A „tépelődő gentleman”

Darányi Kálmán (1886–1939)

Author(s): Róbert Kerepeszki / Language(s): Hungarian / Publication Year: 2014

When people come to speak of Kálmán Darányi, even those familiar with the era could only recall the Győr Program, the preparation of the First Anti-Jewish Law or his negotiations with the Arrow Cross Party. How could one of the greyest politicians of the era with a talent for executive role be the Prime Minister of Hungary? How and in what direction could such a wishy-washy personality influence the political life of the country? How could he, the Prime Minister, get from his attempt to liquidate Gömbös’s radical right-wing policy to his agreement with the National Socialists even more radical than his predecessor? What factors formed his political disposition which resulted in his controversial decisions sometimes tragically influencing the fate of the country? The young author’s scholarly yet readable book contains a lot of new information and answers these and many other interesting questions.

A velencei kalmár a Nemzeti Színházban, 1986

Author(s): Zoltán Imre / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 69/2017

The study focuses on the staging of The Merchant of Venice in Hungary, which took place in 1986 after the forty-six-year silence following the previous premiere of the play in 1940. The article deals with the long hiatus and the new staging, primarily focusing on why The Merchant was considered a “problematic” play within the socialist universe of the Kádár Regime. As a result, the article draws attention to the ways in which the dominant ideology of the Kádár Regime influenced the interpretation of Shakespeare’s play; why it silenced the play to finally acquiesce in a production solely focusing on an apologetic Shylock.

A Vichy-kormány szerepe a francia és menekült zsidók elpusztításában (1940-1944)

Author(s): Julien Papp / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 1/2008

Jews in France, data about the deportation of the Jewish population, the historiography about Vichy and the Jews and the modern atisemitism. The organisation of the deportation of the Jewish population under the Vichy government.

Accusations against Joint during the Anti-“Zionist” Campaign in Poland 1967: Prompt Termination of the Program

Author(s): Mikhail Mitsel / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2019

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) played a major role in Jewish life in Poland in the immediate post-war period. In 1958, the Polish government invited JDC to return, only to expel it again in 1967, following the Six-Day War. JDC became one of the targets of unprecedented and constant antisemitic and anti-“Zionist” propaganda in 1968. The first accusations against the JDC were made in Sztandar Młodych, the Communist Youth newspaper. On 1 April 1968 that newspaper accused the JDC of “having spied for Israel and the United States.” Similarly to the Soviet press in January-February 1953, at the time of Doctors’ Plot, Polish newspapers published articles about the Committee as a “Zionist agency carrying out subversive and intelligence tasks” in the spring of 1968. In Wrocław, Łódź, and other provincial cities, the newspapers carried out very strong attacks had against JDC, using lies in a most vicious way. At the very same time the authorities began a well-planned systematic action to destroy all Jewish institutions that received financial support from JDC. An exodus of some 12,000 Jews from Poland followed increased antisemitic propaganda. JDC provided aid to several thousand of emigrants.

Akce "Pavouk". Evidování židovského obyvatelstva Státní bezpečností za normalizace

Author(s): Ondřej Koutek / Language(s): Czech / Issue: 01/2017

Anti-Semitism and persecution of the Jewish population are frequent subject of historical research, which is usually related especially to World War II and Shoah history. The Czech historiography focused a little less attentionon on the status of the Jewish communities after the Second World War and especially during Communist rule regime in Czechoslovakia.

Akcja „Reinhardt” w świetle najnowszej niemieckiej literatury przedmiotu

Author(s): Stephan Lehnstaedt / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 13/2017

Akcja „Reinhardt” to niemieckim określenie maskujące, za którym kryje się wymordowanie w latach 1942–1943 co najmniej 1,8 mln Żydów w obozach zagłady w Bełżcu, Sobiborze i Treblince. Spośród Żydów skierowanych do tych obozów przeżyło mniej niż 150 osób. Dwie z nich to ocaleni z Bełżca, pozostali zaś mniej więcej po połowie przeszli przez obozy zagłady w Sobiborze i Treblince. Prawie wszyscy wyjechali po wojnie z Polski – do Izraela albo do Stanów Zjednoczonych.

Amikor antiszemita eszmék és zsidó törvények találkoznak. Magyarország esete

Author(s): Jehuda Hartman / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 1/2018

An Affective Art History

Author(s): Luiza Nader / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2015

An Essay on Archival Sources to Study the Soviet Army’s Response to the Holocaust

Author(s): Vojin Majstorovic / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2019

This essay reflects on the sources that are available for the study of the Red Army’s encounter with the Holocaust. It discusses the accessibility of various archives in Russia and focusses on informational reports, a type of intelligence documents that the Soviet armed forces produced about the newly occupied territories.

