The Tragedy of the Hungarians of Transcarpathia

CHRONICLE OF EVENTS:

1965.

Publication of Kovacs Vilmos's novel "Holnap is elunk" (Tomorrow we shall still be alive) where mention of the deportation of men for "three days of labour" first saw print.

1972, spring.

Transcarpathia's human rights activists send a petition to the Political Committee of the SKP CC and the President of the Supreme Council of the SSKS detailing the Hungarians' complaints:

"Our concerns and complaints have their roots in the past. Mostly, they are the direct result of the openly anti-Hungarian resolution brought on November 26, 1944 by the I. Congress of Peoples' Commissariats of the Ukraine proper. These resolutions declare us, Hungarians, to be hereditary enemies of the Ukrainian people. What is more alarming, however, that these chauvinistic documents have surfaced again and are spread about by our district and village party leaders, as if proving by their anti-Hungarian attitude that nothing had changed in the quarter century. (Sljahom Zsovtnya, VI. Uzshorod, 1965. Documenti N.51, 52,53, sztr. 78, 81, 82). To this infamous resolution can be ascribed the 1944 deportations of our territory's male population (from 18 to 50 years), regardless of party affiliation or previous attitude. Even the old communists, the veterans of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, were carried off, as well as those who actively or passively resisted Fascism."

1988.

The "Evgyuruk" 88 (Rings of Years '88) publishes Dupka Gyorgy's essay "The first reassuring document' in the life of the local Hungarian population'. In this he writes, among others: "...It is attributable to the Stalinist personal cult, that from November 1944, the Hungarian men from 18 to 50 were deported to and incarcerated as POWs in Ukrainian and Belorussian forced labour camps. The survivors were released gradually from 1946 on."

December 31.

Through an article by Moricz Kalman published in this day's issue of Karpati Igaz Szo, the local Hungarian press airs, for the first time, statements like "...many of the men became victims of Stalinist reprisals and never returned from the camps."

By the end of the year, survivor Nagy Jeno's memoirs will be finished. In them, based on his personal experiences, he describes the ordeal of those deported for "malenykij robot"(a little work). The material was transcribed from tape-recording by Dupka Gyorgy. Several excerpts from them appeared in the Transcarpathia and Hungarian papers, as well as Hungarian publications in the USA.

1989, beginning.

The 3rd issue of the "Miskolc Forum" publishes an article by Dupka Gyorgy-Nagy Jeno, entitled "Their only crime was being born Hungarians". In it, they analyse the conditions of, and circumstances surrounding, the interments of November 1944.

January 7.

A "Karpati Igaz Szo" (True Word of the Carpathians) prints an article by Szabo Arpad, a communist, where he expounds on the fact that "...many communists also ended up in the camps, yet; before the war, they had risked their lives in extolling communism and glorifying the Soviet Union, Lenin and Stalin."

February 9.

Excerpts from an article by Csamadi Gyorgy that appeared in the "Voros Zaszlo" (Red Flag ) ( today Bereg Hirlap=Journal of Bereg): "They had to report with three days worth of food at the collection point, whence we were marched, accompanied by armed guards, to the concentration camp set up in Szolyva. There, they were kept in inhuman camp set up in Szolyva. There, they were kept in inhuman conditions, sleeping in unheated barracks, on concrete floors. Many of them fell ill and perished already there. After weeks, sometimes months, the men were transported farther, to forced labour camps within the Soviet Union. Many lost their lives; others disappeared - their children and grandchildren still do not know their fate."

February 19.

In the Karpati Igaz Szo appeared Fuzesi Magda's poem, "The Ballad of Kosa Anna" in which she dramatically describes the mother crazed by grief, whose son was taken away for "three days of labour" and never returned.

January-February.

During these months, letters appeared from readers of the Karpati Igaz Szo and the Voros Zaszlo (Red Flag) of Beregszasz searching for the reasons of the deportations of Hungarian and German men.

End of May.

