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Krisztian Ungvary: New book highlights WWII atrocities

A courageous new generation of historians and teachers is looking beyond a fog of denial and evasions imposed for decades by the region's bygone Communist masters.

A new study based on fresh historical evidence describes the awesome atrocities committed by the Hungarian occupation forces in Poland, Ukraine and Byelorussia, often with the connivance of local population groups.

The book does not condone, but places into context, the subsequent organized mass rape and murder of civilians by the Soviet Army on its eventual march across central Europe.

Its author is Krisztián Ungváry, a military historian still in his 30s.

His conclusions will inevitably lead to radical revisions in the way recent history is being taught throughout this region.

He says, "The time has come to clear the air between neighbors and to settle down to peace in our post-Soviet Europe."

But his investigations have earned him death threats. His book, The Hungarian Army in the Second World War (Osiris Press, Budapest), has been published only in Hungarian so far.

But the author is already well known internationally for a previous book on the same period, The Battle for Budapest, published in several editions in Britain (by I B Tauris), the United States (Yale University Press) and Germany (F A Herbig Verlagsbuchhandlung) as well as Hungary (Corvina)....
Read entire article at http://www.budapestsun.com