Memory of Shoah in Hungary
Andrea Peto CEU,
Budape
st
Social Composition
Budapest 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
Bibliography
Photos 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.