In Ungvar at their 10 session of meetings, representatives of the territory's Councils formed a 19-member commission entrusted with the restoration of the rights and promotion of the interests of victims of the repression of the 30s, 40s, and early 50s, since rehabilitated. Functioning under the leadership of Mikola Kacalap, retired representative, the Commission's main tasks are: help; the rehabilitated victims in their quest to obtain compensation for the material damages they suffered; assist them in solving their problems with retirement and housing; and, if they think it necessary, erect a monument to the memory to the victims of repression.

With the participation of Jurij Vorobec, secretary of the executive committee, this commission held its first meeting. They listened to the report of the public prosecutor, the judiciary, and the representative of National Security as to what they have been and are doing to restore the rights and promote the interests of victims of the repression's of the 30s, 40s, and early 50s. From the information they heard, they found that these people's research concerned mainly the fate of those who, in the years 1939-1941 upon instructions from the CSKP emigrated from Transcarpathia to the Soviet Union. There, under special decrees, they were convicted from 5 to 7 years of incarceration for illegal border crossing. As of now, they already rehabilitated 107 such people. As their secondary task, they examined the cases, going back from 1954, of those who became victims of repression. So far, they have dealt with over 300 such cases, which touches 490 people.

They send the certificate of rehabilitation to the person in question or his relatives. This document serves as a clearing for working conditions, determination of retirement pay, etc. The problems of finding the rehabilitated person came up at the meeting, as many do not live, in the territory any more, several having died and the relatives to whom the certificate could be sent are unknown.

The commission will deal later, after completion of a public survey, with the proposal to erect monuments to the memory of the victims of repression.

It is to be noted that the commission considers the Hungarian and German-born men of November 1944, a sensitive issue. Therefore, it refuses to take a stand now.

July 16.

On the pages of the Karpati Igaz Szo appeared the following letter from Bodnar Tibor, reader from Ungvar:

"Dear Editor:

Allow me to ask you, for the sake of democracy and open public discussion, to find out somehow what happened in our region after the war. I am, of course, thinking of the reprisals ordered for the autumn of 1944 which were aimed principally at the Hungarian population.

What crimes did these people commit? And what became of them? How could all this happen? And upon whose orders?

We hope to receive answers to these questions."

July.

Report of the Karpati Igaz Szo. The ice has finally broken! Under pressure from the public, even the authorities can no longer remain silent about what, so far, could not be mentioned:

Collaterally to the Council of Peoples' Representatives, a commission was formed for the purpose of assisting in the restoration of the rights and in the promotion of the interests of the victims of the reprisals of the 30s and 40s, as well as the early 50s, and to erect monuments to their memory.

Many people addressed their request to this commission, as well as to other official and social state agencies to clarify the fate of the Hungarian men who were deported from Transcarpathia in 1944 to forced labor camps.

To research this question thoroughly, the Territorial Council has established a working group whose members are:

Antonik Tibor ..................vice-president of the Lenin Kolhoz of Beregszasz (Beregovo) district

Gerzanics Maria................Peoples' Representative of the Soviet Union, physician,. Chief of department of the Central District Hospital of Nagyszolos (Vinogradov)

Dupka Gyorgy..................Editor, Karpat Publishing Co.

Gajdos Bela.....................Master of a Construction Co. Beregszasz

Dadai Arpad.....................Chief Investigator of the Department of the Interior of Beregszasz district

Daskevics Jurij ..................Scientific collaborator of the scientific research laboratory of the Ministry of Higher Education of the USSR TA (?)

Szabo Bela.......................Assistant editor, Karpati Igaz Szo

Orosz Jozsef.....................Chief investigator of the district attorney's office of Ungvar

Varadi-Sternberg Janos.........Professor, chief collaborator of the Hungarian Studies Center

The commission appeals to those who have documentary material concerning this question, to send it to the following address: Uzsgorod, Lenin Square 4, Executive Committee of the District. (Commission to assist with the rehabilitation of the victims of reprisals during the 30s, 40s, and early 50s) Telephone: 3-44-13.

August..

The trial issue of "Hatodik Sip" (The Sixth Reed - the literary publication of Transcarpathia) prints a collection entitled "The deportations of 1944" containing the following introduction: "Our compilation does not wish to stray onto the territory of the experts, knowledgeable historians of official investigators; nor do we wish to appear as meting out justice. Our publication is meant as a contribution, a unique approach to, or a basis of discussion of this question. What we bring you are excerpts from a novel (in the column of Szep Szo /or literary column), a poem, and a sampling of documents, as well as some pages from a book."

