Hungarian history lesson
Hungarians, class brothers and brothers armsIn the USSR, it was somehow not customary to reproach for an alliance with Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Not alone. Sad as it may be, but under the banner of the Fuhrer many countries fought, the proletarians of which the Soviet Union called for unity. Who is convinced, as an ally, who is coerced, as a vassal who lived in the territories of the "vital interests of Germany."
But, as they say, who will remember the old ...
Decades have passed. The states of Eastern Europe after World War II managed to unite into a defensive alliance - the Warsaw Pact Organization, becoming the “stronghold of peace and socialism”, and then, with the collapse of the USSR, safely and without unnecessary remorse of conscience became the “stronghold of democracy” already within NATO. Among them was Hungary.
It would seem, live and enjoy your own success in the construction of a European home. But the shadows of the past do not give the Hungarians peace.
23 of August of this year, the Ministers of Justice of the countries - members of the European Union signed a declaration in Warsaw on the occasion of the "European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Totalitarian Regimes". There are such lines in it: "... their sufferings will not disappear into obscurity, their rights will be recognized, and the perpetrators will be brought to justice."
Well, if such regimes in the countries - members of the European Union were and were their victims, it is necessary to understand, judge. However, after the declaration was adopted, Hungarian politicians began an “autumn aggravation”. They were not interested in the “victims of the regimes” of Matthias Rakosi, Ernö Gerё, Janos Kadar. In Hungary, an investigation was launched into the “war crimes” committed by the Red Army at the end of World War II ... The National Investigation Department announced that one fact is being investigated: 22 March 1945, 32 residents of the village of Olasflau, located in the Transdanian Territory, are under investigation.
Call these actions of the Hungarian side a restoration historical justice is difficult. But it’s easy to find the political background.
While investigators are interviewing witnesses to the "crimes of the Red Army" and trying, after almost seven decades, to compose their photographs, we turn over some pages of Hungarian history.
Hungary was a loyal ally of Hitler's Germany during the Second World War. She fought the Soviet Union from 27 June 1941 of the year to 12 of April 1945 of the year, almost the entire war. On the Eastern Front, Hungarian troops totaled 205 000 troops.
In the first month of the war, Hungary sent a mobile corps totaling more than 40 people to the Eastern Front. During battles with Soviet troops, the corps lost 000 people, 26% of its tanks and more than 1000 units of vehicles and on December 6, 1941 returned to Budapest. However, Germany demanded new efforts from the allies, and Hungary sent the 2nd Hungarian army to the Eastern Front. By mid-1942, not only Hungarians, but also Romanians from Transylvania, Slovaks from Southern Slovakia, Ukrainians from Carpathian Ukraine and Serbs from Voivodina were already recruited into formations and units of the Hungarian army.
12 January 1943, the Soviet troops forced the Don River across the ice and broke through the defenses of the Hungarian troops. Began indiscriminate retreat of the Hungarian army. During their flight to the west, the Hungarians lost most of their troop assets and lost thousands of soldiers and officers to 148. Among the dead was the eldest son of the regent of the Kingdom - Miklos Horthy. It was the largest defeat of the Hungarian army in the history of its existence. The motto of the Hungarian Royal Army “The Price of Hungarian Life - Soviet Death” was not justified. The reward promised by Germany in the form of large land plots in Russia for the Hungarian soldiers who had especially distinguished themselves on the Eastern Front was practically no one to give out.
After the defeat, the remnants of the units and formations of the 2 Army returned to Budapest or were stationed in Ukraine as security units.
Such was the inglorious, tragic finale of the Honved from the bend of the Don.
However, it’s early to put an end to our story. A number of Hungarian print and electronic publications have now appeared materials praising the "feats" of soldiers and officers of the Hungarian army, committed by them in Russia during the Second World War.
Concluding one of these stories, the author stated: “For decades, dictatorships could not, according to merit, explore the activities and results of the 2 of the Hungarian army. We tried to show the circumstances - cold, lack of uniforms and weapons, their restraint - after all, they fought on the territory of a foreign state, sometimes performing heroic acts, and because they had nothing to be ashamed of. ”
I will not dispute the author’s statement about the “decades of dictatorship” in Hungary. I repeat, this is the business of the Hungarians and Hungary, purely national. I confirm the fact that the enemies came, the invaders came to the Soviet land and found an inglorious end here. But about the "heroic deeds" and the fact that "they had nothing to be ashamed of," let me doubt.
Hungarian military personnel participated in numerous punitive operations in the territory of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. In the Russian archives are stored a lot of documents, testimony about the crimes of the soldiers of the Hungarian army in the occupied territory. They were extremely cruel to both the local population and Soviet prisoners of war.
