CHAOS : WILDFIRES AND DRAMATIC CHANGES IN POLITICS HAVE PEOPLE ON EDGE : IMMIGRATION

CHAOS : WILDFIRES AND DRAMATIC CHANGES IN POLITICS HAVE PEOPLE ON EDGE : IMMIGRATION

As the wildfires have consumed enough property and acreage to equal San Francisco or Miami, we the people of Southern California, are very concerned about the economic future of this part of the United States. Looters, arsonists, and other exploiters and criminals are taking advantage, as are landlords who are upping rents as well as other swindlers. 

But as the physical plant burns down, more concerning is the burning down of America in another way.  Politics.

Lately, some people have been pointing out to me Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, a possible alliance between him and President Donald Trump, and immigration policy. They point out that Orban built "a wall" (actually a fence) and then mention the "wall" partially built between the United States and Mexico. This, and other supposed evidence of alliances are constantly pointed out to me and I sense what is wanted is a reaction.

Well, I have a reaction.

I tell people that Hungary has welcomed thousands of Ukrainian refugees from that war that Russia started and that Orban, in his role with the European Union, has visited both Zelensky and Putin. The Hungarian people have taken in these war refugees, mostly women and children. That Hungary is dependent on Russian oil and that makes things tricky. I tell people that thousands demonstrated in the streets of Budapest for an end to that war and for peace, but Hungary, being a small country, doesn't make world news much, so few heard about it. (I did from a Hungarian relative who lives in Budapest six months of the year.) 

I tell them that two thirds of the Hungarian population were murdered during the Ottoman occupation by Moslem Turks (over 150 years) and that is why Hungary, founded upon Christianity (specifically an alliance with Roman Catholicism) wants only Christian immigrants. I say that between that and the loss of a huge amount of territory known as Hungary after World War I and the 1920 Trianon Treaty, Hungarians are still fighting for national identity.

I also say that there is so much attention on blocking entry into the U.S. from Mexico but none on the much longer Canadian Border. If I were a terrorist I would not bother with the Mexican border. I would have a boat sail me up the coast; maybe in the middle of the night I'd row ashore in Malibu. Or maybe I would go to Canada and walk across the border there. There are lots of places to do so.

I also say that Trump claiming God saved him from a bullet so he could save America was disgusting; is he now claiming the Right of Kings? Himself as Biblical prophecy?

I actually see no link between true Christianity and the Prosperity Gospel or the exclusionary "Protestantism" of people who want to "round up" immigrants, that it sounds just like Germany, in an economic crisis pre the Holocaust and the "round up" of Jews, blamed for the economic problems, that I personally am fearful that is where we are heading.  No I do not want criminals entering the country. Criminality is not the same as people desperate for their lives and the lives of their children and families and we must acknowledge that. I feel the same way when I hear of "round ups" of homeless people. We are edging close to the "othering" that the Nazi's did to the Jews, comparing them to vermin rather than acknowledging their humanity.

Bigotry and discrimination and racism are coming back...

Be it the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis or the Neo Nazis, NONE OF THIS IS OR EVER WAS CHRISTIANITY.  Remember, please, that the Nazi plan was to exterminate the Slavic people once the Jews were extinguished and to keep going.  

RELOCATION anyone?  FORCED RELOCATION?

"REPOPULATING" Pacific Palisades?

Do I expect everyone to be "Christian?"  Actually, I do not.

Do I know of illegals?  Are they joking?! We have a huge "illegal" population in Southern California, and they are not all Mexican. Over the years I've met illegals from South Africa, from Jamaica, and Germany and Ireland, and yes - one lovely young woman from Hungary who chased love - many who came on a tourist visa and never left.

