I.
BACKGROUND
The
activities of Captain László Ocskay is a
subject which is somewhat limited in its appeal, not well
known to most interested in the various aspects of the
Holocaust. It does not contain philosophy or shattering
historical revelations. It does however has information
to illuminate a particular corner of the tapestry of
human suffering inflicted by the Germans and their
faithful Hungarian Quislings on the Jews of Hungary. It
has a redeeming aspect too: it affirms that in time of
the most horrendous crimes committed by man against man,
there is a certain quantity of good that comes to the
surface, sometimes intentionally and planned, sometimes
just by it's own inertia and from totally unexpected
sources.
In
researching this subject I used extensively
published data concerning the Hungarian
Holocaust,[1]
and about the military labor service in Hungary.
[2]
My own research into the history of one labor
company, the number 101/359 in Budapest, was published in
the form of a copyrighted monograph.[3]
Most
countries allied with the Axis during WW-II had labor
units or combinations of labor camps and concentration
camps for "undesirable" elements, undesirable for
religious, political, sexual preference or other reasons.
The Hungarian system was unique in one very important
aspect: it was organized and managed by the Ministry of
Defense, as part of the army, a system with a chain of
command and military officers and NCO-s in charge, with a
rather extensive structure within the Ministry of Defense
that had to deal as their only competence with the Labor
Service.
It had a
setup based in law, the 1939 March 11 Law no.
II-1939[4]
which established the legal base for the Labor Service
System, however several laws and regulations preceding it
have their origin dating back to the post WW-I period.
The objective was to make sure Jews and other undesirable
and unreliable people are not in possession of
weapons, have no access to sensitive military
information, and are not in any command position. The
basic law was modified and additions issued time and time
again, with numerous directives and orders issued by the
Ministry of Defense[5].
The Labor Services Units evolved into massive pools of
labor available to the military, within the borders of
Hungary and outside, as adjuncts to the army fighting the
Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, performing
building, fortification, mine clearing and other
services, always under Hungarian officers' command,
guarded by Hungarian soldiers. As the war turned to the
Axis powers disadvantage and the Germans demanded more
and more contribution to the war efforts from the pliable
and very willing Hungarian governments, the Labor Service
turned in part into a bargaining chip in the hands of the
Hungarians. To illustrate some of what happened during
the course of the war to the Labor Service, the following
are some important milestones:
- July 12, 1942
was the start of deploying approximately 50,000
Jewish laborers to the Ukraine front.
- April 30, 1943
massacre of Jewish Labor Service personnel in
Doroshits - Ukraine
- July 2, 1943
German-Hungarian agreement to deploy 6200 men in
Jewish Labor Service companies to Bor,
Serbia, to work in the copper mines.
By the
summer of 1943,[6]
over 800.000 individuals, both Jews and non-Jews, were in
the military labor service. Organizationally, these
individuals served within the framework of the following
three major labor service systems:
- Military labor
companies (Katonai
Munkásszázadok)
composed of Hungarians and national minorities of
Trianon Hungary.
- Public labor service
battalions (Közérdekü
munkaszolgálatos
zászlóaljak).
- Auxiliary, i.e.
Jewish, labor service companies
(KisegítŒ
zsidó
munkásszázadok).
April
5, 1944 a decree was issued that revoked the right of
Jews to wear military uniforms. From that time they had
to wear their own clothing and no replacement was
provided. Even before that, Labor Service Companies often
did not receive government issued clothing or
uniforms.
April
26, 1944 the Hungarian Sztojai government agrees to
place 50.000 Jewish Labor Service under direct German
command, at the sole German disposition.
October
7-8, 1944 massacre of Jewish Labor Servicemen
evacuated from Bor, Serbia where they performed mostly
duties in copper mines, under the most barbaric
conditions.
It
must be stressed at this point, that the condition of the
labor units changed to the worse as the war progressed,
Hungarian governments changed, influences within politics
changed. The rather chaotic situation within the
government, or the governments that followed each other,
with various and different views of collaboration with
the Germans, the Regent Horthy's vacillation and his
various Prime Ministers, Ministers of Defense and Chiefs
of Staff world view, all influenced the conditions under
which the units have been deployed and the condition of
those who served in the units.
Painting
a picture with a very broad brush, the conditions,
depending on which areas of deployment are being
discussed, can be characterized from bearable, to bad, to
horrendous, to homicidal. During certain periods some
commanding officers acted without any supervision living
out their wildest anti-Semitic dreams on the defenseless
laborers. Other commanding officers tried to provide some
measure of humane environment in very difficult
conditions. From extreme sadism, through benevolent
by-the-book commanders and to a very few outspoken and
clearly helpful officers one could find all types and
everything in between. Directives from the Ministry of
Defense, sometimes alleviating conditions and
sometimes making them harsher, have been grudgingly
adhered to in the field, but sometimes the same
directives have been disregarded, creating ups and downs
and enormous discrepancies between the various units.
