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Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1992 17:36:42 -0400
From:         "(George Frajkor)" <gfrajkor@CCS.CARLETON.CA>
Subject:      WW2again

  Some more inrteresting cross posts from Hungary discussion list. ..
of some relevance to people on this list
--------------------------------------------

From: Joe Pannon <pannon@BCSFSE.BOEING.COM>
Subject:      Re: Hungarian minorities in the neiighboring countries

M. Wagner writes:

> In my experience living in Europe a few years ago, those countries which
> had come to some understanding of their role(s) in the second world war
> were those who admitted that they might have done something wrong and
> proceeded from there.  Those countries who (like Austria) hide behind
> the pretext of being forced into the second world war with absolutely
> no interest in actually being in the war are the ones who are currently
> having the hardest time facing their role in the war.
> Sadly, Hungary is in the later category.

Those are mighty sweeping conclusions for someone who only lived there for a
few years, Michael!  Just what does that mean " proceeded from there"?
... and how would you guage what constitutes "having the hardest time facing
their role in the war"?  Frankly, I don't see at all, that Hungary has a
difficulty facing that issue.  But I admit, a small minority in Hungary
insists viewing Hungary's WW II role in the way they learned it from
communist era history books.  For another, more balanced view, you might
want to get hold of a book written in 1947 by America's ambassador to
Hungary in the pre-war period.  His name was Montgomery and the book's
title, if I recall correctly, was "Hungary, the Unvilling Satellite", or
something similar.

> I didn't know this.  But I'm not sure how much it changes.  Hungary didn't
> resist occupation by the Germans, and there was an awful lot of pro-Nazi
> sentiment in Hungary when the invasion occured.

Actually, there were sporadic attempts to resist, but it was unorganized
and essentially insignificant.  One of the main reasons may have been,
that Hitler decided to invade while Regent Horthy was visiting him and
was effectively kept incommunicado during the blitz invasion.
Hungarian commanders were unable to determine if the invasion was agreed
by Horthy on his visit with Hitler, or not.  But in the final analysis,
Hungarians would have had no chance, anyway, and they might have ended
up worse by putting up a fight.  Let's face it, if the Western Allies
had such a tough time defeating Germany, what chance was there for
little Hungary?

>   There is an expression in English,
> that people get the government they deserve.  Sheep get oppressive
> governments.

That saying hardly applies to people, who are not independent.  A small
country as Hungary between two giants like Germany and the Sovietunion
could hardly be considered totally independent.  While there were
obviously things that -- with hindsight -- could have been done
differently, but I doubt by much.  ... and even then, would the results
have been much different?  Look at the case of Poland, the first victim
of nazism.  How much better has it fared after the war than Hungary?

> When I was in Hungary three years ago and again last Christmas, I heard
> on the radio that anti-semitic and anti-gypsy incidents were on the rise.

Overemphasizing the negatives would be quite expected from today's
Hungarian Radio and TV.  I think they learn too much and too fast from
their American colleagues. ;-)

>   Most Europeans can't look
> at their neighbours without classifying them by nationality and social
> class, and then acting in radically different ways towards them based on
> that classification.  Seeing a person for what they really are seems to be
> a foreign concept.

I don't think it's that simple.  For instance, it's also true, that when
somebody from one country goes to another country for a vacation, he or
she, more often than not, gets a special treatment normally not given to
their own visitors.  Being a "tourist" in Europe conveys a certain privilege
you rarely see in the US where the natural assumption seems to be: "yet
another immigrant".  Because of this, in Europe often one wants to be
taken as a foreign tourist even if he isn't, while in the US it's better
to be taken to be native.

> I also think people should learn from the conflicts of the past.  The sad
> thing, in my mind, is that too few people in Europe have learned anything
> from the last two world wars.  They're still sheep.  They'll still salute
> anything that stands up straighter than they can.  They still have incredible
> class and power structures.  They still, for the most part, think in little
> goulash-sized chunks of land and nationalism.

What many American critics of Europe, as you Michael, fail to take into
account when comparing the US to Europe, is the fact, that European
nations are essentially ethnically (tribally) based, while countries,
such as the US and Canada are territorially based.  Most European
countries have a dominant ethnic group and borders evolved more or less
along ethnic dividing lines.  The friction tends to be the greatest,
where those natural dividing lines have been changed by outside
interference, mostly in this century.

Ethnic kinship (nationalism) is something most Europeans feel to some
degree, and it's probably a more powerful unifying force than a common
citizenship.  Americans, with the latter alone (there is no such thing
as "ethnic American", after all), cannot really appreciate what it means
to be bound by both.

