Apor Vilmos
This post was written by students of the Czuczor Gergely Benedictine High School in Győr, Lili Flinger, Anna Hordós and Dorottya Kispál, for the 2024 high school contest organized by the Jewish Roots in Győr Charitable Foundation on the Jewish heritage of Győr and its surroundings entitled “Their Fate – Our History”, under the guidance of history teacher Tamás Cséfalvay. The group came in second place in the contest.
We have already published a post of similar contents about Bishop Apor on our website. Given his outstanding personality and his very honourable, even self-sacrificing, exemplary conduct during World War II and especially during the persecution of the Jews, we consider it justified to present him again, this time through the writing of Benedictine students from Győr.
Vilmos Apor is one of the most important figures in Hungarian Catholic Church history. Although attempts were made to erase his memory from the Hungarian public consciousness during the one-party rule, he occupies an important place in the hearts of the people of Győr. The fundamental question of Christian theology and philosophy is freedom. Apor’s Christian nature gave people freedom in itself. In the spring of 1945, he sacrificed his own life to protect defenceless women. Martyrdom also means that one’s life path has converged at a single point, which is another path to enlightenment. In a theological sense, martyrdom gives meaning to his life, but history focuses much more on his life. It is not the circumstances of his death that give meaning to the high priest’s life, yet this tragic event continues to give hope to many believers to this day.
The Beginnings
Vilmos Apor was born on February 29, 1892, in Segesvár into a noble family. His father, Gábor Apor, was a senior county administrator and later a ministerial secretary. His mother, Fidéla Pálffy, kept a firm hand on the family but raised her children with love. His father died unexpectedly when Vilmos was six years old. From an early age, Vilmos consciously prepared himself for a career in the priesthood. When he joined the Jesuit order, he undertook a rigorous training program. He studied theology in Innsbruck and was ordained a priest in Nagyvárad in 1915. He began his priestly service in the town of Gyula, later serving as parish priest. During the World War, he took the fate of the fallen and the destitute to heart. He interceded on behalf of the citizens of Gyula who had been deported during the Romanian occupation. In his good service, Apor always looked at the person, never at their origin or religion. From 1920 onwards, he carried out serious pastoral and social work. He ran a soup kitchen and organized collections for the impoverished. Social status was not important to him; contrary to the social spirit of the time, he also helped the poor. He sided with the legitimists, who recognized Charles IV and his successors as the legitimate heads of the Hungarian state, which is why his relationship with Horthy was somewhat ambivalent.
The Bishop of Győr and the Holy Cross Association
A major turning point in his life came when Pope Pius XII appointed him bishop of Győr. He was consecrated on February 24, 1941. He arrived in Győr on March 1, and his official inauguration took place the following day. In early 1941, Archbishop Serédi appointed him president of the Hungarian Holy Cross Association. The Hungarian Holy Cross Association was an organization representing the interests of Jews who had converted to Roman Catholicism between 1939 and 1944.
“… I am not averse to accepting the position of president of the Hungarian Holy Cross Association, although I know it will be a difficult task. However, before I make a final decision, I would like to learn more about the association’s activities to date. May I ask Your Eminence to keep the matter pending until I have had sufficient time to gather the necessary information?”
Finally, Apor accepted the position of president. The archbishop formally worked within the association to ensure that the community, which had converted to Catholicism, could survive this period with the least possible losses.
His humanity during World War II and the Persecution of the Jews
During the war, in 1943, Serédi also entrusted him with the organization of the emerging modern Catholic political movement. On August 26, 1943, Catholic public figures of the time gathered at the bishop’s palace in Győr to discuss the possibilities of Christian politics, in opposition to the political course of the era. As a compromise between the new forces and the old players, he created the Catholic Social People’s Movement, of which he became the patron and sociologist Béla Kovrig, rector of the University of Kolozsvár (Cluj), became the president. Later, this community formed the Democratic People’s Party.
The German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944 brought about a significant change in the situation of Hungarian citizens classified as Jews and foreign Jewish refugees, who, despite all the attacks and deprivation of rights, had survived the war almost unharmed and whose lives were not in danger. The Nazis’ plan was to deport Jews to concentration camps, and they counted on the Hungarian gendarmerie and police to help carry out the plan. The new Sztójay government, which served the Germans, issued a multitude of decrees aimed at segregating Jews, restricting their livelihoods, and depriving them of their property. After the ghettoization of the Jews, deportations began, which took place between May 14 and July 19, 1944. The Archbishop protested behind the scenes to the government against the measures affecting the Jews, but the episcopate was divided on whether they should give guidance to the faithful by going public. Some of the bishops, including Vilmos Apor, represented the latter opinion.
“And whoever rejects the fundamental law of Christianity concerning love and claims that there are people, groups, and races that it is permissible to hate, and proclaims that it is permissible to torture people, whether they be Negroes or Jews, no matter how much he boasts of being a Christian, is like a pagan and a public sinner.”
