Ákos Kertész

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ákos Kertész (born July 18, 1932 in Budapest ) is a Hungarian writer , dramaturge and screenwriter .

Life

Kertész's father could not study at the state university because there was a racist numerus clausus in Hungary against too many students of Jewish origin. He converted to Catholicism and, together with the historian Vilmos Juhász, founded the "Organization of the Converted Jews of Hungary", which was led until 1945 by the later Bishop of Kalocsa , József Ijjas . The poet Sándor Sík also belonged to the circle of his father . During the Second World War , despite the conversion, the father was treated as a Jew by the Hungarian authorities and forced to do forced labor , including in the Bor camp in Serbia , where the convert Miklós Radnóti was also a slave laborer.

The extermination of the Hungarian Jews by the Eichmann Command and his Hungarian helpers in the Hungarian provinces in mid-1944 and in Budapest at the end of 1944 the ghettoization and the terror by the Arrow Cross members determined Kertész's childhood, these images still occupy him today. Since he was of middle-class origin, he was not allowed to study in communist Hungary after graduating from high school in 1950, but instead worked for twelve years in production at the bus manufacturer Ikarus . He completed his advanced training in evening classes . He only came to film in 1966 when he became a dramaturge at Mafilm . There he worked on numerous productions, later also for Hungarian television, which made him known. Kertész also wrote for the stage, as well as a number of novels.

After the political change, Kertész was editor-in-chief of the literary-political magazine Élet és Irodalom from 1994 to 1997 .

Kertész received, among other awards, the Attila József Prize in 1972 and 1984 and the Kossuth Prize in 2008 .

Open letter to Amerikai Népszava newspaper

On August 29, 2011, Kertész wrote an open letter to the Hungarian newspaper Amerikai Népszava, which is published in the US. In that letter to the editor László Bartus, Kertész is upset about the current mental state of the Hungarians. His findings are devastating, his expression is brutal: “The Hungarian is genetically a subject. (...) The Hungarian does not feel guilty about the worst historical crimes. He shifts everything on to the others and he ceaselessly points to the others. Happy he wallows in the mud of the dictatorship, grunts and feasts on the food. He doesn't want to notice that he's being stabbed. He cannot and does not want to learn or work, but he thrives on envy, and when he has the opportunity, he kills those who have achieved something through work, education and innovation. (...) Today only the Hungarians are responsible for the crimes of the Second World War and the Holocaust, because the Hungarian people (in contrast to the Germans) neither admitted their crimes nor confessed nor showed the slightest remorse. ”The country's conservative media reacted in violent tone on the lines of Kertész. The leading journalist for the left-liberal daily Népszabadság, Sándor Révész, also criticized Kertész. This indulges in the same clumsy generalizations as the "radical racists" do, according to Révész.

The "Raoul Wallenberg Society" in Budapest expected the withdrawal of Kertész's statements because they were offensive and generate further hatred.

The Mayor of Budapest, István Tarlós, asked Kertész to waive the Budapest City Prize, the "Keys of Budapest", and a government spokesman expected Kertész to apologize, otherwise the Kossuth National Prize should be reclaimed.

Kertész has corrected his claim about "the Hungarians as a genetic subject". Kertész emphasized that he stood by his statements, did not regret them and had nothing to take back. He chose his words because that was his belief.

Because of the personal threats in Hungary in March 2012, Kertész sought political asylum in Canada , which was granted to him in November 2013.

Fonts (in German translation)

  • Name day. Comedy in two parts , with Konrad Zschiedrich. Berlin Henschel 1974
  • The life given away by Ferenc Makra . Novel. Tübingen, Basel: Erdmann, 1975
  • Widows. Acts in two acts . Berlin: Henschelverlag Kunst u. Society, [1976], As not for sale. Ms. reproduced
  • Who dares wins: three short novels . Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1981
  • House with an attic . Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1984
  • Hatred has its price . Berlin: Verl. Das Neue Berlin, 1995

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Vilmos Juhász at WorldCat
  2. ↑ Sík, Sándor 1889-1963 at WorldCat
  3. ^ Peter Bognar: Open letter from the writer Ákos Kertész causes storms of outrage . In: Budapester Zeitung , September 9, 2011. Retrieved October 23, 2011. 
  4. ↑ Kertész Ákos nyílt levele az Amerikai Népszavához , at Amerikai Népszavá, published on September 21, 2011, accessed on September 23, 2011 (hu)
  5. ↑ nol.hu Kertész Ákos helyesbített ( memento of September 8, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), published on September 13, 2011, accessed on September 23, 2011.
  6. ↑ atv.hu Botrányt kavaró kijelentések ( Memento of September 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), published on September 6, 2011, accessed on September 23, 2011
  7. ↑ hungarianvoice.wordpress.com Ákos Kertész - Bumpy explanations on ATV , published on September 6, 2011, accessed on September 23, 2011
  8. ↑ Hungarian author Akos Kertesz asks Canada for asylum , Tagesspiegel , March 5, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Kertész, Ákos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian writer, dramaturge and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest