500-year-old religious text stolen by the Nazis returns to Hungary

Representatives of the US authorities on Wednesday returned to Hungarian ownership a valuable early modern Jewish religious text looted by the Nazis in Hungary in 1944.

500-year-old religious text returned

The Di Gara text was handed over to Gábor Balázs, rector of the National Rabbinical Seminary – Jewish University in Budapest, by Jay Clayton, the new federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, at a ceremony held at the Hungarian Consulate General in New York.

Szabolcs Takács, Hungary’s ambassador, expressed thanks on behalf of the government for the joint efforts of numerous institutions and experts, including lawyers, scholars, and government officials in Hungary and the United States, enabling the return of the approximately 500-year-old book to Hungary.

The Di Gara text dates back to the 16th century and it is named after its creator, Giovanni Di Gara, a Venetian Hebrew book printer.

The two-part publication was purchased in the 19th century by an Italian rabbi, Lelio Della Torre, and then became the property of the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest in 1877. In 1944, during Nazi occupation, the institution was looted and the document disappeared.

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In March 2023, Hungarian authorities noticed the book on an online auction site specializing in rare books, where it was being sold for 19,000 dollars. The New York owner said that he had purchased the document in 1980, unaware of its stolen origin. The US authorities, with the assistance of the Department of Homeland Security, seized the stolen item, and a court approved its return to Hungarian ownership after 81 years.

Why did Nazi Germany occupy our country?

Until 1941, Hungary was not a belligerent in the Second World War. Due to the injustices of the Treaty of Trianon, the Hungarian political elite drifted towards Nazi Germany, hoping that the dictator with great power ambitions in the region would help reclaim the territories with significant Hungarian populations that were lost on 4 June 1920.