Also, this may shock some of my readers, but as a personal note, I have been approached to marry for the purposes of keeping an illegal immigrant in the country four times in my life.  One Mexican, One Guatamalan, One Orthodox Jew from Israel (really!), One Indian from India.  Approached on the street, in a store, or asked outright by a friend. Usually an effort to make me consider such a thing, which I would never do, includes an excruciatingly old fashioned idea that I should be ashamed to be unpartnered and would be desperate to join the overwhelming majority of married women. Or that my rent would be paid.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS OFTEN WORK FOR CASH. Now tell me employers are not depending on "casual" workers who are paid cash?  No benefits, no Social Security, no no no. Sometimes Americans pick up a casual laborer, work them all day, and then tell them to go f themselves, unpaid, under threat of the INS being informed of their presence: nasty evil people do that to them. So tell me, do you think so many would head here if they thought absolutely no one would hire them?  Hotels - Restaurants - the Tourist Industry - Cruises - really big on paying cash or extremely low off shore pay.

I'm not FOR illegal immigration, I hate criminality, especially when it comes to gang violence and drug and sex trafficking, but ONE NATION UNDER GOD, must have some empathy for the promise that so many of our ancestors had.

So I ask this question, who or what is your God?

Is it MONEY? Which is IDOLATRY?

C 2025  Magyar-American BlogSpot  All Rights including Internet and International Rights claimed.

I ask you to read this: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller

The 1,954-mile (3,145-kilometre) border between the U.S. and Mexico traverses a variety of terrain, including urban areas and deserts. The United States (U.S.) - Canada border is the longest in the world, spanning 5,525 miles (8,891 km) across 13 U.S. states and eight Canadian Provinces/Territories (These came up re AI.)

C 2025  Magyar American BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights

NOBILITY IN YOUR HUNGARIAN FAMILY? JEWISH NOBLES : GENEALOGY PRO TIP #7

NOBILITY IN YOUR HUNGARIAN FAMILY? JEWISH NOBLES : GENEALOGY PRO TIP #7

The vast majority of humans alive today were not alive during World War II or the ethnic cleansing that targeted Jews - and so many other groups of people- intellectuals, Polish Catholics - priests-called The Holocaust. 

That includes me. 

As one of the most horrible stories of the man's inhumanity to man, however, it seems the documentaries and films about this war and Naziism continue to be made. I feel this is partly because as Americans we think we won that war and, in a sense, it was a popular war that ancestors fought, and veterans were honored for. It's also because Hollywood film making has so many Jewish people working in it and they refuse to forget their people, their ancestors, and don't want anyone else to forget either. * 

There is strong participation in Jewish genealogy today. I've met a few people who never knew the family was Jewish at some point until they did their genealogy.

We can read around the subject of Jews in Hungary before and during and since the Holocaust, and there are diverse opinions as to how or why or by whom there was cooperation. When I hear Hungarians were all anti-Semites, I don't believe it. I think good people get caught in war.

I've heard stories of friendships between Jews and Christians before the invasion of Hungary as well. 

I've heard the Esterházy estates were quite favorable for Jews, about wine business in Tokaj as welcoming.

Jews were vital participants in the economy.

I believe Hollywood films serve to inform us of the WWII era, but if you think it was impossible to be Jewish and be noble in the Kingdom of Hungary, you're wrong. Imporant and influential Jewish bankers, businessmen, and industrialists, were elevated to noble status. Franz Joseph I of Austria was responsible for elevating some important and wealthy people; that would be people living in the Austrian Empire living in Hungary. According to a paper on JSTORE, 346 Jewish families were elevated to nobility in Hungary in the late 19th and early 20th century. **

Frances I of the Holy Roman Empire also elevated Jews.

Some Jewish families did way back convert to Christianity by choice (or participate in it no matter what their true feelings). Some moved into the country and kept the German-Jewish names we associate with Jewish people in America. Some changed their names to Hungarian ones, equivalent in meaning or otherwise. 

Although my personal research has not taken me in this direction, I can say there's hope in finding Jewish nobility!

Here are negatives:

I haven't found any lists of converts to Christianity in the many church microfilms or databases I've looked at. Nor have I seen Confirmations. I feel this could be telling. But maybe the scenarios I have in mind are too complicated. Maybe a person just walked into a church and talked to a priest or nun or minister.

