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János Esterházy

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The native form of this personal name is Esterházy János. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Count János Esterházy (Nyitraújlak, Austria-Hungary, March 14, 1901 – Mírov, Czechoslovakia, March 8, 1957), a member of the House of Esterházy, was the most prominent ethnic Hungarian politician in the former Czechoslovakia, and later in the First Slovak Republic.

He was the only member of the Slovak Parliament in 1942 who voted against expelling the Jews, setting an example which few dared to follow in the parts of Europe controlled by Adolf Hitler's Germany.

He was detained by the Nazis, harassed by the Gestapo, and died in a communist prison.

In 2009, the Polish president awarded him the Polonia Restituta Order. In 2010 Yad Vashem also recognized him in saving Jews. The Jewish organization Anti-Defamation League has recognized Esterházy's efforts for Jews with the Courage to Care Award in 2011, which caused protest of The Federation of the Jewish Communities in Slovakia. On the other hand, The Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities named him as hero for saving Jews during World War II.

His legacy is also one of the biggest sources of conflicts in Hungarian-Slovak relations up to this day. Similarly to other members of the First Slovak Parliament, Esterházy was sentenced by the Bratislava People's Tribunal for helping the anti-democratic and fascist regime. He is classified as a war criminal in Slovakia. The Russian government recognized Esterházy's deportation and sentence in USSR as unlawful in 1993 and rehabilitated him in this meaning.

Some Slovak historians such as Ján Mitáč, call him directly a Hungarian spy in Czechoslovakia under the name "Szalma" with the number 221. His supposed objective was the revision of the Treaty of Trianon. According to Hungarian historians, such as István Janek from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the accusations that he was a Hungarian agent are not supported by contemporary documents, due to the lack of official documents about his position and tasks. According to Janek, he used his connections to get Hungarian passports and visas to Jews, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks, including Rudolf Viest, during World War II and the real reason of his conviction by the Czechoslovak authorities was to intimidate the Hungarian minority.

Family

Son of Antal Mihály Esterházy, he was born into one of Hungary's most distinguished aristocrat families, the House of Esterházy, in the Galánta branch originated from Transylvania. His mother, Countess Elżbieta Tarnowska, daughter of Professor Stanisław Tarnowski, was Polish. He was four when his father died. He went to secondary school in Budapest and after studying commerce he returned to his estate in an area which Hungary was forced to cede to Czechoslovakia in the Treaty of Trianon which closed World War I. On October 15, 1924 he married countess Lívia Serényi. They had two children, János and Alice.

In politics

After World Word War I, the Hungarian official politic de facto did not accept the new borders established by the Treaty of Trianon. Opinions and political activities of János Esterházy reached far beyond correction of borders and according to his own words he did not accept the right for existence of a joint Czecho-Slovak state. Esterházy maintained close contact with Hungarian government through his visits in Budapest, through diplomatic channels of the Hungarian Embassy in Prague and the Hungarian Consulate in Bratislava.

He acted under cover names "Tamás", "Matyás" and number 221. Esterházy's reports for Hungarian government officials did not cover only the issues of the ethnic minority policy, but included also internal political situations, concepts and strategies for weakening Czechoslovakia, the politics of other countries against Czechoslovakia and information of intelligence nature. In the summer 1937, he disclosed data about Czechoslovak army and informed about building military fortresses and related budged. In the fall of the same year, he wrote report on defense projects near Lučenec and Ipeľ river.

In 1931 Esterházy became the leader of the Hungarian League of Nations League in the Czechoslovak Republic, an organization which operated within the League of Nations. On December 11 of the following year he was elected president of the National Christian Socialist Party. He won parliament mandate in Košice at the elections in 1935. In his first speech in parliament he said: "As we have been attached to Czechoslovakia against our will, we demand that the Czechoslovak government fully respect our minority, language, cultural and economic rights." He also supported the claims of ethnic Hungarians for autonomy within Slovakia. The Hungarian MPs supported the successful bid of Edvard Beneš for president of the republic.

Head of the United Hungarian Party

Hungarian parties founded the United Hungarian Party at their congress held in Nové Zámky on June 21, 1936, and Esterházy was elected the new party's acting president. He rejected an offer by Beneš to take a post in the Czechoslovakian government.

In 1938 he met the head of the British mission, Lord Runciman several times. He also held talks in Hungary, Poland and Italy. On March 17 and 18, during talks in Poland, he backed Hungary's proposal to return the territory of Slovakia to Hungary. He also wanted to take part in the negotiations about the two countries' borders in Komárno, but the head of the Czechoslovakian delegation, Jozef Tiso, rejected his request.

