Edited version of an entry submitted to the student contest “Their fate, our history” (2023-24) organized by the Jewish Roots in Győr Public Benefit Foundation
Work by Levente Deák, Máté Drozdik and Barnabás Tibor Sepsi
Pannonhalma Benedictine High School
Supporting teacher: Tamás Németh, history
Press publications that appeared in Győr in the ten years encompassing also World War II show that certain accusations, topics, statements, and conspiracy theories directed against Jews changed from time to time, but never disappeared completely, only giving way to other accusations and different manifestations of hatred. The main aim of this thesis is to examine these trends and the people as well as events behind them. We have divided the period into three distinct phases: the first from 1919 to 1935, the second from 1935 to March 5, 1938, and the third from 1938 to 1945.
First phase (1919–1935)
István Domán’s work, “The History of the Jewish Community in Győr”, considers the 1934 publication “Üzen a Hargita” (“Hargita’s message” – Hargita: a county in Transylvania – ed.) to be the first anti-Semitic press product. 1/
In contrast, our research found mention of a series of leaflets entitled “Mire várunk még?” (What are we waiting for?), which was linked to Jenő Pohárnok, later editor of the Győri Nemzeti Hírlap, and was already in circulation in 1919. In the same issue in which Pohárnok’s article “The Jews are gone, but the poisoning of souls continues” appeared, another article, written by István Porond, listing the property owned by Jews who had been deported, noted: “We saw books thrown at each other by Ferenc Molnár, Ernő Szép, Szomaházi (István Szomaházy, 1864-1927 – ed.), countless pornographic works, as well as Jewish weekly newspapers and Hebrew books; among the illustrated magazines piled up on one of the carts, we spotted a few copies of our editor-in-chief Jenő Pohárnok’s anti-Semitic newspaper from 1920 entitled ‘What are we waiting for?” 2/ However, we found a photo 3/ where ‘What are we waiting for? appears as a leaflet already back in December 1919, which leads us to believe that this press product may have been a relatively long-running series of leaflets.
As for the other newspapers, in line with Domán’s statement, we did not find any press publications relevant to the subject prior to “Üzen a Hargita”. In any case, the influence of these early press products was negligible, 4/ and we are not aware of any significant impact they may have had before 1935.
The press sympathetic to the Jews (or at least not anti-Semitic) was only able to effectively oppose the above-mentioned newspapers and pamphlets only in the first two phases. After the Arrow Cross takeover, this practically ceased. Among these papers there were genuinely pro-Semitic papers (typically maintained by Jews) and newspapers that tried to avoid the subject.
Second phase (1935–1938)
From 1935 onwards, the situation outlined above changed: anti-Semitism became “fashionable”.
Anti-Semitic articles often referred to one of the basic tenets of anti-Semitic ideology: the disproportionate economic influence of Jews. The Győri Nemzeti Hírlap (GyNH, daily in Győr – ed.), founded in 1936, revived this cliché in its very first issue and promised to “pay special attention to the problems of small merchants and craftsmen.” 5/ This was followed by a series of articles against Jewish shopkeepers: in less than a year, between 1937 and 1938, the GyNH published at least eight articles against Jews running shops where Christians did their shopping. Journalists found fault in everything: some pointed out that although the posters advertising any commercial action could only be put up only on Monday mornings, a Jewish-owned shop had already displayed one on Sunday evening. This campaign laid the foundations for the rise of the anti-Semitic press in Győr.
Despite (or perhaps because of) the GyNH’s anti-Semitic outbursts, it became the most widely read daily newspaper in Győr. There are numerous signs that anti-Semitism appearing in the press soon escalated into hysteria, such as a letter to the editor (allegedly written by children) proves in the GyNH Forum column on July 23, 1937: “We have time during vacation. Walking down the street, we are making a list of acquaintances who do their shopping in Jewish stores.”
This period came to an end with the announcement of the Győr Program, which paved the way for widely-spread anti-Semitism in politics. In his speech in Győr on March 5, 1938, Prime Minister Kálmán Darányi announced that, in addition to a 600 million Pengő military spending, he would “solve the Jewish question.” Darányi saw the solution in a so-called “change of guard,” which essentially meant pushing Jews to sidelines of the economy. Although Darányi was not a radical anti-Semite, the fact that he spoke about the “Jewish question” as head of government gave free rein to anti-Semitism in politics.