There was a war for souls, nobles who were Evangelical (Lutheran) or Calvinist Protestant or Catholic. During fuedal times if the owner of an estate converted, so did the serfs - anyone living on that estate would want to obey or please. 

I'm hoping to find some documents through The National Archives of Hungary about conversion.

I've seen two records of non noble Jewish men in Catholic baptism of a child they begot, in one case a town pharmacist noted as "Moses" who married. In another case a Catholic woman had her child baptized and it's illegitimate. But the priest wrote in the name of a Jewish man and the word "Israel" indicating he was "father unknown." Perhaps the two were not allowed to marry. Perhaps he showed up.

I once used the library at the Simon Wiesenthal in Los Angeles and a librarian? there told me Christians and Jews did not even speak to each other in the Old Country villages in which they are known to have co-habitated and traded. I do not believe this. Separate cultures and religions yes but not even speak? And we have the play, musical, and film Fiddler on The Roof, about those maidens with modern minds of their own who want to forget the village matchmaker and marry for love, even marry a Christian man.

Let us not forget the film singer and actress Barbra Streisand made and stared in, the musical called Yentle about the Jewish daughter who learns to read when women are not taught and must immigrate to America to be free of village mentalities.

Of surnames associated with Hungarian Jewish nobility are Lukacs, Fischer, Polany, Hatvany-Duetsch, Ronai...

**William O McCagg, author. I was unable to read the whole paper since the library where I use JSTOR is closed.

*Let us not forget the Armenian Holocaust.

It can be said that Hungarians were Holocausted by invading Mongols and Turks.

C 2021-2025 Magyar-American BlogSpot All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

This post is part of a series about Hungarian Nobility Research  To pull up all the posts in the series, click on the tag Gen Tips - Hungarian Nobility in the Family

ASK YOURSELF THIS

ARE YOU WILLING TO HOLOCAUST THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY ARE HOMELESS?  DO YOU CONSIDER THEM TO BE SUBHUMAN and NOT WORTHY OF BASIC RESPECT or TO BE WITHOUT NEED?  Is it OK with you if they freeze to death?  Starve to death? Die in the street? Give birth in the street? Go hungry? Go without education?  Keep moving?  Do you care if people who not long ago had it all together are now at risk of going crazy? HAVE YOU DUMPED FRIENDS BECAUSE THEY RAN OUT OF LUCK?

If so, please do NOT celebrate Christmas.

***********************************************

I don't know about your town, but I know that mine has a homeless encampment that keeps getting bigger down by the post office, which happens to have outdoor lighting on all night. There is also a motel that has been temporarily funded as a temporary homeless shelter.  I encounter homeless people everywhere I go, especially in libraries, and I believe the numbers are triple of that counted. I believe this because I believe that a good number of homeless are secretly so.  They have avoided being counted and do not want to go to shelters or other facilities either because they don't want governmental benefits or intrusion into their lives, or because there are horror stories about what it is to be in these places.  In talking to people I meet, I've learned about long wait lists as well and the feeling of despair.  Partners do not want to be separated.  Parents don't want their children put in foster care.  They would rather go on loving each other in a tent.

I thought about this the other day because basically I was reading through my old posts that are genealogy oriented,  I noted that the National Archive of Hungary and the databases that show who owned the land and how many people lived on it - as tenant farmers - as serfs - back in the Queen Marie Theresa's day. As well, the 1828 census counted how many slaves one had. I was thinking about how the land barons who had serfs on their estate owed them some very basics. They were better off than the homeless in the sense that if you were a serf on a baron's estate, you were not expected to be transient.  

You knew where you belonged and you knew what hut was yours for the night.  You probably had a sense of community and some pride in being able to work hard to contribute towards your upkeep.  You may have had rags on your feet, but you had family too. I'm not idealizing serfdom. I'm saying the freeing of the serfs was a great big deal and often they ran for another country and a better life, but how can we free the homeless who are living much like them?

