Trudy Gold
Horthy, Hungary, and Hungarian Jews 1944-1945
Trudy Gold - Horthy, Hungary, and Hungarian Jews 1944-1945
- Good afternoon, everybody from London, and I had an interesting email today that I do want to share with you. One of the students wrote a very nice email saying that they were worried that we were spending so much time on the dark side. And the problem is, and particularly at a time like this, and the problem is that, to quote Einstein, “Man is a wonderful monster.” And remember that when I’m talking about Hungary, and of course we did cover the show a few months ago, so we are talking about Hungary, but I am not actually going to give any detail of what happened during the show. And you all know a lot about it. So why do we? Well, because we are the people of memory, number one. Number two, because I still believe that by studying the good and the evil, it’s all about humanity. This is the point. We are living in an extreme situation at the moment. Some people are behaving wonderfully, others are behaving monstrously. And the majority of people, well, how are they? What are they doing? They’re standing by. So this is the kind of scenario, because what I really do believe is that by studying the rescuers and confronting ourselves, that we can learn. So that’s, but by the way of a preamble, but I really did take this email seriously, because of course, we are dealing with a very difficult time and we are dealing with a very difficult character. We’re dealing with, of course, Admiral Horthy. And I’ve already talked quite a bit about Admiral Horthy. He was a very stern, austere, conservative man. He’d been a great hero in the first World War. He’d been aid to Franz Joseph, and he came into Hungary almost as a saviour for the Hungarian people.
He smashed the communist revolution, came into Budapest on his white horse at a time when Hungary had lost more than two thirds of its territory. And as you all know, when times are hard, we do tend to move to extreme solutions. And what happens under Horthy, he had the power to put prime ministers in place to dissolve parliament. But what happens is, with Hitler coming to power in Germany, that very dark time in Europe, just think about it, Mussolini in Rome, he had a good alliance with the Italians, with Franco in Italy, with Stalin in Russia. His horror more than anything else was communism. Now, why did he have such a horror of communism? He’s an arch conservative and he saw what happened with the revolution. And also, and this point can never be overstated, it’s the association with Jews with revolution that is really going to ratchet up antisemitism. And I can say until I’m blue in the face, and in fact, both myself and Dennis Davis will be lecturing later on on Jews’ revolution and the left. The point is the majority of Jews never were revolutionaries. But as far as those who hated it was concerned, the majority of the leadership were of Jewish birth. And then you get to that other problem that’s so difficult to define. I’ve often said this to you, define Jew for me. What on earth does that word mean? What does it mean to be a Jew? Now, for the antisemites, it doesn’t matter whether you are a convert, whether you are a communist or a Hasidic rebbe, you are a Jew by blood.
It’s all very well for us to say it’s religious, it’s cultural, it’s national. In the end, sometimes it’s the enemies of the Jews who define them. So that was the problem. So we left Horthy of course, in 1944. And if you can, and one thing has to be said, the darkness that fell over Europe, the Hungarians, and yes, Horthy did allow Jews who were not Hungarian citizens to be deported. Yes, he allowed the labour gangs. But it has to be said in March, 1944, when the majority of European Jews had been murdered, the large community of Hungarian Jewry was still intact. And of course the numbers had been increased by the number of Jews that had come into Hungary since. Because of the deal with the Nazis, Hungary got more and more territory back. So Horthy believed that the alliance was going to fail. Why? Because the Nazis were obviously losing the war. The Romanians were making their own deals. And it’s at this stage, he plays around with the idea of an alliance with the West. His problem was though, he had this absolute horror of communism and it’s at this stage that Hitler realising that’s the, you know, what the Hungarians are up to. He insists on a meeting with him at Klessheim Castle and Horthy is forced to acquiesce to the German occupation. He refuses to sign by mutual agreement. The text, though unfortunately, was published by the Germans, and he agreed that there would be no resistance to the German occupation. He also agreed that a number of Jews would be deported for labour service in Germany. And when he left Klessheim castle, with him went Edmund Weesenmayer, Ribbentrop’s advisor on the East and the new Reich minister and plenipotentiary for Hungary. And with him of course, was Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
Ernst Kaltenbrunner, an Austrian, a close friend of Eichmann’s in the early days, who of course after the death of Heydrich, had taken over from him and Eichmann was his number two. And eight German divisions crossed the border so that when Horthy arrives back in Budapest, he was greeted by a German guard of honour. The government resigns and puppets are put in place. Horthy, of course, was advised to resign by many of his conservative friends. And he said this, “I’m still an admiral. Who will defend the honourable men and women in this country who have trusted me blindly, who will defend the Jews, the refugees, if I leave my post? I may not be able to defend everything, but I believe I can still be a great help to our people. I can do no more than that.” And of course, can we see the first slide? If you don’t mind, Judi. Thank you. Now, the Germans, of course arrested the genuinely principled politicians of the Horthy era and replaced them with fascist right wing collaborators. Allied escaped prisoners of war were rounded up and returned to captivity. And remember, Horthy had consistently rejected the Nazi demands for the deportations of the Jews, and the Nazis replaced the prime minister with the former ambassador to Germany, Döme Sztójay. Now, he established an institute, this man is an arch antisemite. I’m going to give you a little background to him because sometimes we need to study where they come from. He was born in Serbia, of course, part of the Habsburg Empire. He joined the Austro-Hungarian army, a colonel in World War I. After the war, he served with Horthy in Horthy’s counter-revolutionary group that put down the Red Revolution. He was made a general by Horthy and he becomes military attache to Berlin.