From the Ministry, on many occasions orders contradicting
each other have been received, depending where the orders
originated and during which period of time.
It
should be clear from what was presented to this point,
that the Labor Service per se could by no
means be considered a vehicle for rescue. It was a tool
of exploitation and degradation, turned into slavery as
time passed and conditions got worse. However,
there is no proof, documentation or any testimony at all,
that the organization was set up as a mean to deport,
annihilate, exterminate the laborers, at least not as an
official Ministry of Defense policy. It has to be
understood, that there was an enormous gap in policy and
in execution between the official highest Ministry
levels and the commanders and guard units in the field.
The sadistic homicidal anti-Semitism of many soldiers in
the field was not directed by the higher levels, although
even there, large differences in attitude toward the Jews
can be easily discerned. Certain officers in the Ministry
were as anti-Semitic as can be and had no incentive to
halt or moderate excesses in the field, while others
looked aside knowing what is going on and again others
actively tried to prevent cruelty, murder and
exploitation.
It
is not my intention to detail the history of the Labor
Service in Hungary. The English language coverage is
widely available. The coverage in Hungarian is rather
comprehensive, not so much in the form of a unified total
history, but more as individual researches on certain
aspects of the Service and the history of individual
Service Units. It is clear from all what was and is said
and printed on this subject, that the conditions run the
gamut of a unit doing make-believe work most of the time,
to murderous inhuman punishments, guard units stealing
the meager rations, laborers families being blackmailed,
massacres being committed not only by Hungarian soldiers
but by German and other Axis troops on completely
defenseless Jewish Labor Service units.
It
must be stressed that as the situation in Hungary
worsened after the March 19 1944 occupation by Germany as
servile Hungarian governments ruled the country, and
specially after the putch of the Hungarian Arrow-Cross
under Ferenc Szálasi the self appointed Leader,
the conditions under which the Labor Service units found
themselves got out of hand. As mentioned before, certain
Labor Service Units have been put under direct German
command, outside of Hungary's borders even before
Szálasi. During the murderous rampage of the
Arrow-Cross, individuals serving in the Labor Service
units and whole units have been driven by foot from
the Budapest area to the Austrian border and there handed
over to the Germans. The Ministry of Defense never
instructed, to my knowledge, to deport Labor Service
units for the specific reason to exterminate them. It was
when such units fell into the hands of Hungarian civilian
authorities, the gendarmerie, the Arrow-Cross, the
German occupation units, that Jews serving in the Labor
Service fell victim to deportation, sometimes as a result
of policy differences, territorial infighting and zealous
anti-Semites trying to proof their loyalty by overdoing
other anti-Semites and even the official government
policy.
Quoting
from The Politics of Genocide...[7]
Following
the German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944,
and the establishment of the pro-Nazi Sztójay
government, the labor service system turned out to be
a source of rescue for many Jewish men threatened by
deportation. While the Jewish labor servicemen in the
Ukraine and in Bor continued to suffer from the harsh
and often cruel treatment of their superiors, those
called up or volunteering for duty in the labor
service companies stationed within the country fared
comparatively well, at least until the Nyilas
era.
It is one of
the ironies of history that the Ministry of Defense,
which had been viewed as one of the chief causes of
suffering among the Jews during the previous four to
five years, suddenly emerged as the major governmental
institution actively involved in the saving of Jewish
lives. The motivations behind the Ministry's actions
are not absolutely clear. It is safe to assume that
many local commanders, aware of the realities of the
ghettoization and deportation program and motivated by
humanitarian instincts, did everything in their power
to rescue as many Jews as possible...
Outstanding
among these were men like...László
Ocskay,[8]
the commander of Company No. 101/359...
II.
