ABOUT THIS BOOK

According to most historians, the Holocaust in Hungary represented a unique chapter in the singular history of what the Nazis termed as the “Final Solution” of the “Jewish question” in Europe. More than seventy years after the Shoah, the origins and prehistory as well as the implementation and aftermath of the genocide still provide ample ground for scholarship. In fact, Hungarian historians began to seriously deal with these questions only after the 1980s. Since then, however, a consistently active and productive debate has been waged about the history and interpretation of the Holocaust in Hungary and with the passage of time, more and more questions have been raised in connection with its memorialization. This volume includes twelve selected scholarly papers thematically organized under four headings: 1. The newest trends in the study of the Holocaust in Hungary. 2. The anti-Jewish policies of Hungary during the interwar period 3. The Holocaust era in Hungary 4. National and international aspects of Holocaust remembrance. The studies reflect on the anti-Jewish atmosphere in Hungary during the interwar period; analyze the decision-making process that led to the deportations, and the options left open to the Hungarian government. They also provide a detailed presentation of the Holocaust in Transylvania and describe the experience of Hungarian Jewish refugees in Austria after the end of the war.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Randolph L. Braham is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the City College, Director of the Institute for Holocaust Studies at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York, and Director of the Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies at the Graduate Center.

András Kovács is Professor at the Nationalism Studies Department and Academic Director of Jewish Studies at the Central European University.

REVIEWS

"The book, a volume of essays edited by Randolph L. Braham and András Kovács, gives an excellent introduction into the state of the art in Hungarian Holocaust research seventy years after the events. Two main questions stand out: how to understand and come to terms with the complicity of non-Jewish Hungarians and the Hungarian state on the level of nationwide history politics, and how to grasp the relationship between the Holocaust and earlier periods in Hungarian Jewish history. In other words, was the catastrophic fate of Hungarian Jewry presaged by a lingering and deep-rooted antisemitism in Hungarian society, or was it, as some Hungarian Jewish spokespeople would still argue in the wake of the war, an unprecedented and entirely unexpected occurrence that was out of step not just with Jewish life in Hungary, but with Hungarian society as a whole? This debate—also known as the intentionalist versus the functionalist dimensions of the Holocaust—informs the different approaches..."
-- East Central Europe

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword Randolph L. Braham and András Kovács I. INTRODUCTION Hungarian Intentionalism: New Directions in the Historiography of the Hungarian Holocaust András Kovács II. THE PATH TO THE HOLOCAUST The Antisemitism of István Bethlen and Jewish Policy in the Horthy Era Ignác Romsics The Numerus Clausus and the Anti-Jewish Laws Mária M. Kovács The Coming of the Shoah in Public Discourse, State Policies and Social Realities: An Essay on Continuities of the “Jewish Question” in Hungary since the “Golden Age” Victor Karady III. THE AGE OF PERSECUTION The Origins of the Military Labor Service System in Hungary László Csosz Master Plan? The Decision-Making Process behind the Deportations Krisztián Ungváry The Holocaust in Transylvania Zoltán Tibori Szabó The Sociology of Survival: The Presence of the Budapest Jewish Population Groups of 1941 in the 1945 Budapest Population Péter Tibor Nagy Across the Iron Curtain—Hungarian Jewish Refugees in Austria, 1945–49: The Letters to Enns Rebekah Klein-Pejšová IV. THE MEMORY OF THE HOLOCAUST Hungarian Memory of the Hungarian Holocaust Gábor Gyáni Global and Local Holocaust Remembrance Monika Kovács Digitalized Memories of the Holocaust in Hungary in the Visual History Archive Andrea Peto Hungary: The Assault on the Historical Memory of the Holocaust Randolph L. Braham List of Contributors Index