And, that was up until ‘33. '33 to '35, he was Minister of Defence. And then Gömbös names him ambassador to Germany, which was a position that he held until he comes back to become Prime Minister. He was very pro-Nazi. And, but the point is, Horthy believed that because he was a general in the army, he was a soldier first, he wouldn’t actually give in to the German demands. The Germans actually approved it. One of the first things he does is to legalise the infamous Arrow Cross, more about that later. And also he increased the number of Hungarian troops on the Eastern front. He jailed all the political opponents he could get their hands on. He dissolved the labour unions. And of course, tragically, he ramps up the pace of deportation of the Jews. Horthy is absolutely appalled. He tries to remove him. But Weesenmayer, who is the now the plenipotentiary, the German plenipotentiary, he refused. And in fact, just to finish off with him, Horthy is going to be removed from power in October '44, and the Arrow Cross will take over. He was not reappointed Prime Minister because he was ill. He flees Hungary. He was actually captured by the Americans and he was executed in Budapest in 1946. So it’s also at this stage that he places at the helm, three notorious antisemites, László Endre, László Baky, and Andor Jaross as Minister of the Interior and Minister of Police.
So he’s not only has legalised the Arrow Cross, he has put three notorious antisemites, all of whom by the way, have very good academic qualifications. They’ve been involved in right wing politics. They are not, this is the point, these are people who have education. And I think it’s very important to remember that. It’s so easy to dismiss those who behave in the most appalling way as having no education. Education is not the key. That’s one of the reasons I believe we should study this. We actually have to think about what creates empathy, because that is actually the most important thing. Anyway, he ratchets up the situation for the Jews. He institutes the wearing of the yellow star. They’re forbidden to purchase food. He confiscates the radios. The bank accounts closes down Jewish businesses, 18,000 in Budapest alone. Books burnt by Jewish authors. And he said, “Deportation is a geographic priority.” And of course, the orders are given on Pesach. April the 16th, 1944 in the provinces. And what happens is Auschwitz is actually ramped up to prepare for Hungarian Jewry. And beginning on the 15th of May, and culminating on July the seventh, and I mentioned this to you last week, 55 major ghettos and deportation centres in the provinces of Hungary were emptied of their Jews. And they were sent to their deaths in Auschwitz. It halted on the 7th of July, mainly because of pressure from outside. But the fanatical de-judaizers continue for another two days. Now it’s at this stage, Eichmann turns his attention to Budapest.
Now, before that, I want to talk about knowledge. You see, it’s now the summer of 1944. I mentioned to you many times the minute silence in the House of Commons for the murdered Jews of Europe, which was December the 17th, 1942. By this period, there have been escapes from Auschwitz, two extraordinary Croatian Jews had managed to escape, bringing, and one of them in particular, Rudolf Vrba, had a totally photographic memory. And he had, when he got back, he listed plus or minus 10% the number of Jews who’d already been murdered. There was so much evidence coming out through the Polish clergy, through Russia. You could even read about it in the newspapers. Now, Wendy said something very interesting last week when she was talking about and she said he didn’t know. The point is whether they knew in the provinces, I don’t know. But what is certainly true is that government figures throughout the world knew about it. Did they really in their hearts and souls believe it? You see today, we do believe, why? Think what we’ve got in our rooms, our televisions, our internet. It’s just extraordinary. And I mean, what is going on in Ukraine is with us on a daily basis. We have no excuse of saying we didn’t know. And even despite all the individuals who are crying out to help the people, some governments, one could say, are dragging their feet and making it quite difficult for people to come in.