THE 101/359 LABOR SERVICE COMPANY
An
interesting piece of information can be found in an
article that appeared in a Hungarian
daily[9]
Világ (World) on June 17, 1945, five months
after the liberation of Budapest, one month after the end
of the war in Europe. The article was written by a much
respected newsman and political commentator, Stella
Adorján, who himself was a highly decorated Jewish
veteran of the WW-I Austro-Hungarian army. He writes that
on November 27, 1944, when the Arrow-Cross terror reigned
and Hungary was virtually Juden-frei except for
Jews in Budapest including a few Labor Service Units and
Labor Service Units dispersed in the countryside, a
command was received by all units stationed in Budapest
to gather all members, because all the units,
en-masse will be deported by rail early morning of
November 29. Stella Adorján who had very good
connections at the Ministry of Defense rushed there and
to his greatest horror found a notice at the entrance
announcing, that "According to the edict of the
government all matters of the labor service are now
handled by the Ministry of the Interior." This was a
virtual death sentence for the Labor Service units,
knowing that the most extreme anti-Semites ruled
that Ministry . Even so, Stella Adorján menaged to
contact certain officers, or at least tried to contact
them, who in their staff positions had helped in critical
matters before. The article mentions by name Captain
Ocskay. As for Stella Adorján's last minute
action: there was very little the officers of the
Ministry of Defense could do as the authority over the
Labor units where not anymore in their hands. A few units
stationed in Budapest, including Captain Ocskay's
and two more units to my knowledge, managed to stay in
Budapest, the rest have been deported to Austria under
the murderous authority of the Ministry of Interior. A
number of individuals from those units escaped from their
units before being taken on the infamous death-marches
and managed to hide in the main Budapest ghetto, in the
Budapest international ghetto or at large.
Captain
László Ocskay the Commanding Officer of the
101/359 Labor Service Company used the Labor Service as a
vehicle for rescue and thus performed an extraordinary
deed that resulted in the saving of approximately 2000
women, men and children during the most vicious murder
rampage of the Nazis in Budapest. Commanding the
101/359 Company, he.moved the unit under his command into
large and guardable facilities outside of the city center
in Budapest, enlarging the unit by accepting and
ingathering Labor Service persons and their families from
legitimate and illegitimate origins, providing
identification documents and justifying to the
authorities ever increasing lists of members, obtaining
food, medicine and supplies for the 101/359, boosting
their morale during the most catastrophic period of
October 1944 to January 1945, actions that have been
testified to by survivors.[10]
To
insure physical security for the compound of the 101/359,
Captain Ocskay utilized his friendship with German
military persons, WW-I and business acquaintances
to bolster the guards with German sentries who made the
unit practically impenetrable to the rampaging Hungarian
Arrow-Cross.
The
author's interest in Ocskay's rescue operation was
aroused during a visit he made a few years ago to the
Holocaust Memorial Exhibition in Budapest, where Ocskay's
name could not be found among those listed as rescuers.
The author, being a survivor due to Ocskay's deeds, felt
obligated to inquire and research into what exactly
happened and why the omission of the recognition. After
Schindler's List received worldwide publicity, why
Schindler and not Ocskay? Both saved about the same
number of people, both used their German connections. But
while Schindler was a somewhat questionable character,
Ocskay was simply a humanitarian with no financial gain
as his objective. Most of the facilitators and the
survivors of Ocskay's drama are now dead; Ocskay lies
buried in Kingston, NY while some of the Jewish
officers who took part in establishing the 101/359 Labor
Company are buried side-by-side, according to their will,
in the Kozma-utca Jewish Cemetery in Budapest. The
author's father participated in the establishment of the
101/359 and did everything possible to capitalize on his
military background and connections to survive the
Holocaust and help others to survive. Belonging to a very
small group of persons who belonged to the 101/359 and
were 16 or under in January 1945, the author, in contrast
to most of the survivors who where at that time in their
forties or over, can still provide the research needed to
shed light on Ocskay's extraordinary life saving
activity.
During
the most critical months of 1944-1945 a Jewish Labor
Service Unit (munkásszázad), the number
101/359 was established in Budapest with the objective to
collect and refurbish clothing for other Jewish forced
labor units that did not receive anymore uniforms from
the army and had to use their own civilian clothing which
deteriorated very rapidly. Number 101/359 was commanded
by Captain László Ocskay and it grew from a
small unit into a large organization located on the
premises of the Jewish highschool in the Abonyi street.
The unit initially comprised a few hundred persons,
subsequently it increased to about 2000 people, the large
majority of which were family members, escaped members of
other labor units, fugitives from the Nazis, all needing
protection and shelter. They all survived, except cases
of natural death and casualties of the bombardments and
shelling during the siege of Budapest, but without a
single loss to actions of the Nazis.
Captain
Ocskay was born into an aristocratic Hungarian landowner
family, descendants of the legendary Brigadier Ocskay
from the anti-monarchist revolution of
Rákóczy Ferenc. The family's land holdings
were lost with time and they moved from the north of
Hungary to the south.
