Arrow Cross Party

The Arrow Cross Party is presented through two connected but distinct contexts: its members among the far-right exiles gathered in postwar Buenos Aires, and the killings carried out by Arrow Cross militiamen in Hungary in late 1944. The book uses these references to place the party within a wider history of political violence and postwar accommodation, without detailing its organization or leadership.

Presence Among Postwar Exiles

In its account of Buenos Aires in the late 1940s, the book lists Hungarian Arrow Cross Party members among the many groups from Europe that had found a place in the city’s postwar far-right milieu. They appear alongside Nazis, Croatian Ustaše, Italian Fascists and other nationalist or collaborationist factions. This reference establishes the party’s members as part of a broader gathering of exiles; it does not describe the party’s structure in Argentina or specify its activities there.

Violence in Hungary

The book also recalls Arrow Cross militiamen’s actions in Hungary at the end of 1944. Their killings swept up Jews, Roma and opponents of the Szálasi regime, and bodies were carried away by the frozen River Danube. The passage places this violence in the background of the Stammers’ history: they had supported the regime, yet the narrative does not establish that either was a member of the Arrow Cross Party or took part in the killings.

Memory and Narrative Context

The Stammers’ response to the accusations against Josef Mengele is set against this earlier history. The account says that neither had been troubled by the deportation of Jews from Hungary or by the Arrow Cross militia’s killings, while also recording losses and upheaval suffered by their own families. That juxtaposition connects the party’s violence to the book’s portrayal of selective attention and postwar refuge: the past is present, but not everyone who encounters it is willing to confront it.