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.
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.
Hitler supported Hungarian aims as it suited his own power goals: when Czechoslovakia was dismantled, he allowed Hungary to regain the southern part of Upper Hungary (the First Vienna Award). Later, during the occupation of Prague, Hungary took control of Carpathian Ruthenia by military force, which incidentally restored the Polish-Hungarian border and enabled tens of thousands of Poles to escape Nazi occupation months later.
Hitler needed Romania as an ally, so he only permitted the partition of Transylvania (the Second Vienna Award), while in the case of Yugoslavia, the Hungarian army joined the German attack. This led to Prime Minister Pál Teleki’s suicide. As a consequence, the United Kingdom did not declare war on Hungary.
Hungary initially did not join the attack on the Soviet Union, only doing so after the alleged Soviet bombing of Kassa. Hungarian forces increasingly participated in Nazi Germany’s eastern campaign, with earlier decisions overturning the Treaty of Trianon, strengthening the commitment to Hitler. Despite this, Governor Horthy and his circle tried to expand Hungary’s options, even reaching preliminary armistice talks with the Western Allies. However, the Germans were fully aware and on 19 March 1944 decided to occupy Hungary militarily.
A sad development was that Horthy remained in power following the occupation but did not always use his authority fully when he could have, such as in protecting the rural Jewish population. Hungary’s attempt to break away from the Axis only happened in October, but the effort failed on 15 October; Horthy was taken prisoner to Germany, and the German puppet government urged steadfast loyalty to Nazi Germany until April 1945.
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