I truly fear what is coming if there is no more governmental help coming, in particular if evictions are allowed to continue.  Even those who have been living on unemployment benefits are at risk at becoming homeless.  So very many here in Southern California live without savings.  And have nowhere else to go.  California has been a destination for people who became homeless in other places, in particular cold places.  You probably won't freeze to death here, but there are still places where you can be overexposed to cold.

I learned that the motel full of homeless people does not house our town's local homeless.  Social workers from all over the city have sent people who are very ill or incapacitated there.  It is full of people with stage four cancer, people who cannot walk without a chair and assistance, people who are recovering from heart surgery who lost their apartments in the process of their illness and recovery.  Some of them are awaiting placement in assisted living or apartments with governmental vouchers.

It was bad before Covid-19 and now it's just horrible.  Though my neighborhood is decorated with Christmas lights, the food bank has been setting up down by the school.  We are all grateful for what all we have but also worried. We have decided on token gifts and donations to charities.

If you are reading this from another place in America or the world, please consider that empathy and understanding of other people's plight is a first step.  Stop protesting the existence of tent cities or the existence of homeless people in your neighborhood. Learn the truth about why they are out there.  I suspect you will find that evil and greed is at the heart of it.

AND TO ALL OF YOU, A GOOD NIGHT!

C 2020 Magyar American BlogSpot

HUNGARIAN RESEARCHERS and THE SHOAH FOUNDATION at USC.

USC has been in the news lately for college entrance cheating scandals and sexual harassment charges against a campus doctor as well as senseless murders near campus. Located in an old part of Los Angeles known to have a high crime rate in recent times, this old institution is still said to provide the best and perhaps the most expensive in Southern California. USC is also known for the SHOAH Foundation, which has recorded the testimonials of HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS. 

OVER 50,000 interviews 56 countries 32 languages - including HUNGARY.

ACCESS TO SHOAH FOUNDATION (Partial Information)

My understanding is that you can go into the archive and use databases there, but also there is some access through other institutions and libraries via the Internet/Databases.  Notice that the video is put out by PROQUEST. 

COUNT JANOS ESTERHAZY RECIEVES COURAGE TO CARE AWARD FROM ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE

ADL HONORS COUNT JANOS ESTERHAZY link to article here

... "The ADL Jan Karski Courage to Care Award, established in 1987 to honor rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust era, was presented to Esterházy's grandson, Giovanni Malfatti, on Nov. 3 during the League's 2011 Annual Meeting in New York City.

"I know first-hand how essential it is to have the help of just one person, who at the moment of moral collapse, did not forget the essential principle of leading a moral life: Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor who was saved by his Polish nanny. "To help another human being when to do so will earn you scorn, contempt and even threaten your life and that of your family, that is to take a moral stand of incalculable value. János Esterházy did and he deserves our recognition and our eternal thanks." ...

BOOK EXCERPT: REZSO KASZTNER : THE DARING RESCUE OF HUNGARIAN JEWS by LADISLAUS LOB

REZSO KASZTNER
The Daring Rescue of Hungarian Jews : A Survivor's Account
by Ladislaus Lob C 2008
Pimlico is the Publisher

pages 269-270

"The charge that Kasztner made up the Bergen-Belsen group entirely of his relatives and his Zionist cronies from Kolozsvar also stands on shaky ground. Given the appalling task of selecting a few hundred from hundreds of thousands, no selection could have been "right."

(My note : his relatives were a count of ten, while other relatives were left behind and exported or murdered in Auschwitz.)

"The dominance of Ziolnists from Kolozsvar is hardly surprising, since Kolozsvar was Hungary's second largest city with the largest and most active Zionist community, and the whole rescue enterprise was founded on Palestine immigration certificates...

"My father and I were only two of many non-Zionists, and the point is strongly made by Peretz Revesz, a former leading member of the youth movement who carried out many dangerous rescue missions of his own in Slovakia and Hungary with Kasztner's help."

page 279

"One of the most impressive witnesses was Israel Szabo. He explained that "the ordinary Hungarian in the street knew about Auschwitz" but "mass flight" was impossible, and believing that the Hungarian Jews could have "organized any resistance" would have been a "fatal error." They had been methodically worn down by the "expropriation of their wealth, the loss of their place of work, ... the closure inside their homes, in the ghetto under inhuman conditions."