31 August 1942, Chief of the Political Department of the Voronezh Front, Lieutenant General S.S. Shatilov sent a report to the chief of the Main Political Department of the Red Army, A.S. Shcherbakov about the Nazi atrocities on Voronezh land. I will give this document:
“I am donating about the facts of the monstrous atrocities of the German occupiers and their Hungarian lackeys over Soviet citizens and prisoners of the Red Army.
Parts of the army, where the commander of the political department Comrade. Klokov, freed from the Magyars village Shchuchye. After the invaders were expelled from the village of Shchuchye, political leader Popov M. A., the military paramedics A. Konovalov and Mr. T. I. Chervintsev found traces of the monstrous atrocities of the Magyars over the citizens of the village of Schuchye and prisoners of the Red Army and commanders.
Lieutenant Vladimir Salogub, being injured, was captured and brutally tortured. More than twenty (20) knife wounds were found on his body.
The junior political officer Bolshakov Fedor Ivanovich, seriously wounded, was captured. The bloodthirsty brigands mocked the motionless body of the communist. The stars were carved on his hands. There are several knife wounds on the back.
Medical instructor Vilensky in battle was seriously wounded and picked up by citizen Gorbacheva Akulina. The Magyars learned about it, came to him and asked: “Our Rus?” The young patriot answered in the negative. Then the Magyars took Vilensky along with the bed on which he lay and buried alive in a hole.
In the eyes of the whole village, citizen Kuzmenko was shot by the Magyars for having found the 4 cartridge in his hut.
As soon as the Hitlerite serfs broke into the village, they immediately began to take away all the men from 13 to 80 years and hijack to their rear.
More 200 people were taken by them from the village Shchuchye. Of these, shot outside the village of 13. Pivovarov Nikita Nikiforovich, his son Nikolay Pivovarov, Mikhail Nikolayevich Zybin, head of the school, were among those shot; Shevelev Zakhar Fedorovich, Korzhev Nikolay Pavlovich and others.
Things and livestock were taken away from many residents. Fascist gangsters hijacked 170 cows and more 300 sheep taken from citizens. Many girls and women were raped ...
The act of the monstrous atrocities of the Nazis will send today. "
And here is the handwritten testimony of a peasant Anton Ivanovich Krukhuhin, who lived in the Sevsky district of the Bryansk region: “The Magyar fascist accomplices entered our village Svetlovo 9 / V-42. All the inhabitants of our village [village] hid from such a pack and they, as a sign that the residents began to hide from them, and those who could not hide, they shot them and raped several of our women. I myself am an old man of 1875. I was born and was also forced to hide in the cellar ... Across the village [village], there was shooting, buildings were burning, and the Magyar soldiers looted our belongings, stealing cows and calves. ”
.
May 20 Hungarian soldiers on the collective farm "4-th Bolshevik Sowing" arrested all the men. From the testimony of collective farmer Varvara Fedorovna Mazerkova: “When they saw the men of our village, they said that they were partisans. And the same number, i.e. 20 / V-42 seized my husband Maserkov Sidor Bor [isovich] of birth 1862 and my son Maserkov Alexei Sid [orovich], the year of birth 1927 and did torture and after these torments they tied their hands and threw them in a hole, then lit the straw and burned them potato pit. On the same day, they are not only my husband and son, they also burned 67 men. ”
“It was in May of the 28 X-day of the year 42 of the year,” writes a resident of Orlia Slobodka, Evdokia Vedeshin, in her testimony, “I and almost all the inhabitants went into the forest. There were these thugs following. They in our place, where we (hereinafter unintelligible. - DB) with our people, shot and tortured 350 people including my children were tortured, daughter Nina 11 years old, Tonya 8 years old, little son Vitya 1 year and son Kohl five years. I stayed alive under the corpses of my children. ”
Abandoned by residents who fled from the Hungarian punitive, the village burned. Natalya Aldushina, a resident of the village of Svetlovo, wrote: “When we returned from the forest to the village, the village could not be known. Several old men, women and children were brutally murdered by the Nazis. The houses were burned, large and small cattle were hijacked. The pits in which our things were buried were dug up. There is nothing left in the village except black brick. ”
Thus, in only three Russian villages of the Sevsky district, for 20 days, the Hungarians killed at least 420 civilians. And these are not isolated cases of regional scale.