An Immovable Property Restitution Legislation Database

ESLI'S Initiative to Bring Present and Future Meaning to the Terezin Declaration Commitments

Author(s): Kristen Nelson,Rajika L. Shah / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2015

The 2009 Terezin Declaration reflects the will of 47 nations to continue to enhance their efforts to right the wrongs committed against groups persecuted during World War II. These commitments are not only important with respect to bringing justice to those affected by persecution during the Holocaust, but also are important from the standpoint of transitional justice as now understood, including as a way of reducing the likelihood of future genocides or mass atrocities. The European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI) was established to monitor progress and advocate for the principles enshrined in the Terezin Declaration, in particular that of immovable (real) property restitution. ESLI’s latest project – the immovable property database initiative – will provide a much needed and long overdue dynamic tool for claimants, heirs, scholars, governments, NGOs – any stakeholder – to help navigate current property restitution issues by confronting the path through the past which brought us to current state of affairs.. When completed, the online database will be a user-friendly, public-access comparative repository of legislation and international and domestic case law (both past and present) from every country that has endorsed the Terezin Declaration. Using the online database to examine the often thorny and emotionally charged issue of heirless property, in particular, is emblematic of how the content can be used to drive the conversation for solutions forward and possibly give rise to intertwined policy-related questions.

An Open Secret? - The Dissemination and Reception of News about Auschwitz in Hungary in 1944

Author(s): Gergely Kunt / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

In this paper, I analyse diaries from 1944 to explore the extent to which ordinary Hungarian civilians were informed of the genocide of the Jewish population. The diaries indicate that information was sparse among the Hungarian population, and mainly obtained, directly or indirectly, from BBC radio broadcasts. The reactions of individual Christian and Jewish dia­rists varied according to the amount of credit they gave to the broadcasts or the rumours circulating within their social circles. However, both Jews and Christians tried not to give credit to the rumours as the idea of gas chambers and mass gassings was simply inconceiv­able to the majority of the examined diarists. Even Jewish diarists who had received news of the on­going genocide and feared for their lives thought it more likely that they would be executed by volley fire. For them, this method of mass murder posed a more realistic danger.

Anan ben Dawid jako islamizujący heretyk żydowski: o tym, jak raw Saadia Gaon stworzył mit fundacyjny karaizmu

Author(s): Marzena Zawanowska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 01/2018

The paper explores the recently reconstructed and edited polemical work Kitab al-radd ʻala ʻAnan [The Book of Refutation against Anan] written in the early 10th c. CE by the allegedly “archfoe” of the Karaites, rav Saadia Gaon (d. 942). It focuses on the reconstruction of the story of Anan ben David (VIII c.), who with time begun to be considered the founding father of Karaism, and demonstrates that it was Saadia who created the basic myth of his lifestory. This myth was later on used not only by other rabbanite polemicists, but also appropriated by the Karaites. It includes several important elements, unknown from earlier sources, which constitute Saadia’s genuine contribution to the conceptualization of Karaism, its origins and nature. They are 1. Pinpointing Anan as the source of religious schism in medieval Judaism; 2. Historicization of Anan’s figure thanks to providing short description of his biography and psychological depiction of his character, including motives of his behavior; 3. Socio-political contextualization of his life and deeds; 4. Historical reconstruction of the development of heresy in Judaism, including the indication of common treats between the ancient sectarians (Sadducees) and Anan’s followers (Karaites); 5. Cultural rooting of Anan’s doctrine in its Islamic environment. All these elements have permanently entered the discourse on Karaism in Rabbanite and Karaite writings like. In addition, lack of other historical sources and/or symbols, the story created by Saadia was later on appropriated by the X-XI c. Karaites (i.e., Elijahu ben Abraham, Chiluq ha-Qaraim ve-ha-Rabbanim), who at the time desperately needed unifying myths, as the founding myth of their religion. It is therefore possible to conjecture that if not for the Babylonian geonim, who sought for the unification of Judaism and centralization of religious and political power in their own hands, and for polemical purposes first elevated Anan to the rank of a symbol (Rav Natronai Gaon) and then reconstructed his lifestory (Rav Saadia Gaon), it is not unlikely that he would not have been recognized by the Karaites as the founding father of their movement.

Anatomia donosu ks. Stanisława Trzeciaka na ks. Tadeusza Pudra

Author(s): Jan Grabowski,Dariusz Libionka / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 13/2017

The materials presented in the article include documentation of the German Special Court (Sondergericht) in Warsaw proceedings against Tadeusz Puder, a Catholic priest of Jewish origin arrested by the Gestapo in the spring of 1941. His imprisonment was a consequence of a denunciation made by Fr. Stanisław Trzeciak, one of the leading Polish anti-Semites. Sentenced to several months in prison, Puder managed to escape from the prison hospital in autumn 1942 and survive in hiding. He died a few days after the liberation of Warsaw in a car accident. Despite the cooperation with the German security police, Trzeciak was among the victims of mass executions during the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944. The introduction of the article presents a broader context of Trzeciak’s anti-Semitic activity and the reasons for his personal hatred for Puder, as well as unknown details of collaborative attempts in the first months of German occupation.