His political activity in Slovakia

After the First Vienna Award (2 November 1938), restoring to Hungary part of the territories lost earlier, Esterházy welcomed Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy as the MP of Košice (then Kassa), but he settled in the former Hungarian land kept by Slovakia and founded the Hungarian Party in Slovakia to defend the interests of the 70,000 ethnic Hungarians there, while he also called for the Hungarian government to respect the rights of the ethnic Slovaks who lived in the regained Hungarian territories (and he also urged a reform of land ownership in Hungary). He published a daily, Új Hírek (fresh news) in Bratislava, but it was banned and Esterházy was drawn under police surveillance. Later he established a new daily, the Magyar Hírlap (Hungarian newspaper). His party rejected Nazism. He negotiated with Slovak president Jozef Tiso about the rights of ethnic Hungarians several times and also spoke for those rights in parliament (in which he was the sole Hungarian MP). On March 14, 1939 he welcomed the establishment of independent Slovakia in a radio speech. In Bratislava he founded a publishing company and backed the operations of Szemle, an ethnic Hungarian cultural organization which was banned but restarted in 1942.


His views on "the Jewish issue"

Exclamation mark with arrows pointing at each otherThis article or section appears to contradict itself. Please see the talk page for more information. (April 2013)

Esterházy as a member of Slovak Diet voted for several anti-democratic laws including antisemitic laws leading to Jewish tragedy. In his parliamentary speeches, he repeatedly declared support for antisemitic policy of government. He did not only agreed with the measures against Jews but also supported them actively by his presentations. On the other hand, he protested against harming Hungarians under the cover of "the legitimate fight against Jews" and declared that "Hungarian salesmen over decades and centuries were suffering as much from Jews and Jewish frauds as the Slovak were".

On May 15, 1942 Slovak Diet approved constitutional law 68/1942 about expelling the Jews from Slovakia. Esterházy was the only MP who voted against the bill.

For clarification, The Slovak Diet voted by raising hand (acclamation). The group of Slovak members (P. Čarnogurský, V. Moravčík, J. Ferenčík, E. Filkorn, E. B. Lukáč) left the hall before voting on a protest. Esterházy did not leave and he was the only one, for whom it can be proven that he did not vote. After war, majority of deputies claimed that they also did not vote or left the hall. However, the real true and process of voting can be nowadays hardly reconstructed. Esterházy immediately became the target of fierce attacks in the press under control of ruling Slovak People's Party like Gardista which critized him for "leaving his hands in lap" during voting.

Shortly after voting, he wrote letter to the President of Diet Martin Sokol where he said that law is bad and not human. However, in the same letter he again declared his antisemitic feelings ("from early childhood") and expressed his will to remain antisemitic. He also claimed that as a representative of Hungarian minority he cannot vote for law which allows majority to deport minority. He told that he is aware that also some other Slovak members of Diet do not agree with law but party discipline does not allow them to vote against. .

To defend his views, he said:

"The Slovak government has strayed onto a dangerous path when it submitted the bill about expelling the Jewish, because by that it acknowledged that simply ousting a minority by the majority is lawful... As a representative of the Hungarians here, I state it, and please acknowledge this, that I don't vote in favour of the proposal because as a Hungarian, a Christian and a Catholic I believe that this is against God and humanity."

Esterházy, János (1942)

He also declared:

“I was raised in antisemitic spirit, I am antisemitic and I will remain antisemitic”

Esterházy, János (1942)

When the Slovak parliament voted on the deportation of Jews to Germany he also declared:

"It is shameful that a government, whose president and prime minister claim to be good Catholics, deports its Jewish citizens to Hitler's concentration camps"

Esterházy, János (1942)

János Esterházy helped hundreds of Jews, Czechs, Slovaks and Poles in 1944 to escape persecution. He was interned for a short period and the German Gestapo declared him wanted. Here is a quote from Irén Rujder, Ödön Rujder's widow (Ödön Rujder was rescued by Esterházy):

"We all, who lived in Slovakia in that time, know the truth. They (the Czechoslovaks) handed him (Esterházy) to the Soviets, because if they had brought him to justice in Bratislava, all of the Jews would have testified his innocence. The misinterpretation of truth like this is painful, Esterházy really deserves the true tree of Israel."

Rujder, Irén

The case of deportation was one of his last active steps in the Diet. From the second half of 1942, he moved to more passive and alibistic position. This was the same or similar process which could be observed also for many members of ruling party.