Because of course, if it’s true, and we have to believe that there was a minute of silence. And if it’s true that there was enough knowledge, the question is why in this stage of the war wasn’t anything done to save? The Zionists in Palestine, also in America, particularly the Irgun, and I’ll be talking about that when we talk about liberation over Pesach, they were begging for things to be done. Josiah DuBois at the State Department had actually written a report. A non-Jew from the southern states had written a report on what he called the willful negligence of America. In the end, Roosevelt did open up a war refugee board, but only a thousand people were there. And where were they? They were actually on the Canadian boarder in a camp. So the point I’m making is, the world had enough information if they believed it. And that’s the point. A man called Rabbi Weissmandl, Slovakian rabbi, had managed to stop certain deportations in Slovakia. I’ll be talking about that in in a couple of weeks when I talk about Slovakian Jewry. He’d sent the lists to Hungarian Jews, to the Zionists. The joint was very well informed. It was so bad that actually by, the reason the deportation stopped is that there was so much pressure being put to bear that in the end, Horthy has the courage to say, “Stop.”
There are, even the Pope, and the primate of all Hungary said that he would speak out against it in the churches of Hungary unless the deportation stop. Pius the 12th, who was no friend of the Jews, he asked for the stopping. George the sixth, Roosevelt, the king of Sweden. So more and more pressure is coming through, and this is what Horthy had to say about it. “I was aware that the government in the given force situation had to make many steps that I do not consider correct. And for which I cannot take responsibility. Amongst these matters is the handling of the Jewish question in a manner that does not correspond to the Hungarian mentality, conditions offer that matter interest. It’s clear to everyone that what was done was by Germans or at the insistence of Germans, and not in my power to prevent. So in these matters, I was forced into passivity.” This is from István Bethlen, who was, if you remember, a former Prime Minister. He was in hiding at the time. “The deportation sold the name of Hungary. And the looting of Jewish property has become the source of the most atrocious corruption, robbery and theft in which, alas, very considerable portions of the intelligentsia are involved. The whole Christian Hungarian society will soon be contaminated.” Finally, Horthy gets his strength. He, in the Crown Council, he orders the halting of the deportations. He has Endre and Baky dismissed from the Ministry of the Interior. And emboldened by this, he takes control of the council and he replaces the government with senior army officers. And on the 29th of August, Eichmann actually leave Budapest. Now Himmler is now playing a completely double game.
On one level, the monster, that chicken farmer who was so interested in selected breeding, that pathetic little non-entity who was really the mastermind of the final solution, he’s now tried to make a peace with the allies. And all sorts of negotiations are going on through Sweden. There is of course a rescue committee in Hungary. We dealt with it when we dealt with the Kassner affair. But may I please again remind you that, I hope Tommy’s online, but of course, his Uncle Otto was the leader of that committee. He was later murdered by the Arrow Cross in January '45. And what a brave man he was. So against the backdrop, there are people behaving absolutely wonderfully. Now, August '44, Romania withdraws from the Axis powers. Horthy so hates communism that he doesn’t know what to do. And there’s also rumours of an impending Arrow Cross coup. And it’s at this stage that, Judi, could you jump on to the slide after next, please. We’ll go back to Szálasi in a minute. Can you go onto the next one? Sorry, yes. Otto Skorzeny. Otto Skorzeny is sent into Budapest to actually kidnap Horthy’s son. Now he is one of the, Skorzeny is one of the most extraordinary characters that ever walked the Earth. And I’m going to give you a background to him. And if there are any filmmakers listening, sometimes you got to think this man, he’s a bit of a monster. But there’s something else about him that I think we have to tell you. He’s born into Vienna, another Austrian Jew. You will remember what William was talking about yesterday when he gave that brilliant presentation on Austria. He’s born into a middle class family with a very strong military history.
He was a brilliant linguist. He spoke five languages. At the University of Vienna, he was a noted fencer, and of course he had the . He won 15 jewels. He studied engineering. May 1930, like many young Austrians, Déclassé Austrians in German speaking Austria, he joined the Austrian Nazi organisation, became a member of the SS, the Austrian branch, in February '34. Incredibly charismatic. He played a minor role in the Anschluss. Evidently he was responsible for saving the life of the Austrian president, who was about to be shot by Austrian Nazis. He’s a real daredevil. He was a protege of Kaltenbrunner, who of course was one of the worst monsters to walk the world. He joined the Adolf Hitler regiment in Berlin, having been turned down for the Luftwaffe because he was six foot four. He participated in the invasion of Poland and also in the invasion of Russia. He was a battle hero. He held, he won the Iron Cross, but because of his wounds, he decides to develop unconventional commando warfare. And he develops special commando units within the German army. They’re partisans, they are trained to go deep behind enemy lines in enemy uniform, sabotage. Kaltenbrunner recommended him to Walter Schellenberg, the SS Foreign Intelligence service. And he’s given charge of training operatives in sabotage. And he is the man who’s going to go on all these clandestine missions. One for example, Operational François, Parachuters sent into Iran to make contact with the dissident mountain people, to persuade them to sabotage the oil, the oil and supplies being sent to the Soviet Union on the trans-Iranian railway, that didn’t work.
