János Esterházy
Encyclopedia
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
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. He was detained by the Nazis and died in a communist prison. Officially he is still classified as a war criminal in Slovakia, as courts have rejected requests for his rehabilitation. However, Jewish organization Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...
has recognized Esterházy's efforts for Jews with the Courage to Care Award
Courage to Care Award
Since April 23, 1987, the Anti-Defamation League has given award to honor rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust era. The award, called “Courage to Care,” is a plaque with miniature bas-reliefs depicting the backdrop for the rescuers’ exceptional deeds during the Nazis’ persecution, deportation and...
.
Family
Son of Antal Mihály Esterházy, he was born into one of Hungary's most distinguished aristocrat families, the House of Esterházy, in the GalántaGalanta
Galanta is a small town in Slovakia. It is situated 50 km due east from the Slovak capital Bratislava.-Geography:Galanta lies in the Danubian Lowland , the warm southern part of Slovakia...
branch originated from Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
. His mother, Countess Elżbieta Tarnowska, daughter of Professor Stanisław Tarnowski, was Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
. He was four when his father died. He went to secondary school in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
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
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...
which closed World War I. On October 15, 1924 he married countess Lívia Serényi. They had two children, János and Alice.
In politics
In 1931 Esterházy became the leader of the Hungarian League of Nations League in the Czech Republic, an organization which operated within the League of NationsLeague of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
. On December 11 of the following year he was elected president of the National Christian Socialist Party. He won parliament mandate in Košice
Košice
Košice is a city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary...
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
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
for president of the republic.
Head of the United Hungarian Party
Hungarian parties founded the United Hungarian PartyHungarian National Party (Czechoslovakia)
Hungarian National Party was one of political parties of ethnic Hungarians in the First Republic of Czechoslovakia.The party was founded in February 1920 in Komárno as party of smallholders, under name Országos Magyar Kisgazda és Földműves Párt...
at their congress held in Nové Zámky
Nové Zámky
Nové Zámky is a town in southwestern Slovakia.-Geography:The town is located on the Danubian Lowland, on the Nitra River, at an altitude of 119 metres. It is located around 100 km from Bratislava and around 25 km from the Hungarian border. It is a road and railway hub of southern...
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
Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford
Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford PC was a prominent Liberal, later National Liberal politician in the United Kingdom from the 1900s until the 1930s.-Background:...
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 Komarno
Komarno
Komarno is a city located in the Horodok Raion of the Lviv Oblast in western Ukraine. It has 4,000 inhabitants. It was founded in 1324. In the center of town is an old Polish Kostel , as well as an old wooden Orthodox church complete with ancient icons...
, but the head of the Czechoslovakian delegation, Jozef Tiso
Jozef Tiso
Jozef Tiso was a Slovak Roman Catholic priest, politician of the Slovak People's Party, and Nazi collaborator. Between 1939 and 1945, Tiso was the head of the Slovak State, a satellite state of Nazi Germany...
, rejected his request.
His political activity in Slovakia
After the Vienna AwardsVienna Awards
The Vienna Awards are two arbitral awards by which arbiters of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sought to enforce peacefully the claims of Hungary on territory it had lost in 1920 when it signed the Treaty of Trianon...
giving back to Hungary part of the territories lost earlier, Esterházy welcomed Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the...
as the MP of Košice (then Kassa), but he settled in the former Hungarian land kept by Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
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
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.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"
The Slovak parliament approved on May 15, 1942, the 68/1942 constitutional law about expelling the Jews from Slovakia. Esterházy was the only MP who voted against the bill and he immediately became the target of fierce attacks in the Slovak press. To defend his views, he said:When the Slovak parliament voted on the deportation of Jews to Germany he also declared:
János Esterházy helped hundreds of Jewish, Czechs, Slovaks and Polish in 1944 to escape from being prosecuted. He was interned for a short period and the German Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
declared him wanted.
Here is a quote from Irén Rujder, Ödön Rujder's widow (Ödön Rujder was rescued by Esterházy):
Prison
After the Soviet army ousted German troops from Bratislava, they interned Esterházy, but released him after 12 days. Later he negotiated with Gustáv HusákGustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák was a Slovak politician, president of Czechoslovakia and a long-term Communist leader of Czechoslovakia and of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
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. He was kept for one year in the feared Lubyanka
Lubyanka
Lubyanka or Lubianka may refer to:*Lubyanka Square, Moscow*Bolshaya Lubyanka Street, Moscow*Lubyanka Building, former KGB headquarters and prison at Lubyanka Square, Moscow*Lubyanka , a metro station in MoscowPlaces in Poland called Lubianka...
prison in Moscow, and then, on the basis of fabricated allegations, he was sentenced to ten years work in Siberia. The Slovak National Court in Bratislava on September 16, 1947 sentenced him in his absence to death for alleged collaboration with fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
. In 1949 the Soviet Union extradited him to Czechoslovakia. 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
Mírov
Mírov is a village and municipality in Šumperk District in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic.The municipality covers an area of , and has a population of 419 ....
in 1957.
Efforts for his rehabilitation
On January 21, 1993 the Russians rehabilitated János Esterházy. 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:There is a letter from Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....
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, and 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 1994 his daughter initiated a new legal procedure, but a court rejected that, referring to the assessment of his role by Slovak and Czech historians. On his 100th birthday, Hungary's parliament held a memorial session in the presence of then president of the republic Ferenc Mádl
Ferenc Mádl
Ferenc Mádl was the second President of the third Republic of Hungary, having served from 4 August 2000 to 5 August 2005.-University studies and scientific activities:...
. On April 20, 2007, President László Sólyom
László Sólyom
László Sólyom is a Hungarian political figure, lawyer, and librarian who was President of Hungary from 2005 to 2010. Previously he was President of the Constitutional Court of Hungary from 1990 to 1998....
, a staunch advocate of friendship between Hungarians and Slovaks, 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
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest.-History:...
to remember Esterházy's death.
Further reading
- [1] Eduard Nižňanský a spol, Kto bol kto za I. ČSR (Q111 Brat. 1993)
- [2] Jozef Kamenec, Osobnosť Jánosa Esterházyho a jej kontroverzné interpretácie (Ľudia ľuďom bez hraníc, Helsinské občianske združenie v SR, Nitra 2000, s. 34)
- [3] Alice Esterházy-Malfatti, Bálint Török, Esterházy János Emlékkönyv (Pamätná kniha Jánosa Esterházyho) (Századvég Bp. 2001)
- [4] František Mikloško Žurnál Rádia Twist 12. 3. 2001
- [5] Ladislav Deák, Politický profil Jánoša Esterházyho (Ministerstvo kultúry Slovenskej republiky vo vyd. Kubko Goral 1995, šírený zdarma a vydaný súčasne i v anglickej a maďarskej jazykovej mutácii)
- [6] Jerguš Ferko, Vodca-zvodca János Esterházy (Maďarské sebaklamy, Matica Slovenská 2003, s.127-129)
- [7] Bohumil Doležal: Yehuda Lahav úr vitájához, Lidové noviny, April 21, 2001
- [8] Augustín Marko, Pavol Martinický, Slovensko-maďarské vzťahy