Ocskay
served as an officer of the Austro-Hungarian army in WW-I
and was wounded in his leg making him unfit for further
active service; he remained in the inactive reserve
of the post WW-I Hungarian army. During his service he
made lasting and valuable connections with other
officers, Jewish and gentile, Hungarian and Austrian (who
after the Anschluss became German) , contacts he
cultivated and of which some turned into friendships that
served him well in later years.
To
profit from his connections to and knowledge of the
Hungarian ruling class, the American oil company
Socony-Vacuum employed him and he rose to the
position of the Budapest branch manager. Ocskay's family
background, his WW-I military service and his employment
were significant contributors to his later ability to act
as the commanding officer of the 101/359 Labor Service
Company in the capacity that led to the rescue of
approximately 2000 Jewish men, women and
children.
During
the period prior to the establishment of the 101/359 unit
the function of collecting, warehousing and refurbishing
clothing for the various Labor Service units did exist
under the management of Jewish community organizations,
mainly organized and directed by the Jewish veterans
organizations.[11]
When this function was formalized and the 101/359 was
established as one of the Labor Service Units under the
Ministry of Defense, certain Jewish veterans who knew
Ocskay as a humanist and a non anti-Semitic reserve
officer, persuaded him to seek reactivation into
the army in 1944, with the specific objective to command
this unit. With the help of high ranking officers in the
ministry and Ocskay's agreement, this was accomplished
and he was reactivated in spite of his supernumerary
inactive status due to his WW-I injury. The 101/359 unit
was first located in the Sip-utca 12 Jewish community
building and it later moved to the Abonyi-utca Jewish
High School campus to accommodate the growing number of
members and to keep the non-designated activities of the
unit away from official and public scrutiny.
Under
Ocskay's command families of the 101/359 moved into the
campus and the membership of the unit grew rapidly from
October 1944 till the liberation. The influx consisted
mostly of AWOL Labor Service people, stragglers and
escapees from other units, survivors of atrocities of the
Nazi rampages, family members, children saved and
spirited away from orphanages and other victims of
persecution. Ocskay and his staff issued I.D.-s to the
new arrivals, updated the supposedly official lists,
obtained food, medicine and other sustenance. The actual
number of people on the campus was not and is not now
clear; however the 101/359 was originally certified for a
few hundred men; when liberated by the Soviet Army the
campus held approximately 2000 men, women and children of
all ages. In my research I could not find any absolutely
reliable documentation to establish the exact number of
people liberated, however testimonials by survivors point
toward 2000 to 2500.[12]
The
campus was initially guarded by the assigned military
guard unit (keret legénység) of
elderly enlisted men and officers not fit for front
line duty due to their age or physical problems, assigned
to this duty by the Ministry of Defense. As the Hungarian
Arrow-Cross increased it's power and the menace of the
Final Solution hung over the remaining Jews of Budapest,
Captain Ocskay managed to increase the guard unit's
effectiveness with the addition of German military
personnel. This was accomplished by using his connections
with the German military and the subterfuge
of repairing uniforms for the Wehrmacht in addition
of repairing clothing for the Labor Service units.
One close to fatal intrusion by the Arrow-Cross was
repulsed by displaying an aggressive German military
force, that arrived in the last minute, led by Captain
Ocskay's friend, a certain SS. Colonel Hans
Weber.[13]
The
following is a concise description of the activities of
the 101/359 Company, under the command of Captain
Ocskay:[14]
The
lot of the labor service companies left in Budapest
was just a shade better than that of those in Western
Hungary. One of them, Company No. 101/359, the so
called Clothes-Collecting Company
(RuhagyüjtŒ
Munkásszázad) was under the
command of László Ocskay, a
very decent and humane officer. The company was
originally assigned to work under the jurisdiction of
the Jewish Veterans' Committee with headquarters at 12
Sip Street, the seat of the Jewish Council. After the
establishment of the ghetto in Budapest early in
December 1944, the company was designated to provide
police protection within the ghetto. After the
Nyilas rejected the plan, the company was
transferred to the facilities of a high school on
Abonyi Street, outside the ghetto, where the men
worked for, and ironically enjoyed the protection of
the SS. With the aid of Adorján Stella, a
highly decorated reserve officer, about 25 of these
labor servicemen led by GyörgyWilhelm
organized themselves into a special service unit
acting for and in cooperation with the International
Red Cross. This unit, known as Section-T of the
International Red Cross was engaged in the relief and
rescue of the persecuted Jews and also took part in
some resistance activities...