Operation Oak, he rescued Mussolini the first time, a very successful mission. Operation Long Jump, the planned assassination of the big three at Tehran. Thank goodness it didn’t come off. He tried to capture Tito, that failed. But Operation Armoured Fist, the kidnap of Miklós Horthy Jr. to force his father to resign. And that’s going to be successful. He’s then involved in Operation Werewolf, which was the planning of the Nazi resistance after the war. He was awarded all the highest decorations. He was in interned in Dachau after the war for violating the rules of war. But it was actually a British special officer, a man called Yeo-Thomas. He was one of the highest decorated veterans of the British War effort. And he said that, “What did he do wrong? He put on enemy uniform. We all did that.” And he was actually detained at an internment camp. And he escaped with the help of three SS officers. He hid at the farm of a Countess, who was the niece of Schacht, the head of the Reich’s Bank. He hid there for about 18 months. Later she became his wife. And basically he goes to Madrid, he sets up a engineering business and then we find him in Egypt after Naguib takes over. And then Nasser. he was sent to Egypt to act indirectly for the CIA to act as military advisor. His staff was made up of SS officers. You know, it’s interesting what William was talking about yesterday, and we will be talking more about that.
What we are proposing to do after Pesach, we’re going to be looking at liberation and the events '45 to '48, and we will be doing a lot more detail on, for example, the glorious side of the world, the setting up of Israel, but also on the de-nazification and why it didn’t work. And also this man useful to the CIA, where is he? He’s now in Egypt and working with something like 5,000 ex-SS personnel, including the head of the Gestapo in Poland, a man called Leopold who converted to Islam. He also trained Arab volunteers to use against the British in the Suez Canal. He also trained Palestinians to work against Israel. And it was one of those he trained was Yasser Arafat. He stayed on in Egypt. He also worked between Spain and Argentina as an advisor to Juan Perron and as a bodyguard for Eva. And he had a dream of a forthright. Now, this is where everything gets interesting, and this is why I thought I’d interject with him now because in the end, he’s turned by the Israelis. And this is confirmed by Issa Harrell and many other sources. He goes to work for the Israelis and is responsible for helping in the letter bomb campaign against scientists in Egypt, who were planning, of course to bomb Israel. So it’s a very strange career. And what else can I say about him? Except that he set up a paramilitary organisation, a private company, any regime that had appalling problems, like for example, the South African regime at certain times, the Greek , his paramilitary organisation helped. He died of cancer in Madrid and he was buried in the big cathedral. You know, the funeral was in the big cathedral and all the ex-Nazis came and said, and the Nazi salute, but an incredibly controversial character.
Obviously he did some absolutely appalling things. But on the other hand, I think what it is about him, he was a man who obviously knew no fear. And why did he work for the Mossad? Was he scared? I can’t imagine a man like that, there is the idea that he didn’t want to be on the Mossad hit list or Simon Wiesenthal’s hit list anymore, but I don’t think that washes. So in terms of personality, I thought it was interesting to bring him in. So going back to the tragic situation in Hungary, August '44, as I said, Romania has drawn away from the Axis. Horthy considers, but what happens is by capturing his son and sending him to Dakar, he’s forced to abdicate and what he says was, “I exchanged my life for my son’s life.” And what happens? And also he’s forced to name Ferenc Szálasi, the leader of the Arrow Cross, as head of state and Prime Minister. And can we go back, if you don’t mind, Judi, to, if we could go back a previous slide. Yes, this is Szálasi. And if you go back the previous slide to that, you will see the emblem of the Arrow Cross. There’s the Arrow Cross party, the violent Arrow Cross. And now what happens is Hungary is a puppet state of Nazi Germany. The leader, with Szálasi in power, you now have a total puppet government and all his people are now in power. Now the Arrow Cross, Szálasi was a, can we go back to his picture, please? If we could go back to, thank you very much. He was born in 1897. He , his theory is he was a notorious antisemite. And the membership of the Arrow Cross in the main came from ex-army officers, journalists, government bureaucrats, the kind of people who’d suffered at the result of the Communist revolution.
