By Polly Johnson
Senior Desk Officer, Europe
BUDAPEST, Hungary – Hungary’s National Bureau of Investigation (NNI) will launch an inquiry into alleged war crimes committed by the Soviet army more than sixty years ago in Osaszfalu, near Zirc, Veszprém County, according to Hungarian newspaper Magyar Hírlap.
During World War II, Red Army soldiers allegedly shot thirty-two men and boys while their parents watched. Reports vary as to whether the dead were buried in mass graves or in pits.
It is the first time in Hungary’s history that the Soviet Red Army and the secret police, the NKVD, have been accused of mass atrocities and war crimes. It is widely known that both groups committed mass looting, rape, murder, and deportations.
The murders remained a secret while the Soviets occupied the small village from 1945 until 1989. It was not until ten years after the Soviets left that families erected tombstones and raised memorials.
A Hungarian website reporting the allegations quotes Jozsef Toth, the vice mayor of the village, who said: “They laid them in a long trench, a few centimeters from each other. None of them were given coffins, they just took them off a wagon where they lay wrapped in sheets, there was no funeral. Neither priest, nor the families, not even the mothers could weep above those murdered.”
In related news, ninety-seven year old Hungarian Sándor Kepiro, a former police captain and alleged Nazi war crimes criminal who was acquitted this year, died on September 3.
Kepiro was acquitted in July of charges of the deaths of thirty-six civilians in northern Serbia during World War II raids by Hungarian forces. More than 1,200 civilians, mostly Serbs and Jews, were killed during the raids. The massacre became known as the Novi Sad massacre.
His case was turned over to the Hungarian authorities in 2006 by the Simon Wiesenthal center, which had deemed him the most-wanted Nazi war crimes criminal. He admitted to rounding people up prior to the massacre, but denied shooting or ordering anyone to be shot.
Kepiro had been found guilty in two previous trials, first in 1944, and second, in 1946. He was released after his first conviction because Germany was under the control of Nazis. By the time of his second conviction, Kepiro had fled to Argentina.
For more information, please see:
Digital Journal – First-ever war crimes prosecution against Soviet Army in Hungary – 12 September 2011
Budapest Times – Suspect dies after war crimes acquittal – 12 September 2011
New York Times – Sandor Kepiro Dies at 97; Acquitted of Holocaust-Era Crimes – 4 September 2011
Politics.hu – Hungarian investigators to probe alleged Soviet war crime – 29 August 2011
