the Hungarian nation had changed since the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the 1920s and 30s, Marton told him, the rallying cry for the Hungarian nation had become " Nem, Nem. Soha! " ("No, No, Never!"), named after a poem of same title by the brilliant Hungarian poet Jozsef Attila. Never would the country and its citizens accept the injustices of the Treaty of Trianon. Hungary had been a multicultural, multilingual nation. All that had changed with the Treaty of Trianon when territories that historically had belonged to Hungary were carved up. "Hungarians became insular, self-absorbed and angry," Marton told Tibor.
Tibor learned that there were one million Jews living in Hungary - almost five percent of the population before Trianon. Marton spoke to Tibor about the loyalty of these Jews who had remained ardent Hungarians and had retained the Hungarian language and culture even after the territory where they lived had been partitioned off to the successor states.
"Yet, who did the Hungarians blame after their country was dismembered?" Marton asked Tibor.
"The Jews," Tibor replied.
"Why?" Marton asked. Tibor looked at his tutor and waited. "Scapegoats," Marton said. "The Hungarians made them into scapegoats for all that was wrong."
Marton explained to Tibor why this had happened. The short-lived, 1919 communist takeover of Hungary occurred just as the peace talks after the First World War were taking place in Paris. This communist regime, organized and led by Bela Kun and his henchmen, created widespread fear of Hungary in the West. Kun was Jewish, as were some of his deputies, and, looking back, it seemed that Hungarians were convinced it was this takeover of the country by Kun that had fuelled the vitriolic hatred of Hungary at the peace talks. In a short time, the Romanians, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, and Croats had convinced the major victorious powers that they would wipe Hungary clean of the communist scum, if only they were granted more territory.
This conviction led to the first of a series of " Numerus Clausus " - laws enacted in 1920 that limited the number of Jews allowed to participate in education and business.
"History continues to affect us in countless ways," Marton lectured Tibor. "Trauma inflicted by history will haunt future generations. That is why we should study history and learn from it. Otherwise, we will continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. What is the great lesson in this all? We must continue to learn. It is a crime to prevent the study of the history of any people or nation."
The Aykler distillery.
As he tutored his willing student, Marton placed special emphasis on how economic factors played such a critical role in history. Following the Great War, he explained, the three countries surrounding Hungary (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania) formed an economic and trade union called the Little Entente. This alliance was supported in large part by France and provided the evidence Hungarians needed that a conspiracy existed to strangle the country economically and destroy any hope they had of rebuilding their crippled country.
"What has the Little Entente achieved?" Marton queried Tibor.
"It has driven Hungary into Germany's sphere of influence again," he answered. The fourteen-year-old Tibor was enthralled and excited by the thinking process his teacher encouraged in him. "Because Hungary was excluded from the Little Entente," he went on, "it had to find other trading partners. This drew her close to Germany who became, once again, her largest trading partner."
Marton nodded. He was pleased with Tibor's ability to grasp what he taught him.
"Now," Marton continued, jabbing his finger into the air, "the world is witnessing the meteoric rise of a politician named Hitler. His new German regime promises territorial revision to the government of Hungary in return for its alliance."
Tibor continued to seek out Marton for long discussions about how this situation