Two Men, One Evil FINAL Edition

• Published in: The Washington post
• Main Author: Fenyvesi, Charles
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, D.C WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 16.12.2003
• Subjects: Atrocities; Dictators; Hussein, Saddam; Szalasi, Ferenc; World War II; Hungary; Iraq
• ISSN: 0190-8286

I knew the visitor by reputation: retired OSS officer Martin Himler, publisher and editor in chief of a Hungarian American newspaper who was recruited to work for the OSS during the war and became head of the Hungarian section. In occupied Germany it was his job to track down, arrest, interrogate and eventually return to Hungary suspected Hungarian war criminals. "Suddenly I lost my self-control," Himler told me. "I got up from my chair, walked over to Szalasi, who stood ramrod-straight, and I slapped him on the face so hard that he staggered and almost fell. I walked back to my desk and sat down. After Szalasi straightened himself up, he said that he was ready to answer all my questions." Szalasi was hanged in Budapest. Nearly a half-century after Himler told his story, I am watching video images of American soldiers checking Saddam Hussein for lice and taking some of his saliva to collect a DNA sample. Soldiers of a democratic nation captured a tyrant and a mass murderer, and gave him the kind of humane treatment he and his henchmen never accorded to those who disagreed with him. Two sets of standards, two kinds of humanity. But I will not criticize Himler for his loss of self-control, for his momentary lapse of appropriate conduct. I think he had nothing to be ashamed of, and I think that after 46 years his secret can be told. I admire the rules of civilized behavior, but victims and others outraged by mass murder cannot always hold back.