Memory of Shoah in Hungary
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Transcript of Memory of Shoah in Hungary
Memory of Shoah in Hungary
Andrea Peto
CEU, Budapest
Social CompositionBudapest centered, in few
provincial cities
In 1945 150 - 260 000 decrease due to migration
(in 2000 64 000- 118 000)
33% younger than 20 years, 23,2% older than 60, for 1000 men 1370 women
Assimilated, educated
Nationalization and Communist take over
Aliya and migration• internationalisms
• Loss of symbolic spaces
• Jewish identity becomes
victimized identity:
antifascism
• Zionism increasing
popularity „managed” as
„religion”
• Migration outside the
Soviet Block
Transitional justice
Ethics, moral and law
mixed
• Individualized
corrective justice
• Bifurcation of memory
• Institutionalised
amnesia
New anti-semitism• Increase of new anti-
semitism 1946 Pogroms eg. Kunmadaras
• Critics of transitional justice
• Change in elite (collaborationists were out from power, migrations plus economic boom 1945-1947)
Why lawyers?
Liberal profession,
social composition
Legal profession
Conflicting
identities: both
victims of Shoah
and members of
the legal profession
• After 1945
normalisational discourse
was legal discourse
(people’s tribunals)
• Legal professionals
mediating, invisibly
between state and
individuals
(communicative memory)
Social composition of lawyers
MÜNE (National Association of
Hungarian Lawyers) 1927-1945
numerus nullus 6% of all lawyers in
1939, in Budapest 3384 registered
lawyers 2040 of Jewish origin
Lustration 1945-1946
Communist lustration 1947-1948---
Characteristics of the lawyers
Age composition (62)
50% 1896-1913
31% 1871-1895
19% young with
„generational luck”
One third of the lawyers
were of Jewish origin
5% „Debrecen lobby”
8% postal service lobby
3% active in professional
organizations
53% party affiliation (18%
leftist, 5% member of
Christian religious
institutions)
12% published in
professional journals, 10%
link to agrarian party, 1 MP
Result of lustration
71% approved
21% reprimanded
3% excluded
5 lawyers were suspended
Conclusions
BibliographyPhotos are from Jewish Museum and Archive and
Museum of Criminology, Budapest
Pető, Andrea, “Problems of Transitional Justice in Hungary: An Analysis of the People’s Tribunals in Post-War Hungary and the Treatment of Female Perpetrators” in Zeitgeschichte Vol. 34. November-December 2007. pp. 335-349.
Pető, Andrea, „Gendered Memory of Military Violence in Eastern Europe in the 20th century” in The Gender of Memory. Cultures of Remembrance in Nineteenth- and Twentieth- Century Europe Eds. Sylvia Palatschek, Sylvia Schraut. Frankfurt, New York: Campus Verlag, 2008, pp. 237-253.