Many intellectuals, impoverished intellectuals, agrarian workers. It’s in the countryside. This is where the hate was fermented. Back in 1939, he’d managed to achieve 25% of the vote. And he was not included in the Nazi government after the occupation of '44. But now he is Prime Minister and it’s only now, Horthy stepped down. The deportations have stopped. And this is when the Arrow Cross comes to power. Now this is where we come to one of the darkest chapters, because requests have been made to bomb the camps. There are so many requests coming through. In fact, Churchill gave the order, but it was not received by bomber command. The Americans refused to do anything. And anyway, at this stage, the Germans are obviously losing the war. And yet the other war they’re fighting, the war against the defenceless Jewish people goes on. And under the Arrow Cross, the deportations are resumed. And most, and what happens though, because the Red Army is closing in, in fact, Majdanek was liberated in July 1944. The Red Army is closing in. You have tragically the death marches, mainly women and the elderly on a 200 kilometre march back into Austria and many died en route. Now Eichmann has been ordered out of Budapest, remember, by Himmler. He goes against orders and he goes back. So Eichmann, and this is what finished Eichmann off at the trial, because all these notions that I was obeying orders, he was overzealous.
And of course, it’s in those next few months until the Red Army finally takes Budapest in January 1944, that Budapest Jewry is totally ravaged. The Arrow Cross, they set up ghettos. The Jewish community are treated in the most, well there’s murder. Jews are shot into the Danube, there’s pillage, there is everything at it’s lowest level. It’s anything you want to think about at it’s lowest level. And I’m going to read you the Arrow Cross statement. “I order all officials of the civil administration and all police officers to do their utmost to safeguard and maintain good order, discipline, and public safety. The orders issued and published by means of posters have been inspired by an overriding sense of responsibility to maintain public services and necessities, and a life has made nearly as normal as possible, as well as being guided by certain principles. As regard the Jewish question, I am in a position to state we will solve it. The solution, even if it is execrable, will be such as the Jews deserve in view of their past and present behaviour. The solution of this problem is the business of the state. I wish to warn all Jews and those who serve their interests, that every authority in the state is keeping a close watch on them. I do not differentiate between Jews belonging to the Catholic, Protestant, or Israelite churches. I deal only with the Jewish race.
I will not acknowledge the validity of safe conduct and foreign passports issued. They are subject to the control of the state. If any Jew should attempt to do anything against the Hungarian state, the army of our allies and the civil population, or to commit any crimes whatsoever, I will inflict such reprisals upon the Jews as will give full satisfaction to our nation and allies.” Now, so this is the tragic fate of Hungarian Jewry. However, it’s such an open secret. It’s at this stage that of course, we have an extraordinary group of people, because as I said, we must honour the great. And can we move on please, Judi? Yes, Edmund Weesenmayer, that in fact was the man who was the plenipotentiary in charge of Hungary for the Germans. And you will notice he was a terrible murderer. He was, in fact, brought to justice and sentenced to a prison, internmentry, because of the intervention of an American, an American John McCroy, he only served 10 years. And this man responsible for the murders of thousands of people. So the point I’m making is we need also to think about justice. And please don’t forget, as a response to the Holocaust, two extraordinary Jews, Lemkin and Lauterpacht, they actually were responsible for creating the terms “genocide” and “crimes against humanity”. Dennis will be lecturing on them, because what happened with them as a response to the Shoah, Lemkin lost his whole family. Out of it comes the UN Declaration on Human Rights.
So think of the spirit of those characters. We’ve looked at the evil, we’ve looked at the indifferent. But let’s look at a couple of heroes please, because these are the people that most interest me. Could we go on Judi? Yes. Raoul Wallenberg, the extraordinary Raoul Wallenberg. I could spend many, many hours talking about him as I could again, about most of the rescuers. But suffice to say in this context, and remember that the Jews of Budapest, it’s an open secret now. People are hiding in cellars. They’re in the most appalling conditions in the ghettos. They’ve been robbed, they’ve been starved, they’re being murdered. And Wallenberg, who’s a Swedish diplomat, he arrives in Budapest and he saves thousands. Now so does Carl Lutz, so does the Portuguese, so does, Carl Lutz is Swiss, and so does the Spanish. So basically, and these are the ones we know about, and every one of them had many other people helping them. So please remember that against the horror, we have extraordinary characters. So I find, can we go back to Wallenberg? Because I want to talk a bit about his background, because I think the key is there. Now, he came from a very famous illustrious family. For two centuries, they had provided financiers, bishops, diplomats for the Swedish state. His father, a 22 year old naval officer called Raoul Wallenberg, had married Maj Wising. And it was the wedding the whole of Swedish society went to. Tragically eight months after the wedding, the father died and Raoul was born posthumously. The boy was brought up by his mother.