Third phase (1938–1945)
Darányi’s program in Győr marked the beginning of a new era in the escalation of anti-Semitism throughout the country, including Győr. Although most articles up to this point had attacked Jews as “usurers,” now the Hungarian identity and even the humanity of Jews began to be questioned.
Of course, this only intensified the propaganda campaign, which did not spare Christians shopping in Jewish stores: in April 1939, the Turul Association (an extreme right movement – ed.) in Győr announced a photo contest. The winner was the “patriot” who took the best photo on a predetermined theme (i.e. Christians shopping in Jewish shops – ed.). An important criterion in the judging was the recognizability of the subject’s face. 6/
The tone became increasingly harsh. By early 1945, short news items appeared, such as “Jews at the head of the Romanian police,” 7/ which claimed that the Soviets were torturing Romanians with the help of Jews, as well as longer, half-page articles such as “Jewish letter about Jews.” This article published a (possibly fictitious) letter from a Jew addressed to converted Jews. According to the author of the letter, Jews who had converted under political pressure could be described as follows: “Judaism has not lost much and Christianity has not gained much with them.” It goes on to note that things would not have developed this far if Jews had “paid more attention to social problems.” The “writer of the letter” then remarks that there are many factories “where workers still work for starvation wages, while others pocket huge profits.” The letter is signed: “A Hungarian Jew.” In addition to this letter, the author of the article points out that a Jew cannot be a Hungarian, as he is unable to resist profit.
Pohárnok (Jenő Pohárnok, 1898-1962; Arrow Cross journalist – ed.) took over the GyNH in 1940, and its inflammatory activities remained as intense as ever. In 1944, one month after the deportation of the Jews, Pohárnok wrote an article entitled “The Jews are gone, but the poisoning of souls continues.” 8/
Pohárnok’s article begins by describing how the Jews are ” moving into ghettos of real work” “the place of their well-deserved punishment,” where they will experience the eternal fate of “millions of Hungarians.” Despite this fair punishment, three Christian men sighed and shouted farewell to the Jews with cries of “Goodbye!” in the streets, so the officers drove these men into the ranks of the Jews, a move, that immediately dampened sympathy for the Jews. Pohárnok then draws attention to the fact that “liberals, Jew-lovers, half-Jews, and Jews without stars” like these men pose a threat to the Hungarian nation. In order to counter their influence, Pohárnok says that the Hungarians are now punishing the Jews for their past crimes, and that they are completely justified in doing so.
The entire article is actually a kind of self-justification. It is as if Pohárnok is trying to convince his own conscience, obsessively preoccupied with the fate of the Jews. Incidentally, the article was written a month after the deportation of the Jews, as it would otherwise make no sense to mention the event. It is possible that the “three Christian men” mentioned in the article are not real, but merely a figment of Pohárnok’s imagination.
Let us move on, however, and examine Pohárnok’s excuses. The first argument is essentially the dehumanization of Jews: there is no need to feel sorry for them, they are disgusting and filthy anyway. The second argument is presented at the end of the first column: they are only going to work, it won’t really be bad for them (at this point, most of Hungarian society was probably already aware of the extermination camps). After this, Pohárnok essentially attempts to dull his own conscience and that of his readers by offering various analogies to suggest that the Jews actually deserved what they got.
This brings us to one of the key points in Pohárnok’s thinking: how is this different from the hanging of communists? It is important to understand that Pohárnok and his contemporaries had lived through World War I, followed by the Red and White Terrors, and at the time of writing, there was another war going on. Pohárnok’s generation was therefore accustomed to violence (or at least to the proximity of violence), and settling matters through murder had been normal for twenty years, so why was it any different now? He then goes on to emphasize that “the Jews are guilty, they are getting what they deserve, and indeed, this is only fair.” “We did not kill a single Jew; we did not torture a single Jew.” With all this, Pohárnok already considered the Holocaust a thing of the past in 1944.
