Hungarian Nationalists Turn Tables, Charge Bela Biszku With War Crimes

• Jobbik Party indicts Jewish communist for 1956-57 war crimes

By Bill White

The new nationalist government in Hungary recently indicted Hungarian communist militia leader Bela Biszku, 92, for war crimes committed against Hungarian patriots during the 1956 uprising against Soviet rule.

According to the indictment, Biszku was a member of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party Central Committee and the Provisional Executive Committee, which organized thugs and killers to root out political dissent in the wake of the Soviet invasion that ended the uprising. According to the indictment, Biszku directed the killing of the three civilians at Budapest Western Station on December 6, 1956, directed a massacre of women and children in the city of Salgotarjan on December 8, 1956 and covered up the activities of Bolshevik death squads, which he was apprised of in an official report issued April 9, 1957.

The indictment appears to be the first set of allegations levied against a European Jew for crimes against the humanity of Europe’s population.

In 1956, Hungarian patriots seized Budapest and began hanging the Soviet commissars. The Soviet Union responded with tanks. In the struggle that followed, 25,000 Hungarians and 7,000 Soviet soldiers died. The Soviets then conducted a general purge of Hungarian nationalists.

Recently, the Hungarian Jobbik Party has gained more influence over Parliament, which began re-nationalizing Hungary and its economy. Hungary has quickly paid off its debts to the International Monetary Fund and is considering bringing charges against the government officials who drove Hungary into debt and began selling its people out to “austerity.” Jobbik has also advocated withdrawing Hungary from the European Union (EU).

Biszku’s arrest may be the first in a changing Europe, as nationalist parties make gains across the continent. The nationalist Austrian Freedom Party recently made huge gains in the Austrian parliament. The French National Front may emerge as France’s largest party in a series of pending elections, after winning a 56% majority in an important southern French department. Even in staid, multiculturalist Britain the anti-EU, but not nationalist, UK Independence Party has been contending to become Britain’s third-largest party.

After World War II, both Allied and Soviet forces in Europe committed atrocities, killing millions and dispossessing tens of millions more. While much of the World War II generation is dying, the generation that perpetrated the communist war crimes of the 1950s is very much alive—and ripe to spend their last years in prison.

Bill White is a freelance journalist and publisher based in Virginia. He has also written articles for THE BARNES REVIEW (TBR) magazine.