Morality, Motherland, and Freedom

ON SATURDAY, 12 May 1888, a rather simple funeral ceremony was conducted for Michael (Mihály) Heilprin ‘Russian Talmud student, teacher in Hungary, Hungarian patriot, American abolitionist, encyclopedist and practical and self-sacrificing philanthropist . . . perhaps the greatest Jew, from a purely intellectual point of view, that the country has seen’....

‘Anti-Fascist Literature’ as Holocaust Literature?

THE long-accepted, fairly universal idea of a ‘great silence’ on the Holocaust in general, and in Hungary in particular, extending from the end of the Second World War until the Eichmann trial, has recently been challenged.1 The return or emergence from hiding of survivors quickly led to an explosion of Holocaust literature. Before the communist takeover, in the midst of difficult material and turbulent political conditions, Jenő Lévai and others published collections of documents;...

Between Poland and Hungary

IN THE WAKE of the First World War Poland and Hungary became independent states. Poland, which for some 130 years had been partitioned between its neighbouring empires—Russia, Austria, and Prussia—now gained independence, including in its territory some predominantly Ukrainian and Belarusian areas which had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Hungary, which had enjoyed extensive autonomy since the Ausgleich (Austro-Hungarian Compromise) of 1867, was now severed from the defunct Habsburg empire and became independent, but its boundaries were dramatically reduced as a result of the Treaty of Trianon. The two states, whose independence was part of a new European order based on the principle of national self-determination, were supposed to function as democracies and respect the rights of their minorities. In the immediate aftermath of 'the war to end all wars', there was reason to hope that the recognition of the Jews as equal citizens would lead to a golden age of Jewish integration. In practice, the reality was different. Both Poland and Hungary were established as independent states amidst violent internal and external conflicts over their boundaries and the nature of their regimes. In both states, these struggles, which continued throughout the whole interwar period, increasingly led to the dominance of an exclusionary nationalism. Jews were the central, although not the only, minority targeted by this policy of exclusion. Of course, the anti-Jewish violence that occurred during the struggles for the independence of both Poland and Hungary and the anti-Jewish policies and legislation of the 1920s and especially the 1930s should not be regarded as foreshadowing the Nazi catastrophe—which was primarily the result of actions by an external force—however, there is no doubt that in both countries Jewish integration was seriously endangered during the interwar period....

The Magnate-Jewish Symbiosis

WRITING IN 1927, Hungarian Jewish author Lajos Hatvany described, in his autobiographical novel Gentlemen and People, the angst of Hermann Bondy over whether or not the Blaus, a noble couple who had been invited to his wedding, would show up: Would Gusztáv Blau come? Would he bring his wife? Certainly the Blaus had accepted the invitation on paper and were present at the ceremony in the synagogue. . . . But these superior people had not deigned to mingle with the crowds who had rushed to greet the bridal pair. They had hurried away. . . . But Bondy’s thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the door and the entrance of little Gusztáv Blau in person. In he stumbled, smiling and clean-shaven, with his side whiskers and his diplomat’s face. . . . All the guests were then presented in turn to the Blaus, who stood in the centre of the hall like royalty. The panting ladies from the provinces . . . were lost in admiration of Frau Blau’s gigantic ear-rings and her collar of pearls the size of hazelnuts. And that the wealthy banker’s wife should be so kind with it all—a real lady! . . . Indeed, you could see from her whole manner that she had been brought up in Pest. . . . Now the Bondys would be able to say they had been admitted to the leading circles in Pest....

Abnormal Times

THE END of the First World War in eastern Europe could hardly be said to have inaugurated a period of peace. Marked by revolutions, counter-revolutions, renewed foreign warfare, and military occupations, the early post-armistice state-building processes were violent affairs, as political factions wrestled for dominance over their political, ethnic, and religious enemies, and armies battled for territory. This extended period of conflict and violence in the region could be described as the ‘long First World War’. The conflicts that shaped it traced their short-term roots to the preceding years of open warfare and the revolutions that occurred in the wake of the defeat of the Central Powers....

‘Nicht vor dem Kind!’

19 March [1944] was a Sunday, which is why we would have gone for a walk. The next day, my mother took me over to see Dr Halmi at the Hungarian-Italian Bank, where my father also worked. . . . I don’t remember exactly what they discussed, but they did talk about the danger facing us. As a result of this conversation, it wasn’t initially the feeling of humiliation that implanted itself in my conscience, but just the opposite: this conversation put an end to the humiliating feeling that my parents didn’t take me seriously or discuss the most important issues with me. Until that point I knew, and had to know, that we were facing certain dangers. If from nowhere else, then from the arguments between my mother and Aunt Jolán. And there were lots of other signs earlier on too, except I don’t remember them. It seems that all too often, I heard: ...

‘Non-Remembering’ the Holocaust in Hungary and Poland

HUNGARY, as an ally of Nazi Germany, introduced anti-Jewish legislation from 1938 but managed to avoid the deportation of Jews from its post-Trianon territory until the German occupation of the whole country on 19 March 1944. The deportation of 430,000 Jews from Hungary was the quickest in the history of the Holocaust, taking less than two months with the active participation of Hungarian civil servants. Miklós Horthy, who governed the country with an iron fist from 1919, initiated discussions with the Allied forces over a separate armistice, but that did not remain unnoticed by the Germans who installed the fascist Arrow Cross party as a collaborationist government on 15 October 1944. The final days of Hungary, following the pattern of the Italian Social Republic, had started....

Fred Schwartz

FRED SCHWARTZ, founder of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, was an inspiring entrepreneur and philanthropist who dedicated his life to preserving the memory of Holocaust victims and preventing future genocides. He died in New York at the age of 85. After a moving visit to Oświęcim in 1991, Schwartz established the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation in 1995. In 1998, after years of dialogue with the Polish government and the Polish Jewish community, the Hevrah Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue was the first Jewish communal property returned to the Jewish community under a law passed by the Polish Parliament. The Jewish community of Bielsko-Biala, which reclaimed the synagogue, in turn donated it to the foundation which renovated and opened it and the adjacent Kornreich family house as the Auschwitz Jewish Center in 2000. A pioneer of Polish-Jewish reconciliation and the preservation of Jewish heritage in Poland, Schwartz created several related non-profit organizations. Of the Auschwitz Jewish Center, he once said: 'The most important thing is it’s an expression of life, it is vitality, the fact that ashes can rise up and really be re-formed as life again.'...

Ethnic Triangles, Assimilation, and the Complexities of Acculturation in a Multi-ethnic Society

The 'national' histories of 'Hungary', 'Poland', and 'the Jews' are entangled. In the course of the nineteenth century the territories of the national states of Europe acquired an ethnic character. Being Jewish had to relate to the national identity proclaimed by the state. One consequence of the ethnic 'nationalization' of states has been defined as follows:...

Cabaret Nation

Kabaret literacki—’literary cabaret’, a specific form of cabaret consisting of comedy sketches, monologues, and songs with satirical social and political content—was a revolutionary phenomenon in terms of Polish culture, Jewish culture, and notions of Polish national identity. It flourished mainly in Warsaw between the world wars —that is, in the capital of a newly independent nation that was also a great Jewish metropolis with a third of its residents identifying themselves as Jews or ‘of Jewish background’....