Albert Wass is still a war criminal in Romania

According to index.hu, the case, which declared Albert Wass and his father war criminals and sentenced them to death in Romania in the late forties, will not be discussed again, so the judgement remains in force in Romania. But if you look closely at the allegations against Albert Wass, it turns out that not the Romanian court should rule: it would be easier to analyze the activities of the Hungarian military courts, martial squads and counterintelligence units. The conclusive documents about Albert Wass may lie in Budapest, in a deeply–buried military archive.

The Cluj court recently dismissed the application of revision in the Albert Wass case. The Transylvanian count and his father were declared war criminals in the second half of the forties (in 1946 or in 1948, there are contradictory data). Both were sentenced to death because of their instigating role in the executions in Omboztelek and Vasszentgotthard. The executions took place in 1940, when Horthy took control of northern Transylvania after the Second Vienna Award.

The news of the judgement reached Wass in Germany, where he came there in 1944 and he lived in the USA from 1952. The USA authorities knew about the Romanian judgement, but they didn’t consider it so serious that they shouldn’t let the writer in, and he could teach in a university in Florida. Gyorgy Frunda RMDSZ Senator tried to achieve the acquittal of Albert Wass, or at least he wanted a retrial in 2003, but it was rejected a few years ago.

The current, 2007 Cluj decision means that the judgement remains in force in Romania. The application was submitted by Andreas Wass von Czege (the writer’s son) and lawyer Elod Kincses. According to the Romanian Hungarian Paprika Radio, the decision was not justified by the judges. The lawyer may appeal against the decision in 10 days, and Kincses will do it at the court.

Kincses based his submission by that they found contemporary documents in the archives of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Defense which prove that Albert Wass had nothing to do with the executions, index.hu said.

After the Second Vienna Award, Hungarian soldiers arrived in northern Transylvania, and the Romanian population suffered several atrocities. Some of them were suspected because of communist ties, but there were Jews among the victims as well.

The case came back still under the Hungarian authority, in 1944, but they military authorities didn’t allow the exhumation of the corpses. After all this, the question arises why the current Hungarian authorities don’t deal  with the case and help clarifying Albert Wass.

According to the study of Karoly Vekov, count Endre Wass (the father of Albert) was mentioned a lot in the People’s Court lawsuit, but Albert Wass was barely mentioned. The reason for this may be that Albert Wass was hunting in the area, he wasn’t in the center of the estate. Vekov says the younger Wass was implicated in the trial because the villagers want to get the Wass-lands, which were confiscated from the Hungarian aristocrats referring to the sentence of death.

based on the article of index.hu
translated by BA

Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ Gabor Pilise

Source: http://index.hu