Bela Bartok

Jerome Kleinsasser writes (letter, March 18), “It is so very easy to ascribe anti-Nazi sentiments to virtually anything composed by a refugee, if indeed Bartok was one, during those horrible years.”

The following may help to alleviate his doubt whether Bela Bartok, one of the greatest composers of this century, was indeed a refugee--and a vocal opponent of the Hungarian proto-Nazi and Nazi regimes. Two “squares” in Budapest, the Oktogon (octogon) and the Korond (roughly: circle) were renamed Mussolini and Hitler squares, respectively. Bartok wrote in his published will, “As long as the Oktogon and Korond carry their present name or any other place in Hungary carries one of these names, no public street or square in the country should be given my name after my death.”

JANOS ACZEL

Newport Beach