About
Research on the Hungarian Holocaust has a long history: even during the persecution and in the immediate post-war years, several individuals collected evidence and documents based on which they wrote chapters of the persecution of Jews. These writings are considered important secondary sources today and have continued to be used by researchers ever since. However, the post-World War II culture of remembrance could not fully develop under the state-socialist dictatorship due to the ideological silencing of persecution based on origin. Significant change only began during the Kádár era.
The discourse initiated by the 1961 Eichmann trial acted as a catalyst. The first major novels and historical works about the Holocaust appeared during the 1960s and 1970s. Thanks to the scholars active during this period, several major source collections were published, laying the groundwork for further research. Among those involved was Randolph L. Braham, a Hungarian-born American survivor. Braham's comprehensive and large-scale history of the Holocaust, The Politics of Genocide, remains a work of key importance to this day, with its English edition internationally regarded as a foundational text.
After the change of the regime, research received new momentum: archives were opened, and the political and ideological constraints were lifted. The generation of historians working at the time primarily focused on political history and the perpetrators: what happened, when, how, and who were the main responsible parties? It took several more decades for the field to become more differentiated, as a younger generation began to adopt and apply methodological innovations, source categories, and approaches from Western Holocaust scholarship. Gender studies, microhistory, memory studies, investigations of Holocaust representations, the history of emotions, and the history of everyday life appeared on the scene. The victim narrative came to the fore, along with analyses of the role of bystanders.
Anyone engaging with international discourses, browsing published summaries, manuals, and source materials, or visiting exhibitions at Holocaust museums and memorial sites worldwide will experience the underrepresentation of Hungarian Holocaust history. There are many reasons why a country that suffered the third highest number of victims in Europe has not received attention proportionate to its historical significance. Existing and emerging research clearly shows that understanding the European history of the Holocaust is impossible without examining the processes and memory in countries like Ukraine, Romania, or Hungary, alongside events in Germany and Poland.
The aim of this website is to introduce interested readers to the biographies, research fields, and writings of a new generation of young scholars whose careers began in recent years and who are striving to represent Hungarian research on the international stage as well. We hope that our work will help reduce the above-mentioned gap and contribute to a deeper understanding and integration of the specific characteristics of the Holocaust in Hungary.
* The Hungarian Holocaust Research Network does not encompass all scholars working on the history and memory of the Holocaust in Hungary. The aim of our website is to introduce a community made up of some of these researchers—those who reflect together and, when possible, collaborate in their work.