Regards,
Joe Pannon
------------------------------------------------------------

From: Michael Wagner <MICHAEL@UTORVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Slovak-world

On Mon, 5 Oct 1992 08:38:45 CDT Peter A. Nemenyi said:


>Someone told me recently to read on history books. I would like to pass this
> advice to you as well.

No doubt I have more to learn.  It is part of why I am a member of this
list.  I do read history books and I intend to read more.

I would submit, however, that beyond a certain point, getting hung up
on the minutae of who did what to whom when is part of the sickness
that has attacked Europe so many times in the last while.

As a case in point, will we, when the war in Yugoslavia is over, say
that we didn't know about the concentration camps and the slaughter
of Muslims and that's why we didn't intervene.  After all, the UN says
it is an internal matter for Yugoslavia.  We are so absorbed
trying to decide which factions are which and whether the Serbs or the
Croats are right or wrong, and whose claim for which attrocity has more
weight that we are missing the point.

"Ethnic cleansing" is a new, trendy word for genocide.  Death camps.
It has all the same characteristics.  Slaughter of civilians.  Mass graves.
Like Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz.

Tell me we have learned our lessons and it isn't happening.  Please.

So I will continue to read my books, and read my mail.  But permit me,
please, as I read, to draw my conclusions and act accordingly.

>.. you mentioned that the Hungarians did not resist to the German occupation.
> Would you stand
>against a freight-train coming with full speed?

I have often wondered what I would do were I to have been alive during
the second world war.  The question is more than academic - I never knew
my paternal grandparents or anyone from that generation on that side of
my family, because they died during the war at the hands of the Nazis.
My father survived because he resisted.  As a young teenager he ran away
from the lineup and survived.  His mother did not.  I have often wondered
if I would have had his courage at his age.

But the question of what I, born in Canada in a peaceful generation, would
do if parachuted into a war situation is probably irrelevant and boring to
most here on the list.

The issue that started this conversation was Hungary's role during
the second world war.  The claim was made that Hungary was
essentially blameless.  I have as hard a time accepting this as I do
when I hear it about Austria.  For many reasons.  One is the personal
attitudes of the people there, then and now.

There were many examples,
both personal and national, of resistance to the Germans during WWII.
I don't know of many in Hungary.  The ones I know about (Wallenberg come
to mind) weren't Hungarians.  No doubt there were some.

I'd be happy to hear of some.

>The Germans did not send an appointment date about when they will
come.
> They just  came, fast. They were famous of that.

The same is true for Austria.  Does that allow the Austrians to claim they
had no role in WWII?  Was there not a shred of anti-semitism outside of
the borders of Germany?  Were there no collaborators in Hungary, Austria
and France (to name but three)?  Are the Germans soly responsible for
WWII?  Are Europe's problems over when the Germans have completed their
soul-searching and have decided they will not sing "Deutschland Ueber Alles"
again?

I think not.  I think all of Europe needs to assure itself that it won't
repeat history, and I think denying the role that a country played in the
war only delays that analysis.  Hungary is one of those countries, no more
nor less than Austria, France, Poland ...

I wish I could report that discrimination against Jews, Gypsies, foreigners,
Blacks, whatever, has ceased in Hungary.  I cannot.  Even during the
communist regime, when the government told me so on the radio, I could
trivially show it wasn't true.  Under the communists it was hidden because
it was supposed not to exist.  Now even that inhibition is gone.

Hungary is no worse in this regard than any 10 other countries in Europe.
But it is also no better.

Michael Wagner
--------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Michael Wagner <MICHAEL@UTORVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Hungarian minorities in the neiighboring countries


On Mon, 5 Oct 1992 17:34:43 PDT Joe Pannon said:

............(deletions).....

>Just what does that mean " proceeded from there"?

I'm not sure it matters what "proceeded from there" means, in this context,
since my claim was that they (essentially) hadn't gotten there yet.

Let us take the former East Germany as an example.  After WWII, the communists
told the East Germans that they had no part in the war, that the Nazis were
all in West Germany, and therefore the East Germans had no soul-searching
to do (and also, handily, no reparations to pay).  Now what happens?  The
communists are gone, and East Germany has become a hotbed of neo-Nazi activity.

I look at this and say that the East Germans are still carrying around
those old ideas unexamined.  In order for a country to
change it's attitudes in any substantial way, it must first honestly
examine it's past.  Then, hopefully, lasting attitudinal changes will be made.
Denial, such as the East Germans did, only bandages over the problem, which
resurfaces when the bandage is removed.

