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.