Vision political rally, map of Europe, young fascists carrying flags, Szabo speaking into mike
Colvin:
It's springtime for fascism in Hungary.
Just over four years since the fall of communism, democracy has brought with
it a rise in the political temperature. And, after 50 years in the freezer, old ideologies have started to resurface. Albert Szabo is leader of the so-called World Nation Peoples Rule Party - Nazis by any other name. He's an obsessive Hungarian nationals, but he also owes allegiance to another country - Australia.
CU Szabo
Colvin:
When you were there did you get a passport, did you get Australian citizenship.
Szabo:
Oh yes, yes.
Colvin:
So you're now both an Australian and a Hungarian
Szabo:
Yes, I am a double citizen.
Vision metal machine, men working in factory
Colvin: Albert Szabo 18:36:01
immigrated to Australia when his parents died in the early 1980's. He worked as a fitter and turner at this engineering plant in Botany. But he gave no clues to his neo-Nazi leanings.
singing 18:51:04
Vision fascist rally with men carrying flags, Szabo walking in street with marchers, black boots marching, Szabo leading marchers
Colvin: Yet as soon as he returned to Hungary last May, Albert Szabo set about creating a party dedicated to intolerance and a return to the extreme right wing policies of the last war.
singing
Colvin: The song is about fighting to preserve the Hungarian race. The uniforms speak the language of violence and physical threat. The flags are a modified version of those used by the wartime Hungarian Nazi Arrow Cross Party.
Szabo and Colvin sitting in room
Corvin: Szabo would only talk English to us when the subject was Australia. On his beliefs, 19:34:15
CD Szabo
.. he chose to speak through an Australian interpreter.
Szabo: Europeans and Hungarians - let's just say white people - are far above Negro or negroid type of people in their culture. And this difference in culture doesn't allow us to forcibly or quickly let them mix together, because it will create a breed which will be unable to fit in with any society. And this will create that strange situation, that social tension, which happened in Los Angeles, where White-Negro half castes burnt the homes of peaceful Americans and murdered them in that ghastly way. 19:40:05
Vision men in synagogue, names inscribed on wall,
Hebrew singing 20:20:22
Colvin: It's the Jewish community that most fears the rise of neo-Nazi politics in Hungary. The old men in this suburban synagogue remember only too well what happened last time. The hundreds rounded up in this building were just a tiny fraction of the 600,000 Hungarian Jews who died in the Holocaust. Now there are signs that antiSemitism is on the rise again.
MID Lazarovits holds up Nazi poster
Lazarovits: Violence is of course that not only that's threatening letters, but you can suppose that it was also
enough such, and other letters like these. 20:57:20
Colvin: You've had a lot of letters like these?
Lazarovits: Of course I have a lot of letters so if you would like to see them, but of course it is at your disposal.
Vision letters with Nazi symbols, racist drawings,
Colvin: Hungary has laws against hate mail, so the anti-Semitic letters are, of course, anonymous. Albert Szabo and his party are careful to deny any charges of overt antiJewish activity, or propaganda. But the intentions are clear enough. 21:20:08
CU Szabo
Szabo: If they don't like our service to our race and our nation, there's something they can do about it. If they don't like this country they can do something about that too. If they don't like "Hungarian laws and the laws we want to bring in, then they can do something about it. There is a repatriation law. As dual Israeli and Hungarian citizens, they can go back to Israel whenever they want, they can resettle whenever they want. Nobody is going to stop them. 21:38:18
Vision water, church building, people on street and people shopping, trams. people in park, vegetables on sale
music 22:09:04
Colvin: Szabo timed his return to Hungary with a period of great political and economic change .. Suddenly, Hungarian found that things they'd only dreamed about were available. But equally suddenly, they had to learn about the price in recession and unemployment.