This process had left them drained of all confidence and energy.

WORLD WAR II : HOLOCAUST REMEMBERANCE DAYS

This week, linked to this year's Passover, people in the United States, especially those who live near large Jewish communities, are remembering the Holocaust of World War II era, which occurred on European soil, in countries such as Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Russia, Germany, Belarus, Estonia... with various events produced by Jewish organizations for Holocaust remembrance. There are also remembrances staged by various religious and not religious organizations with the focus on peace; the idea is that we as citizens of the world should not forget or put up with Holocausts / ethnic cleansings anywhere in the world.

To me there is a difference between a soldier / an army who fights other soldiers/ armies and what has and is happening to civilians. Don't get me wrong. I'm for a strong defense of the United States and too realistic to think we can go without a military presence. At the same time there are atrocities committed on innocent people every day on this earth and that is wrong. I don't have all the answers or much power to do anything about it, just on a personal level to try and understand people of cultures different than mine, and decide if I like someone or not by my experience with them rather than prejudging them.

Although the United States did not experience the holocaust as personally as did the people of Europe, many survivors fled here, or got here through Israel or through organizations overseeing the resettlement of those who fled Europe after the war was over. To this day the International Red Cross provides services to help locate people who were or are separated by war.

I will soon be telling you all about an organization I learned about my going outside my own culture to attend a presentation by a French Catholic priest as a Jewish temple.

THE GLASS WALL : A FILM NOIR FILM FROM 1953

THE GLASS WALL film is one of four on a DVD put out by Columbia Pictures, on a DVD called Bad Girls of Film Noir Volume 1. All four films were original Columbia Pictures films from the early 1950's, and in black and white. The legend goes that it was "B" films in that period that actually gave actresses the "juiciest" roles.

It was unexpected that THE GLASS WALL would have a Holocaust and Hungarian refuge thematic. The basic story is of a man who stows away on a ship from the old world where he was in concentration camps from the age of 14 and, caught, he can't make it through immigration. Desperate to not be send back, his wish is to find the trumpet player whose life he saved, so that the musician can testify for him. Meanwhile, he befriends a woman in trouble - a woman who can't pay her rent. The trumpet player sees his picture on the front page of a local newspaper and wants to help him but the refugee is fleeing - all the way to the United Nations building - a modern building that is symbolic in design of a glass wall. The trumpeters girlfriend turns out to be a Hungarian exotic dancer who lives with her mother who is making goulash... and says "We're all honkies..."

Considering that some of the earliest Hollywood people, directors, studio moguls, photographers, cinematographers, etc. were of Eastern European including Hungarian descent, I thought about the stereotypes of Hungarians and their representation in movies. I believe the writers on this were Maxwell Shane and Ivan Tors.



C 2012 Magyar American BlogSpot

BOOK EXCERPT : REZSO KASZTNER by LADISLAUS LOB

REZSO KASZTNER
The Daring Rescue of Hungarian Jews" A Survivor's Account
by Ladislaus Lob C 2008
Pimlico is the Publisher
page 266

"Nor were the Jews of Hungary as unaware of the danger as Kasztner's enemies assert. Some were misled by soothing lies. Others did not want to know the truth. They believed, or tried to make themselves believe, that such horrors might happen elsewhere, but not in Hungary: the Hungarians would reward the Jews for their loyalty or realize that by harming the Jews they would be harming their own economy and culture. However, by the time of the German occupation the majority of Hungarian Jews had some idea of the massacres in the east, thanks to reports by refugees or Zionists activists.


"Even though as a young child I did not understand what people in Budapest were fretting, speculating, arguing and agonizing about, I could tell that it was a matter of life and death..."

SISTER SARA SALKAHAZI BEATIFICATION FOUR YEARS AGO

This was passed onto me. It's from a March 2010 church bulletin from St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood California.


