András Kun, O.F.M. (9 November 1911 – 19 September 1945 in Budapest, Hungary) was a Roman Catholic priest of the Franciscan Order. During the Holocaust in Hungary, Kun was also the commander of an Anti-Semitic death squad for the Arrow Cross Party. After the Second World War, Kun was prosecuted for war crimes by a Hungarian People's Tribunal after Hungary's occupation by Soviet armies. He was convicted and hanged.
Life
Early life and Church career
András Kun was born 8 November 1911 in Nyírbátor, Kingdom of Hungary. He attended seminary in Rome. He then served as a priest in a Franciscan monastery. In 1943, Kun was, according to journalist Rezső Szirmai, expelled from the monastery and moved to Budapest.
Although it is uncertain whether he ever had valid faculties, Kun sometimes gave sermons and offered Nuptial Masses at Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church in Városmajor.
Participation in the Holocaust
In early 1944, Kun enrolled in Hungary's Pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party. During the lead-up to the German invasion of Hungary in 19 March 1944, Kun participated in the Arrow Cross' seizure of power by distributing weapons on 15 October 1944.The Arrow Cross Government (1944–1945).
Kun later recalled, "The propaganda drilled into us the belief that the Jews lurk behind the Bolsheviks. Amidst the wildest battles, I stood with this conviction and as Jews came before me, I beat them."
Soon after, the Arrow Cross and the Schutzstaffel began the extermination of Jews in Hungary (deportation made from April to October in 1944, death squad attacks happened on the war zones from October 1944 to February 1945). Meanwhile, Kun took command of an Arrow Cross department death squad in the XII. district in Budapest, after Ferenc Szálasi and his government left Budapest on the end of November in 1944 because the Hungarian capital started being besieged by the Soviet Red Army. His squad started massacring the remaining (who were not only in the official Budapest Ghetto but in some hospitals, homes for the elderly, house that belonged to neutral states such as Switzerland or Sweden). During these activities, he continued to dress in his cassock and Roman collar along with a holstered pistol and an Arrow Cross armband. His orders usually went, "In the name of Christ - fire!"
In a later interview with journalist Rezső Szirmai, Kun recalled, "I always wanted to reduce human misery and suffering. This is why I fought against the Jews. They are the lords of capital. The Jews were always the ones to walk on the sunny side of the street."
In January 1945 Kun ordered the arrest of Jewish author Ernő Ligeti and his family. Kun and his death squad brutally tortured Ligeti's son and his wife. The Ligetis were then taken to Arrow Cross headquarters at Andrássy út 60, interrogated, stripped naked and tied together. Then, around midnight, they faced a firing squad. Ernő Ligeti and his wife were killed on the spot, but their son Károly, survived four bullets, recovered from his wounds, and later emigrated from Hungary.
On 12 January 1945, Kun's squad broke into the Jewish hospital in Maros street (Hospital of the Buda Chevra Kadisha), where 149 Jewish patients and doctors were summarily shot. On another occasion, the St. John's Hospital was invaded by Kun's unit and between 80 and 100 people were murdered. His squad also invaded sheltered housing and abducted some 500 Jews and their protectors. All were lined up and shot into the Danube River. On another occasion, men under Kun's command broke into a sanatorium, where 100 Jewish patients were shot to death.
Kun did not flee the city before the Siege of Budapest but remained behind while continuing operations. As the enclosed area narrowed in January, the proud bridges of Budapest flew into the air one after another as the Germans blew them up. At the end of December 1944, the Southern Connecting Railway Bridge, on January 15 the Miklós Horthy Bridge, on the 16th the Ferenc József Bridge, and the last 2 was blown up oy 18 January. Kun helped local squads to move and escape to Buda and he put his headquarter back to the XII. district. His squad routinely subjected Gentiles who were hiding Jews to torture and execution.