Turbulent Life Story of the Son of József Glück, renowned Photographer from Győr
Compiled by Péter Krausz
A controversial figure. It is not up to me to judge his life and career, or the accuracy of the information I have found.
Perhaps in the 1970s, at a Holocaust memorial service in the cemetery, my mother pointed out Borsa Misi in the distance, a childhood acquaintance, and they greeted each other. “He always comes with a different lady”, my mother used to say. Perhaps in the 1980s, my wife, a novice lawyer, officially visited Mihály Borsa, the chairman of the Central Social Committee, at the office of the National Representation of Hungarian Jews, on behalf of a client.
Borsa had led an incredibly varied life. He had risen to the highest ranks of Hungarian political and Jewish community circles. He was a lawyer before the war and a politician in the Smallholders’ Party. One of the first to be deported from Hungary to Nazi concentration camps, lost his family, and after the war became a member of the National Assembly, held high government offices, and was president of the Joint organization in Hungary and head of the aforementioned social committee.
In this article, I present some details of Borsa’s life with the help of internet sources. The biographical details are taken from Péter Kozák’s notes on the life of Mihály Borsa. [1] The paragraphs on the machinations of the state security services against Borsa are quotations from an article written in April this year by historian László Bernát Veszprémy, with minor editorial changes. [2] (Other sources are indicated separately throughout the text – ed.).
I will leave it to the reader to judge.
Son of photographer József Glück, his schools [1]
He was born on February 25, 1906, in Győr, the son of Mihály Glück (Glück József, the photographer of the old Győr – ed.) and Janka Singer (“Névpont” cited incorrectly gives her name as Johanna – ed.). Died on November 16, 1986, in Budapest. He took the name Borsa in 1945.
He studied at the Jewish community’s school in Győr, then graduated from today’s Révai Gymnasium, in 1924. Afterwards, he studied at the École des Hautes Études Sociales and the Paris School of Journalism (1924–1927). Upon his return, he obtained a doctorate in political science and law from the Erzsébet University of Sciences in Pécs (1929).
In this way, he managed to circumvent the discriminatory restrictions of the numerus clausus. At the age of twenty-three, with excellent schools behind him and valuable diplomas in his pocket, he began his professional career (ed.).
Early years [1]
He began his career as a reporter in Győr for the Est newspaper (1927–1929), then worked as an employee of the Győr District Chamber of Commerce and Industry (1929–1935) as a clerk and industrial affairs officer (1935–1939). He lost his job in 1939 due to anti-Jewish laws. He became an employee of the Pesti Izraelita Hitközség (Pest Jewish Community) (1943–1944).
1944 [1]
After the German occupation of Hungary, he was arrested while trying to escape on March 20, 1944. As a politician belonging to the Smallholders’ Party, he was interned in Kistarcsa and then deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp with the first transport of political prisoners. He was later sent to several camps, and after the liberation of Dachau, he became a member of the local Hungarian committee from May to September 1945.
His four-year-old daughter and wife, who had been deported to Auschwitz, were murdered. This tragedy left an indelible mark on his life, and he never started a new family (see Kol Israel – ed.).
After liberation: work, politics, Jewish organizations [1]
Member of the Independent Smallholders Party (FKgP) (since 1935), member of the National Assembly, then member of the Parliament between 1945 and 1949.
In 1945, he held several positions: secretary of the National Association of Hungarian Textile Manufacturers and head of department at the Government Commission for Abandoned Property. He was ministerial advisor to the Ministry of Reconstruction from 1946 to 1948, then in 1948 he became president of the Materials and Prices Office and CEO of the National Honey Company. According to some sources (arcanum.hu – ed.), he was also given the rank of state secretary.
He was appointed president of the Hungarian branch of Joint, an international organization providing aid to victims of fascism, a position he held for thirty years, from 1957 to 1986. At the same time, he became chairman of the Central Social Committee of the Hungarian Jewish Community (MIOK).
