Editing State Protection Authority (section)

===1953 Wallenberg show trial preparations===
ÁVH actions were not subject to [[judicial review]] and remained so until the early post-Stalin era. On April 7, 1953, early in the morning, Miksa Domonkos, one of the leaders of the [[Neologue Judaism|Neologue Jewish]] community in Budapest was kidnapped by ÁVH officials to extract "[[Confession (law)|confessions]]".<ref name="InterviewIstvanDomonkos">[http://www.szombat.org/2006/0602apamatelhurcoltak.htm Interview with István Domonkos] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023214416/http://www.szombat.org/2006/0602apamatelhurcoltak.htm |date=2007-10-23 }}, son of Miksa Domonkos who died after the show trial preparations {{in lang|hu}}</ref> Preparations for a [[show trial]] started in Budapest in 1953 to prove that [[Raoul Wallenberg]] had not been dragged off in 1945 to the Soviet Union but was the victim of [[Rootless cosmopolitan|cosmopolitan]] [[Zionist]]s. For the purposes of this show trial, two more Jewish leaders – Dr. László Benedek and Lajos Stöckler (a leader of Hungary's Neologue Jews) – as well as two would-be "eyewitnesses" – [[Pál Szalai]] and [[Károly Szabó]] – were arrested and interrogated by torture.

The last people to meet Wallenberg in Budapest were Ottó Fleischmann, Károly Szabó, and Pál Szalai, who were invited to a supper at the Swedish Embassy building in Gyopár street on January 12, 1945.<ref>József Szekeres: Saving the Ghettos of Budapest in January 1945, Pál Szalai "the Hungarian Schindler" {{ISBN|963-7323-14-7}}, Budapest 1997, Publisher: Budapest Archives, p. 74</ref> The next day, January 13, Wallenberg contacted the Russians. By 1953, Ottó Fleischmann had left Hungary, working as a [[physician]] in [[Vienna]], [[Antwerp]], [[Ghent]], [[Milan]], [[Turin]] & [[Genoa]].

On 8 April 1953, Károly Szabó was captured on the street and arrested without any legal procedure. His family had no news of him throughout the following six months. A [[secret trial]] was conducted against him of which no official record is available to date. After six months of interrogation, the defendants were driven to despair and exhaustion.

The idea that the "murderers of Wallenberg" were Budapest [[Zionism|Zionists]] was primarily supported by [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungarian Communist]] leader and democratic reformer [[Ernő Gerő]] (a non-Jewish Jew born as Ernő  Singer), which is shown by a note sent by him to First Secretary [[Mátyás Rákosi]] (another non-Jewish Jew born as Mátyás Rosenfeld).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.es.hu/pd/display.asp?channel=PUBLICISZTIKA0442&article=2004-1018-1055-02COSU|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070302192222/http://www.es.hu/pd/display.asp?channel=PUBLICISZTIKA0442&article=2004-1018-1055-02COSU|title=Kenedi János: Egy kiállítás hiányzó képei|archivedate=March 2, 2007|accessdate=December 17, 2024}}</ref> The show trial was then initiated in Moscow, following [[Antisemitism and Joseph Stalin|Stalin's anti-Zionist campaign]]. After the death of Stalin and somewhat later execution of the former NKVD chief [[Lavrentiy Beria]], the preparations for the trial were eventually stopped and the arrested persons were released in fall 1953 under condition that they are not to divulge any part of the arrest. Lajos Stöckler became severely impaired psychologically from torture. Miksa Domonkos spent a week in hospital and died shortly afterwards at home, mainly due to the torture he had been subjected to.<ref name="InterviewIstvanDomonkos" /><ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20070227140333/http://www.hungarianquarterly.com/no143/p129.html Hungarian Quarterly]}} {{in lang|hu}}</ref>