Prison

After the Soviet army ousted German troops from Bratislava, they interned Esterházy, but released him after 12 days. Later he negotiated with Gustáv Husák who represented the interim Slovak government, and complained about the prosecution of ethnic Hungarians. On the order of Husák he was arrested and handed over to the Soviet secret service KGB.

After war, Esterházy had to be judged on The Slovak National Court as all members of the Slovak Assebmly. However, he was illegally deported by Soviet Army in summer 1945. He was kept for one year in the feared prison of Lubyanka in Moscow, and then, on the basis of fabricated allegations, he was sentenced to ten years work in Siberia. In the meantime, The Slovak National Court in Bratislava on September 16, 1947 sentenced him in his absence to death for breaking up Czechoslovak state and for his participation as a deputy of the Slovak Assembly. The documentation related to the preparation of trial confirms that Slovak national authorities and Ministry of foreign affairs wanted to ensure his presence on trial.

In 1949 the Soviet Union extradited him to Czechoslovakia. Esterházy was already seriously ill in that time. He was not executed as a presidential pardon commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. Over the next years he was transferred from prison to prison in Czechoslovakia. He died in Mírov prison hospital in 1957.

Efforts for his rehabilitation

On January 21, 1993 the Russian justice rehabilitated János Esterházy after evaluation that his deportation into the USSR, passing a sentence and imprisonment was unlawful. Materials on the rehabilitation were passed to Hungarian Government even if he was not a citizen of Hungary during his political career. Under the seal of the Office of the Attorney General and the IG of the Armed Forces and signed by N. Sz. Vlaszenko, (document #Sz.: Zuv-9563-54) states in part that:

"It is hereby certified that János Esterházy, citizen of Czechoslovakia, born in Újlak in 1901, was arrested without cause on June 27, 1945.....and sentenced to ten years in a labor camp.... János Esterházy was rehabilitated according to the Russian Federation's "Political Terror Victim's Rehabilitation Act" of October 18, 1991, paragraphs 3 and 5...."

seal of the Office of the Attorney General and the IG of the Armed Forces, January 21, 1993

There is a letter from Simon Wiesenthal to Dr. Peter Samko, chief judge of the City of Bratislava, published in the newspaper of Új Szó, 1993. In his letter Wiesenthal strongly defends Esterházy and offers witnesses on his behalf (Új Szó Daily also published: on the testimonial of the Schlesinger family of Pozsony, saved by Esterházy).

His daughter, Alice Esterházy-Malfatti, ethnic Hungarian politicians in Slovakia and politicians in Hungary, have been trying to achieve the rehabilitatation in Slovakia of János Esterházy since November 1989, supported by the Hungarian government. The effort has not been successful so far. In 1993 the appeal to the Town Court of Bratislava was raised to permit re-opening trial of János Esterházy with the goal to achieve the statement of innocence . Year later, proceeding took place to decide if reopening of trial is justified and based on new facts which can bring new aspects to original lawsuit. The Town Court performed extensive evidence including examination of witnesses in Bratislava and Budapest. The court also requested for expert opinions from the Historical Institute the Slovak Academy of Sciences, from several historical institutions from Hungary, from historian with dealing the history of the Hungarians in Slovakia and two Czech historians. In 1994, the initiator changed original appeal and withdrew the issue of reopening. Through her attorney she addressed the General Prosecution to cancel the original sentence due to infringement of the rights of accused. The European Commission of Human Rights in Strasbourg refused her complaint against legality of original trial because its competency towards Slovakia starts only on March 18, 1992.

Controversy

János Esterházy belongs to the most typical examples of different views and interpretations of personalities in the common Slovak and Hungarian history. In contrast with Hungarian historians who highlight his national, christian and humanistic values, Slovak and Czech historians came to conclusion that by some positive features of christian-democratic politician, his activities against Czechoslovakia were unambiguously hostile. . Hungarian and Slovak historians did not achieved compliance in their experted opinions requested by court during trial for reopening his case.

On his 100th birthday, Hungary's parliament held a memorial session in the presence of then president of the republic Ferenc Mádl. On April 20, 2007, President László Sólyom also urged Esterházy's rehabilitation. "How comes that everybody respect a "war criminal", politicians officially stand by him, while legally and in documents he is still burdened by the most severe possible condemnation?" - Sólyom said in a speech delivered at a conference organized by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to remember Esterházy's death.