Over the decades, his activities were recognized with numerous awards: the Hungarian Order of Merit (bronze, 1947), Order of Merit for Work (gold, 1966), Order of the Flag of the Hungarian People’s Republic (1976), Order of the Flag of the Hungarian People’s Republic with Laurel Wreath (1986).
In the target of state security services [2]
Borsa first came to the attention of state security in 1960, and from 1962 onward, he became a target of internal counterintelligence under the code name ‘Milliomos’ (Millionaire). A range of covert measures and agents were deployed to surveil him, including operational actions and, eventually, a criminal proceeding—all aimed at removing him from his key position in the Jewish community leadership.
During his brief political career, he established a network of connections that he continued to draw on throughout his life. One of his main patrons was the influential communist politician Gyula Ortutay, who often stood up for his former party colleague. One of the first reports on Borsa was filed in April 1960 by an informant codenamed ‘Xavér’ (The codename concealed Ilona Benoschofsky, see Rubicon, see also: Kol Israel – ed.). According to the report, Borsa was ‘a cheerful, good-humored, bohemian man who enjoys living well and merrily…He likes women and often boasts about his successes with them.’ His relationship with the communist leadership of the Jewish community – particularly with Sós – was notably poor, but they were unable to remove him from his position.
An agent codenamed ‘Sárosi’ – identified in the scholarly literature as Géza Seifert, former leading member of the Budapest Israelite Congregation (BIH) and later, after Endre Sós, president of MIOK (operated as an agent under the codename ‘Sípos’, Rubicon – ed.) – criticized Borsa for sitting in the back during MIOK General Assemblies, chatting and laughing—thus ‘disrupting’ the proceedings. Borsa was reportedly fond of boasting about his high-level communist connections … Borsa allegedly named his connections, including not only Ortutay but also Rezső Nyers, the influential Minister of Finance.
A greater problem than the above-mentioned issues was Borsa’s alleged Zionist connections and his friendship with Rabbi Sándor Scheiber. ‘Mihály Borsa fully cooperates with the staunch Zionist Sándor Scheiber,’ wrote one state security officer in a comment.
Borsa had control over significant sums of money: his organization officially distributed one million dollars annually, or 30 million Hungarian forints at the time’s value – a huge sum. However, Borsa boasted in one instance that through other channels, he brought in at least double that amount. ‘He brings in the most dollars, more than any foreign trade company’ and ‘the Party also highly appreciates this activity.’ The vast sums of money ‘were not properly monitored …, and ‘…the aid provided could potentially finance hostile activities’ – according to state security agencies.
His street surveillance was organised; the description of his daily activities can still be consulted in the state security agency files. However, the surveillance only revealed self-evident connections, such as Lipót Hermann, painter, or Erwin Haymann, the head of the Swiss Jewish aid organization. The next step was to bug his office at the BIH office premises in 1962. Agent „Sárosi” was instructed by his handler … to build a friendly relationship with Borsa.
| Although the Jewish “community” was observed in the years immediately following 1956, this activity accelerated in 1960 and became systematic. In early summer 1960, Soviet intelligence informed similar agencies in “friendly countries” that “we would like to ask our friends if they could compile and forward to the State Security Council a summary report on the most characteristic trends in Israeli intelligence activities against the people’s democracies and the Soviet Union” (June 17, 1960). In its response to this “friendly request,” the Hungarian counterintelligence service highlighted the “hubs” that should be targeted by intelligence activities relating to Hungarian Jewry: the Israeli embassy, Professor Sándor Scheiber, director of the Rabbinical Seminary, and the community’s foreign relations and finances. The Soviet request accelerated events, because from 1961 onwards, the staff of Subdivision II/5-c of the Political Investigation Department of the Ministry of the Interior began intensive reconnaissance work, coordinated with several subdivisions. An Operational Report dated September 4, 1961, describes in detail the situation of the Jewish “community” and, in addition to the above, draws attention to the activities of the Central Social Committee, which operated with a high degree of autonomy and was headed by Dr. Mihály Borsa. Source: Blackout – State control of Jewish institutions in the early years of the Kádár era, Attila Novák, Rubicon |
There were differences in the assessment of Borsa among various state agencies. Just as the counterintelligence concluded that Borsa was ‘suspected of intelligence activities’, the ÁEH issued the following evaluation: ‘[Borsa] is not a Zionist. His public activities are well-known, and he has always shown loyalty to our government and political system.’