September 6.

At a board meeting of the KMKSZ, it was decided to start an action with the purpose of memorializing the deportations of the Hungarian male population that occurred in the autumn of 1944, shortly after the fighting subsided. The decision also aims at the rehabilitation of those who died in the forced labor camps and of the survivors who came back broken in body and spirit. It approved the Circular Letter drafted by Dupka Gyorgy and placed it on the agenda of the forthcoming general meeting.

The Sixth Paragraph of our By-laws prescribes our Association's bringing to light and the truthful presentation of our historical past, and the elimination of "blank pages" from it. With this in mind, the Presidency requests the Territorial Commission for Rehabilitation formed in May 1989, and the cooperation of the press to acknowledge publicly the innocence of the many thousands of members o the Hungarian and German male population, as well as men of other nationalities, who were deported in November 1944, forced into labor camps where multitudes died of cold and hunger, deadly epidemics, and as a consequence of the inhumane treatment. We do not ask for individual, but for collective rehabilitation. Furthermore, we ask that it be allowed to place a memorial table on the wall of the gas-station that was built on top of the mass graves of the Szolyva concentration camp, thus openly marking the graveside, so far secret, of the Transcarpathian victims of Stalinism.

The Presidency of the KMKSZ appeals to its local chapters, and to the population as a whole of the territory of Transcarpathia to cooperate and act as one TO ERECT SUITABLE MEMORIALS TO THE TRANSCARPATHlAN VICTIMS OF STALINISM, the civilian dead of the deportations of men of Hungarian or German origin and other nationals.

The Memorial monument, pillar, or tablet, as well as the wooden memorial, should be placed at the entrance to the public cemetery, or in the yards of the various churches. The aim is for us to inter, if symbolically, our unburied dead, to pay them silent homage on All Souls' Day, to light a candle, or place a wreath on the ground where our ancestors rest.

Our local chapters should give the impetus to and play a leading role in the compilation of the victims' names. They should immortalize in a book the names of the dead of a given settlement, as well as its survivors, their recollections and the circumstances surrounding their deportations, thus indelibly documenting these tragic events.

The Hungarian Cultural Association (KMKSZ) is organizing in Beregszasz for November of this year a memorial conference of "The Transcarpathian victims of Stalinism". We expect and accept suggestions in this connection.

The year is 1989! Hungarians and non-Hungarians! People! Survivors! Let the bells toll at 1 o'clock on November 26! With bowed heads and in dignity, let us remember together the victims of Stalinist reprisals, the maimed, the humiliated, our beloved dead who rest in unmarked graves. Let us form a bond together, so that such tragic events should never happen to us again.

September 10.

At Munkacs, the board meeting of the KMKSZ adopted the text of the President's circular latter.

September.

The second half of the month sees the start, in a tense political atmosphere, of the compilation of names and the rehabilitation process urged by the KMKSZ. The territory's leadership does not wish to immortalize on special memorial monuments of tables the names of the Hungarian victims of the internment following the war.

October 10.

In connection with the internment of the Hungarians, the "Kommunizmus Zaszlaja" (Flag of Communism), the district newspaper of Nagyszolos, interviews Klavgyija Zabroda, vice-president of laborers' and veterans' district organization. He had this to say: "..A few months after the Soviet Union came to power, Lenin's principles on the resolution of the nationality question started to prevail. The proof is in the forming and training in the district of Nagyszolos of special national economic and cultural cadres, among them Hungarian also. They still watch with heightened interest the development of the links between nationalities. The local chapter of the Hungarian Cultural Association of Transcarpathia (KMKSZ) was established. The trouble is, there are people who spread about slander, saying that in 1944 every Hungarian man was deported. These and similar horror stories only serve to incite hostility on a national basis."

