Language:
English
Year of publication:
2014
Titel der Quelle:
Zutot; Perspectives on Jewish Culture
Angaben zur Quelle:
11 (2014) 39-48
Keywords:
Jews History 20th century
;
Antisemitism History 20th century
;
Jews Persecutions
Abstract:
In the wake of the suppression of the short-lived Hungarian communist regime by the counter-revolutionary army in summer 1919 and the White Terror that followed it, a wave of anti-Jewish violence arose, which abated in 1923, but did not end. In 1919-22, victims of this violence or their family members travelled to the Jewish community of Pest to report the violence. Examines the testimonies assembled at the Hungarian Jewish Archives in Budapest, analyzing the immediate reactions of victims to the violence and the narrative strategies of eyewitnesses. Concludes that the main shock of the narrators stemmed from the feeling of their abrupt, unexpected exclusion from the Hungarian nation by the surrounding society. Many victims tried to avert the violence by emphasizing their participation in World War I. The testimonies are full of patriotic declarations; narrators stress the fact that they had nothing to do with the communist dictatorship, and express their faith in the restoration of Jewish-non-Jewish relations as they had been before the war. In the wake of the wave of violence, the Jewish community of Pest published a series of pamphlets that resorted to the same arguments.
DOI:
10.1163/18750214-12341260
URL:
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