Magyarok Világszövetsége

WORLD FEDERATION OF HUNGARIANS WELTBUND DER UNGARN

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Justice for Europe! – 5^th Attachment

Executions and Two Thousand Years of Prison

Recommendations for the Solution of the Transylvanian Question

Following World War II, the Transylvanian Hungarians worked out five plans for the solution of the Transylvanian question. They did this even though they knew for certain that they were putting their lives in danger, for they could be executed for this activity. In fact, this was exactly the fate of the Roman Catholic priest, Aladár Szoboszlai and Kálmán Sass, the pastor of the Reformed Church in Érmihályfalva, who were executed and whose names became well-known in the course of the notorious political trials.

The outside world – and sadly the Hungarian public too – knows very little about the endeavors of the Transylvanian Hungarians. Now that the World Federation of Hungarians has initiated the re-examination of the Peace Treaties of Trianon (1920) and Paris (1947), it is necessary that we introduce to the world public opinion the initiatives which were aimed at solving the Transylvanian question.

I. The initiative of Áron Márton, Roman Catholic Bishop from Transylvania.

The historical Transylvanian-Hungarian Churches and the institutes established by the people – the Transylvanian-Hungarian Economic Association and the centers of all the associations – all gathered in support of Áron Márton, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Gyulafehérvár. In the fall of 1945, the group of leaders recommended to the temporary Hungarian National Government that they should make every effort to re-annex the border counties of Northern Transylvania (Ugocsa, Szatmár, Bihar and Arad) to the motherland. The Hungarians of Transylvania wished for a larger and stronger Hungary, so that there would be protection and backing for them.

Modeled on the Saar-land, they wished the peace conference to organize an international inspection of Historic Transylvania every 10-15 years, or place it in the hands of a governor-general, in such a way that the government of Transylvania be undertaken by the two principal ethnic groups, the Hungarians and the Romanians, alongside the governor-general, and these two groups would each send representatives to take part in the government. Áron Márton and his group would only entertain this suggestion if they were successful in annexing Transylvania to Hungary. Contrary to this suggestion, one section of Hungarians wished to have government in Transylvania along ethnic lines: they would divide Transylvania in two, so that there would be a Romanian Transylvania and a Hungarian Transylvania. This division would not be done just along the lines of the ratio of the two peoples to each other, but also from the economic standpoint of the Hungarian motherland. The Hungarian Government should therefore make sure that they obtained for the Hungarians the territories which were rich in ores – Nagybánya, Felsőbánya, Kapnikbánya, Erzsébetbánya.

The executive committee of the Hungarian Peoples’ Alliance, which was under Communist influence, on November 17, 1945, pressed by Dr. Petru Groza, the Romanian head of state and Vasile Luca/Luka László, a Communist leader, accepted a manifesto which supported the restoration of the Trianon Hungarian-Romanian border.

Some weeks later, under the leadership of Áron Márton, Roman Catholic Bishop, several leaders of the Transylvanian Hungarians came together in a meeting in Kolozsvár. They decided that they would turn to the Great Powers with a memorandum in which – among other things – they would state that the Hungarian Peoples’ Alliance, under Communist leadership, did not represent the majority of Transylvanian Hungarians and that they would ask that the wishes of the Transylvanian Hungarians be also taken into account. They attached a map to the memorandum, in which they illustrated how Transylvania should be divided between the Hungarians and the Romanians. According to this map, the northern Transylvanian counties, which were inhabited by a Romanian majority, would remain under Romanian power, while a stretch of Szekler-land, in a „wide corridor”, comprising of Marosvásárhely-Dicsőszentmárton-Torda-Kolozsvár-Nagyvárad, would be attached to Hungary. As a result, 1,350,000 Hungarians and 850,000 Romanians would fall under the government of Hungary. Those Hungarians remaining in southern Transylvania would be allowed to voluntarily relocate to Hungary in a population exchange. This memorandum was signed by the Roman Catholic Bishop, Áron Márton, the Bishop of the Reformed Church, János Vásárhelyi, Dr. Pál Szász of the EMGE, Ede Korparich of the Kaláka Association Center and István Lakatos, President of the Cooperative Society Center. Sándor Nekám, the leader of the Hungarian Political Mission in Bucharest presented this memorandum and map to the West, but it had no influence on the position of the Great Powers in regard to Transylvania.