Vision political meeting, politicians, press conference,
Colvin: For much of the time, the centre right government of Prime Minister Jozef Antall tried to exert a moderating influence. Hungary desperately needs to damp down the flames of extremism if it's to achieve its ambition of entry into the European Union. But since Antall's death last year, there are signs the government's touch has been less steady. 23:11:22
Vision of marchers carrying lit candles, Jeszenszky at political meeting
CU Jeszenszky
CU Barat
Vision group of women, political rally, people in crowd
loudspeaker announcement 23:36:09
Colvin: The liberals of the Democratic Charter organisation are seething over what they say is a lurch to the right. They're incensed by the government's wholesale sackings in the national radio and television stations. For them a blatant attempt to take critical voices off the air and help the government back to power. The government's protestations of innocence have been made less credible by minister's personal attacks on many of the sacked broadcasters.
Jeszenszky: But also I have a kind of personal grudge,
if I may say so, against some of the people affected
by this, who really, I think, violated grossly the
ethics of journalism. 24:04:03
Barat: They wouldn't listen to voices when they say "You must say in the interests of the government so-and-so", these are independent voices. And now 'independent voices are unneeded in Hungarian radio 24:22:08
Colvin: For Hungary's liberal intelligentsia, the media sackings have created the most emotive political focus since communism fell. The governing Democratic Forum Party, reduced to a small minority in the opinion polls, is unlikely to benefit, whatever happens. And among those who remain at the radio, there are many who believe that it's the extreme right wing that will reap the rewards. 24:39:12
Vision men chanting, soccer game, men saluting with skull and crossbones flag, men in balaclavas,
chanting 25:08:04
Colvin: Small wonder that people are afraid. When the skinhead right comes out in force, as at this football match against a team from neighboring Slovakia, the agenda is clear. They hate blacks, Jews, liberals and foreigners of every kind. Potentially, they represent a political force of shock troops waiting to be deployed.
Vision Szabo speaking at rally, archive footage of Ferenc and Arrow cross soldiers
Colvin: Albert Szabo, the 25:39:04
Australian-Hungarian neo-Nazi, denies that he or his party have anything to do with political violence. He tells his followers they're being persecuted for being young and idealistic. Yet Szabo's hero is this man Ferenc Szallasi, leader of the Hungarian Arrow Cross movement. Szallasi was sworn in as regent of Hungary after taking power in a coup in 1944. His Arrow Cross government was a mirror image of Hitler's Nazis, including the theories of racial purity and the need to exterminate the Jews.
Vision Jewish men singing at table,
Hebrew singing 26:23:03
colvin: Before the war there were up to a million Jews in Hungary. The Holocaust, combined with post-war immigration, leaves the community now at less than a hundred thousand. Preserving the memory of what the Nazis did is profoundly important here.
singing
Vision man opening cupboard, woman on phone, man showing objects from bag
Colvin: Following a robbery, which looted the entire collection of the National Jewish Museum, they're literally trying to recreate the past. 26:51:10
colvin: This is one of the inmates' bags?
Man: Yes. We got from an old, old man.
Colvin: Old Jewish people ring in to donate their memorabilia - the stored secrets of an age of horror.
Man: It's a very sad thing to show to the camera but it's so-called Jewish soap. You can see.
Colvin: And so this is the RIF
Man: Yes that's Reine luden Fett.
Colvin: Clean Jewish fat. This is the fat that they made out of the boiled down bodies in the crematoriums?
Vision rally, fascist men at rally, Szabo in crowd, Istan Csurka at rally
Man: Yes exactly. Yes. Colvin: Along with right wing politics and anti-Semitism, the idea is on the rise in Hungary that· the mass extermination never happened. Albert Szabo and his party have been in court charged with denying the Holocaust. Now denied a wider public platform by the legal action, they're prominent at the far bigger rallies of the respectable face of the extreme right, Istan Csurka. 27:44:01
MID picture of fascist leader on wall below flag, Szabo and men singing 28:16:06
singing
Colvin: with our without Albert Szabo, the danger of a rebirth of fascism in central Europe remains.
Negus in studio
Negus: The new face of European fascism. And that's all from Foreign correspondent for now. See you next week. 28:27:22
Vision South Africa
SOUTH AFRICA
Reporter DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ
Camera JOHN BENES Sound DAVID FRASER Editor MARK GLEESON Research VERNON MATSOPOLOUS
Producer AMOS COHEN 28:35:18
Vision Hungary
HUNGARY
Reporter MARK COLVIN Camera MICHAEL FANNING Sound MARK JENVEY Editor PAUL FARLEY 28:42:1J
Colvin:
It's springtime for fascism in Hungary.