Other
significant life saving activities took place under
Ocskay's command using the manpower and resources of
the101/359 Company obviously illegally, not according to
the tasks designated by the Ministry of Defense. It
is not known if Ocskay personally participated in such
activities, however this is irrelevant: the fact that he
consented to delegate his men to such activities, outside
of the framework of the 101/359 was in itself an act of
heroism and defiance of the official
authorities.
As
noted before, Ocskay delegated a number of persons from
his unit to the International Red Cross's Budapest
operation, as the so called
"Section-T" to extricate children from
endangered orphanages, to supply food and medicine to
various Red Cross homes. This
Section-T cooperated with and helped Raoul
Wallenberg to accomplish some of his legendary
rescue operations.
Section-T
was headquartered (when outside of the Abonyi-street
campus) in the Benczur street home of
Ocskay.[15]
In this home, in the cellar, he hid a small group of Jews
who themselves had no connection to the 101/359 and here
was the last refuge of Raoul Wallenberg from January 11
to January 13 1945 when Wallenberg feared that the
rampaging Arrow-Cross will locate and murder him.
Wallenberg was picked up by the Soviets from this hiding
and from here did he depart on his last trip from which
he never returned and disappeared forever.
III.
THE AFTERMATH
The
completely defeated German and Hungarian armies melted
away before the Soviet onslaught on Budapest in January
1945. The guards, both Hungarian and German, disappeared
one night after a fierce aerial and artillery shelling
and Captain Ocskay was not seen again on the 101/359
campus. He was not taken prisoner of war but was
arrested, released and re-arrested several times by the
communists and accused of being an American spy. His
misfortune can probably be attributed to his
civilian employment by Socony-Vacuum, to his close
cooperation with Wallenberg and with the Red Cross, or
maybe to his contacts with the German military. After
recurring harassment Ocskay fled to Austria; later he
followed his son George to the USA. After a lengthy
fight with burocracy, Socony-Vacuum and its reincarnation
Mobil Oil granted Ocskay a symbolic pension of $100 per
month. He worked for a time as a night watchman and died
in poverty in Kingston, NY, USA on March 27,
1966.
In
order to view Captain Ocskay's activities in the correct
context of the time frame in which he saved about 2000
Jews a few additional details must be illuminated. A
careful reading of all the available data and
testimonials leads to a clear picture of the motives for
Captain Ocskay's humanitarian actions and at the
same time opens a small window into the role of some
military officers who had a part in saving not only the
101/359 but who somewhat managed to soften the impact of
the official government policy. The specific role Captain
Ocskay played in this respect was acknowledged and
documented shortly after the end of the war not only by
Stella Adorján [16]
but by the respected historian Eugene
Levai[17]
As
for his family's origins, Ocskay came from a class
that was historically and traditionally Monarchist,
fiercely anti-Communist, anti-Semitic, and pro German.
Ocskay was an exception in one respect. His class profile
did not predestine him for liberalism or humanitarianism
but he has proven himself by his acts. He was an
unswerving anti-Communist, he cherished and cultivated
his Austrian and German friends, but used these
friendships to save persecuted Jews while putting his
life in constant jeopardy. There is not a single
testimonial that I became aware of that indicates that in
order to get into the 101/359's sanctuary anything
of value had to be paid to anybody. To the contrary, it
was stated repeatedly that no payments had been requested
or have been made.
Although
there is no proof for or against, logic dictates that the
organization and upkeep required for the ever increasing
size of the 101/359, consumed assets far in access of
what the authorities provided for this semi-clandestine
Labor Company. There could have been only a very limited
number of sources to obtain the logistics: to pay off
persons who had authority to provide it, or to obtain it
on the black-market. Both sources required money or
valuables to be exchanged. Such resources could have been
provided by some well- to- do members of the 101/359, but
this is only the author's assumption.
The
question can be asked: should the Labor Service in
Hungary be considered a venue of rescue or a
malevolent arm of the fascists, bent on exterminating
Jews. This author's answer to this question is that it
was never a venue for the rescue of Jews. It was set up
to separate Jews from the army as undesirables who can
not be trusted with arms or secrets, whose influence on
gentiles within the army had to be eliminated, and whose
labor had to be exploited to the benefit of the army, at
the absolute minimum cost. It was not set up to
exterminate Jews or to deport them to extermination
camps, however it's organizational profile changed as the
Hungarian governments changed in cycles from mildly
oppressive to oppressive, to rabidly anti-Semitic, to
murderous. Apart from the several Hungarian-German
agreements providing the German war effort with Labor
Units, there was a policy to keep Jewish labor within the
Hungarian borders or within the Hungarian army's area of
fighting on the eastern front, not in order to save them,
but to exploit their labor potential to the Hungarian
army's benefit. The main problem was, that the chain of
command within the army either did not operate as
intended or it did not represent official policy.
