Sandor Kepiro and the question of Hungarian justice

„In short, Kepiro’s conviction appeared almost certain, but in fact, the opposite occurred. This past July 18, Judge Bela Varga announced that although Kepiro may not have been innocent, the prosecution had failed to prove his guilt. In this respect, the key element was Varga’s highly questionable decision to totally disqualify all the evidence gathered in conjunction with Kepiro’s 1944 conviction as well as the incriminating testimony from 1948.

What is particularly telling in this regard was the judge’s basis for doing so, which was scandalously selective. He disqualified the 1944 verdict, for example, because it had been subsequently canceled by a Hungarian court, but neglected to mention the obvious reason for the cancellation, which only took place after Hungary was occupied by Nazi Germany. As far as the 1948 testimony was concerned, he claimed that the witness must have either been tortured or testified under duress since Hungary was then under communist rule – without presenting any evidence whatsoever to prove his claim. In other words, when it suited him, he took into account the political circumstances at the time, and when it didn’t serve his purposes, he neglected to do so.

EVERY DEMOCRACY claims its judiciary is independent, but there is no doubt that the courts also, to a large extent, reflect local political opinions and prejudices. The jubilant response in the courtroom by dozens of fascists who had come to support Kepiro is only the tip of the iceberg of a nasty wave of historical revisionism that threatens to engulf Hungary – a country that, like its post-communist counterparts, is having severe difficulties in acknowledging the role of local Nazi collaborators in Holocaust crimes and imparting that painful fact to the younger generation.

While significant progress has been made, especially following the opening of Budapest’s excellent Holocaust museum – a beacon of historical truth in an increasingly dreary landscape – the landslide victory of the right-wing FIDESZ party and the strong showing by the extremists of Jobbik in last year’s election have significantly altered political realities, all of which make the verdict in the Kepiro case of far greater significance than his personal fate.”