The fascist and anti-Semite Nyírő József does not deserve any commendations, on the

contrary!

The Hungarian Press Agency (MTI), quoted by www.hirado.hu, noted that at the
meeting of February 28 of the Local Council of Odorheiu Secuiesc, it was decided for the
Municipal Library to take the name of József Nyírő. The project, announced by the town’s
vice-mayor, Árpád Orbán, was supported by 16 local councilors, with two abstentions. On a
previous occasion the name choice was adversely endorsed by the Name Commission of the
Prefect Institution, as per the provisions of the Law no. 217/July, 23, 2015 on the prohibition
of organizations and symbols of fascist, racist or xenophobe nature and the promotion of
people guilty of crimes against peace and humanity.
The political-media scandal in late May 2012 is famous. It was caused by the
government of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, who, at the expense of the
Hungarian state and parliament, exhumed from the Almudena cemetery in Madrid the
remains of József Nyírő, a man whose fascist and anti-Semite past was notorious. Then, in
the context of an action of electoral manipulation of the Hungarians in Romania, combined
with an attempt of "territorial political marking", there was also carried out an intoxication of
the Romanian authorities. Thus, it was attempted to bring the remains of Nyírő from
Budapest to the "Székely Land", by the same train that pilgrims from Șumuleu came from
Hungary during the Pentecost. From there, the remains were to be taken by a "Hussar cavalry
detachment" (!?) to Odorheiu Secuiesc, where they would be reburied in the Catholic
cemetery. "Cultural-scientific events" were announced and a press conference was given to
enable the Town Library to be named Nyírő József. It should also be said that because of the
firm intervention of the Romanian authorities, the reburial was not allowed and the "relics"
were sent back to Budapest.
Who was in fact József Nyírő, who has had a bust in the central park of Odorheiu
Secuiesc and a school is named after him in the County of Harghita?
Born in 1889, in Jimbor, Braşov County, he was a priest, excluded from the Catholic
church for violating the oath of celibacy, a skilled writer and a radical right-wing politician.
After the Vienna Diktat, Nyírő became a member of the Hungarian National Assembly,
parliament of the shame of humanity, morally responsible for the Jewish Holocaust in
Hungary and the northern Transylvania under its occupation.
In 1940, he was decorated by the "leader" Horthy Miklós for "Hungarian attitude."
His notoriety, literary and oratory abilities were intensively and efficiently exploited to
promote the aberrant Hungarian ideology developed by Ferenc Szálasi. It is well known that
in the years of the Second World War József Nyírő expressed himself as a committed fascist,
advocating Szálasi's Arrow Cross Party, a nationalist-socialist formation involved in the most
despicable crimes against the Jews in Hungary.
Together with Albert Wass, Zita Szeleczky, Árpad Henney, József Suli, Ferenc Fiala,
Lajos Marschalko and László Kondorossy, József Nyírő was one of the active agents of
Szálasi's party propaganda, the ideology of Hungarism, the most vulgar expression of
Hungarian fascism, ultranationalist and chauvinist, anti-Romanian, anti-Semitic and
xenophobic radicalism.

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 Moreover, the "Apostle of the Székelys" (?!), as it is attempted to rebrand him
nowadays, was an unconditional admirer of Nazism. The issues of the Keleti Újság
newspaper on November 4, 5 and 6, 1941 recorded his impressions at the Weimar congress of
German Nazi writers. About Jozef Goebbels, the right hand of Adolf Hitler, József Nyírő
wrote excitedly: "Now I know who you are! You are the Leader of the spiritual life of
Germany, in the midst of the world conflict, when his homeland carries its glorious fight,
etc." and continued to rave: "He who is the pride of the German youth and people (Goebbels)
is not only a great man, but and a good man, whom not only one needs, but that one really
deserves to love!". http://www.es.hu/nyerges_andras;szinrebontas;2012-05-23.html
Nyírő remained in the Hungarian Parliament after "the coup of Szálasi'" in October
1944, when the "Arrow Cross Party - the Hungaristic Movement" took over power in
Hungary, continuing his national-socialist and anti-Semitic propaganda.
In March 1945, along with members of the Hungarian fascist government, he fled
from Hungary, taking refuge in Germany, then in the United States. In exile, József Nyírő
remained faithful to the Hungarian ideology, being co-opted in the "Exile Government" as
Minister of National Education. After the war he was sought by the Allied Control
Commission under the accusation of being a war criminal, but he escaped taking refuge in
Spain led by the dictator Francisco Franco. He died in Madrid in October 1953 and is buried
in the Almudena cemetery dedicated to the El Caudillo falangists.
No doubt József Nyírő had a remarkable literary talent. But how he used this gift is
shown by the quotes I have selected from the volume The Gallery of Portraits of the
Hungarian Literature of the writer and literary critic Géza Hegedűs (1912-1999), a witness of
the events of those times. The essence of József Nyírő's personality is embodied in several
sentences:
"In politics, his chosen path is that of fascism. (...) It was disappointing for those who
noticed his spiritual affinity for the criminal myth of blood purity. They were surprised by
Nyírő's obvious commitment, newly entered in politics, to the representatives of the German
Nazism in Hungary, to the Arrow Cross Party. (...) József Nyírő is an instigator of the war,
inciter to mass murder, a war criminal according to the criminal law. He belonged spiritually
to the rule of Szálasi. Even in exile, in America and Spain, he tries to justify this ideology in
his published books. (...)
The autobiographical novel «In the yoke of God» is among the enduring values of our
literature, even if its author, in the face of history, both humanly and culturally, has put his
head not in the yoke of God, but in the one of the devil."
http://mek.niif.hu/01100/01149/html/nyiro.htm
Isn’t it too little for the Municipal Library of Odorheiu Secuiesc to be named after
him?
Dorin Suciu