October

The argument between the KMKSZ and the district officials has not abated, but a consensus is reached about the lists of names and the erection of memorials. In Hungarian-inhabited regions, the activists of the KMKSZ obtain, but with difficulty, the necessary permits for these memorials. Juhasz Bela of Nagypalad, a board member of the KMKSZ, sternly refutes the mendacious statements of the Kommunizmus Zaszlaja: "I find it very odd that Klavgyija Zabroda bluntly denies everything that happened in 1944, when every healthy man was collected for three days of labor and deported under inhuman conditions into the interior of the country. They were not given water; they had to eat snow in the cars. These men were not given the opportinity to take care of themselves. They were dirty, unshaven, for about six months. Can you imagine what they looked like? To Klavgyija Zabroda this is all fiction and slander. From my village alone, they took over 100 men; 51 of them never returned. The survivors tell us that the dead were piled like logs on the wagon and were bulldozed into the snowy ground."

Barat Endre, also from Nagypalad, gives the executives of the KMKSZ a detailed account of the horrors of camp life and sends his recollections to the editors of the Karpati Igaz Szo:

"the camp where I was taken, was in an old military stables. The wooden cots were carefully allocated: 5 men sat on each cot; and so we spent the nights for several weeks. But the misery of these weeks bore fruit. After two months there was more room as only about 1/3 of our unit was left. Some were in the hospital, but most were buried in a mass grave.

When we arrived on New Year's Day, the courtyard was covered with snow. We ate it all up within an hour, we were so feverish. Already that night several men died. Then they took us out to work. It was bitter cold and we only had light clothing.

I was taken to the hospital; or so we called it as only the very ill got taken there. It was outside the barbed wire enclosure; it was unheated and unfurnished. We were lying on concrete floors, in our tattered clothing. Our mug served as pillow.

For six months I had the same shirt on that I wore when I left my mother's loving arms. We were full of lice, even our beards. With matches and strips of paper, I tried to burn them out of the seams of my underwear, so as to be able to sleep a few minutes at a time."

October 27.

When the district council leaders still opposed recollection meetings and the erection of memorials, the people of Nagypalad - listening to their hearts and the appeals of KMKSZ - were the first the erect a memorial monument in their cemetery along the highway.

October 28.

At the expanded board meeting of the KMKSZ, held in Ungvar, the first item on the agenda was a report by Dupka Gyorgy executive secretary. He outlined the plans for the Recollection Meeting in memory of the Stalinist victims from Transcarpathia to be held in Beregszasz in November. He also spoke of the obstacles to the compiling of the victims names and the erection of memorial monuments. Among these, he mentioned in the first place the lack of information given to the local leaders.

Szabo Bela, head of the working group that functions collaterally with the district council and which was entrusted with the investigation into the autumn 1944 deportations of Hungarian men, stated at the beginning of his report that the KMKSZ deserves great credit for filling in the "blank pages" of our history and in initiating and executing the work.

At the same time, he considers it important to enlist the cooperation of the local councils, thus lowering the risk of eventual errors. Nagy Jeno, retiree from Ungvar and himself a survivor of the labor camps, asked in the name of the deportees that the victims' collective rehabilitation take place, aside from the individual rehabilitation's, that their innocence be publicly be acknowledged and the culprits named. The Board resolved to hold the Recollection Meeting on November 18-19 and set the date of November 26 for memorial meetings and the erection of monuments.

October 31.

The "Karpati Igaz Szo" reports:

The Commission is taking into account the fact that as per the resolution adopted at the Board Meeting of the KMKSZ in September, its local chapters have already started to compile the lists of deportees, as well as to organize memorial meetings. In some places, they have already decided to erect a monument or place a plaque in memory of those who died in the camps. It would, therefore be expedient for the working group to make use of the assistance of the KMKSZ. Members of the Commission propose to enlist the active cooperation and aid of the settlements' executive councils to obtain a clear picture of those who were carried off to camp in 1944 and who never returned. This would help the Commission in its search for archival and other documents and in the restoration of the victims' rights and interests. This activity, as well as the erection of plaques and monuments, must be undertaken circumspectly and with due knowledge of, and respect for, relevant laws.

There was also talk at the meeting that the Commission ought to immortalize the memory of those who resisted fascism.

The Commission will submit its proposals to the local Councils.

