1890-1950), the leader of a counterrevolutionary terrorist group. The book attempts to whitewash the activities of this bloody murderer, who was responsible for the deaths of 80 people in and around Kecskemét.
Iván Héjjas on the left, after receiving the “vitézi rend” from Miklós Horthy
Defenders of the Orbán government will immediately object to my finding it responsible for the appearance of a book by a revisionist historian, but unfortunately the connection does exist. László Domonkos, the author, is a member of the staff of a historical institute established by the government in 2013 to study the “most recent history of Hungary, the social transformation, the regime change that took place a quarter century ago.” This institute was established for the specific purpose of rewriting the events of 1989-1990. A quick look at the names reveals that those who work there belong to the far-right wing of Fidesz led by László Kövér, president, and Sándor Lezsák, vice-president, of the Hungarian parliament.
The book launch, I would think most inappropriately, took place in Kecskemét, the center of the area where Héjjas’s men went on their killing sprees between November 1919 and May 1920. Anyone who’s interested in the details should read an article by Gábor Kádár and Zoltán Vági titled “Anti-Semitic atrocities, murders, and pogroms during the White Terror.” As for the book itself, Sándor Lezsák took it upon himself to promote the book in glowing terms, although an otherwise sympathetic book review that appeared on Jobbik’s internet site Alfahír.hu said that it was poorly written and edited.
László Domokos is not a historian. He double majored in Hungarian and English, and right after graduation he began working as a journalist for Délmagyarország, a local paper serving the southern regions of the Great Plains. In the past few years he has been a contributor to right-wing papers such as Magyar Hírlap and Magyar Nemzet. He is also a member of the editorial board of Trianoni Szemle, a right-wing, irredentist publication.
Not too many people took note of the book launch in Kecskemét, though László Seres of HVG did write a short article called “How should we rehabilitate an anti-Semitic murderer with blood on his hands?” In it, he calls attention to an interview with Domonkos that appeared in Magyar Idők, from which we learn that communist historians made a monster out of Héjjas when his participation in the killings is questionable. But the fact is that an excellent English-language article written by Béla Bodó of Missouri State University and published in the periodical East Central Europe shows that Héjjas was a sadistic brute who, after finishing “their jobs” in killing scores of people in Kecskemét, moved on to Budapest where he continued “to raid Jewish businesses and homes, … taking everything from cars to motorcycles to gasoline, hard currency, jewelry, coffee, sugar and cigarettes.” Bodó’s research, unlike Domonkos’s, is the work of a trained historian who got his information from contemporary documents–from, among other places, the police archives. Although the prosecutors found Héjjas not guilty in 1925, in 1947 he was condemned to death in absentia. This is the man the government’s semi-official paper is portraying as the savior of the country because of his participation in the so-called “Western Hungarian Uprising,” which eventually led to the plebiscite held in Sopron and a few villages nearby.
Magyar Idők couldn’t remain silent and György Pilhál, who is among the most extreme right-wingers in the bunch, wrote an opinion piece titled “We need a bogeyman!” In it, he accuses the historians of the Kádár period of falsifying the history of the White Terror, blackening the names of those patriots who turned against the “ignominy of Trianon” and forced the Allies eventually to order a plebiscite in Sopron and environs. I guess this makes his murders and robberies all right.
All this would have been hidden from foreigners if Keno Verseck, the German journalist stationed in Budapest, hadn’t noticed that Viktor Orbán’s “zero tolerance” doesn’t extend to giving room in the government media for a man of Héjjas’s caliber. He wrote an article in Der Spiegel titled “Orbáns Antisemitismus-Politik Juden-Hass verfolgen, Juden Verfolger ehren.” Verseck argues that to have “one of the highest Hungarian members of parliament paying tribute to a convicted anti-Semitic murderer” is inadmissible, even by official Hungarian standards. He believes that Orbán is not an anti-Semite himself but that “he has opened his party up to the entire ideological spectrum of the far right.” And he does absolutely nothing to temper their anti-Semitism.