Abstract
Reviewed by: Antal Szántay, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary
Eugene (Jenő) Thassy’s four-volume memoirs were published in Hungarian between 1996 and 2002. Now, the first volume is available in an excellent English translation. The volume, containing probably the most exciting part of Thassy’s life, starts with a pre-birth tragedy. On November 9, 1919, nine Serb soldiers from the occupying forces raided the family’s manor house in Drávatamási right at the Drava River, the new border of Hungary, killing the father and the little son and severely injuring the pregnant mother. She was saved only thanks to the local doctor. Jenő Thassy was born some months later in 1920, and died in 2008. He graduated from the Ludovika Military Academy in Budapest and served as a young army officer during World War II. After the war, he worked in the Budapest police, but then left Hungary on 6 December 1946. He lived in France for five years and then in the US before returning to Europe in 1952 to work at Radio Free Europe and, from 1973, at Voice of America. This volume covers his life up to mid-February 1945, the end of the siege of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army.
The Thassys were of the landed gentry, their nobility dating back to the beginnings of the seventeenth century. The family had numerous links with the Transdanubian aristocracy. Jenő Thassy’s mother was a Baroness Inkey and her mother, a Countess Zichy. This was the traditional elite of Hungary, with its castles and manor houses, its libraries filled with books and journals in German, French and English, and its European horizon and open-mindedness. They retained some influence in politics, as exemplified by the two great and tragic prime ministers of the era, Count István Bethlen and Count Pál Teleki, idealized by the young Jenő Thassy. However, traditional aristocratic and noble elites were no longer able to monopolize power. Their legitimacy was called into question by the collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I, by economic change and by popular politics on the right as well as on the left. They had to give way increasingly to nationalism, to the orientation towards Nazi Germany, and to mob politics. These elites were exterminated finally by the communist regime established by Soviet support after World War II.
This volume is a kind of swan song for the noble elites of Hungary. Jenő Thassy gives a lively description with vivid details of his childhood at home, his mother’s struggle with the land and her tenants for securing the necessities, his exceptional education under the Jesuits in Pécs and in Kalocsa, where the pupils ran even a film club. A mentor was Baron Imre Biedermann, a homo novus of Jewish origin, landlord of Szentegát, propagator of modern agricultural technologies, politician and MP. He together with Count Rudolf Erdődy and Count Frigyes Széchenyi supported Jenő’s application to the sixth grade of the Royal Hungarian Miklós Zrinyi Cadet School at Pécs, where, owing to his family’s financial problems, Jenő intended to continue his schooling. His application was personally rejected by Gyula Gömbös, the pro-Hitler, anti-Semitic and anti-royalist prime minister. Young Thassy’s grandfather stepped in, requesting an audience with Regent Miklós Horthy, the ‘managing interloper’ as the grandfather used to designate him. Some days later the prime minister’s office was informed that the applicant was to be admitted on the order of the supreme commander and head of state. The description of the years in the military school recalls the famous novels of Géza Ottlik (‘School at the Frontier’) and Robert Musil (‘The Confusions of Young Törless’). Here he stayed together with his school friend, Guido Görgey whose mother and brothers provided a surrogate for Thassy’s family throughout his life. They graduated in 1941 just as Hungary went to war – in April with Yugoslavia and in late June with the Soviet Union. Serving in Kassa (today Košice in Slovakia) the young officer faced the problems of disordered troops returning from the eastern front. His commanding officer there was Colonel Jenő Nagy, who, together with Lieutenant Colonel Pál Almásy, Lieutenant General János Kiss, Colonel Vilmos Tartsay and some other officers formed an anti-Nazi resistance organization under the political leadership of Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky. Thassy left Kassa in spring 1943 and stayed in Budapest in the Garrison Hospital in Alkotás Street, his place of refuge, while working at the Ministry of Defence. The Military Hospital of Buda was also a centre of resistance led by Dean Ferenc Kálló and commanding officer Dr Ferenc Leiter. Allied air force crew members and Jews hid and received help here after Germany occupied Hungary on 19 March 1944. Thassy took an active part in rescue actions, for which Yad Vashem recognized him as ‘Righteous Among The Nations’ in 1993. He came in contact also with ex-officer László Sólyom, an active member of the resistance. Thassy’s memoirs recount the terrible siege of Budapest which he survived together with his friend Guido Görgey. After ‘liberation’ they were both recruited by Sólyom, the new head of the Budapest police. The volume is rounded off with an epilogue, some photographs, maps, and a name index, as well as with an introduction by Prof István Deák of Columbia University.
Thassy’s memoirs read like a novel, and indeed were intended to be a novel, albeit non-fiction. Already in his youth, Thassy was interested in literature, and wanted to become a writer. His memoirs are a dramatic composition with action and excitement, filled with vivid dialogues, colourful descriptions and characterizations. At the same time, they tell a true story of his life, and those of his friends and acquaintances in Hungary during the tragic period between 1919 and 1945 – a story of righteous women and men worthy of remembrance.