November 18.

The "Karpati Igaz Szo" brings out a new column entitled "May We Help? And publishes a letter by Hanics Ilona from Ungvar: "Surely you could give great pleasure to many of your readers of you helped to locate some long-lost friend, acquaintance of relative. The pleasure may be tinged with bitterness: it might be too late as those they wish to find may no longer be alive. I too, would like to ask the editors for such a favor.

I would like to find one of my dear old friends - Kubasko Tivadarne. Her husband, Kubasko Tivadar, used to be principal of the Beregszasz comprehensive school in the 30s. I found out in the 50s that, as Hungarians, both he and his son were deported to a concentration camp. Since then, I heard nothing from them. I would like to know where they now live and if they are still alive. I would really like to know what happened to this family."

November 18.

Henrih Bandrovszkij, first secretary of the Territorial Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party, gave an interview to the territorial newspapers, among them "Karpati Igaz Szo", on the occasion of the plenary session of the Territorial Party Committee's meeting.

"It is well-known that in 1944 part of the Hungarian population was carried off to forced labor camps. the Hungarian Cultural Association of Beyond the Carpathians would like to erect a monument to these people. It is right to do so. It would be correct, however, to look at the question from a point of view different from the remaining population's, and examine it very carefully. That is, to consider every victim from beyond the Carpathians. We must not forget that during the Fascist occupation 183,395 people were incarcerated of deported; of these, 115,000 were tortured to death, hanged, or shot. During the liberation of this Territory, 10,066 soldiers of the Red Army died. The Stalinist reprisals took their victims from many different nationalities also.

The newspapers are starting to print the list of names of those who are rehabilitated. It would be good if these questions could be discussed in the local Party and Council meetings, since these reprisals extended to every inhabitant, to all the settlements in all the districts, and to all the settlements in all the districts, and to all nationalities."

November 18.

The KMKSZ organized its memorial conference in Beregszasz. There, aside from recollections, there were speeches about the political background of the deportations and of the historical necessity to rehabilitate. Transcarpathian and Hungarian historians and researchers attended the conference. The conference also passed a resolution which came out strongly for re-establishing the truth. At the end of the conference, the survivors formed the Circle of Comradeship for the purpose of assisting the Rehabilitation Commission in its work with the members' recollections. They elected Sari Jozsef, Sr. As its president and Nagy Jeno as vice-president. Among others, Paldi Andras, Consul General of the Hungarian Republic in Kiev, also participated at the conference. From the authorities of the Beregszasz territorial or district councils no one attended. (The material of this conference is contained, in abbreviated form, in this volume).

November 16.

Rumours are circulating in Transcarpathia that its administration will not allow the Memorial Conference to take place. In this connection, the following interview appeared in the "Karpati Igaz Szo":

As mentioned previously, the Hungarian Cultural Association of Transcarpathia proposes to hold a Memorial Conference for the "Transcarpathian victims of Stalinism". At its territorial board meeting, the date was advanced to November 18-19, but news has been spreading that puts in doubt the location of this event. Therefore, we asked Dupka Gyorgy, the KMKSZ's executive secretary, for information.

"We did, in fact, have difficulties. Since no such conference was ever held on our territory and because of its political implications, we had to count with disagreements. In the last few days we worked hard at bridging these divergent viewpoints. The leaders of the Beregszasz District Council did not see clearly the purpose of the Conference and some organizational mistakes surfaced also. Together with Zinaida Szuhan, vice-president of the VB of the district, we managed to eliminate the obstacles that endangered the conference's taking place. Therefore, the conference will open as scheduled.

That is to say, on November 18-19 in the Beregszasz district's cultural center?

Yes, it will open on Saturday, at nine in the morning Central-European time.

There will be speeches, and some of the survivors of the autumn 1944 deportations will be allowed to speak also. Among others, Alekszej Korszun, vice-president of the Commission for Rehabilitation, as well as Zseliczky Bela, professor of history in Moscow, and Dr. Gyarmathy Zsigmond, head of the county archives of Nyiregyhaza, will also be heard.

From among the local people, who do you think will attend?

