Nagybaczoni Vilmos

Nagybaczoni-Nagy, Vilmos Major-General Vilmos Nagybaczoni-Nagy served as the Minister of Defense in the Hungarian government, under Miklós Kállay, from September 1942 until June 1943. As part of his job, he was charged with easing the situation of the Jewish men who had been drafted into military labor-service companies. He spoke out strongly against the mistreatment of these Jews, at a time when the rest of the government and the military establishment remained silent. Tens of thousands of Jewish men served in the forced-labor units, where they faced systematic abuse. The situation was particularly bad for those Jews who served on the Russian front beginning in 1941, because they were at the mercy both of their Hungarian commanders, and soldiers of the German army. As Hungary’s chief of staff admitted after the war, “There was a double standard of discipline in the army. Regarding the Jews, everything was allowed.” Nagy raised his voice in the Hungarian parliament against the treatment of Jews in the labor companies. He proposed laws in 1942 – 1943, according to which all the Jewish labor-servicemen were to be treated like regular soldiers. In his official capacity as Minister of Defense, Nagy visited the Russian front and registered his opposition to the brutal treatment of Jews, which had become the norm. He personally replaced officers and punished commanders who were cruel to Jews. He had the elderly and the sick released from the ranks, and ordered the payment of financial support to the families of Jewish draftees. He even sent rabbis to cater to the religious needs of Jews working in units stationed within Hungary itself. Nagy charged high-ranking officers with the responsibility of ensuring that his orders would not be ignored. Nagy’s actions as Minister of Defense had a positive influence on those Jews who served in Hungarian territory. However, on the Russian front, Nagy’s orders were not always carried out. There, an atmosphere of cruelty andcorruption continued to reign, except for a few humane commanders. The political right wing in Hungary and in Nazi Germany did not approve of Nagy’s efforts to improve the situation of the Jews. They also exerted heavy pressure on Hungary when the Kállay government refused to hand Jewish servicemen over to the German Reich for the “Final Solution.” When Nagy would not send Jewish forced laborers to work in the copper mines in Bor, Yugoslavia, the pressure increased, and in June 1943 Nagy was forced to submit his resignation. On that same day, 3,000 Jews were sent to the copper mine in Bor. After the German occupation in 1944, during the rule of the Arrow Cross party, Nagy was arrested and sent to Mauthausen. After the war, Nagy remained in Hungary. He remained in contact with the men of the labor-service companies, who admired him both for his deeds and for the book he wrote, in which he related the bitter truth about the treatment of Jews in the Hungarian military labor-service. Nagy died in 1976, at the age of 92. On December 14, 1965, Yad Vashem recognized Vilmos Nagybaczoni-Nagy as Righteous Among the Nations.