Viciously anti-Semitic officers and soldiers treated the
Jewish labor with murderous disregard and in many cases
with the single minded objective to exterminate them.
Orders from above requiring humane treatment was more
often disregarded than not, but differences in treatment
have been clearly present between one unit to the other
due to the individual officers and soldiers who were in
charge, within the same time period of the various
political cycles. Thus it can be stated, that murder was
not a policy of the Ministry of Defense, but neither did
it consider the Labor Service a way to save Jews. It was
the individual officers and soldiers who were in command
of the Jewish Labor Service units who decided over life
and death, over murder or humane treatment and all
variations in between. In this context the life saving
activities of Captain Ocskay have to be viewed as
exceptional heroism and skillful use of possibilities
that may have been available to other commanding officers
but have been utilized in a very few cases
only.
Captain
Ocskay and the story of the 101/359 are an example,
albeit a unique example of what was possible to do in the
most chaotic period of the war. There were others, on
much smaller scale who saved individuals and even whole
units from deportation and from murder, by using the
ambivalence of the organization, personal connections and
simply determination and conviction that persecuted
people needed their help to survive.
Certain
questions have been asked repeatedly concerning
Captain Ocskay and the 101/359:
The
first question concerns cooperation received
in researching the 101/359 Labor Company. The
answer must be divided into two distinct parts: first,
during the research - and second, after the research was
completed and the attempts to obtain recognition for
Captain Ocskay's deeds.
In
order to locate survivors of the unit a research
request was sent to 91 different newspapers and
periodicals, all over the world, into known areas
of concentration of Hungarian Jews, a research
request similar to the ones published in The New
York Times Sunday Book Review every week, asking for
survivors to come forward. The overwhelming majority
published the research request and 30 survivor
testimonials have been received from different
parts of the world. The only glaring lack of cooperation
to be mentioned was the Los Angeles The Jewish
Journal, the Budapest Mult és
Jövö and the Uj Kelet in Tel Aviv.
Institutions involved in the documentation or research of
the Holocaust have been contacted for available
information. The only institute that completely ignored
the request to this day is the Jewish Museum in
Budapest.
Going
to the post- research period: the research was published
at the end of 1995, a second printing in May 1996 and a
third printing in May 1998. It was registered with the US
Library of Congress and copyrighted by the author. A copy
was sent to all major Holocaust research institutes and
museums, to relevant Hungarian government officials and
to the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. All institutes
acknowledged the receipt and the monograph can be found
today in the libraries of the US Holocaust Museum, the
Library of Congress, the Hungarian National
(Széchényi)
Library, the New York Holocaust Museum, and the Yale
University's Fortunoff Library among others.
IV.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
A
copy of the research was
sent to the Ambassador of the Hungarian Republic, Dr.
György Bánlaki, who acknowledged it's
receipt, although belatedly, and who in his
letter[18]
stated that the study is being sent via the Foreign
Ministry to the "appropriate Hungarian authorities" with
a request to honor posthumously the late Captain Ocskay.
An other copy of the study was sent to the President of
the Hungarian Republic, Göncz Árpád.
No response was received from him, several follow-ups
notwithstanding. In September 1996 when the author was in
Budapest, a personal contact to the President's Office
was established and the research was located on the desk
of the President's Liaison to the Military, who "did not
know what to do with it". This time, the personal contact
in the President's office, a very knowledgeable,
interested and involved person, Dr. Sára
Éliás, who occupied the office next
to the President, brought the research and the
recommendation to the President's attention. Dr.
Éliás, who knew some details about Ocskay
from her father who was a prominent person in church
circles during WWII and was himself deeply involved
in various rescue operations, obtained a prompt
decision and response. Within a few weeks the author was
advised[19]
that the President's Gold Medal has been awarded to
Captain Ocskay and it will be presented to his son who
lives in the US. The official presentation was on
November 18, 1996 by the Consul General of the Republic
of Hungary István Kovács in New York, at a
festive luncheon.20]
Representative
Tom Lantos of the US Congress recognized the
extraordinary deeds of Ocskay[21]
and after reading the research was instrumental in having
published a tribute in the Congressional Record on
June 5, 1996 honoring Captain Ocskay[22].