>... and how would you guage what constitutes "having the hardest time facing
>their role in the war"?

Subjectively, I guess.  No one I know had a father that had anything to do
with the war.  Sounds like denial to me.

>> ... Hungary didn't
>> resist occupation by the Germans, and there was an awful lot of pro-Nazi
>> sentiment in Hungary when the invasion occured.
>
>Actually, there were sporadic attempts to resist, but [ ... ]

True of many countries besides Hungary.  As I said in another letter today,
Hungary was no worse than many other countries in Europe.  No better either.
But just saying "we were invaded...we had no choice" denies the existance
of very pro-Nazi groups like the Arrow Cross and the significant population
of Hungary that was (and to some extent still is) discriminatory against
Jews, Gypsies, foreigners ...  Worse, it denies the role that those factors
had in the war, and therefore removes responsibility from the individuals
involved.

Can a society learn from it's mistakes if it first denies them?

>But in the final analysis, Hungarians would have had no chance,
>anyway, and they might have ended up worse by putting up a fight.

Tell that to the families of the dead.  You're talking politics.  I'm
talking people.  It wasn't just a war.  It was genocide.  But most
Hungarians weren't Jews and weren't Gypsies, so it was better to not
fight it too hard.  Most Hungarians came out of it OK.

>> When I was in Hungary three years ago and again last Christmas, I heard
>> on the radio that anti-semitic and anti-gypsy incidents were on the rise.
>
>Overemphasizing the negatives would be quite expected from today's
>Hungarian Radio and TV.  I think they learn too much and too fast from
>their American colleagues. ;-)

Blame it on the media?  I think not.  I personally have also run into
bigotry in Hungary, and considering the amount of time I spent in
each country, I've found more in Hungary and Austria than I did in
Germany.

>>   Most Europeans can't look
>> at their neighbours without classifying them by nationality and social
>> class, and then acting in radically different ways towards them based on
>> that classification.  Seeing a person for what they really are seems to be
>> a foreign concept.
>
>I don't think it's that simple.  For instance, it's also true, that when
>somebody from one country goes to another country for a vacation, he or
>she, more often than not, gets a special treatment normally not given to
>their own visitors.  Being a "tourist" in Europe conveys a certain privilege
>you rarely see in the US where the natural assumption seems to be: "yet
>another immigrant".  Because of this, in Europe often one wants to be
>taken as a foreign tourist even if he isn't, while in the US it's better
>to be taken to be native.

I think we are talking about different situations.  I'm talking about
non-tourist situations here, for example, intermarriage or moving
to take a new job.  In one case, people I knew well liked the new
husband personally, but disliked him because he was Bulgarian.  When
I pressed to find out what was wrong with him, he was just ... well ...
Bulgarian.

>> I also think people should learn from the conflicts of the past.  The sad
>> thing, in my mind, is that too few people in Europe have learned anything
>> from the last two world wars.  They're still sheep.  They'll still salute
>> anything that stands up straighter than they can.  They still have incredible
>> class and power structures.  They still, for the most part, think in little
>> goulash-sized chunks of land and nationalism.

>What many American critics of Europe, as you Michael, fail to take into
>account when comparing the US to Europe, is the fact, that European
>nations are essentially ethnically (tribally) based, while countries,
>such as the US and Canada are territorially based.  Most European
>countries have a dominant ethnic group and borders evolved more or less
>along ethnic dividing lines.  The friction tends to be the greatest,
>where those natural dividing lines have been changed by outside
>interference, mostly in this century.
>
>Ethnic kinship (nationalism) is something most Europeans feel to some
>degree, and it's probably a more powerful unifying force than a common
>citizenship.  Americans, with the latter alone (there is no such thing
>as "ethnic American", after all), cannot really appreciate what it means
>to be bound by both.

I find these two paragraphs difficult, to say it mildly.

For lack of a better place to start, let me say that I am a Canadian
of Eastern European parents.  Europe is not exactly a foreign concept
to me.  Much of my family is buried there.

As a Canadian, ethnic differences are not unknown to me.  You may be
aware of a small amount of tension between the English and the French
in Canada.

One of my lifelong hobbies has been folk dance, and I can tell you a thing
or two about ethnic identification in Europe and how national boundaries
(even leaving the recent attempts like Triannon out of it) have nothing
to do with ethnic identification.  I have danced with Croations who thought
I was Croation because I could Polka (only the Croats do Polka, don't you
know), and had the piss scared out of me (literally) in the washroom by
people who told me that armed struggle was the only way to solve the
ethnic problems in Yugoslavia (this was still during Tito's time).
I have listened for drunken hours to stories about how the Macedonians either
are or aren't Greek (depending on who is buying the liquor), the Turks are
or aren't barbarians, Armenians should be poisoned in their hospital beds,
the Slovenians are really Austrians, Slovacks are really different from
Czecs, let me tell you, there are many more ethnic groups in Europe than
there are countries.