On June 21, 1949, Áron Márton, a Roman Catholic Bishop, one of the greatest Hungarians of the twentieth century, was arrested and imprisoned in a most deceitful way and, in August, 1950, in a mock trial, he was sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor. He was freed in February, 1955 but, for the following fifteen years, he was not allowed to leave the Bishop’s Palace in Gyulafehérvár.

Áron Márton’s unique position of authority is proven by the fact that, in the middle of the 1950’s, in connection with the Transylvanian question, the organizers of the plans and programs influenced by the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, independent of their denominational allegiance, asked advice of the Bishop of Gyulafehérvár, that is, asked him to accept their plans.

II. The proposal of the Roman Catholic priest, Aladár Szoboszlai, for the solution of the Transylvanian question

Aladár Szoboszlai, Roman Catholic priest in Magyarpécska, later in Arad, Temesság and Őbéb, in the middle of the 1950’s, worked out his own plan for the solution of the Romanian-Hungarian „dispute”, that is, the creation of a United Europe. He was hoping that, from the Geneva Conference in November, 1955, there would open up a possibility for free elections in the Soviet Bloc, and the creation of political pluralism. The program of the Christian Workers’ Party, prepared in 1955, and translated into Romanian, German, French and English, was the first attempt in Central and Eastern Europe at the creation of a political party based on Christian ideology within the framework of Socialism.

Aladár Szoboszlai, executed at the age of 33, just like Christ, envisaged that the Christian Workers’ Party would be established at the same time in Hungary and in Romania and that a coup d’état would erupt at the exact same time in both countries and overturn the Communist power.

He looked for the solution to the Transylvanian question in the program of the Christian Workers’ Party, particularly in the study entitled: Confederatio (Confederation). He announced that Hungary should establish connections with the western states, primarily with the United States of America. „The Christian ideals form the direction of our foreign policy from the point of view of economics and trade. The long-term goal of our Party is a Confederation of the Danubian States, in which our neighbors will think along the same lines as us. We support the idea of a United Europe.” According to his vision, the Transylvanian question could only be solved by a Romanian-Hungarian Confederation, which later, Austria would also join. This Danubian Confederation would not be identical to the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy!

„Under Confederation, we do not refer just to the Transylvanian Romanians but to all of them. In other words, there is not one Romania in the Confederation and another outside of it. The peoples should conduct their separate national politics through their own national Ministry of Culture. In their arguments, the peoples would relinquish the advantages due to them by historical right, like the superiority of ethnic numbers. Within the framework of the Confederation, there can be no borders. Every state should live its own life but there should be a common financial, economic, foreign and military policy” – wrote Aladár Szoboszlai. His plan won the support of a large number of Romanians – even Orthodox priests. It even attracted a number of the dissatisfied Romanian military elite.

The plan was torpedoed. Approximately 200 people were arrested from all parts of the country and, among them, 57 were tried before a military court. As a result of the trial, which was the most important political trial in Romania in the 1950’s, ten people were sentenced to death. The death sentences were executed in the Securitate prison in Temesvár on September 1, 1958. Forty-six of the accused were sentenced to hard labor, from three years to life. With the exception of those who were executed, the total number of years of sentencing exceeded 1300 years.

III. The Canton plan of Kálmán Sass, the pastor of the Reformed Church of Érmihályfalva

After his expulsion from Romania, Kálmán Sass, the „Messiah” of Érmellék, already in 1939, became deeply involved in the problem of the Transylvanian question. For a year and a half, he studied Theology on a scholarship in Switzerland. He was very familiar with the workings of the Swiss cantons. In his study entitled: A Szent István-i Magyarország kisebbségi kérdésének megoldása elé (The solution to the question of the ethnic minorities in the Hungary of Saint Stephen), he made a detailed outline of the Canton plan. In my opinion, it is still today one of the great studies worthy of consideration. Kálmán Sass promoted the reestablishment of the thousand year-old Hungary. He saw the solution to the minority question in the establishment of a canton for each minority group, like the Swiss cantons, with the exception that there be no language border to the canton. In other words: the Hungarians of Bucharest, Jászvásár or the ancient Kingdom would be just as much a member of the canton of the Transylvanian Hungarians as the Hungarians of the pure Hungarian territory of the Szekelyland (Szeklerland). Everyone would have the same rights and responsibilities. According to him, the concept of the Hungarians in diaspora is humiliating to all the Hungarians who actually live outside of Hungary and it is a constant source of frustration to them.