This Conference will not be a purely Hungarian matter. It will concern itself as well with German, Romanian, Jewish or Carpatho-Ukrainian victims of the deportations. By the way, the local organizations of the KMKSZ will be represented by a five-man group, but any interested person is welcome provided there is room.

In truth, what do you hope to achieve with this conference?

The by-laws of our Association require us to fill in the "blank pages" of history. Such events may clarify our vision and help open up subjects that were taboo until now. We would like to offer concrete assistance to the Commission of Rehabilitation so that they can truthfully expose the circumstances and consequences of what happened in the autumn of 1944. We also owe it to the Hungarian population to clear the names of those who suffered

innocently in the camps and to obtain their collective rehabilitation. Part of this work, which has already begun, are the compilation of lists of the deportees names, their immortalization on monuments and the publication, in book form, of documents, recollections and the speeches heard at the conference.

To conclude, I would like to tell you that at the conference we shall proclaim a week of mourning during which memorials will be erected on many sites, and that on November 26th, at one o'clock in the afternoon, all the territory's bells will toll in memory of the victims."

November 26.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, the bells tolled throughout Transcarpathia. The population of Hungarian villages remembered the deportees in churches and graveyards. In Beregszasz, thousands took part in the symbolic burial of the victims. In Ungvar Csap, Visk, Szaloka and many dozens of locations, hundreds surrounded the wooden monuments, memorials and plaques immortalizing the dead of the camps, of the cornerstone of the monument to be erected in their honor.

At six in the evening, the regions inhabitants placed a lighted candle in the windows in memory of the victims of Stalinist tyranny.

December 10. At the Board Meeting of the KMKSZ, our Association also adopted its election platform. In the chapter on ethnic rights, it demands:

public rehabilitation (on collective, not personal, basis) of the many thousand Hungarian men, as well as residents of German and other ethnic groups, who were deported in the autumn of 1944 and made to work from November 1944 to May 1947 in forced labor camps;

political rehabilitation of all those who were unlawfully convicted at show trials held in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

In December. Hungarian TV's program "Panorama" screened the symbolic burial held in the Szaloka graveyard, which was attended by some survivors and the relatives of the deceased. The short documentary was made by Mankovits Tamas. This was the first public airing on Hungarian TV of the events of November 1944.

There was also a report on the Transcarpathian Hungarian deportees on Hungarian Radio's feature "Sunday Paper". Thanks to dr. Botlik Jozsef, among the Hungarian newspapers, The "Magyar Nemzet" (Hungarian Nation) published several articles on this question.

February 4, 1990.

At the Budapest Congress Center, the two-part sociological film "Malenykij Robot" (A little work) was shown. It covers recollections of Siberian camps, from the Urals to Kolima. The producers are Gulyas Gyula, and Gulyas Janos. They also included some material on Transcarpathia.

March 27.

On this day, an extraordinary meeting took place in Ungvar, in the building of the Regional Offices of the Committee for National Security of the Ukraine beyond the Carpathians. Those invited to attend included representatives of the KMKSZ, as well as the German, Romanian and Ruthenian Cultural Associations, who could view the material pertaining to the show trials. It was officially pronounced that the Ministry of the Interior continues to examine the cases of the internees and political prisoners and to prepare their rehabilitation. Since 1989, 3,112 Transcarpathian cases have been examined and the people's honor restored.

July 15.

Beginning with the 5th issue of "Karpatalja" (Transcarpathia) will start publishing, under Dupka Gyorgy's name, the list of those who were deported by the Stalinists in 1944 from the Hungarian settlements and who met a senseless death in the camps.

In May

The Rehabilitation Commission working alongside the Territorial Council, has been reorganized after the election of the people's representatives. The new Commission's president is Molnar Bertalan, president of the territorial VB; his deputy: Alekszej Korszun, assistant head of the territorial KGB. Executive secretaries are: Andrij Seketa, Dupkane Kovy Edit. The remaining Hungarian members after the Commission's reorganization are Dupka Gyorgy and Szabo Bela. With this in mind, Moricz Kalman appraises the Commission's work in the paper "Karpatalja":

The Tragedy of the Hungarians of Transcarpathia