Welcome to Israel, President Ader. It is indeed an auspicious occasion that has
prompted your visit to Jerusalem. Raoul Wallenberg was one of the
greatest of Righteous among the Nations, and it is fitting that his
one-hundredth birthday will be marked at the Knesset of the Jewish
State, which is now the home of so many of the Jews he helped save.
The timing of your arrival is also very auspicious, coming in the wake of the
internationally widespread public exposure two days ago of the
presence in Budapest, unprosecuted, of Ladislaus “Laszlo” Csatary,
the number-one suspect on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of
most wanted Nazi war criminals. Csatary was a senior police officer
in Kassa (Kosice, then under Hungarian rule, today in Slovakia)
during the entire period of World War II, and played a key role
in two major operations that led to the deaths of many thousands
of Jews during the Holocaust. The most lethal of them was the mass
deportation to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp of approximately
15,700 Jews from Kassa and the surrounding area, which took place
from May 19 until the night between June 3 and 4, 1944. The deportations
were preceded by more than three weeks of ghettoization, during
which the Jews were subjected to very difficult living conditions
in two different ghettos. The commander of one of which was Csatary,
who was known as a cruel sadist, who frequently for no apparent reason beat ghetto inmates with a
dog whip.
The second operaton was the deportation to Kamenetz-Podolsk in the Ukraine, and
the subsequent murder, of about 300 Jews from Kassa who either
were not Hungarian citizens or were unable to prove citizenship.
Recently, I interviewed a survivor of Kassa who currently lives
in Australia. Nine of her relatives were among those deported and
killed there, and she related a story that clearly shows Csatary’s
zeal to rid his city of Jews. Four of her uncles had already been
drafted into the labor service battalions, but Csatary made it
his business to bring them back to Kassa, so that they could be
permanently removed from the city.
Contrary to many of the press reports, I discovered
Csatary in Budapest almost a year ago, and already submitted the
information on his whereabouts and crimes to the Hungarian prosecutors
in September 2011, hoping that they would expedite the case given
Csatary’s age. But months have gone by, and he has not even been
officially declared a suspect and had his passport taken away.
In my meeting last week in Budapest with prosecutor Dr. Gabor Hetenyi,
I submitted new details on the case and identity of Csatary’s victims,
but even yesterday, the spokesperson for the prosecution gave no
indication that the case would be given any priority or that it
would be expedited given the special circumstances.
The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt
of the killers, and old age should not afford protection for Holocaust
perpetrators. Csatary’s numerous victims, like all those annihilated
by the Nazis and their collaborators, necessitate that a serious
effort be made to hold their murderers and anyone complicit in
their murders accountable. Csatary is currently healthy and able
to stand trial, but who knows how much longer that will still be
the case.
appropriate occasion to publically guarantee that the Hungarian authorities will
do everything possible to help bring this criminal to justice and
make sure that such a public pronouncement will indeed be followed
up by the requisite practical and judicial steps. One of the most
effective ways to combat the rising wave of anti-Semitism, racism,
and right-wing extremism in Hungary is to bring to justice those
who were inspired to commit Holocaust crimes by the same ultranationalism
that is once again rearing its ugly head in your country.
timesofisrael.com
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