This action of Hungarian parliament caused contradictory reactions in Slovakia, increased by attendance of politicians from Party of the Hungarian Coalition and František Mikloško from Christian Democratic Movement. Other negative reactions came during placing his statues and busts in southern Slovakia. In 2011, such action led to conflict between organizers and some citizens in Košice.

In "reaction on glorification" of János Esterházy, Institute of History of Slovak Academy of Sciencespublished in 2011 memorandum about his political profile, signed also by directors of other Slovak historical institutes. Among other, memorandum declared that presenting him as a democrat, humanist and selfless savior of persecuted person is in contrast with historical facts and his decision to not to vote for deportation cannot be used as the only one and determining criterion for all his political activities. Instead of glorification and building memorials they recommended rational discussion about his life and actions.

Notes

  1. The book is not written by Ján Mitáč.

References

  1. ^ Breuning, Eleonore (2005). "The Hungarian minority in Slovakia". Power and the People. Manchester University Press. p. 139. ISBN 0-7190-7069-4. Retrieved 2008-10-18. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  2. Béla K. Király, Gunther Erich Rothenberg, War and Society in East Central Europe: Czechoslovak policy and the Hungarian minority, 1945-1948, Brooklyn College Press : distributed by Columbia University Press, 1982, p. 200
  3. ^ Csaba Sógor (23.03.11). "One-minute speeches (Rule 150)". European Parliament. Retrieved 14.03.13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  4. MTI (27.02.13). "Esterházy János-emlékkiállítás nyílik Győrben" (in Hungarian). MNO. Retrieved 29.03.13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  5. Remarks by Abraham H. Foxman National Director, Anti-Defamation League (8.11.11). "Courage to Care Award Presentation to Janos Esterhazy". ADL. Retrieved 14.03.13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  6. "ADL press release".
  7. http://www.sme.sk/c/6250491/ocenenie-esterhazyho-rozdelilo-zidov.html
  9. Tóth-Szenesi, Attila (2011-08-24). "Esterházyn még mindig háborúzunk a szlovákokkal (We're still at war with the Slovaks over Esterházy)" (in Hungarian). Index.hu Zrt. Retrieved 2011-10-09.
  10. http://www.uzzno.sk/stanovisko-k-osobe-janosa-esterhazyho
  11. ^ Deák 1995, p. 23.
  12. Christopher Szabo (04.11.11). "Anti-Defamation League recognises Slovak-Hungarian politician". Digital Journal. Retrieved 14.03.13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  13. ^ "Zsolt Németh, Küzdelem egy hős elismeréséért (Struggle for recognition of a hero)". Szombat, Zsidó politikai és kulturális folyóirat(Shabbath, Jewish political and cultural periodical). Retrieved 2008-09-04.
  14. http://books.google.sk/books?id=J04iAQAAIAAJ&q=esterhazy+szalma+221&dq=esterhazy+szalma+221&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pcU9Uc6UPOTe4QSN3oGYDQ&redir_esc=y
  15. http://www.foruminst.sk/publ/historia/1/historia1_1936.pdf
  16. ^ http://www.parameter.sk/rovat/kultura/2012/04/03/esterhazy-janos-szlovak-es-magyar-szemmel
  17. Janek 2012, p. 46.
  18. Deák 1995, p. 8.
  19. Deák 1995, p. 9.
  20. ^ Kamenec 2000, p. 360.
  21. ^ Deák 1995, p. 21.
  22. Kamenec 1991, p. 189.
  23. Mitáč 2012, p. 43.
  24. Kamenec 1991, p. 190.
  25. Gardista & May 17, 1942, p. 1. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGardistaMay_17,_1942 (help)
  26. Hungarian National Archives K-63-1942/65
  27. Kamenec 2000, p. 358.
  28. Csaba Teglas, Budapest Exit: A Memoir of Fascism, Communism, and Freedom, Texas A&M University Press, 2007, p. 33
  29. ^ Kamenec 2000, p. 361.
  30. Deák 1995, p. 22.
  31. ^ Šutaj 2012.
  32. Új Szó Daily, May 5, 1993
  33. Új Szó Daily, June 6, 1993
  34. "Sólyom: Esterházy Jánost erkölcsi nagysága miatt tiszteljük". Népszabadság (in Hungarian). 2007-04-19. Retrieved 2008-10-18.
  35. http://kosice.korzar.sme.sk/c/5806387/odhalovanie-esterhazyho-busty-v-kosiciach-sa-skoncilo-bitkou.html
  36. http://www.history.sav.sk/esterhazy.htm

Sources

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