Just over four years since the fall of communism, democracy has brought with
it a rise in the political temperature. And, after 50 years in the freezer, old ideologies have started to resurface. Albert Szabo is leader of the so-called World Nation Peoples Rule Party - Nazis by any other name. He's an obsessive Hungarian nationals, but he also owes allegiance to another country - Australia.
CU Szabo
Colvin:
When you were there did you get a passport, did you get Australian citizenship.
Szabo:
Oh yes, yes.
Colvin:
So you're now both an Australian and a Hungarian
Szabo:
Yes, I am a double citizen.
Vision metal machine, men working in factory
Colvin: Albert Szabo 18:36:01
immigrated to Australia when his parents died in the early 1980's. He worked as a fitter and turner at this engineering plant in Botany. But he gave no clues to his neo-Nazi leanings.
singing 18:51:04
Vision fascist rally with men carrying flags, Szabo walking in street with marchers, black boots marching, Szabo leading marchers
Colvin: Yet as soon as he returned to Hungary last May, Albert Szabo set about creating a party dedicated to intolerance and a return to the extreme right wing policies of the last war.
singing
Colvin: The song is about fighting to preserve the Hungarian race. The uniforms speak the language of violence and physical threat. The flags are a modified version of those used by the wartime Hungarian Nazi Arrow Cross Party.
Szabo and Colvin sitting in room
Corvin: Szabo would only talk English to us when the subject was Australia. On his beliefs, 19:34:15
CD Szabo
.. he chose to speak through an Australian interpreter.
Szabo: Europeans and Hungarians - let's just say white people - are far above Negro or negroid type of people in their culture. And this difference in culture doesn't allow us to forcibly or quickly let them mix together, because it will create a breed which will be unable to fit in with any society. And this will create that strange situation, that social tension, which happened in Los Angeles, where White-Negro half castes burnt the homes of peaceful Americans and murdered them in that ghastly way. 19:40:05
Vision men in synagogue, names inscribed on wall,
Hebrew singing 20:20:22
Colvin: It's the Jewish community that most fears the rise of neo-Nazi politics in Hungary. The old men in this suburban synagogue remember only too well what happened last time. The hundreds rounded up in this building were just a tiny fraction of the 600,000 Hungarian Jews who died in the Holocaust. Now there are signs that antiSemitism is on the rise again.
MID Lazarovits holds up Nazi poster
Lazarovits: Violence is of course that not only that's threatening letters, but you can suppose that it was also
enough such, and other letters like these. 20:57:20
Colvin: You've had a lot of letters like these?
Lazarovits: Of course I have a lot of letters so if you would like to see them, but of course it is at your disposal.
Vision letters with Nazi symbols, racist drawings,
Colvin: Hungary has laws against hate mail, so the anti-Semitic letters are, of course, anonymous. Albert Szabo and his party are careful to deny any charges of overt antiJewish activity, or propaganda. But the intentions are clear enough. 21:20:08
CU Szabo
Szabo: If they don't like our service to our race and our nation, there's something they can do about it. If they don't like this country they can do something about that too. If they don't like "Hungarian laws and the laws we want to bring in, then they can do something about it. There is a repatriation law. As dual Israeli and Hungarian citizens, they can go back to Israel whenever they want, they can resettle whenever they want. Nobody is going to stop them. 21:38:18
Vision water, church building, people on street and people shopping, trams. people in park, vegetables on sale
music 22:09:04
Colvin: Szabo timed his return to Hungary with a period of great political and economic change .. Suddenly, Hungarian found that things they'd only dreamed about were available. But equally suddenly, they had to learn about the price in recession and unemployment.
Vision political meeting, politicians, press conference,
Colvin: For much of the time, the centre right government of Prime Minister Jozef Antall tried to exert a moderating influence. Hungary desperately needs to damp down the flames of extremism if it's to achieve its ambition of entry into the European Union. But since Antall's death last year, there are signs the government's touch has been less steady. 23:11:22
Vision of marchers carrying lit candles, Jeszenszky at political meeting
CU Jeszenszky
CU Barat
Vision group of women, political rally, people in crowd
loudspeaker announcement 23:36:09
Colvin: The liberals of the Democratic Charter organisation are seething over what they say is a lurch to the right. They're incensed by the government's wholesale sackings in the national radio and television stations. For them a blatant attempt to take critical voices off the air and help the government back to power. The government's protestations of innocence have been made less credible by minister's personal attacks on many of the sacked broadcasters.
