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From the diary of Sándor Márai
Az eredeti nyelvű szöveghez kattintson ide.
Sándor Márai (Košice, 1900 - San Diego 1989) was one of the most influential writers of the pre and after war periods. During the second world war he stayed in Budapest and saw its destruction firsthand. After the war seeing the communist take power he left the country and lived some time in Italy, then settled in San Diego where he lived till the end of his life.
...
The Russians are what they are. They promised us nothing, wanted nothing from us. We declared war on them, and now, by the right of arms, they have arrived in our country—a defeated nation that attacked their homeland without any legitimate cause. We cannot eproach them.
But the Hungarians! The only country in Europe where, at the most critical moment in the nation's history, there arose a Szálasi government and legislators who endeavored to play out the comedy of legality for the sake of this horde! Just to supplement their loot, to prolong their existence by a few weeks more, to destroy Budapest and everything that remained of the country! With these people, there is truly no compromise, no mercy.
Now the Jew-hating, Nazi-sympathizing middle class is trying to shift all the blame for what happened onto the Arrow Cross Party.
But it’s not true that the Arrow Cross were the main culprits. The Arrow Cross were merely a consequence of everything this society committed over the past 25 years in its attempts to succeed without culture, morality, or talent. The Arrow Cross horde is just as guilty as the Hungarian leadership class, which, under the cloak of constitutionalism, shamelessly fueled and encouraged every kind of reactionary movement during Horthy's 25 years in power. This society is like this; it cannot simply avoid responsibility. Now they are eager to throw the Arrow Cross to the wolves, to save themselves. But they won’t escape so cheaply.
There is only one thing the peasants, the ‘most noble’ and ‘honorable’ gentlemen don’t talk about: what the inhabitants of Russian cities and villages suffered, and how, a year ago, hundreds of thousands of Hungarian citizens were thrown out of their homes, all their belongings taken, forced into ghettos, brickyards, pigsties with miserable bundles, and from there crammed eighty at a time into sealed train cars—children, women, and men together—this wretched mass traveled for six days in scorching heat toward the deportation camps in Poland. They went mad from thirst. Mothers gave birth in those cars, and the babies lay dead in their arms. The men sat deranged beside the corpses. Mortality in those cars was twenty percent... And finally, in the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Olmütz, the children and elderly were killed in gas chambers, the able-bodied were made to work for a time, and the girls and women were injected with diseases in experimental facilities.
No one among those now trembling at the thought of billeting, or guarding their flour and underwear from the ‘looters,’ speaks of any of this.
For Hungary to become a nation again, a respected member of the world’s family, a certain kind of soul must be eradicated—that peculiar thing labeled as 'right-wingness,' the consciousness that as a 'Christian Hungarian gentleman,' one has inherent privileges in this world. That, simply by being a ‘Christian Hungarian gentleman,’ one has the right to live well without talent or knowledge, to look down on others, to hold out a greedy hand, and to expect bribes from the state and society: jobs, decorations, leftover Jewish estates, free vacations at Galyatető, favoritism in every aspect of life. Because that was the whole meaning of being right-wing. And this kind does not learn. Anyone over thirty, raised in this spirit and atmosphere, is hopeless. Perhaps they will compromise with clenched teeth, for they are selfish and cowardly; they will surely bow before the new order, but deep in their hearts they will yearn for the 'right-wing, Christian, national' world within which it was so easy to rob Jewish property, kill off competitors, and worm their way into major companies without training or expertise.
This kind never changes.
...
The Russians are what they are. They promised us nothing, wanted nothing from us. We declared war on them, and now, by the right of arms, they have arrived in our country—a defeated nation that attacked their homeland without any legitimate cause. We cannot eproach them.
But the Hungarians! The only country in Europe where, at the most critical moment in the nation's history, there arose a Szálasi government and legislators who endeavored to play out the comedy of legality for the sake of this horde! Just to supplement their loot, to prolong their existence by a few weeks more, to destroy Budapest and everything that remained of the country! With these people, there is truly no compromise, no mercy.
Now the Jew-hating, Nazi-sympathizing middle class is trying to shift all the blame for what happened onto the Arrow Cross Party.
But it’s not true that the Arrow Cross were the main culprits. The Arrow Cross were merely a consequence of everything this society committed over the past 25 years in its attempts to succeed without culture, morality, or talent. The Arrow Cross horde is just as guilty as the Hungarian leadership class, which, under the cloak of constitutionalism, shamelessly fueled and encouraged every kind of reactionary movement during Horthy's 25 years in power. This society is like this; it cannot simply avoid responsibility. Now they are eager to throw the Arrow Cross to the wolves, to save themselves. But they won’t escape so cheaply.
There is only one thing the peasants, the ‘most noble’ and ‘honorable’ gentlemen don’t talk about: what the inhabitants of Russian cities and villages suffered, and how, a year ago, hundreds of thousands of Hungarian citizens were thrown out of their homes, all their belongings taken, forced into ghettos, brickyards, pigsties with miserable bundles, and from there crammed eighty at a time into sealed train cars—children, women, and men together—this wretched mass traveled for six days in scorching heat toward the deportation camps in Poland. They went mad from thirst. Mothers gave birth in those cars, and the babies lay dead in their arms. The men sat deranged beside the corpses. Mortality in those cars was twenty percent... And finally, in the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Olmütz, the children and elderly were killed in gas chambers, the able-bodied were made to work for a time, and the girls and women were injected with diseases in experimental facilities.
No one among those now trembling at the thought of billeting, or guarding their flour and underwear from the ‘looters,’ speaks of any of this.
For Hungary to become a nation again, a respected member of the world’s family, a certain kind of soul must be eradicated—that peculiar thing labeled as 'right-wingness,' the consciousness that as a 'Christian Hungarian gentleman,' one has inherent privileges in this world. That, simply by being a ‘Christian Hungarian gentleman,’ one has the right to live well without talent or knowledge, to look down on others, to hold out a greedy hand, and to expect bribes from the state and society: jobs, decorations, leftover Jewish estates, free vacations at Galyatető, favoritism in every aspect of life. Because that was the whole meaning of being right-wing. And this kind does not learn. Anyone over thirty, raised in this spirit and atmosphere, is hopeless. Perhaps they will compromise with clenched teeth, for they are selfish and cowardly; they will surely bow before the new order, but deep in their hearts they will yearn for the 'right-wing, Christian, national' world within which it was so easy to rob Jewish property, kill off competitors, and worm their way into major companies without training or expertise.
This kind never changes.
...