Nicholas M. Nagy-Talavera or Miklós Nagy (February 1, 1929 – January 23, 2000) was a
Hungarian-American dissident, historian, writer and professor,
Biography
He was born to prosperous merchants of
Sephardic Jewish
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
descent and spent his childhood in
Oradea
Oradea (, , ; german: Großwardein ; hu, Nagyvárad ) is a city in Romania, located in Crișana, a sub-region of Transylvania. The county seat, seat of Bihor County, Oradea is one of the most important economic, social and cultural centers in the ...
,
Romania. In 1944, when he was 14 years old, Nagy-Talavera was arrested by Hungarian police and handed over to German authorities, who transported him to
Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, where he encountered the notorious
Joseph Mengele
, allegiance =
, branch = Schutzstaffel
, serviceyears = 1938–1945
, rank = '' SS''-''Hauptsturmführer'' (Captain)
, servicenumber =
, battles =
, unit =
, awards =
, commands =
, s ...
. He survived Auschwitz and returned to Budapest in 1945 to find that his parents had also survived the war by hiding with Christian friends.
In 1948 Nagy-Talavera enrolled at the
University of Vienna. Because of his dissident activities, he fell afoul of
SMERSH, the
Red Army's counter-intelligence branch. Arrested, convicted of espionage, and sentenced to 25 years of slave labor, he spent the next seven years in the
USSR's
gulag system. He was released in late 1955, and returned to Budapest in time to participate in the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956. When the revolution was failed he fled to Vienna, and thence to the United States.
Nagy-Talavera completed his
Bachelor of Arts and
Ph.D. degrees at the
University of California, Berkeley. He taught Russian and Eastern European History at
California State University, Chico from 1967 until his retirement in 1991.
Nagy-Talavera was the author of many articles and books including on
Nicolae Iorga ''(Nicolae Iorga: A Biography)''
and the
Arrow Cross
A cross whose arms end in arrowheads is called a "cross barby" or "cross barbée" in the traditional terminology of heraldry. In Christian use, the ends of this cross resemble the barbs of fish hooks, or fish spears. This alludes to the Ichth ...
and the
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard ( ro, Garda de Fier) was a Romanian militant revolutionary fascist movement and political party founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael () or the Legionnaire Movement (). It was strongly ...
(''The Green Shirts and the Others: A History of Fascism in Hungary and Romania''). He was just a child when he met
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the
charismatic leader of the Iron Guard.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nagy-Talavera, Nicholas
American Sephardic Jews
Hungarian emigrants to the United States
American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
American humanities academics
Auschwitz concentration camp survivors
1929 births
2000 deaths