I think you have neglected a lot of things.  Most countries in Europe
are formed from majorities and minorities, in several dimensions.
Many countries in Europe have a dominant religion, and are relatively
intolerant to members of other religions.  They are similarly
unsympathetic to members of the minority ethnic groups.

You claim this friction occurs mostly in areas where the borders
have been redrawn by outside forces in this century.  A moments
thought will show this is untrue.  Poland has been shuffled back
and forth for several centuries.  Friction between Hungary and
it's neighbours to the north, east and south started before the
turn of the century.  Transylvania has been in dispute for several
centuries.  There are several seperatist movements inside France that
would like to be out of France if only they could.  They are held
together by forces that can only be called internal.  Yugoslavia
was held together by Tito when he was alive, but the people there
take great pride in being able to trace their first injuries back
most of a millenium, and for them it is still very much a part of
their living memory and experience.  I have a historical atlas of
Europe which shows how the map has been redrawn, often radically
and against both geographic and ethnic lines, every 50 years or so
for the last 500 years.

I find it ironic that European critics of North America know so little
about it.  We are, if anything, considerably more ethnically diverse
than Europe (can you show me the Jamaican section of Budapest?).
And, to a large extent, the North Americans of European ancestry left
Europe to get away from the discrimination and bigotry of Europe
(some, like the potato famine Irish, left because of economic hardship).
While many were born here, at least in Canada, our history is
of Europe, and we often know more about European history than that
of any other ancestor group.  In fact, we know a lot more about
Europe than we do about our own aboriginal peoples.

I would agree that ethnic nationalism is something most Europeans
feel, but I have a tough time swallowing that it is a particularly
positive force.
I have found it often a focal point for intolerance of others.
That is, I have often seen ethnicity brought up not as a common point
amongst friends to be rejoiced, but rather a distinguising characteristic
to use in discrimination.

You are correct to say that this is a unifying force, but saying that
we are united in our discrimination against others doesn't give me
great hope that we will soon see Europe heal its problems.

I think this is where we came in.  I think 200 lines is enough for
one night.  My apologies to those who found this too long.

Michael Wagner
----------------------------------------------------------------

From: Joe Pannon <pannon@BCSFSE.BOEING.COM>
Subject:      Re: hungary and its minorities


If there is any one theme that keeps coming back in Mr. Wagner's
diatribes, it's Hungary's brand of nazi movement during WW II, the Arrow
Cross.  The following is a typical of them:

> I think you have to explain the Arrow Cross, a neo-Nazi organization of
> considerable proportion.  While other countries had some sympathy for
> the Nazi cause, no other country in Europe organized such a large group
> based on the SS model (except Germany itself).

As your messages about the Arrow Cross seem to imply a considerable
knowledge about that movement, would you be kind enough, Mr. Wagner, to
answer the following questions for the benefit of the less informed:

1) What was that "considerable proportion"?

2) When did they win any election in Hungary?  (Similarly to Hiitler's
election victory in Germany, for instance.)

3) When and how did they gain power in Hungary if not by election?

4) When were the first Jews actually killed in Hungary and how many of
that 600,000 total?

5) When was the deportation of Hungarian citizen Jews started?  Before,
or after Hungary's invasion by Germany?

The following once are optional:

6) Have you heard about the Hlinka Gards?

7) How about the Iron Guards?

8) ... and the Ustashas?

9) Could you answer questions 1 through 5 in relation to the
organizations mentioned in 6 through 8?

Your answers to these questions would help me a great deal in
ascertaining if we have at least a minimum common understanding from
which debating makes any sense.

I am also wondering what your thoughts are about the following:

Do you think the Germans would have dealt with resistance to them
in the same harsh manner regardless whether the resisting country's
population is ARYAN or made up of -- what they considered --
"untermenschen"?  Would that make any difference in the willingness of
resistance to them?  In other words, who would have more to lose in
resisting the Germans?  -- the Dutch or Danes on one hand, or the
Hungarians on the other?  How did they treat the openly defiant Danish
king, as opposed to the (only) cautiously resisting/cooperating Horthy
of Hungary?

These are all interesting questions, don't you agree?

Regards,
Joe Pannon
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