Endgame in Győr
Vilmos Apor protested against the establishment of the Győr ghetto and persistently urged the publication of a circular letter from the bishops. When he received the Archbishop’s circular letter, he wrote to him that he was saddened by his decision not to issue a joint pastoral letter, because the government would interpret this as weakness and take it as encouragement to “continue on the dangerous path it had embarked upon. “The faithful cannot be made aware of the bishops’ principled position and practical steps, “and so we are also responsible for the fact that many people, with more or less good faith, participate in the implementation of cruel and unjust measures and approve of reprehensible doctrines,“ Apor warned. He stated that he was aware that going public could have consequences, including newspaper debates, smear campaigns against priests, financial restrictions, deprivation of rights, and possibly even imprisonment and torture. “However, I am convinced that we must take this risk, and that in the end, the faith of our followers will be strengthened and the authority of our church will be consolidated as a result of this struggle.”
In his letter to Jusztinián Serédi dated June 15, 1944, Vilmos Apor wrote: “How will we stand up to history if we remain in apparent agreement and polite relations with a government that tortures hundreds of thousands of people across the country with the utmost cruelty, deprives them of all their human rights, and assists in their deportation to slave labour and death?”
In his letter dated June 17, 1944, Bishop Vilmos Apor of Győr once again emphasized this pastoral point of view to Archbishop Jusztinián Serédi: “In the confessional, the question arises whether it is permissible to feel sorry for those poor, tortured Jews. Yesterday, elderly, religious woman told me, almost fearfully and in a whisper, as if she had committed a sin, that she had given bread to people locked up in the ghetto. […] We need to provide our faithful with consistent and decisive teaching and guidance on current issues. The faithful must know that state control that places race above moral and individual responsibility, that preaches hatred and revenge instead of love, that tortures innocent children with its methods, is wrong. They must know that sin must not be promoted or endorsed, even if it is committed by state authorities. They must know what the universal human rights are, which even the state must not violate. My conscience compels me to bring all this before Your Highness with the words “Ceterum censeo…” that we must go before the general public “importune opportune” with those eternal moral truths that are now urgent, that now give a firm direction to doubting and misguided minds”.
He tried to intercede on behalf of those who had been ghettoized and imprisoned with Jenő Apor Koller, mayor of Győr, and Richárd Kászonyi, senior county administrator. He also tried to gain access to the collection camp on Budai Road, but ultimately failed because, although Andor Jaross initially granted permission, State Secretary László Baky overturned the decision.
After the German occupation and the Arrow Cross takeover, Bishop Vilmos Apor stood up for the persecuted regardless of their religion or ethnicity. He harshly criticized and condemned the existing order, personally defending the vulnerable against the German and Arrow Cross leaders (1945). However, his protests, petitions, and telegrams sent on behalf of the Jews remained ineffective. He hid some of those who turned to him, or sent them on to Nuncio Angelo Rotta, who issued thousands of letters of protection, or to his sister, Gizella Apor, head of the Hungarian Red Cross. He also helped the city’s civilian population, working with monastery leaders to provide shelter for many refugees, especially after the bombing of Győr in April 1944. During this period, he developed close ties with Lajos Shvoy, Bishop of Székesfehérvár, and József Mindszenty, Bishop of Veszprém, both of whom served in Transdanubia.
On March 28, 1945 (Holy Wednesday), the siege of Győr began. The retreating Germans also fired on the city, hitting the cathedral. The bishop took in all the refugees, and hundreds of people found shelter in the cellars of the Bishop’s Palace. He celebrated his last Mass here on Maundy Thursday.
On March 30, after refusing to hand over the women who had taken refuge in his residence, a Soviet soldier fatally wounded him during a scuffle. Sándor Pálffy, the bishop’s nephew, who was 17 at the time, jumped in front of his uncle and was hit by three bullets. The bishop was also hit by three bullets, one grazing his forehead, the second piercing his cassock and shirt cuff on his right arm, and the third—the fatal bullet—penetrating his abdomen. Vilmos Apor was transported through the besieged city to a hospital, where he was operated on by the light of a kerosene lamp, but he died of his injuries at 1 a.m. on April 2, Easter Monday. His exemplary life and martyr’s death elevate him to the ranks of the greatest figures of Hungarian Christianity.
References
Berkes Tímea: The “Final Solution” in Győr-Moson-Pozsony County. Thesis. JATE BTK Department of Modern and Contemporary Universal History. Szeged, 1995.
Jubilee Years and Catholic Renewal. Selected Writings of Balázs Csíky. METEM, Budapest, 2021.
Viktor Attila Soós: The Activities of Vilmos Apor, Bishop of Győr, in 1944-1945. Saving Lives During the Holocaust. In: Martyrs and Rescuers (ed. László Szelke). Szent István Társulat, Budapest, 2022.
Edited and translated into English by Péter Krausz