The Transylvanian Saxons and the Schwabs of the Partium would establish their own cantons, just as the Slovaks, Germans and Serbs did in Hungary. In the cantons, the plurality of languages would be effective, just as in Switzerland. Every official document would be prepared in the major languages. There would be no obstacle to the use of the mother-tongue in any circumstances. The ratio of ethnic numbers in a particular community would decide the language of instruction from the elementary to the university level. On those grounds, the Transylvanian Hungarians would gain more universities, because of their superior numbers.

Kálmán Sass’ study, entitled: Szegény Erdélyország (Poor Transylvania) is one of the most credible documents about the Romanian persecution of the Hungarians between the two World Wars. He was the only Transylvanian politician who, between 1940 and 1944, had any connection with any of the members of the Hungarian government of the day. In his letter of April 14, 1946, he warned of a danger in the forthcoming Treaty of Paris: on the one hand, the so-called „Hungarian democrats” would betray the Transylvanian Hungarians and, on the other hand, the Romanian nationalists would attack them from behind. He clearly saw that the Treaty of Paris of February 10, 1947, primarily „went after the skin of the Transylvanian Hungarians”.

He was arrested, along with 31 of his colleagues from Érmellék. The trial resulted in two death sentences. Kálman Sass and Dr. István Hollós, a former captain of the military court, were executed on December 2, 1958 in the prison of Szamosújvár. They were not even allowed to look at their executioners. They were shot in the back. Out of the 31 prisoners, 14 were sentenced to hard labor for life. Romania is the only state in which the families of those executed have no knowledge of where the remains of their loved ones are laid to rest. Every one of them deserves rehabilitation as a basic right.

IV. The plan for population exchange, made famous by the name of the international lawyer, Dr. Dobai István from Kolozsvár

In his letter of June 18, 1848, to Gábor Klauzál, Minister of Business, Agriculture and Trade, Baron Miklós Wesselényi described how the Hungarians could only survive if they congregated on a smaller territory, gave up Croatia, Slavonia and if they organized a population exchange with the agreement of the different minorities.

Dr. István Dobai, in the spirit of the Hungarian Revolution, (1848, or 1956?) placed this possibility for a solution of the Transylvanian question under a microscope. He adopted the version, where all of Transylvania would belong to Hungary, where the Romanians and the Saxons would be assured complete autonomy, and where the Romanian majority could at any time vote to belong to Romania. For this reason, he also adopted the concept of an independent Transylvania. If Transylvania were to belong to Romania, then the deprivation of civil rights and dispossession would continue.

Therefore, he proposed that Transylvania be divided into two equal parts and that the Hungarian-Romanian population exchange be propelled forward. According to the opinion polls conducted by the Dobai group, the majority of the Transylvanian Hungarians supported this plan.

Nine of the Dobai group were brought before the courts. Dr. István Dobai and László Varga, a pastor of the Reformed Church, were sentenced to hard labor for life. Joseph Nagy and Gábor Kertész lost their lives in the course of the torture and beatings they received in prison. The rest were sentenced to prison terms of 6 to 25 years.

V. The plan of Pál Fodor, railway engineer from Csíkszereda, for a population exchange

Entirely independently of István Dobai, Pál Fodor, a railway engineer from Csíkszereda, also saw the key to the solution of the Transylvanian question in the Hungarian-Rumanian population exchange. He would have divided Transylvania into two equal parts with a perpendicular line. He even planned on a map, that the population exchange would take eight years to complete and would require several thousand railway wagons.

István Dobai, a Protestant and Pál Fodor, a Catholic, both asked advice and support from Áron Márton. At the Fodor trial, they brought forward Dr. Kálmán Csiha, who, after 1990, was a Bishop of the Reformed Church in Transylvania, and three Franciscan brothers. Pál Fodor was sentenced to 25 years of hard labor.

Romanian population exchange

While the Hungarian organizers of plans for a population exchange were all condemned, the Romanian designers of plans for population exchange were not at all worried. Sabin Manuila, the Director of the Bucharest Central Statistical Institute, on October 15, 1941, presented Marshal Ion Antonescu with his plan for the complete removal of all the ethnic minorities from Romania. Altogether 3.8 million people would have been removed. In 1943, Vasile Stoica planned a population removal of 5 million ethnic minorities, so that Romania would not give up the territory.

Marosvásárhely, 2009

Zoltán Tófalvy