She married seven years later and had two more children. But it was Raoul’s paternal grandfather, ambassador Gustav Wallenberg, who took a very close interest in his grandson and gave his grandson a real humanities education. He attended a famous public school in Stockholm. He was a brilliant linguist. He was a very good sportsman. And this is what a close friend of his, professor Ingemar Hedenius said, “We both belong to the upper class and he was proud of his family. He spoke of himself as a Wallenberg and as eight part Jewish, and seemed to regard this as a guarantee of success in life.” So already he’s very pro-Jewish. And with his grandfather’s guidance, his grandfather had a wonderful library. He travelled widely. He was opened up to all sorts of cultures and ideas. He was brought up as a man of the world to be curious about differences between people. And after, he went to France for a year to perfect his French, he studied architecture in America at the University of Michigan. Brilliant student. He loved American culture, both high culture and low culture. He was a wide big man. His grandfather wanted him to pursue a commercial career. And he spent six months, this will interest our South African friends, with a business in St. Cape Town. Then he went to Haifa, to work at a Dutch bank. So he’s meeting a lot of Jews, although he did find working in a bank very boring. He said, “I am not cut out for banking,” he writes to his grandfather. “Architecture is another thing. A banker should have something of the judge in him and a cold, calm, calculating outlook. I feel I’m too unlike.
I think I have a character for positive action rather than to sit at a desk and say no to people.” And in Haifa, it’s in Haifa, that he first comes into contact with German Jewish refugees from Hitler. And after his, it’s shortly after his return to Stockholm, his beloved grandfather dies. But now he’s wealthy, he’s free, he can choose his own path. And his, unfortunately, his architectural qualifications, which he’d gained in America, were not valid for Sweden. So after a number of unsuccessful ventures, he becomes the director of an import/export business run by a Jewish, German Jewish refugee called Kálmán Lauer. He also had a wide social life and he was desperately, we get this from all his friends, he was desperately concerned about the dark clouds that were hanging over humanity in the thirties. And of course he’s, Sweden’s neutral. In fact, many Swedish businessmen made a fortune out of the war. His business trips took him to many cities in Nazi-occupied Europe. And he made, on a business trip to Budapest, he made contact with Kálmán Lauer’s relatives. So he already knows people. Now, remember how late it is in the war. The United States War Refugee Board has secured the agreement of the Swedish government to send a diplomat who would open all the channels open to him to save Hungarian Jewry. The Swedes had to choose someone.
And the board of choice included Kálmán Lauer. And the Hungarians vetoed Count Folke Bernadotte, who’s going to come up many times more in the story. He was president of the Swedish Red Cross. And there’s a real question mark about him and whether he could have done more to save Jews. And Lauer recommends his junior partner Raoul Wallenberg. Now Wallenberg said, I will go to Budapest. Remember, they know what’s going on. If tragically Elie Wiesel didn’t. Wallenberg the diplomat, there’s enough evidence for him to know what’s going on. And he said, “I will go to Budapest to try and save Jews provided I’ll have a free hand in any method I see fit, including bribery. I’m not to be bothered by any red tape. If I have to get in touch with the Swedish foreign office, I will. But I don’t want red tape. If I run out of money, you’re going to have to send me more. I must have proper status. I’m going to be a first secretary. I want to have a good salary. I’m going to have to play with the Nazis.” And one of the most extraordinary meetings is that he does meet Adolf Eichmann. They go to a dinner party. We don’t know, we only know a little bit about it, because the man who hosted it. But what an incredible occurrence that would be. And evidently at that supper party, Wallenberg completely dissed Nazism to Eichmann’s face. Here you have the man without fear, the man of humanity against that grey little evil bureaucrat. Anyway, he said, “I must have the authority to deal with Prime Ministers or any other member of the administration without the ambassador’s permission.” Basically, I’ve got to be a free agent.