The
Governor of the State of New York George E. Pataki
received a copy of the research and issued a letter of
appreciation.23]
On
October 3, 1997 a memorial plaque was inaugurated in
Budapest, on the wall of the building where Captain
Ocskay saved 2000 Jews. The plaque was financed by the
municipality of Budapest that organized the festivities
with full military honors and in the presence of various
dignitaries. [24]
The media, both in Hungary and in the USA took notice of
the occasion and a number of articles have been
published.[25]
This author was interviewed in Budapest during the week
of Oct.3, 1997 by the BBC Hungarian program and by the
Hungarian Radio Calypso channel about Ocskay and his
rescue operation.
V.
YAD VASHEM, THE HOLOCAUST MARTYRS' AND HEROES'
REMEMBRANCE AUTHORITY
In
November 1995 the research monograph was sent to Yad
Vashem in Jerusalem. The Department of the Righteous
assigned a file number and several letters have been
exchanged. In September 1996 this author visited Yad
Vashem and it became obvious that no actual work was done
on this case. The recommendation to award Captain Ocskay
the title of Righteous Among the Nations was subsequently
rejected by Yad Vashem
Captain
Ocskay saved 2000 Jews in Budapest, women, men and
children during the most critical months of Oct. 1944 to
Jan. 1945. His actions have been documented in depth and
presented to Yad Vashem in Nov. 1995 in an extensive
research monograph.
Yad
Vashem's letters dated June 29, 1997 and Sept. 1, 1997
pertaining to this subject stated that an
"...appreciation and thanks to Mr. Ocskay's
next-of-kin,..." and "... an act which deserves citation,
and therefore the commission for the Righteous decided
that a letter of appreciation is in order in this
matter."
Yad
Vashem's arguments for refusing the Righteous title were
point by point rebutted by this author's letters dated
Nov. 9, 1997, Dec. 11, 1997, April 20, 1998 and August 6,
1998.
In view
of the initial refusal of granting the Righteous
title to Ocskay the question must be asked: Why is
Wallenberg or Schindler Righteous, when they have been
protected by diplomatic immunity and German connections
respectively? Is there a record of even one diplomat who
saved Jews and lost his life as a result of his
activities? The question is not being raised to diminish
Wallenberg's or Schindler's deeds, but to demand the
evaluation of Ocskay's deeds on an equal level of
historical objectivity.
As the
Yad Vashem representative declared in a
different[26]
case: "...the Righteous program...to honor non-Jews who
specifically addressed themselves to the Jewish issue,
and risked their lives in the attempt to aid Jews." He
could not have said it better referring to Ocskay: Ocskay
volunteered to become the C.O. of a Jewish Labor Company
and by illegally enlarging the authorized framework of
the unit to 2000 men, women and children he risked his
life 24 hours a day, until Budapest was liberated by the
Soviet army.
It
looked that Yad Vashem's feeling of superior knowledge
and infallibility in the case of those who saved Jews can
not be shaken even when others recognized the merits,
like in the case of Ocskay's bravery: based on the exact
same research presented to Yad Vashem, the US Congress
proclaimed a tribute to Ocskay in a Congressional Record;
the President of the Republic of Hungary awarded Ocskay
posthumously a Golden Medal for Humanitarian Activity,
and the Municipality of Budapest dedicated a memorial
plaque in his honor on the wall of the building where he
saved 2000 Jews.
VI.
FINAL RECOGNITION BY YAD VASHEM
After
much correspondence and formal appeals, Yad Vashem
reconsidered their own research and decided in 2002 to
award Captain Ocskay the title of "Righteous Among the
Nations[27]."
A ceremony to honor Ocskay and others was organized by
the Embassy of Israel in Budapeston July 2,
2002.[28]
On September 2, 2002 an additional memorial plaque was
placed on the building in Budapest where Ocskay's labor
battalion was located.[29]
The formal award is being presented to Captain Ocskay's
son George Ocskay and George's wife Helen at a ceremony
organized by the Jewish Federation of Ulster County, NY
and The Consul general of Israel in New York, on April
27, 2003 in Kingston, NYUSA.[30]
VII.
WHY WAS RECOGNITION FOR CAPTAIN OCSKAY DELAYED FOR OVER
FIFTY YEARS?
A
question that has to be asked:
Why
did nobody research this extraordinary
episode of rescue before and why was there no
earlier effort to honor Captain Ocskay for
what he did?
The
efforts on behalf of Ocskay in the US, before this
author's research and according to Ocskay's family were
few and sporadic.
When
he died in March 1966, a collection by a few survivors
residing in New York, members of the 101/359, resulted in
$361.00 that was presented to the family as a
contribution to the hospital and burial
expenses.