Anielski naród

Author(s): Miklós Szabó / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 03/2014

Some might say that there seems to be a rising tendency toward historical revisionism in Hungary. The term “revisionism” is used here to describe a negative process, a reinvention, a reinterpretation of historical events in a way that constitutes the denial of historical crimes. This would be an arguably objective statement, but on its own would also create a false certitude that we are facing a simple case of misinterpretation – something that can be addressed and solved by historians, the bearers of objective knowledge, a simple lie that shatters in the light of truth. If existence, as Heidegger claimed, “finds it’s meaning in temporality”, then we can assume that the present is in fact the history of itself, and all social phenomena are questions about the present, and therefore something that is naturally immune to the charms of historical facts. In this case, it can only be fully understood through an anthropological analysis, since historical facts are nonexistent, or at least irrelevant, from this perspective. If we also assume that we all live in “imagined communities”, and can analyze the “cultural stuff” that forms the basis of one’s national, ethnic, or any other group-related identity, then we can discard any observable social events, for it would be easier to label them simply as the product of mere stupidity or a misinterpretation of facts.This ternary can be understood through an analysis of recent Hungarian events, like the scandal concerning a statue presently under construction on Freedom Square (Budapest) that commemorates the Nazi invasion of 1944 and the rehabilitation of Miklós Horthy, the war-time leader of Hungary. The statue portrays Hungary as a victim of the Nazis, while more than 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, with the active help of Hungarian officials. Nostalgia toward the 1930s goes hand-in-hand with increasing xenophobia and racism. These resent events can be, and are, criticized from a number of perspectives, without any effect, proving again that one should first understand an issue before addressing it.

Anti-Jewish excesses on Bulgarian territories of Ottoman Empire during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878

Author(s): Bartłomiej Rusin / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

The article concentrates on anti-Jewish excesses in the Bulgarian territories of the Ottoman Empire during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. The acts of violence against this group started at the very beginning of the war, when Russian and Cossack troops crossed the Danube and entered the city of Svishtov. Local Bulgarians joined the soldiers in the looting of the Jewish district. Several Jewish residents died. The anti-Jewish incidents occurred in several other towns (Stara Zagora and Kazanlak in particular), where local Jews were murdered and their houses were robbed and plundered. The prevailing atmosphere of chaos and fear of retaliation by retreating Turkish troops triggered the local Slavic population into committing crimes and murdering their Jewish neighbours, who were also accused sometimes of being Turkish spies. The only chance of survival for the local Jews was to flee into areas free from war, and many of them did so. It seems, however, that the atrocities did not influence considerably their attitude towards Bulgarians. In many cities, the local Jewry actually displayed great care for their neighbours, actively seeking to support and protect them. The participation of Bulgarians in the attacks belies the persistent idea of themselves being a traditionally tolerant nation, free of anti-Semitic sentiments. The Russian and Cossack troops also brought in a new variety of anti-Semitism, which previously was rather rooted in the local culture and folklore.

Anti-Jewish Violence in Prague, 1744, through Contemporary Eyes:

The Testimony of Joseph Kirschner Shohet

Author(s): Iveta Cermanová / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

The study focuses on the period of theWar of the Austrian Succession at the beginning of the reign of Maria Theresa, when Prague, the capital of Bohemia, was conquered and occupied twice. It summarizes the present state of knowledge in the specialist literature on the fate of Prague Jews at this time and on their alleged collaboration with the enemy, which became a pretext for two pogroms in 1744 and for the expulsion of the Jews from the Bohemian lands. It explores in detail the contemporary Jewish and non-Jewish sources on these events and presents a previously unknown narrative-biographical source in the form of an eye-witness account (family megillah) by Joseph Kirschner Shohet (1717–1766), which describes the author’s fate and the tragic experience of the second pogrom in Prague on 26–27 November 1744. The study contains a full transcription of Kirschner’s scroll from the Hebrew original and a translation of most of its text.

