The Hungarian Neo-Nazi Roma Killings
By: Akos Peterbencze
Tags: Murder, Justice, Racism, True Crime, Serial Killers

The Hungarian Neo-Nazi Roma Killings

Four nationalist men murdered 6 and wounded 55 people in a series of attacks committed against Romani communities.

The racism against the Roma is constant in Eastern Europe. In Hungary, the majority of the people grows up with fear and dread in their mind feeling threatened by them. That is a general mindset passed on from generation to generation. Since childhood, they are taught to believe that Roma is a malicious and dangerous nation.

Romani people make up about seven percent of the population in Hungary. The poverty they face is so significant that most of them have no other choice than to commit petty crimes to survive. Many of them live in poor, tiny villages. In the eye of the Hungarians, they’re nothing but violent criminals.

In 2008 and 2009, Arpad Kiss, Istvan Kiss, Zsolt Peto, and Istvan Csontos killed six people (including a four-year-old) and wounded over fifty others in Roma communities. These brutal hate crimes are amongst the cruelest and most inhumane cases in Hungarian history.

The Birth of Hatred

Istvan Kiss was thirteen years old when a team of young Romani people had beaten and robbed him. After the incident, he joined a Neo-Nazi group in Debrecen called the Bloody Sword. He was getting to know more people who shared similar beliefs against the Roma.

In the mid-90s, he became a regular in a bar that was the meeting point of the local football hooligans. That’s where he first met Zsolt Peto. Soon, the two became friends sharing the same hateful views against minorities.

In 1995, Kiss was accused of burning Torahs, but the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.

In 1999, he had an altercation with a Roma bouncer at a nightclub where he was stabbed and lost his spleen due to serious injury.

Arpad Kiss is the older brother of Istvan. Although he didn’t have any connections with nationalist or Neo-Nazi groups, the idea of the attacks came from him. He was a drummer in several rock bands and worked ten years in Israel. He was the only one of the four who committed crimes against Roma by himself as well.

Zsolt Peto worked as a pastry cook and a bouncer. As a security professional, he had a license for firearms. He was also known as a gun and dog-fight enthusiast. He wears a tattoo of the number 88 on the back of his neck, which refers to the eighth letter of the English alphabet and stands for HH (Heil Hitler). He was a member of the nationalist group, Bloody Sword, along with Istvan Kiss. He had formerly been accused of harassment.

Istvan Csontos joined the gang later. He was a soldier in Kosovo and had no connections with nationalist and Nazi organizations during that period. However, his racist beliefs were similar to the rest of the group.

Reinstalling Order in a Series of Attacks

On March 7, 2008, the Kiss brothers and Peto disguised themselves as police officers and broke into the house of a hunter. They bound and threatened the man and his wife and stole several firearms.

Before every attack, the three had done thorough field inspections and held meetings regularly in a flat in Debrecen.

The first attack took place at Galgagyork in Pest county. They chose this location because it became known nationwide that Roma had committed several crimes against Hungarians here. Their purpose was to frighten the local minorities and send a message across the country.

On July 28, 2008, the three opened fire using shotguns at several buildings occupied by Roma families in Piricse. Apart from the damage they caused to the properties, no one got hurt. Their intent to create a climate of fear had failed. Not having the outcome they aimed for, the group hit their next target within two weeks.

On August 8, 2008, in the same village, they threw Molotov-cocktails at two houses then started firing. The occupants woke up to the noise, and a woman opened the main door. She was shot in the leg and elbow but survived the injuries. The three continued shooting while they fled the crime scene.

On September 5, 2008, Arpad Kiss had attacked a house in Nyiradony by himself. He fired twice through the windows, but both shots had missed the six people who lived in the building.

On September 29, 2008, the next on the list was Tarnabod, where a few Romani people brutally murdered an elderly man earlier that year. This time, besides following the previous routine (Molotov-cocktails, guns, disguise), the three also used URH radios for communication. Peto threw Molotov-cocktails at a building then the three began shooting.

A man had woken up to the commotion in the neighborhood and went to see what’s happening. As the three were fleeing the scene, one of them attempted to shoot him but missed. Eventually, no one had been hurt in the attack.

The First Murder

On Nov 3, 2008, the gang’s next targets were two married couples with mentally disabled relatives and children in Nagycsecs. Peto and Istvan Kiss threw Molotov-cocktails at the building, while Arpad was on a lookout in a field next to the property. Once the family realized the house is on fire, they began putting it out. That’s when the gang opened fire at them. When a woman and her sister stepped out of the building, Istvan and Peto shot them dead. A man had also been wounded but survived the shooting.

A month later, Arpad Kiss attempted to kill a young man and his colleague while they were chopping woods in the backyard of a house in Alsozsolca. He missed the first shot, but the second hit one of the men. Thanks to the ambulance that arrived quickly at the scene, he survived the injury.