Many distinct elements played a role in creating this atmosphere, a number of which appeared even within a single article. The idea of “racial hygiene,” which was the rallying cry of anti-Semitism in Hitler’s Germany 9/, appeared rarely or only in the form of references in anti-Semitic newspapers in Győr (e.g., in the GyNH or Felső-dunántúli Hétfő, another paper in the region – ed.). A much more common method was to portray Jews as saboteurs, as “Galicianers” who stole from and lived off the “Hungarian worker,” who wanted him dead, who were immoral and who pulled the strings of the Western powers. The image of Jews presented by GyNH, Felső-dunántúli Hétfő, and their counterparts belonged to the “völkisch” (ethnic) variety of anti-Semitism, and it is a fact that there was not much of Hitler’s pseudo-scientific anti-Semitism in any of them. Jews appeared in these newspapers on a daily basis, often in just half a sentence, but major anti-Semitic articles were also published at irregular intervals. The end of this era is easy to determine: as soon as the Soviet occupation forces arrived, the GyNH and other similar newspapers were banned, and Pohárnok fled abroad as a war criminal.
Conclusion
The recurring motif in all three phases was envy of Jewish wealth. Pohárnok’s pamphlets were already “fighting” against Jewish businesses in 1920, and in 1944 articles about confiscated Jewish property appeared one after another, clearly aimed at stirring up envy. 10/ This furious envy served as the basis for the astonishing level of hatred that was further fuelled by other conspiracy theories.
Anti-Semitism that unfolded in the Győr-based print media was therefore fundamentally different from Nazi racial theory, as it was based on much simpler emotions and its main target audience was made up of less educated people with simpler mindset. Jenő Pohárnok’s article mentioned earlier is an excellent example of this.
All we can do against the narrative constructed by Pohárnok and the anti-Semitic press, which presents the Holocaust as insignificant or justified, is to not let the topic fade into oblivion, to not ignore it, and to exercise solidarity in our considerations behind any position we take.
Literature used
Books, studies: Frank N. Schubert: The Past Is Not Past (see: here – ed.); Paul Johnson: A History of the Jews (see: here – ed.); István Domán: The History of the Jewish Community in Győr (see: here – ed.); István Nagy: Quiritatio – Scream. The Jewish Tragedy in Győr 1938-1945 (see: here – ed.)
Newspapers, websites: various issues of Győri Nemzeti Hírlap, Felső-dunántúli Hétfő, and Dunántúli Hírlap
Wikipedia: Jenő Pohárnok: born in 1898, he became a teacher after serving in the military. In 1927, he joined the Kisfaludy Literary Circle, founded by Vilma Popper (see: Vilma Popper, Győr’s forgotten writer; the Popper-Pohárnok “contradiction” is discussed in detail in F. N. Schubert’s book The past is not past – ed.). It is certain that he knew Popper and was aware of her Jewishness. Popper was deported in 1944, Pohárnok was declared a war criminal and fled to Bavaria. During his lifetime, he wrote numerous poems, youth novels and plays in Hungarian and German. He died in 1962.
Notes
1/ István Domán: The History of the Jewish Community in Győr 1930–1947, National Representation of Hungarian Jews, Budapest, 1979, p. 20
2/ István Porond: Mozgó műremekek a győri utcákon (Moving masterpieces on the streets of Győr), Győri Nemzeti Hírlap, July 23, 1944, p. 8.
3/ István Nagy: Quiritatio. Scream. The Jewish Tragedy in Győr, 1938–1945, Jewish Community of Győr, Győr, 2010, p. 66
4/ Domán: op. cit., p. 20
5/ A Nemzeti Hírlap útja (The Mission of Győri Nemzeti Hírlap), Győri Nemzeti Hírlap, 18 October 1936, p. 1
6/ “Unmasking the nominal Christians” (letter to the editor), Győri Nemzeti Hírlap, April 12, 1939, p. 4
7/ Jews at the head of the Romanian police, Győri Nemzeti Hírlap, January 6, 1945, 5.
8/ Pohárnok Jenő: The Jews are gone, but the poisoning of souls continues, Győri Nemzeti Hírlap, July 23, 1944, p. 5.
9/ Paul Johnson: A History of the Jews, Európa, Budapest, 2001, p. 565
Edited and translated into English by Péter Krausz