role in the Holocaust, Hungarian News Agency MTI reported Sunday, October 20.
In a letter the president praised the 72-year old Hungarian novelist Imre Kertesz "on behalf of the Israeli people" for "awakening the world’s attention" with his books "to what was perhaps the darkest age of humanity, the Jewish Holocaust," MTI said.
About 600-thousand Hungarian Jews were killed during World War Two, when Hungary for the most part was a close ally of Nazi Germany. The letter was read by his wife, Magda, late Saturday at a Jewish reception in his honour as part of Kertesz’s four day tour in Budapest, where he received a hero’s welcome.
Kertesz, who is himself a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, said earlier that "Hungarians are unaware that the culture and art of 2,000 years was burnt in Auschwitz… All values were useless on the threshold of the gas chambers."
"FATELESS" IS FILMED
A key factor in the Nobel award was Kertesz’s 1975 book "Sorstalansag" ("Fateless"), his first and seminal novel based on his experiences at Auschwitz, which will soon be filmed.
The executive director of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary, Gusztav Zoltai suggested that Kertesz inspired Hungarian Jews and that the writer will be the first to receive an honorary doctorate from the National Rabbi Training-Jewish University.
In meetings over the weekend with Government officials and reporters Kertesz made clear that he hopes his Prize will help Hungary "to face the corpse in the cupboard: the systematic robbing and extermination of Jews."
A DIVIDED SOCIETY
The writer stressed however that when he met with Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy on Friday, October 18, the two "voiced a joint hope that the Nobel Prize might help bring together the very divided society," MTI reported.
Kertesz’s prize was unanimously hailed in Hungary, a country torn by political debates over preparations to join the European Union which have overshadowed local elections Sunday, October 20.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs has said that Kertesz will receive a diplomatic passport as "there is no better ambassador of Hungarian culture abroad" and to make travelling easier.
SCHOLARSHIP IN BERLIN
His wife, a Hungarian born American, wants to take time off as a Trade Representative for the State of Illinois in Budapest to accompany her husband, who is currently on a scholarship in Berlin.
"It helps him personally to have next to him a loving partner, and that’s what I can give him," she told BosNewsLife. Magda Kertesz, who married him a decade ago after his first wife died, said her husband deserves the $1 million award.
"When I met him in 1990, he was very poor. For 40 years (during Communism) he had such a small place to write. Sometimes he got a small accommodation from writer friends who went overseas, maybe for a scholarship."
NO COOKING SKILLS
She added the first ever he only bought his first computer a few months ago to work on his new book "but is not using Internet or e-mail." While he is the first Hungarian to receive the 2002 Nobel Prize for Literature, it is apparently unlikely that Kertesz will ever win an award for a cooking book.
"A cooking book would have been more popular and profitable. But he is terrible helpless in the kitchen," added his wife.
