In Budapest they performed excellently
In recent years, a tradition has been created in Russian politics and the media to speak warmly about the state system established in Hungary after the dismantling of the socialist community.
Hungary is often praised for its criticism of the EU, opposition to Soros, stable partnership with Russia - so much so that sometimes it seems as if an island friendly to Russia is gradually forming in the center of Europe.
At the same time, it is somehow forgotten that in the new Hungary, Soviet and generally communist ideology and symbols are prohibited. From this ban follows the special attitude of the modern Hungarian state to the history of the Second World War, manifested in sympathy for the fascist regime of Admiral Horthy, one of Hitler’s most persistent and consistent allies.
At the same time, the attitude towards Russia is based on the declaration of the historical guilt of the Soviet Union before Hungary for the post-war “occupation”, the suppression of the “Hungarian liberation uprising” and more than forty years of retention in the political and economic orbit, because of which the role of Hungary in modern Europe is allegedly greatly diminished and does not reach the level of her former Austrian half.
Well, since Hungarian politicians, unlike their Russian colleagues, do not suffer from an excess of political correctness, from time to time powerful revelations occur on the territory of “Russia’s strong partner.”
Thus, on January 12, the Hungarian government called on the general public to “remember the courage of our grandfathers, the heroic Hungarian soldiers who fought for Hungary on the Don.”
"Today marks 76 years since the breakthrough at the Don Bend. On January 12, 1943, the Soviet Army launched an attack on the 2nd Hungarian Army. Hungary lost 120 soldiers, many of whom were captured. Glory to the heroes!" read a post on the official Hungarian government Facebook page.
Therefore, the grandfathers of modern Hungarians fought for Hungary on the Don. Didn't the defenders' hard time take them too far? What did they forget in the distant Don and Volga steppes? What adventures were you looking for in the Russian city of Voronezh and in Ukraine?
Actually, not on January 12, but on January 13, 1943, troops of the Voronezh Front, with the support of the 13th Army of the Bryansk and 6th Army of the Southwestern Front, attacked the positions of the 2nd Hungarian Army and units of the Italian Alpine Corps. Hitler's Hungarian accomplices buried themselves in the frozen ground, hoping to somehow survive the winter, but their hopes were dashed.
The very next day, the Hungarian defense was broken through, and panic gripped the units. Soviet tanks entered the operational space and destroyed enemy headquarters, communications centers, food warehouses and ammunition. The units of the 1st Hungarian Panzer Division and the 24th Tank Corps of the Wehrmacht, thrown into battle, were able to slightly slow down the pace of the advance of the Soviet troops, but did not fundamentally change the situation. During the battles of January-February 1943, the 2nd Hungarian Army was almost completely defeated. Its losses amounted to 150 thousand snouts and all the equipment. The remains of the “defenders of Hungary” were finally finished off in the Donbass.
In less than two years of occupation of Soviet territory, the Hungarians managed to leave their bloody trail. According to eyewitnesses, the Magyars were hated even more than the Germans. There is a version that the commander of the Voronezh Front, General Vatutin, after listening to a delegation of civilians from the Ostrogozhsky region about the atrocities of the Hungarian invaders, in his hearts gave the order not to take the Magyars prisoner.
What did the grandfathers of modern Hungarian democrats do on our land and why did they really try not to take them prisoner? Let's look at the documents.
“In the Korotoyaksky district, 1 civilians were shot, including 009 children. 287 people were taken to work in Europe, including 36 minors. 041 people were subjected to torture and torture, including 10 children.”
In the Evdakovsky district, 145 people were hanged, including five children. In Ostrogozhsk, 20 children were shot, in the Nizhnedevitsky district, five people were burned alive, two people were frozen (a mother with a seven-year-old boy). And there are whole volumes of such facts for each village, containing many hundreds of pages.