Antijüdische Provokationen - Amtsberichte zur politischen Radikalisierung in der ČSR am Vorabend des Zweiten Weltkriegs

Author(s): Miloslav Szabó / Language(s): German / Issue: 1/2016

In der Forschung gilt die Erste Tschechoslowakische Republik als eine Insel der Demokratie und ein Eiland religiöser wie ethnischer Toleranz, die von autoritären und antisemitischen Regimes umzingelt gewesen sei. Diese weitgehend positive Einschätzung jedoch gilt nur bedingt für die aus dem ungarischen Teil der Monarchie ausgeschiedene Slowakei, wo der Antisemitismus die politische Kultur tiefer als in den böhmischen Ländern geprägt hatte. Dennoch wird der slowakische Antisemi- tismus in der Ersten Tschechoslowakischen Republik fast ausschließlich im Kontext der ‚neuen Judenfrage‘ in der zweiten Hälfte der 1930er-Jahre verortet und mit der Oppositionspolitik der Slowakischen Volkspartei Hlinkas (Hlinkova slovenská ľudová strana, HSĽS) beziehungsweise der Anhängern der Faschistischen Volksgemeinschaft (Národní obec fašistická, NOF) in Verbindung gebracht. Inwiefern der Antisemitismus die sogenannten staatstragenden Parteien oder gar die Justiz und Staatsverwaltung in der Slowakei beeinflusste, wird hingegen nur selten thematisiert. Dies sticht vor allem angesichts der Tatsache ins Auge, dass es sich hierbei um entscheidende Faktoren der antisemitischen Radikalisierung nach der Ausrufung der slowakischen Autonomie im Herbst 1938 handelt.

Antisemitism and Catholicism in the Interwar Period - The Jesuits in Austria, 1918–1938

Author(s): David Lebovitch Dahl / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

The paper examines the attitudes of the Austrian Jesuits to antisemitism in the interwar period. This question is highly relevant for the study of antisemitism and the Holocaust, because of the strong influence of Catholicism within Austrian society and the prominent role played by Austrians in the Holocaust. The scientific literature has argued that the Austrian context was of central importance to the formation of both antisemitic and anti-antisemitic views among Catholics. However, the dynamics and internal nuances within high ecclesiastical circles have remained understudied. The present research indicates the permanence of an entrenched anti-Jewish tradition as well as the start of a novel reconsideration of this very tradition within the Jesuit Order in Austria. By analyzing tensions in the positions of the Austrian Jesuits, this research contributes to a better understanding of the continuity and rupture in antisemitism in Austria in the period immediately prior to the Holocaust.

Antisemitismul românesc la sfârşitul secolului al XIX-lea – scurtă privire critică

Author(s): Liviu Neagoe / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 18/2015

This paper analyses the evolution and the features of Romanian anti-Semitism from the point of political and institutional modernization of a country who aspires to an European role. The political and institutional modernization of Romania can not avoid the captious problem of the „Jewish issue” as it was recorded in the constitutional debates and public discourse of the second half of the 19th century. International recognition of Romanian independence, stipulated during the Congress of Berlin from 1878, was conditioned by the political emancipation of the Jewish population. The huge international pressure was perceived by the intellectual and political Romanian elites as an intrusion into the internal affairs of a sovereign state. The revision of the article 7 of the Constitution from 1866 related to naturalization has generated a strong dispute. Finally, a politically solution was found: Jews could gain political emancipation only on individual basis. But until the end of the 19th century only a small part of the Jewish population achieved to obtain Romanian citizenship. The Romanian model of citizenship as it was implemented during the nineteenth century was influenced by the romantic ethno-cultural conception about nation. The juridical Romanian tradition has consecrated the jus sanguinis principle, of the “community of descendants”, in granting the citizenship instead of the humanistic and generous principle of jus soli. This particularity in defining of citizenship was decisive in understanding the intricate relationship between Romanians and Jews and the Anti-Semitic factor of the Romanian internal policy. The „Jewish issue” was finally a question of political choice. It was the choice of Romanian political and intellectual elites to „solve” the „Jewish issue” in the Antisemitism formula and to integrate the Jews according to the principle jus sanguinis of „community od descendants”. The bureaucratic Antisemitism from the late Nineteenth century was clearly different but inspirational for the radical Antisemitism from the interwar period. There is a fact that the Anti-Semitic discourse from the second half of the 19th century was not the main discourse of the political and intellectual Romanian elites. But is also a fact that the modern Romanian history can not be properly understood outside of the delicate „Jewish issue”.

Antisemitizmas Lietuvoje 1939–1940 metais – Valstybės saugumo departamento pranešimai

Author(s): Linas Venclauskas / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 67/2017

This is a publication of documents consisting of reports of the Lithuanian State Security Department concerning Anti-Semitism from 1939 to 1940 (up to the month of July). The situation during the first few months of Soviet occupation is also reflected in the reports of the Kaunas City Police. The content of the documents varies from short messages about anti-Semitic activities to lengthy and detailed reports. If a report contains information about anti-Semitic proclamations, usually but not always the supporting documents are included, too. These documents are in the form of typescript, manuscript, poster, or proclamation. The documents are not gathered in one file, except in one case (f. 378, ap. 10, b. 158) where the file is devoted just to Anti-Semitism; that file only has 104 pages. In all other cases, information is given in the flow of general information about events occurring in that period.