I can seek audience with Horthy. I don’t have to answer to anyone. And the Prime Minister and the King of Sweden agrees to his demand. And what he does, first of all, he designs an impressive Swedish passport. It had no standing in international law, but the idea was he would give out as many of them as possible. And the Hungarian foreign office authorised Wallenberg to issue 1,500 passports by bribery, negotiation. He actually had 15,000 of them. And he went down to the runts when the deportations from Budapest were being developed and he’s giving out passports. He sets up Swedish safe houses. He saves thousands and thousands of people. And also with Carl Lutz he catalysed other neutrals to initiate their own special passes. The Schutz-Pass, the Swiss, the Spanish, all these missions issued Jews. You see for the Spanish, if Jews had fled the Inquisition, that could be a reason that they could be issued passports by the Spanish. And that’s exactly what the Spanish did. So you have a group of extraordinary people in Budapest seeing the evil of the Arrow Cross, seeing the evil of Nazism and doing everything they could to stand up without fear. Now, of course, he’s also being given a lot of funds by the American Joint. The Joint is an extraordinary organisation. It was originally founded with a donation from Jacob Schiff to promote assistance for Jews living in Palestine under Turkish rule.
What a history we’ve had. What a strange, strange history. I was, I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading on, I’m trying to work on a big presentation on Jewish identity and the great Simon Dubnow said, “We are a people that constantly challenges, that constantly attracts, that constantly repelled. What a history we have had.” Anyway, the Joint, an extraordinary organisation. When I used to teach in the Ukraine, by the way, working for the IHRA. And the only organisation that we felt that we could really trust were the Joint. And they had offices all over the Ukraine. Now what were they doing up until America entering the war? They had shelters and soup kitchens in Poland, they subsidised hospitals. Now they’re no longer permitted to operate in any country at war with America. So the JDC is exploiting every agent they had. Their wartime headquarters were actually in Lisbon. They chartered ships to move refugees. Some made it to Shanghai. They did all sorts of incredible things. And they provided funding for Wallenberg. And they were also an incredible, they were also an incredible vehicle for actually helping agents work. So, at the meeting that Wallenberg had with Eichmann, Eichmann said, according to the host, “I will do my best to stop you. And your Swedish diplomatic passport will not help you if I find it necessary to have you removed, accidents do happen even to neutrals.” Now of course, I’ve already told you that the Arrow Cross has established a Budapest ghetto, 29th of November, 1944 to January, 1945.
Don’t forget, the war is nearly over. And it consisted, those of you who visited Budapest, it consists of several blocks of the old Jewish quarter by the two main synagogues. Anyway, 70,000 Jews moved into one square mile. It’s absolutely appalling. January '45, Wallenberg discovers that Eichmann is actually planning to destroy the ghetto, acting against orders by the way. And he actually contacts General Gerhard Schmidhuber, who was the senior officer there, saying he would ensure he would be charged as a war criminal if he did this. And according to Giorgio Perlasca, who was acting as the Spanish consulate general, it was, he was also involved in this. Anyway, he manages to stop it. He gives incredible reports on what’s going on. This is why we knew so much of what was actually going on. He’s giving out passports. It’s just, and I should also mention this is early December, 1944. Himmler recalls Eichmann to Berlin. And he said, “If up to now you’ve been busy liquidating Jews, you are now, since I order it, take good care of them.” So Eichmann’s recalled, but the Arrow Cross are going on. Now, Wallenberg is reporting, and the Arrow Cross, there are two ghettos. The Arrow Cross demanded the starving Jews of the international ghetto be moved to the general ghetto safe houses. There are Swedish safe houses.
They’re doing everything to try and break what’s going on. And as I mentioned right at the beginning, Tommy uncle Otto, the head of the rescue committee, he’s murdered by the Arrow Cross because of course by this time, the, what is happening, is the Red Army are outside Budapest. The siege is going to last for 60 days. And finally they take the city. Now what happens? Can we see Carl Lutz’s picture as well? Carl Lutz, another incredible man. Very, he had been vice council at the Swiss Consulate in Jaffa. He also had close contacts with Jews. And he’d witnessed in 1936 the lynching a young Jew in the Arab Riots of '36. When he was appointed vice counsel in 1942 in Budapest, he cooperated with the Jewish Agency and the Joint. He saved 10,000 Jewish children with Swiss safe contact passes. And he also, after the Nazi invasion of Hungary in March '44, he issued papers to another 8,000 Jews. He himself set up 76 safe houses. The most famous is of course the glasshouse. He was incredibly brave. The Arrow Cross, and I’m sure many of you have seen that extraordinary memorial of shoes. The Arrow Cross would shoot people into the river. He went down to the Danube in his Swiss embassy car and a woman was bleeding in the Danube. She had been shot by the Arrow Cross. He declared her to be a protected Swiss.
