János Áder, President of Hungary, and his wife visited János Esterházy Centre of Pilgrimage in Dolné Obdokovce (Alsóbodok) today to pay homage to the martyred count who had fought for the rights of Slovakian Hungarians, at his resting place.
Inter alia, Tibor Pető, Ambassador of Hungary, Árpád János Potápi, State Secretary for National Policy (Hungary), József Menyhárt, Chairman of the Party of the Hungarian Community, Gyula Bárdos, President of the Social and Cultural Association of the Hungarians of Slovakia (CSEMADOK), and, of course, the presidential couple also attended a cultural performance. János Áder recalled in his speech the greatness and legacy of János Esterházy hunted by the Nazis, Soviet Communists, and Czechoslovak nationalists.
The presidential couple took a walk through the János Esterházy Memorial Museum. They paid tribute to the memory and life work of János Esterházy by laying a wreath at his resting place, and then prayed.
Boldizsár Paulisz, the president of the János Esterházy's Homeland Association, built the final resting place for Count János Esterházy on his own land last year. His resting place has become a centre of pilgrimage.
Count János Esterházy (birth: Nyitraújlak, Kingdom of Hungary, March 14, 1901,– death: Mírov, Czechoslovakia, March 8, 1957) was a prominent ethnic Hungarian politician in mid-war Czechoslovakia and later in the First Slovak Republic. He was a member of the Czechoslovak Parliament and of the Slovak Assembly. After the Second World War, he was illegally deported to the Soviet Union, sentenced on trumped-up charges at a show-trial, and imprisoned. In the meantime he was sentenced, in absentia, to death by the National Court in Bratislava on the charges of High Treason to the State, the breaking-up of Czechoslovakia. The sentence was not executed as a consequence of a Presidential pardon, following his return to Czechoslovakia from Soviet Union. He died in prison in 1957.
The Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities have described him as a hero for saving Jews during World War II. He was the only deputy of the Slovak Assembly who did not vote for the deportation of Slovak Jews in 1942.
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