SISTER SARA SALKAHAZI: A MODEL OF SACRIFICE


"Sara Salkahazi was born in Kosice (at that time a part of Hungary) on May 11, 1899, now her FEAST DAY.  In 1929, she entered the Society of Sisters of Social Service in Budapest.  There she vowed her entire life to the service of God with the motto "Alleluia!  Here I am!  Send me!  Her love of Christ was manifested in diverse areas of social service, in Catholic movements, and by authoring a variety of literary works.  She was a talented teacher, journalist, and community organizer.


"In 1943, she consciously offered her life for the Society, particularly for the weak and ill, in case the Sisters of the Church were persecuted.  On December 27, 1944 the Hungarian Nazis surrounded the Home of Working Women where Sara was in charge.  She was arrested along with a co-worker and a group of Jewish refugees she was hiding.  That same evening, all of them were stripped naked and shot, their bodies falling into the icy River Danube.  Before her execution, Sister Sara knelt down, facing her executioners and made a great sign of the cross.  God accepted the sacrifice of her life.


The Eucharistic Celebration of Sister Sara's Beautification was in Budapest
on September 17, 2006.

I'm also linking to an article/interview about her from Catholic Online, and Cardinal Peter Erdo.

Note Septmeber 2019.  Clicking on the title of this old post should take you to the link.

CENTROPA has a HUNGARIAN LINK

You can upload and share old family pictures, watch 20 short films of history, send e-cards, and much more on this site which has a link to HUNGARY in HUNGARIAN or read these in English.

CENTROPA

BOOK EXCERPT : REZSO KASZTNER by LADISLAUS LOB

page 264


His world was "totally shattered..."For years, his activity in Budapest had been a source of pride to him", but now he needed "almost superhuman stores of strength, simply to get up in the morning, go out of the house and walk about the city streets as if nothing had happened."  Deeply hurt by the "badge of shame" that had been attached tio him, he remained "convinced that he was the victim of an unbearable injustice.  (Quoting another writer Weitz)


"Kasztner was not the only one to suffer.  His wife and daughter were also hounded by the rabble.  Their block of flats was daubed with graffiti saying "Kasztner is a murderer" and worse.  Their balcony was bombarded with rubbish.  Neighbours called Bogyo a "Nazi" and shopkeepers refused to serve her.  Szuzsi, form the gage of nine, was harassed, bullied and called a "murderess" at school and in the street.  The witch hunt was to continue for many years, and the lasting  emotional damaged caused to both women is easy to imagine...(The twi women are his wife and daughter.)"


.... "He was hounded by death threats, which the authorities took seriously enough to assign him two bodyguards, though ironically these were withdrawn shortly before he really needed them.  On the other hand, he receive many letters of support, particularly from member of the young pioneer groups who had worked with him in Budapest.  He was offered sanctuary in two kibbutzim, but refused to hide..."

BOOK EXCERPT : REZSO KASZTNER by LADISLAUS LOB

REZSO KASZTNER
The Daring Rescue of Hungarian Jews" A Survivor's Account
by Ladislaus Lob  C 2008
Pimlico  is the Publisher

(The subject of this book Rezso Kasztner is a controversial figure of the Holocaust/ World War II. Some, including the author who provides his own testimony "I am alive today because of Rezso Kasztner", see him as a hero, someone who found a way to get some Hungarian Jews to Switzerland though this was through  financial deals with Nazis.  Others in Israel felt just the opposite, that he could have done more, and he was killed because of it.)

page 196-197

"...a miracle seemed to have happened.  From the Red Cross in Geneva we received some 60 cases containing food, medicines, vitamins, and in particular 1,300 boxes of a product called "Starkosan."  This was a chocolate powder with added vitamins and nutrients.  I have never forgotten the please of stuffing myself with it..."

FROM HIS DIARY:

"For the first time in five months a cultured flavour: chocolate!  Old people and children are truly becoming drunk on it; they are eating it with spoons, dry, on bread, with butter, with water, with jam, mixed with glucose, etc.  There has been a change in people.  Cheerful, calm faces, chattiness, an optimistic mood...."