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Communist Hungary

‘To compromise and recruit him’ — Secret Service Measures Against Chief Rabbi László Salgó

‘As documented in multiple historical works, Salgó was a state security agent codenamed “György Sárvári”, who reported on people he knew, most notably, Sándor Scheiber. While we do not intend to absolve him of his actions, certain documents may help…

‘Moses’ Reports for Duty — Béla Berend and Communist Hungarian Intelligence in Washington

‘Chief Rabbi Béla Berend was considered a black sheep in the history of Hungarian Jewish leadership. His controversial activities within the Budapest Jewish Council during the German occupation and the Holocaust of 1944–45, followed by his trial before the People’s…
Members of a People's Court Council attend an execution in the courtyard of the Capital City Court of Law in Markó Street, Budapest on 12 March 1946.

Victim or War Criminal? A Woman Before the People’s Court in 1946

People’s Courts were special judicial bodies in Hungary set up after WWII, operating between February 1945 and 1 April 1950, established primarily for the purpose of prosecuting war criminals. However, they became the controversial instrument of a regime change originally…
Communist leaders Nikita Khrushchev, János Kádár and Leonid Brezhnev hunting in Hungary

Targeting Yad Vashem — How Kádár’s Intelligence Services Tried to Recruit an Israeli Rabbi

This little known case of Hungarian Israeli Rabbi Ottó Komlós not only provides insight into how the Hungarian Communist intelligence services viewed Israel’s most important Holocaust museum and its Hungarian employee, but also highlights the clumsiness of the covert activities…

‘The Israeli Embassy’s undercover man’ — The ‘Shalom’ Investigation in Communist Hungary

In the 1960s, the Communist Secret Service launched an undercover operation targeting rabbis and Jewish youth who were engaging in Zionist activities. The investigation ended in some young people being handed suspended prison sentences and a 15-year ban on rabbinic…
A burnt-out Soviet armoured combat vehicle in Budapest in November 1956.

The Fate of the Uprising: 1956 between November and May

The events of the 1956 Revolution are quite well-known, at least in Hungary, as far as the beginning of it and the period of its brief triumph are concerned. What is less known is that the revolution was not fully…
The Li-2 passenger plane of the Hungarian-Soviet Civil Aviation Corporation (MASZOVLET) with the registration number HA-LIA at Budaörs airport.

Criminals or Defectors? — The Story of a Hijacking in 1956

A short story of a group of desperate young Hungarians who in 1956, disillusioned with socialism, overpowered the passengers and the secret agent on a plane, successfully flew it to Germany, and the leaders of whom eventually became members of…

Smearing a Kapo — Kádár’s State Security and Béla Fábián

Jewish-Hungarian MP from the Horthy era Béla Fábián was held as a POW in Russia in World War i, and was taken to a concentration camp in World War II. He became an avid critic of the Hungarian Communist Party…

Nostalgic Recollections of an Era — Marking the Anniversary of the Death and Burial of János Kádár

This piece provides an overview of the ‘Goulash communism’ times of Hungarian history, while attempting to answer the question: why do some Hungarians appear to be nostalgic about the Kádár era?…

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