March 16-18, 2004
Spring 2004 marks the passing of 60 years since the deportation and destruction of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews. The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York have organized this major international conference of scholars to coincide with the worldwide commemoration of the Holocaust in Hungary.
In coordination with this conference, the Holocaust Documentation Center and Memorial Collection Public Foundation of Budapest is organizing an international scholars conference, The Holocaust in Hungary: Sixty Years Later—A European Perspective, which will take place in Budapest, April 16–18, 2004.
The conferences in Washington and Budapest are intended to promote international scholarly cooperation, present recent scholarship, and explore the historical lessons of the Holocaust. Scholars and specialists from Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Romania, the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere will present cutting-edge research and documentation on the Holocaust in Hungary and its postwar ramifications.
Introduction
Sara J. Bloomfield, Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Keynote Address
Elie Wiesel, Founding Chairman, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Greetings
Paul A. Shapiro, Director, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM
Randolph L. Braham, Director,The Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, The Graduate Center,The City University of New York, and Member, Academic Committee, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
His Excellency András Simonyi, Ambassador to the United States of America, Embassy of the Republic of Hungary,Washington, D.C.
The Honorable Tom Lantos, United States House of Representatives, and Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Panel Discussion
Chair: Randolph L. Braham (The City University of New York)
Gábor Kádár (University of Debrecen, Hungary; 2003–2004 Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM), The Economic Annihilation of Hungarian Jewry, 1944–45
Tim Cole (University of Bristol, United Kingdom; 1999–2000 Pearl Resnick Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM), A Gendered Holocaust? The Experiences of Jewish Men and Women in Hungary, 1944
Judit Molnár (University of Szeged, Hungary; 2001 Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM), Hungarian Gendarmes and People’s Courts
Panel Discussion
Chair: Bernard Klein (Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn, New York)
László Karsai (University of Szeged, Hungary; 1997 Joyce and Arthur Schechter Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM), The Hungarian Holocaust from an International Perspective
Raphael Vago (Tel Aviv University, Israel), From the Periphery to the Center: The Holocaust in Hungary and Israeli Historiography
Radu Ioanid and Ferenc Katona (USHMM), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archival Acquisitions on the Holocaust in Hungary
Panel Discussion
Chair: Paul A. Shapiro (USHMM)
Jean Ancel (Yad Vashem; 2004 Charles H. Revson Foundation and Rosenzweig Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM), The Sherit Hapletah: Holocaust Survivors in Northern Transylvania
Holly Case (Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; 2003 Yetta and Jacob Gelman Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM), The Holocaust in Transylvania: A Regional Approach to the Study of Ethnic Violence
Daniel Lowy (Naval Research Laboratory), Christian Help Provided to Jews in Northern Transylvania As Revealed by the Newspaper Egység (Unity)
Zoltán Tibori Szabó (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), The Transylvanian Jewish Community during the Postwar Period, 1945–48
Panel Discussion
Chair: Robert M. Ehrenreich (USHMM)
Zsuzsanna Ozsvath (University of Texas at Dallas), Trauma and Distortion: Holocaust Literature and the Ban on Jewish Memory in Hungary
Catherine Portuges (University of Massachusetts,Amherst), Imre Kertész’s Fateless on Film:A Hungarian Holocaust Saga
Ivan Sanders (Columbia University, New York), Jewish Literary Renaissance in Postwar Hungary
Panel Discussion
Chair: Suzanne Brown-Fleming (USHMM)
Alice Freifeld (University of Florida, Gainesville; 2001 Life Reborn Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM), Budapest Jewry, 1945–48
Peter Kenez (University of California-Santa Cruz), Pogroms in Hungary, 1946
Paul Hanebrink (Rutgers University-New Brunswick, New Jersey; 1999–2000 Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM), The Christian Churches and Memory of the Holocaust in Hungary, 1945–48
Panel Discussion
Chair: Charles Gati (Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C.)
Victor Karády (Central European University, Budapest), “Ordinary Deaths” in a Time of Mass Murder: Comparative Study of Jewish Mortality before and after the Holocaust in Budapest, 1937–1960
Dan Danieli (Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation), Interviews with the Survivors of the Hungarian Forced Labor Service:An Evaluation
Attila Pók (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest), Approaches to the Hungarian Holocaust, 1990–94: Why Was There No Historikerstreit?
Rabbi Arthur Schneier (Appeal of Conscience Foundation and Park East Synagogue, New York), Hungary—pre-German Occupation, during and after the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry—a Survivor’s Personal Reflection
Panel Discussion
Chair and Commentator: Istvan Deak (Columbia University, New York)
Peter Longerich (University of London, United Kingdom; 2003–2004 J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM), German Anti-Jewish Policy and the Murder of Hungarian Jews: Remarks on Recent German Research
Michael Shafir (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Prague), Hungarian Politics and the Legacy of the Holocaust since 1989
András Kovács (Central European University, Budapest), Perceptions of Antisemitism among Hungarian Jews Today
Ivan Berend (University of California-Los Angeles), Hungary after the End of Communism: Antisemitism during the First Period of Transition
The Budapest Holocaust Memorial Museum
Gábor Székely, Head, Board of Directors, Holocaust Documentation Center and Memorial Collection Public Foundation, Budapest
The Budapest Holocaust Memorial and Documentation Center: Background and Activities
Tibor Vámos, Member, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest
The Holocaust in Hungary, 60 Years Later: The State of the Field
Randolph L. Braham, Director, The Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, and Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Council Academic Committee
The Holocaust in Hungary, as elsewhere, leaves many questions unanswered — history provides as many puzzles as clues. Scholars refer to a "Golden Age" for Hungarian Jews from the end of the nineteenth century to World War I, when the the country was hospitable to Jewish emigration and assimilation, and when the Hungarian kingdom enjoyed the support and loyalty of its Jewish population.