In June-July of the 1942, parts of the 102 and 108 of the Hungarian divisions together with the German units took part in a punitive operation against the Bryansk partisans, codenamed “Vogelsang”. During the operation in the woods between Roslavl and Bryansk, the punitive killed 1193 partisan, injured 1400, captured 498, evicted more 12 000 residents.
Hungarian units of the 102 (42, 43, 44 and 51 regiments) and 108 divisions also participated in punitive operations against the Nachbarhilfe partisans (June 1943 of the year) under the Bryansk and Zigeunerbaron in the areas of the present Bryansk and Kursk regions (May 16 - June 6 1942 of the year). Only during the operation "Zigeunerbaron" punishers destroyed 207 guerrilla camps, 1584 guerrilla were killed and 1558 captured.
The history teacher from the village of Novosergeevka, Klimovsky district, Bryansk region, M. S. Govorok testified: “In our forests, a detachment (100 people) under the command of Nikolai Popudrenko fought with the 105 Hungarian infantry division deployed here, fighting with special cruelty partisans ... In early July, the Hungarians decided to put an end to them and pulled large forces here, blocking the detachment in the Sophia Forest. The bloody battle lasted several days and nights. In the last desperate impulse, the partisans with heavy losses managed to escape from the blockade ...
The opponent from such impudence of the partisans was simply furious. In the village of Parasochka 7, the 83 man was shot dead for several minutes - old men, women, children, even infants. Entire families (Saputo Evdokia and her 6 children, Irlitz Thekla Yakovlevna and her 6 children, etc.). There were victims in the village of Wazice - 42 man. It is necessary to be such nonhumans so that even children can not be spared! There is no data on the exact death toll, at that time there were a lot of refugees without documents. Our villages have repeated the fate of the Belarusian Khatyn. ”
Hungarian troops were distinguished for their cruel treatment not only of partisans and civilians, but also of Soviet prisoners of war. Thus, in 1943, during the retreat from the Chernyansky district of the Kursk region, “Magyar military units drove away the prisoners of war of the Red Army and 200 men of Soviet patriots in the 160 concentration camp. On the way, the fascist barbarians of all these 360 people were locked in the schoolhouse, doused with gasoline and lit. Those who tried to escape were shot. ”
If the Hungarian side is not fully satisfied with eyewitness accounts and documents from the Russian archives, you can familiarize yourself with the documents on the crimes of the Hungarian soldiers during the Second World War from foreign archives, for example the Israeli archive Yad Vashem of the National Holocaust and Heroism Memorial in Jerusalem . Only these materials are not for the faint of heart.
“12 - 15 July 1942, on the village of Kharkeevka, Shatalovsky district, Kursk region, soldiers of the 33 of the Hungarian infantry division captured four Red Army soldiers. One of them, Senior Lieutenant P.V. Danilov, gouged out his eyes, knocked his jaw to the side with a rifle butt, inflicted 12 bayonet punches on his back, and then, in an unconscious state, buried him half-dead in the ground. Three Red Army men whose names are unknown were shot. ”
Maria Kaydannikova, a resident of Ostogozhsk, saw how Hungarian soldiers 5 January 1943 drove a group of Soviet prisoners of war into the basement of a shop on Medvedovsky Street. Soon screams were heard from there. Peering in through the window, Kaidannikova saw a monstrous picture: “The fire burned brightly there. The two Magyars were held by the prisoner by the shoulders and legs and slowly roasted his belly and legs on the fire. They raised him above the fire, then lowered him below, and when he fell silent, the Magyars threw his body face down on the fire. Suddenly, the prisoner twitched again. Then one of the Magyars swung a bayonet into his back with a flourish. ”
A significant number of war crimes of the Hungarian troops in the territory of a number of regions of the Russian Federation was recorded by the Extraordinary State Commission to establish and investigate the atrocities of the German fascist invaders and their accomplices and the damage they caused to citizens, collective farms (collective farms), public organizations, state enterprises and institutions of the USSR (CPG ).
These are the “heroic deeds” committed by Hungarian soldiers on Russian soil during the Second World War. It seems that today it is time to remind some "forgetful" politicians in Hungary that the statute of limitations does not apply to war crimes, crimes against peace and humanity committed by Hungarian military personnel - allies of the Nazi invaders during the war years in a number of occupied Russian regions. And the account of the Hungarian war criminals and punishers who are still alive, show not only the story!
I ask you to consider this article as an official appeal to the National Investigation Department of Hungary, which conducts an investigation of war crimes during the Second World War. I think that all the necessary documentary materials that the Hungarian side may need to recreate a complete picture of the crimes of the Hungarian servicemen in the territory of the occupied USSR are provided by the Russian side.
Information