ARTICLES
June 2003 ARTICLES
Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
It Was Cold
Hollywood Man Recalls Nazi and Communist Hungary
By Martin Mazloom
Stephen A. Bertram, 71, may not have been alive today to tell his story if the Communists had had their way. Born and raised in Hungary, Bertram now lives in the shadow of Los Angeles' "HOLLYWOOD" hilltop sign; but over 50 years ago, he was living in the shadows of two of the most brutal regimes of the last century. In December 1946, at the age of 15, Bertram defected from post-war Hungary to Belgium and then to the American occupation zone in Austria. He soon found out, though, that he was not yet out of harm's way.
"While I was in Austria, I received a letter to go to the American headquarters," Bertram said. "I was told that Hungarian Communists wanted to kidnap me and take me back to Hungary. The Americans told me to be careful and not to associate with people I didn't know. I watched myself carefully."
Fortunately, Bertram was experienced in watching himself carefully. Just three years earlier, in 1944, the Nazis had occupied Hungary. Bertram, who was a Catholic at the time (he has since become a Gnostic), recalled how the Nazis persecuted Jews and the Catholics who sheltered them. "In the summer of 1944, the Germans began to deport Hungarian Jews to concentration camps," he said. "By October, the Nazis had installed a government of Hungarian Nazis who were intent on killing the Jews. Cardinal [Justinian] Seredi protested vigorously against the treatment of Jews," said Bertram. "The Nazis imprisoned two bishops, including Bishop Mindszenty, who later became Cardinal Mindszenty. A fair number of priests and nuns were taken away because they were sheltering Jews."
In fact, Cardinal Seredi, Catholic Primate of Hungary during the Second World War, had attacked totalitarian ideologies as early as 1934. That year he issued a pastoral statement in which he wrote, "it is not possible for a Catholic priest to approve Nazi principles, and I decidedly prohibit participation in this movement or even a benevolent attitude of any of my priests toward it." In another protest in 1942, Cardinal Seredi stated, "Christ's teachings do not acknowledge differences between men and do not know prerogatives which would entitle a man or a nation to oppress another man or nation on racial or national basis."
Bertram also discredited accusations that Pope Pius XII did very little or nothing to protect the Jews during the war. "There was a lot of resistance to the Nazis, but there was only so much people could do," he said. "We heard Pope Pius XII was very distressed over what was going on; but for the pope to openly attack the Germans was not feasible. At least a couple of times, the pope was in danger of being arrested." Bertram noted that it was important for the Vatican to maintain its neutrality because "the Vatican and Switzerland were the only two windows the Allies had into occupied Europe."
Bertram added, "all kinds of accusations can be thrown around later on. These kind of Johnny-come-lately attacks against Pius XII are unjust." He mentioned Roch Hochhuth's 1963 play, The Deputy, which portrays Pius XII as a Nazi collaborator. Dr. Joseph Lichten, a Jewish Polish lawyer who served as the director for the international affairs department for the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, in his work, A Question of Judgment: Pius XII and the Jews, defended the pope, writing, "no one who reads the record of Pius XII's actions on behalf of Jews can subscribe to Hochhuth's accusation."
"The Deputy was not received well by the European intelligentsia," Bertram said. "These ideas kept being spread around, mostly by people who were not there. My family and I had many Jewish contacts and friends. All of them agreed that the Church was a benign influence who did what they could to help the Jews."
Bertram remarked that publicly protesting the Nazis was often counterproductive. "In those places where bishops made statements protesting the Nazis' treatment of Jews, not only were the bishops not able to stop it, but they made it worse," Bertram said. He pointed to the Dutch bishops' protest in 1942 which provoked Nazi fury. Consequently, the Nazis rounded up Catholic priests and nuns of Jewish ethnicity and executed them. St. Edith Stein was one of those imprisoned and executed.