“The Germans and Magyars entered the village of Uryv with fighting on July 7-8, 1942. The residents, not knowing the language, did not understand the invaders and their orders, for which they were shot on the spot... All residents were driven to the Intercession Church, those who, due to old age, illness or poor health could not go up the mountain to the church, they were killed on the spot. So they killed Tatyana Ivanovna Sergienko - 80 years old, Anastasia Vlasevna Likhodedova - 92 years old, Varvara Pavlovna Tsiblieva - 30 years old (blind) and her son Ivan - 9 years old (her guide), Maxim Ivanovich Melnikov - 54 years old (disabled without a leg), Marchenko Pelageya Sergeevna - 70 years old with her grandson in her arms - a three-year-old boy Volodya.
More than 3 thousand people were gathered in the small church... From July 11 to July 15, people were kept without food and water, people died from stuffiness, beatings, hunger and thirst, and the Nazis continued to mock and kill the living...
In the Church of the Intercession, the occupiers shot more than 30 residents, and 8 people died from abuse. The executioners showed particular cruelty when shooting Matvey Nikolaevich Portny - 28 years old, Yakov Andreevich Potorochin - 30 years old, Kotenko - 30 years old, teacher Emilia Petrovna Akimova - 47 years old...
Several families were shot, every single one: Zemlyakova U. with three children, Kolodyazhnaya V. with two children, Burikov P., his wife and five children...”
“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.
Junior political instructor Fyodor Ivanovich Bolshakov, seriously wounded, was captured. Bloodthirsty robbers mocked the motionless body of the communist. Stars were carved on his hands. There are several knife wounds on the back...
A resident of the city of Ostogozhsk, Maria Kaydannikova, saw how Hungarian soldiers on January 5, 1943 drove a group of Soviet prisoners of war into the basement of a store on Medvedovsky Street. Soon screams were heard from there. Looking out the window, Kaydannikova saw a monstrous picture: “There was a fire burning brightly there. Two Magyars held the prisoner by the shoulders and legs and slowly roasted his stomach and legs over the fire. They either raised him above the fire, or lowered him lower, 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 thrust a bayonet into his back with a flourish” (Yad Vashem Archives. M-33/494. L. 14.).
Decommunization of 1942, Voronezh. The occupiers hanged a Soviet soldier on the Lenin monument
In front of the entire village, citizen Kuzmenko was shot by the Magyars because 4 cartridges were found in his hut. As soon as Hitler’s slaves burst into the village, they immediately began to take all the men from 13 to 80 years old and drive them to their rear.
More than 200 people were taken from the village of Shchuchye. Of these, 13 people were shot outside the village. Among those shot were Nikita Nikiforovich Pivovarov, his son Nikolai Pivovarov, Mikhail Nikolaevich Zybin, head of the school; Shevelev Zakhar Fedorovich, Korzhev Nikolai Pavlovich and others.
Many residents had their belongings and livestock taken away. Fascist bandits stole 170 cows and more than 300 sheep, taken from citizens. Many girls and women were raped. I will send an act on the monstrous atrocities of the Nazis today.”
And here is the handwritten testimony of the peasant Anton Ivanovich Krutukhin, who lived in the Sevsky district of the Bryansk region:
“Fascist accomplices of the Magyars entered our village Svetlovo 9/V-42. All the residents of our 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, an old man born in 1875, was also forced to hide in the cellar. There was shooting all over the village, buildings were burning, and Magyar soldiers were robbing our things, stealing cows and calves.” (GARF. F. R-7021. Op. 37. D. 423. L. 561-561 vol.).
On May 20, 1942, Hungarian soldiers on the collective farm “4th Bolshevik North” arrested all the men. From the testimony of collective farmer Varvara Fedorovna Mazerkova:
“When they saw the men from our village, they said that they were partisans. And the same number, i.e. 20/V-42 grabbed my husband Mazerkov Sidor Borisovich born in 1862 and my son Mazerkov Alexei Sidorovich born in 1927 and tortured them and after this torture they tied their hands and threw them into a pit, then they lit straw and burned people alive in a potato pit. On the same day they not only burned my husband and son, they also burned 67 men.” (GARF. F. R-7021. Op. 37. D. 423. L. 543-543 rev.)