However, the most accurate description of his philosophy was perhaps found in the following report: ‘He is a supporter of this system because he cannot do otherwise. First of all, he is living better than he ever has. No one bothers him, no one disturbs him, so he has no reason for dissatisfaction. Additionally, he admits that he is afraid. Every Jew is afraid, though not all admit it. He is afraid because if any change were to happen here, even if only a 2–3-day period of chaos and transition were to occur, all Jews would be exterminated during that time. Antisemitism is rampant, without reason, as it has never been anywhere before. Without reason, because during Rákosi’s time, it was justified, as the highest leadership was made up entirely of Jews, although these individuals had nothing to do with Judaism, and their crimes were attributed to the Jewish community. But today, this is not the case. The highest leadership has no Jews, but the antisemitism has not disappeared; in fact, it has intensified.’
| Party officials believed that “the Jews” and their stereotypes and connotations were very similar to those before the war. They were convinced that “the Jews” were a separate social group with their own interests, operating a hidden network, whose members, even if they attained high positions in the system, would always remain unreliable, potential agents of the West, who would show their true colours in times of crisis – this was then openly stated by Polish party leader Władysław Gomułka in his famous speech referring to the “imperialist-Zionist fifth column” at a mass rally in June 1967. Source: Interview – “They kept track of who was Jewish,” sociologist András Kovács on anti-Semitism under the Kádár regime, November 23, 2019, MagyarNarancs |
Since the previous investigations did not yield results, a year later, they planned to bug Borsa’s apartment. To do so, they first needed a copy of his apartment key. Since Borsa regularly visited the Rudas Bath with Géza Seifert, it seemed logical to steal the keys from his clothing at that time. … To carry out the operation, they mobilized their agent, ‘Sárosi’, whose job was to ensure that Borsa did not cut his bath visit short that day. The bug was finally installed in his apartment in February 1964.
Starting in April 1964, they began monitoring Borsa’s foreign and domestic correspondence as well.
In the summer of 1964 he visited Poland, and at that time, the Polish state security services were asked to monitor him, but no significant data was gathered. The Hungarian authorities also reached out to the Soviet intelligence services, but for a more sinister matter: they wanted to find out the names of Holocaust survivors living in the Soviet Union who had been imprisoned alongside Borsa in Dachau and other camps. The Hungarian authorities believed that Borsa had been a cruel kapo, and they were seeking evidence to support this. The tip had originally come from ‘Xavér’, whom Borsa had confided in during 1957–58, telling her that ‘he had been a kapo in the concentration camp. This came up when Borsa shared a long story about how he acquired a lot – perhaps 2,000 pieces – of cigarettes and how he manipulated them. He couldn’t have done this any other way, except by having a special position. If I remember correctly, he mentioned Wüstegiersdorf as the camp where he had been to. I think he was also in Dachau.’ The testimonies were continuously collected, even as late as 1968, with the aim of discrediting Borsa, though it seems the case never led to any conclusive findings, other than that he was most likely indeed a kapo. Of course, having been a kapo didn’t necessarily imply that he was also cruel, and we know that the communist secret police often spread false accusations about its enemies.