Bertram pointed out that, although the Jews were the Nazis' number one target, they also targeted other groups, including Hungarian gypsies and Catholics. "The Nazis were hard on a lot of people," he said. "The writing was on the wall. If the Nazis won the war, the Catholic Church would suffer additional repression. We had the example of Poland right in front of us."
Fortunately, for Bertram and Hungary, the Nazis did not win the war; unfortunately, though, a brutal Communist regime gained control of Hungary after the war and replaced Nazi terror with its own brand of intimidation and repression. Bertram recalled frightening episodes of Communist brutality.
"I came home from school one day in the winter of 1946," Bertram said. "Out on the street two small children were wandering around. It was cold. I asked them what they were doing out on the street. They told me a big car came and took away their parents. Their parents never came back. Occurrences of this sort were common." Bertram said that the parents were probably people who were guilty of denouncing the Communists.
"At a later time I was in a boarding school. In the middle of the night, the Soviet police came and took away a student whose father was part of the Hungarian nobility. It was truly a terrifying time. We prayed for the student. They fortunately released him." Bertram's own aunt was imprisoned because she was part of a prominent, non-Communist family; but she was later released.
Bertram also recalled Communist persecution of the Church in Hungary. "From 1945 to 1948, there was a lot of persecution against Catholics and Catholic clergy because Cardinal [Joseph] Mindszenty had stood up against the Communists," he said. "The full wrath of the Communists was brought down on the Church. Cardinal Mindszenty and other Catholic leaders were imprisoned. Monastic orders were dissolved." With great pride, Bertram reminisced about Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty who succeeded Cardinal Seredi as primate of Hungary and who was persecuted by the Communist government for over 20 years. Bertram said Mindszenty was a "double hero" for standing up first to the Nazis and then to the Communists. "He was a man of incredible courage," said Bertram. "In fact, I saw him the last day before I left Hungary. There's a move for his beatification."
Cardinal Mindszenty was imprisoned from November 27, 1944 to April 20, 1945 by the Nazis. In 1948, he was arrested by the Communists, convicted of treason, and sentenced to life imprisonment. During the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, he was rescued. When the Communists regained control, Mindszenty sought asylum in the U.S. embassy in Budapest. He lived in the embassy for 15 years before leaving Hungary in 1971 for Vienna, where he died in 1975.
After successfully defecting from Hungary and avoiding capture in Austria, Bertram immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s. After his defection, Bertram's mother was questioned by the authorities. "My mother believed that the only reason she wasn't incarcerated was because she was so ill with the flu and looked like she wouldn't last long," he said. "So they didn't take her."
In retrospect, he said the differences between the Catholic Church in occupied Hungary and the Catholic Church today in the United States are immense. "The leadership shown by the Church during the German and Russian occupations was great," he said. "People looked up to the Church. There was a great deal of respect and love for the clergy and a great deal of genuine devotion. People went to church, Mass, and other religious services in great numbers."
Bertram noted that the Church in America in the 1950s was also healthy and full of vitality. "When I came here in the '50s, the Roman Catholic Church was at a high point," he said. "It was an active and influential Church. There was some naiveté because they [American Catholics] had not been through the war, but they sympathized with the refugees. It looked like the Catholic Church here in America was going somewhere."
But the Second Vatican Council, according to Bertram, marked the beginning of a decline for the American Catholic Church. "The aftermath of Vatican II sapped vitality from the Church," Bertram said. "Clergy and people no longer knew what they believed in. A lot of things that happened in the wake of Vatican II contributed to a lack of respect for the clergy. I'm sure there were problems in the Church before Vatican II, but it seems like the problems got bigger and more destructive after Vatican II."
Although he is a Gnostic, Bertram's concern for the Catholic Church is apparent. "I certainly have sympathy and a lot of good feelings for the Catholic Church," he said. "It's a very regrettable situation that is going on in the Church today. It is a difficult time, but the Church is a 2,000-year-old institution and has gone through many crises. Recovery will take place. There is always hope."