The Tószegi Affair in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume 36:2

The Tószegi Affair: Rumors, “The People’s Verdicts,” and Provincial Antisemitism in Hungary, 1919–1921

This study examines popular reaction to the arrest and execution of three Jewish men by the infamous Prónay Detachment in Hungary in the fall of 1919. The article seeks to measure the intensity of anti-Jewish sentiments among the members of the provincial middle class and peasantry and to examine the qualitative changes that had taken place in the nature of Hungarian antisemitism as a result of the war, the democratic revolution and Communist dictatorship. Finally, the article looks at the responsibility of the Hungarian political and military elite, including that of Admiral Miklós Horthy the commander of the National Army, for the triple murder and the more than sixty pogroms that had taken place in Hungary in 1919 and 1920.