Jeszenszky: But also I have a kind of personal grudge,
if I may say so, against some of the people affected
by this, who really, I think, violated grossly the
ethics of journalism. 24:04:03
Barat: They wouldn't listen to voices when they say "You must say in the interests of the government so-and-so", these are independent voices. And now 'independent voices are unneeded in Hungarian radio 24:22:08
Colvin: For Hungary's liberal intelligentsia, the media sackings have created the most emotive political focus since communism fell. The governing Democratic Forum Party, reduced to a small minority in the opinion polls, is unlikely to benefit, whatever happens. And among those who remain at the radio, there are many who believe that it's the extreme right wing that will reap the rewards. 24:39:12
Vision men chanting, soccer game, men saluting with skull and crossbones flag, men in balaclavas,
chanting 25:08:04
Colvin: Small wonder that people are afraid. When the skinhead right comes out in force, as at this football match against a team from neighboring Slovakia, the agenda is clear. They hate blacks, Jews, liberals and foreigners of every kind. Potentially, they represent a political force of shock troops waiting to be deployed.
Vision Szabo speaking at rally, archive footage of Ferenc and Arrow cross soldiers
Colvin: Albert Szabo, the 25:39:04
Australian-Hungarian neo-Nazi, denies that he or his party have anything to do with political violence. He tells his followers they're being persecuted for being young and idealistic. Yet Szabo's hero is this man Ferenc Szallasi, leader of the Hungarian Arrow Cross movement. Szallasi was sworn in as regent of Hungary after taking power in a coup in 1944. His Arrow Cross government was a mirror image of Hitler's Nazis, including the theories of racial purity and the need to exterminate the Jews.
Vision Jewish men singing at table,
Hebrew singing 26:23:03
colvin: Before the war there were up to a million Jews in Hungary. The Holocaust, combined with post-war immigration, leaves the community now at less than a hundred thousand. Preserving the memory of what the Nazis did is profoundly important here.
singing
Vision man opening cupboard, woman on phone, man showing objects from bag
Colvin: Following a robbery, which looted the entire collection of the National Jewish Museum, they're literally trying to recreate the past. 26:51:10
colvin: This is one of the inmates' bags?
Man: Yes. We got from an old, old man.
Colvin: Old Jewish people ring in to donate their memorabilia - the stored secrets of an age of horror.
Man: It's a very sad thing to show to the camera but it's so-called Jewish soap. You can see.
Colvin: And so this is the RIF
Man: Yes that's Reine luden Fett.
Colvin: Clean Jewish fat. This is the fat that they made out of the boiled down bodies in the crematoriums?
Vision rally, fascist men at rally, Szabo in crowd, Istan Csurka at rally
Man: Yes exactly. Yes. Colvin: Along with right wing politics and anti-Semitism, the idea is on the rise in Hungary that· the mass extermination never happened. Albert Szabo and his party have been in court charged with denying the Holocaust. Now denied a wider public platform by the legal action, they're prominent at the far bigger rallies of the respectable face of the extreme right, Istan Csurka. 27:44:01
MID picture of fascist leader on wall below flag, Szabo and men singing 28:16:06
singing
Colvin: with our without Albert Szabo, the danger of a rebirth of fascism in central Europe remains.
Negus in studio
Negus: The new face of European fascism. And that's all from Foreign correspondent for now. See you next week. 28:27:22
Vision South Africa
SOUTH AFRICA
Reporter DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ
Camera JOHN BENES Sound DAVID FRASER Editor MARK GLEESON Research VERNON MATSOPOLOUS
Producer AMOS COHEN 28:35:18
Vision Hungary
HUNGARY
Reporter MARK COLVIN Camera MICHAEL FANNING Sound MARK JENVEY Editor PAUL FARLEY 28:42:1J