(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The trial of Bela Kun, Communist propagandist and former head of the Communist government in Hungary, was accompanied by tragedies in two Jewish families.
The testimony of Georg Mayerhofer, in whose house Bela Kun stopped and who was one of the accused, disclosed that he (Mayerhofer) was of the Mosaic faith. He also asserted, that he was “a Jewish religious Bolshevik.” A check up on this assertion showed that Mayerhofer recently married the daughter of a well-to-do Jewish family in Vienna, to whom the son-in-law’s affiliations with Communism were totally unknown until his arrest. It was added that after the trial was concluded, young Mrs. Mayerhofer will start divorce proceeding against her husband.
Ilona Breuer, Bela Kun’s secretary, who was also one of the accused, is the daughter of a pious Jewish family in Mattersdorf, Austria. When the family heard of Ilona’s Communist affiliation, the rite of Shivah, seven days of mourning after the dead, was observed by her parents.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