Abandoned by residents fleeing from the Hungarian punitive forces, the villages were burned out. A resident of the village of Svetlovo, Natalya Aldushina, wrote:
“When we returned from the forest to the village, the village was unrecognizable. Several old men, women and children were brutally killed by the Hungarians. Houses were burned, large and small livestock were stolen. The holes in which our things were buried were dug up. There is nothing left in the village except black bricks.” (GARF. F. R-7021. Op. 37. D. 423. L. 517.)
“Thus, in only three Russian villages of the Sevsky region, at least 20 civilians were killed by the Hungarians in 420 days. And these are not isolated cases.
In June - July 1942, units of the 102nd and 108th Hungarian divisions, together with German units, took part in a punitive operation against the Bryansk partisans, codenamed “Vogelsang”. During the operation in the forests between Roslavl and Bryansk, punitive forces killed 1193 partisans, 1400 were wounded, 498 were captured, and more than 12000 residents were evicted.
Hungarian units of the 102nd (42nd, 43rd, 44th and 51st regiments) and 108th divisions also took part in punitive operations against the partisans “Nachbarhilfe” (“Neighborhood Help”, June 1943) under Bryansk, and “Zigeunerbaron” (“Gypsy Baron”) in the areas of what are now Bryansk and Kursk regions (May 16 – June 6, 1942). During Operation Zigeunerbaron alone, punitive forces destroyed 207 partisan camps, 1584 partisans were killed and 1558 were captured.”
In Ukraine, Hungarian light infantry units were involved in punitive operations since the fall of 1941. Thousands of partisans and tens of thousands of civilians in the Chernihiv region died at their hands. Together with the Ukrainian police and the SD security service, the Hungarian military carried out a notorious punitive operation in the village of Koryukovka in early March 1943, brutally killing about 8 thousand civilians within three days.
The famous Soviet writer Ilya Erenburg, who was hot on the trail of the retreat of the Germans, Italians and Magyars across Russian soil, wrote the following lines in the book “Chronicle of Courage”: “However, the defeated units at Voronezh and Kastornoye frightened the Kursk garrison. The Germans shot Hungarians in front of the residents. Hungarian cavalrymen exchanged horses for a pound of bread. I saw the order of the commandant on the walls of Kursk: “Residents of the city are prohibited from letting Hungarian soldiers into their houses.”
Such, in general terms, was the respect of Hitler’s overlord towards his most loyal vassal.
The Extraordinary State Commission to establish and investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices on Voronezh land found that 60% of the atrocities were committed by Germans, 30% by Hungarians, 5% by Italians, 3% by Romanians, 2% by Finns.
But under Khrushchev, the topic of genocide was quietly hushed up, and Yeltsin in 1992, with his signature, even rehabilitated the executioner Szilard Bakai, the commander-in-chief of the eastern Hungarian occupation group.
And in 2003, with the help of local officials, a monument in the form of an Alpine shooter’s hat was even erected in Rossoshi (Voronezh region). It has not been removed to this day. The myth of “civilized” occupiers began to take root in the public consciousness.
But the matter of restoring the memory of the victims of the Nazi occupation, in which officials do not see much profit, was left to chance and is supported only thanks to the efforts of enterprising citizens.
In general, it should be noted that there are serious shortcomings in the educational work of the Russian (and Soviet) authorities with the leadership of Hungary.
Unlike the authorities of Germany, Italy, Finland, who have learned their lesson and are trying to restrain themselves from too obvious displays of respect for their ghouls who were once sent to our country, the Hungarians (like the Romanians), who have not undergone denazification, are in the stage of unafraid idiots.
There is no way to ignore this spit. This is precisely a slap, and not only at us, but also at our ancestors and compatriots. And in those who swept out hordes of uninvited bloodsuckers from our land, and those who died at their hands as martyrs.
I would like to hope that those in charge in Russia will not bring down the memory of the war in favor of those fed up with pragmatism and political correctness, and will take appropriate measures towards Hungarian politicians suffering from historical sclerosis.
English version :: Read in English: In Budapest, they ziganuled with flying colors.