In the summer of 1965, the state security service concluded that more intensive data collection was needed regarding Borsa’s ‘business’ meetings. They decided to bug the booth No. 4 at the famous Mátyás Pince restaurant, which was known to be reserved for Borsa. … An agent codenamed ‘Pincér’ (‘Waiter’), worked at the restaurant, he was Miklós Oltai, a former Jewish forced labour service member, born in 1916, also a party member, and a ‘workers’ guard’ (munkásőr) since 1957. He assisted in allowing the technical team to carry out the necessary checks during the night. Thanks to his help, they successfully installed the surveillance device at the end of July. However, by October, it was found to be completely useless because noise from the bathroom interfered with the operation. The device had to be removed, which required another lengthy procedure …
Borsa underwent a ‘strict customs inspection’ at Ferihegy airport, but nothing unusual was found … A secret search was also conducted at his residence, but it yielded no results …
Through the examination of his contacts, it was established as a fact that Borsa was in contact with individuals who, according to information, could be agents of British or NATO intelligence, although the Joint was considered a cover operation of the Israeli intelligence service anyway. ‘Considering the above, Dr Mihály Borsa is highly suspected of involvement in intelligence activities … They also collected a few incriminating quotes from him: at one point, Borsa said: ‘I hate the communists’, and at another, he remarked: ‘There is no worse institution than the ÁEH (State Ageny for Cooperation with Churches – ed.). They turn people against each other. They don’t care about the Jewish issue (…) an anti-Semitic group.’ ‘He then elaborated that one should only live among Jews, but added that, of course, not among the kind of Jews that live in Hungary.’
On 1 February 1968, … Borsa was driving with his acquaintance sitting in the car next to him, Béla Steiner, near the town Dunaújváros. He was behind the wheel when the car suddenly skidded off the road into a ditch. Steiner died in the crash. Criminal proceedings were launched against Borsa for negligent endangerment causing death. Behind the scenes, Department III/II-4-a of the Interior Ministry (counterintelligence focused on foreign entities from the Middle East) intervened to ‘ensure that no external interference would be allowed and that the investigation and legal proceedings would be conducted at the prosecutorial and judicial level with strict adherence to socialist legality.’ There are signs they tried to influence the findings of the expert opinion on the accident, although primarily because Borsa himself had started using his connections in the matter. According to agent ‘Sárosi’, Borsa mobilized Ortutay and Sándor Barcs, also of Jewish descent, a former MP of the Smallholders’ Party and member of the Presidential Council …
At this point, it was likely someone from higher up who ordered the secret police to stop the pointless harassment of Borsa. Investigators were instructed that if Borsa had committed a crime, then the criminal proceedings should be implemented, but if not, then ‘the case must be closed’. In the end, Borsa received a three-year suspended prison sentence for the traffic accident, and his file was closed … The secret police were forced to acknowledge, however, that over the course of eight years of operative work, they had ‘not succeeded in obtaining any information that would prove or substantiate the suspicion of espionage’ against him. The listening device installed in his apartment remained active until October 1974 …
Later, it appears that his relationship with the system consolidated (he received numerous honours, as already mentioned – ed.). … When, in the spring of 1969, Iván Beer and István Berger were suspended from the Rabbinical Seminary for Zionist activities, Borsa was requested to support this suspension …
| There were two institutions where party and internal affairs agencies continuously but unsuccessfully attempted to take control from the early 1960s to the 1980s. One was the Rabbinical Training Seminary led by Sándor Scheiber, and the other was the Central Social Committee, which operated within the Jewish community and administered social assistance, led by Mihály Borsa. These two were able to preserve their autonomy, at least in part, although attempts were constantly made to remove them from their positions and to seize the financial resources that made their autonomy possible at all. Source: Interview – “They kept track of who was Jewish,” sociologist András Kovács on anti-Semitism under the Kádár regime, November 23, 2019, MagyarNarancs |
Compiled, edited, and translated into English by Péter Krausz (English translation of the section from the source under footnote 2: Hungarian Conservative)
[1] Notes on Mihály Borsa by Péter Kozák, 2013, Névpont (Other sources used in these chapters are indicated separately – ed.)
[2] Do Millionaires Like Cheese? Covert Measures Against Mihály Borsa, 1960–1974– by László Bernát Veszprémy, 5 April 2025, Hungarian Conservative and Kol Israel (Other sources used in this chapter are indicated separately – ed.)