On
September 9, 1970 the Keren Kayemeth Leisrael in
Jerusalem issued a certificate [31]showing
the planting of "44 trees in the name of Captain
László Ocskay who stood up for the Jews
sentenced to forced labor in 1944 in Budapest, he
sheltered and rescued them when state
and society were
seeking their life. Planted by those he saved
in memory of his deeds in their
homeland - Israel"
Unfortunately the KKL does not keep the donors name on
file, thus this author was unable to trace who the
planters were.
The
post-war communist political terror in Hungary made it
impossible for any organized effort to arise to honor and
recognize Ocskay's deeds. His aristocratic family
background, the fact that he reactivated into the army
(regardless of why he did it) against the Soviets, his
being an employee of an American "arch enemy"
corporation, (Socony-Vacuum), his German military
contacts all made him a pariah in the eyes of the new
rulers of Hungary and a subject to immediate and
recurring harassment by the Hungarian communists and by
the Soviets. He left Hungary for Austria and was harassed
even there by the Soviets. It is self evident that under
those circumstances the survivors of the 101/359 in
Hungary did not dare to associate with Ocskay as such
association would have been detrimental, to say the
least, to one's own carrier and even to one's life during
the Rákosy area. Thus no attempt was made in
Hungary to honor or even to acknowledge Ocskay. Among the
survivors outside of Hungary a few feeble efforts have
been made to honor him, but as the number of survivors
dwindled with age and fading memories, no organized
effort came into being. Captain Ocskay's name and his
deeds have been mentioned fleetingly in various sources
pertaining to the Hungarian Holocaust, but this is all
history remembered him, until the first in-depth report
was published[32]
In
post-communist Hungary there is, to this author's
knowledge, no organized survivors' group of the 101/359
that ever acted or intended to act on the subject of
granting recognition to Captain Ocskay. The elapsed time
of over fifty years from the end of the war in itself
does not constitute the largest impediment to collection
of data pertaining to the 101/359 and its unique role in
saving so many Jews within the organizational setup of
the Labor Service, although obviously time must be
considered a serious stumbling block. Several factors
have to be identified as contributors to the relative
paucity of documentation available about the 101/359
Labor Company and its Commanding Officer:
The
majority of the members of the 101/359 were in the 35-40
age group in 1944-1945, lawyers, doctors, engineers,
writers, artists and other professionals and WW-1
veterans. Thus, the majority of the members who survived
the Holocaust in this unit would be over 80 and probably
closer to 90, with relatively few still alive, except
those who were younger dependents at that
time.
Due
to the nature of the operation that created the 101/359
and the subsequent semi-clandestine existence that
turned into a large organization with the objective
to assure the survival of its members, made it absolutely
imperative for the unit to keep the lowest possible
profile with a minimum of paper trail, and with the
knowledge of it's existence restricted only to those who
had to know.
The
Jewish reserve officers who constituted the
organizational backbone of the 101/359 had to use their
WW-1 connections to senior officers in the Ministry of
Defense. However, that part of the military establishment
itself was in frequent conflict with the younger
generation of mostly strongly anti-Semitic officers. Thus
these connections and the choice of Ocskay as the
commander of the 101/359 had to be kept and hidden as
much as this was possible.
Ocskay's
WWI connections and even friendships with German military
personnel had to be used but at the same time kept a
secret in order not to arouse questions.
The
mentioned factors had profound implications pertaining to
the difficulty of collecting data. The very small number
of survivors involved in this episode, over fifty years
after the end of the war who are dispersed all over the
world, have little knowledge, or have only the knowledge
that pertained to their own survival within this
clandestine low profile operation. The internal
operational details and the modus operandi of the
101/359 were mostly kept secret by the staff even
from their closest family members.
The
tragic events in post-war Hungary must be added to the
reasons for the paucity of publicly available data. The
large scale destruction in Budapest during the Soviet
siege, the communist takeover, the anti-Communist 1956
uprising and the subsequent Soviet reprisals, the change
of the regime at the end of the 1980-s and again in 1990
all brought radical shifts in the governments,
"cleansing" of employees and archives, mass destruction
of documents and data. The non-availability of two
sources which probably could shed further light on the
activities of Captain Ocskay and on the history of the
101/359 unit are additional reasons for lack of source
material: the previously mentioned total
non-responsiveness of the Budapest Jewish Museum whose
director was asked repeatedly to grant access to their
archives, and the reportedly close to complete
destruction of the Hungarian Ministry of Defense archives
during the siege of Budapest and the 1956
uprising[33].
APPENDIX:
A PHOTO OF THE MEMORIAL PLAQUES PLACED IN HUNGARY FOR
CAPTAIN OCSKAY
..
