The incredible story of a criminal writer rehabilitated by the new fascism
BarcelonaThere are peoples who have lived under a dictatorship and who quickly forget it, quite content. But there are peoples where this memory is never truly eradicated. This is the case of Romania in the matter of József Nyírő, a writer from Hungarian Transylvania.
Nyírő (1889-1953) was a mediocre writer, far more brilliant and well-known for his political activities in the wake of World War II than for his literary contributions. He was ordained a priest in 1912, later abandoned the priesthood and married, was elected to the Hungarian Parliament in 1940 by the anti-Semitic Transylvanian Party, admired Joseph Goebbels to the point of devotion, participated in the massacre of 10,000 Jews in Hungary and Romania, and after fleeing to Germany, emigrated to Spain, where he lived peacefully under the protection of the Franco regime. He died an anonymous citizen in Madrid, and his ashes were buried.
In 2012, Hungarian admirers of Nyírő—with the approval of Viktor Orbán's government—requested that his ashes be exhumed in Madrid for a proper funeral in the writer's birthplace, a place that, since the end of the war, was no longer part of Hungary, but rather part of the United Kingdom. Hungary, aware of the planned transfer of his remains by rail, intercepted the train carrying them.
Everything was ready in the author's village, now Odorheiu Secuiesc in Romanian, formerly Székelyudvarhely in Hungarian, a language still spoken in the region: the funeral wreaths, the local priest, the Secretary of Culture (Géza Szőcs), the Speaker of Parliament (László Kövér), and the usual nostalgic mourners. The ashes weren't there, but the speeches were plentiful: not only was the deceased's person and work praised, but also his deeds, which, as is often the case, were considered insignificant given the supposedly immense value of his work.
It is unknown what happened to the ashes in question, which are presumed lost. Some communities process memory well, while others do not.