He jumped into the river. He was a big imposing man. He pulled her out, and he saved, that’s one person, the courage of the man. Also, I should mention Angelo Rotta, the Papal Nuncio in Budapest. He was also very, very, he was also very, very helpful. And in fact later on, the head of the International Red Cross was later criticised by the Swiss for exceeding his authority. Now Wallenberg looks, all these characters, they were all honoured at Yad Vashem. But to finish the story of Wallenberg, on the morning of 17th of January, 1945, seven days after the Soviets have taken Budapest, Wallenberg was asked to visit the commander, Marshal Malinovsky, about 200 kilometres from Budapest. He wanted to meet him because he had a relief plan for the Jewish community. And he told the people he was with that he expected to be away for about eight days. He commented, and this is what he said, “I don’t know if they’re protecting me or watching me. I’m not sure if I’m their guest or their prisoner.” The car drove away. Now, he was never seen again by anyone in the West. He goes into Stalin’s captivity. We now think that he died in 1947 in a Soviet jail. Why did the Soviets arrest him? He worked with the Joint, that was good enough once the Cold War was underway. How does one look into the mind of a Stalin? But the point was, he was a great hero.
Carl Lutz was a great hero. Heroism is very, very interesting. I saw something on the television last night, I’m sure many of you did. The Russian broadcaster and behind her, a young woman who worked in the news actually putting a placard there saying what was really going on. A woman with two small children, because she believed what was happening was wrong. So what can I say to you? It is a dark history. Yes, it ended absolutely tragically. It was very late in the war and half of Hungarian Jewry did survive. And many of them stayed behind under a communist government. And what happened to them we’ll be talking about later on. And of course today, Hungary again has a large Jewish community and a very right wing government. So, my analysis, Jews are always happiest and safest in liberal democracies, in times of relative peace and tranquillity. That’s when we come into our own. And because I’m an optimist, I do believe that, and I study the cycle of history, and I do believe that kind of time will come again. And I also want to say to you, I’m going back to that comment that I had at the beginning from that lady. Yes, I know I’m talking about dark material, but Patrick has also shown you the incredible cultural renaissance of Budapest.
The same in Prague, the same in every city. And so much of it came from Jews. And never forget also, that incredible impact that Hungarian Jewry had on the West. It doesn’t matter what field you are interested in. If you are interested in sciences, look at the Martians. They called themselves the Martians. Those five brilliant Hungarian scientists who all won Nobel Prizes. The greatest of all was Johnny von Neumann. There’s a new book out about him. Brilliant book. I have trouble understanding his science, but I know that he’s an incredible man. Whether you like film, look at the great filmmakers. My favourite film, Casablanca, directed by the Hungarian Michael Curtiz. Think about Alexander Corder in London. Think about any discipline you are interested in. You see, that’s the point. Terrible tragedy. And yet out of the ashes again, the Jewish community go on. So let me stop there and I hope I’ve got enough. Judi, you’re going to have to read the questions to me. I’m speaking from my iPhone because I couldn’t make my iPad work. So Judi, thank you for helping me.
Q&A and Comments:
[Judy Ferreira] .
I’ve only got 14% juice. Shall I go plug the phone in while I’m?
[Judi] Oh . Can you see the questions on your, on the?
[Trudy] No, I can’t.
Q - [Judi] Thank you. And David is asking, why was Horthy executed?
A - [Trudy] Oh, Horthy wasn’t executed. Horthy made it to Portugal and.
[Judi] Oh, I think that Tommy said that further down. Yeah, here we go. Tommy did say he’d never were. Died in peace in Portugal, he believes. That was Tommy responding to that.
[Trudy] Right, thank you Tommy. I’m glad you are back. No, Horthy was not executed. Horthy, he was, he was, look, the Germans imprisoned him in a castle in Bavaria. He was later reunited with his son and he lived quite a reasonable life in Hungary where evidently he was helped by some Jewish families, a very, very ambivalent character.
[Judi] Thank you, sorry, Trudy. I’m just, it takes a bit longer, 'cause I have to.
[Trudy] I’m sorry Jude, I’m going to try and get my machine to work.
[Judi] Do you know what Trudy, I can send you a copy of all the questions and we can try again.
[Trudy] Yes I think, if people don’t mind.
[Judi] I think let’s do that.
[Trudy] If you send me a copy .
[Judy Ferreira] I’ll send you a copy of the questions.
I’m speaking again on Thursday, so I’ll look at them then.
[Judy Ferreira] Yes. Perfect.
Okay. And Judi, I have a great request. I know I’m asking online, do you think you could try and make touch with me on my machine to see if we can get it to work?
[Judi] Yes I can. So we can connect .
[Trudy] Thank you, Judy, so I hope I, so thank you all very much. I hope it’s been clear and thank you all. And look, let’s all stay strong, eh? God bless. Bye.
[Judi] Thank you Trudy. Bye-bye.