Századok – 2011
TANULMÁNYOK - Balogh Margit: Hadifoglyok, internáltak, kitelepítettek. Mindszenty József bíboros-érsek és az emberi jogok védelme (1945-1948) I/39
74 BALOGH MARGIT tam és kidomborítottam, hogy mindenesetre a jövőben a magyar államnak a külső-belső tényeit állandóan a magyar államnak a teljes szuverenitásának a tükrében nézem és ahhoz tartom magamat. Méltóztassék ezt elfogadni. [...] Azután kérem szépen volt egy harmadik csoport, amelyik tulajdonképpen beleesik a második kategóriába szintén, és... ezek tudniillik olyanok, amelyek a magyar hadifogl[y]ok érdekében mentek, azután a magyar hadifogl[y]oknak a Vöröskereszt által gyakorolt ellenőrzéséről mentek idegen hatalmakhoz, azután a csehszlovák területen deportált, üldözött amelyek a magyarok érdekében mentek... [...] Ezek elöl nem tudtam kitérni, ezeket meg kellett írnom és ezekben az ügyekben a sajnálkozásom nem terjed ki, mert itt egy pasztorációs és egy humanitárius kötelességet teljesítettem."10 5 Mindszenty József bíboros-érsek a bírósági tárgyaláson is kitartott az emberi jogok védelme érdekében kifejtett tevékenysége mellett. PRISONERS OF WAR, INTERNEES, DEPORTEES Cardinal-archbishop József Mindszenty and the Protection of Human Rights (1945-1948) * by Margit Balogh (Summary) The present study makes part of the author's forthcoming biography on cardinal-archbishop József Mindszenty, and is the summary of certain major topics within a general research which has been carried on for several years now. The name of József Mindszenty, appointed as archbishop of Esztergom on 16 August 1945, has grown to be the symbol of anti-communist struggle and as such famous all over the world. He occupied the office of archbishop of Esztergom and the attached dignity of primate of Hungary until 1974, but in the course of almost three decades he functioned for hardly four years as de facto leader of his see. On 26 December 1948 he was arrested by the state police, and the People's Tribunal of Budapest consequently sentenced him for lifetime imprisonment. During these four years he set in motion a great number of things, while he struggled to find the place of his Church and of himself in the framework of a profoundly transformed social and historical order. The study examines the archbishop's activities on the field of human rights, and proves that he did whatever he could in order to offer protection to people afflicted by unfavourable turns of international circumstances or pursued by domestic authorities. He regarded as his duty rooted in his status of both God's servant and high dignitary to influence public life, especially in the case of Hungarian internees and prisoners of war, of legally dubious processes against war criminals, and of the deportation of Hungarians in Slovakia and Germans in Hungary, while his argumentation was intertwined by his desire to maintain the ethnical integrity of Hungary. In these questions he remained intransigent, uncompromising and passionate throughout, and firmly believed in the correctness of his actions even in the course of his trial, for, as he stated himself, he did his „pastoral and humanitarian duty". 105 Magyar Rádió Hangarchívuma, dr. Mindszenty József és társai pere, 6. tekercs. 47. perc körül.
