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Károly Szabó

Show Trial Preparations 1953 in Hungary

Informations about Károly Szabó an employee on the Swedish Embassy in Budapest from 1944 to 1945 (by his son Tamas Szabo).

ÁVH actions were not subject to judicial review. On 1953-04-07, early in the morning, Miksa Domonkos, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Budapest was kidnapped by ÁVH officials to extract "confessions".[1] Preparations for a show trial started in Budapest in 1953 to prove that Raoul Wallenberg had not been dragged off in 1945 to the Soviet Union but was the victim of cosmopolitan Zionists. For the purposes of this show trial, two more Jewish leaders – László Benedek and Lajos Stöckler – as well as two would-be "eyewitnesses" – Pál Szalai and Károly Szabó – were arrested and interrogated by torture.

The last people to meet Wallenberg in Budapest were Ottó Fleischmann, Károly Szabó, and Pál Szalai, who were invited to a supper at the Swedish Embassy building in Gyopár street on 1945-01-12.[2] The next day, January 13, Wallenberg contacted the Russians. By 1953, Ottó Fleischmann had left Hungary, working as a physician in Vienna.
Károly Szabó was captured on the street on 1953-04-08 and arrested without any legal procedure. His family had no news of him throughout the following six months. A secret trial was conducted against him of which no official record is available to date. After six months of interrogation, the defendants were driven to despair and exhaustion.

The idea that the "murderers of Wallenberg" were Budapest Zionists was primarily supported by Hungarian Communist leader Erno Gero, which is shown by a note sent by him to First Secretary Mátyás Rákosi.[3] The show trial was then initiated in Moscow, following Stalin-s anti-Zionist campaign. After the death of Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria, the preparations for the trial were stopped and the arrested persons were released. Miksa Domonkos spent a week in hospital and died shortly afterwards at home, mainly due to the torture he had been subject to [1][4].

The grandfather from Hollywood actor Adrian Brody, Vilmos Plachy is on the left side.
Adrian Brody was cast as the lead in Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002). The role won him an Academy Award for Best Actor. My father Karoly Szabo is the second standing row from left on this photo, near Plachy about 1940-1943, employees at Brunsviga a german calculator company.

The german company ended in 1945, after the war. My father was 1944-45 employee on the swedish embassy (typewriters mechanican).

Vilmos Plachy and Karoly Szabo founded together 1945 the UNIVERSAL calculator company. My father was 1947 invited by the Wallenberg family in Stockholm. My father was one of the three last persons on the evening January 12. 1945 invited to supper with Raoul Wallenberg.

My father recived at his visit exclusive distributions for Hungary (Odhner and Precisa calculators) as a present from the Wallenberg family. His company UNIVERSAL together with Vilmos Plachy was flourishing well (also thank to Wallenbergs)  till 1950. The communists
nationalisation in 1950 ended the business without compensation. Plachy left Hungary 1956, his daughter Sylvia lives in New York.

References
1. ^ a b Interview with István Domonkos, son of Miksa Domonkos who died after the show trial preparations (Hungarian)
2. ^ József Szekeres: Saving the Ghettos of Budapest in January 1945, Pál Szalai "the Hungarian Schindler" ISBN 9637323147X, Budapest 1997, Publisher: Budapest Archives, Page 74
3. ^ Kenedi János: Egy kiállítás hiányzó képei (Hungarian)
4. ^ Hungarian Quarterly


Book (hungarian): Mária Ember: They Wanted to Blame Us). Budapest, Héttorony, 1992, 128 pp. The ÁVH worked out a detailed account to back the Soviet claim that Wallenberg had never been in the Soviet Union and that those who sought him should seek him elsewhere. They maintained that nobody had dragged off Wallenberg in 1945, least of all the glorious Soviet Army. Indeed, they could not have done so since Wallenberg -went the author of this fable - had been shot and killed in the basement of the American mission (where else?) by two members of the 1944 Budapest Judenrat, Lajos Stöckler and Miksa Domonkos, in the presence of (who else?) an official of the Arrow Cross (Hungarian Nazi) Party. This was the basis of the ÁVH horror story which Mária Ember came upon.

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