Explore the vast range of titles available.

The aim of this study is to present the operation of the Hungarian Communist Youth League (Magyar Kommunista Ifjúsági Szövetség ‒ KISZ) of the Hungarian University of Arts and Design) (Magyar Iparművészeti Főiskola) and its impact on student life. The paper is based ont he author’s basic research in the MOME Archives, and the archival source material is based partly on the documents of the central offices of the university and partly on the documents of the KISZ. Consequently, it is primarily a matter of examining organisational documents; in the absence of ego documents, there was little opportunity to hear the narratives of the participants in student life dominated by the KISZ. The study primarily seeks to answer the question of how and within what framework the Communist Party organisation functioned at the College. On the other hand, it also asks to what extent the ideological framework, which was loosened during the Kádár era, influenced the art students in their everyday lives and how this affected the life of the youth.   A tanulmány célja, hogy bemutassa a budapesti Iparművészeti Főiskolán[1] működött Magyar Kommunista Ifjúsági Szövetség (KISZ) alapszervezetének működését és hatását a hallgatói életre. A dolgozat a MOME Levéltárában végzett alapkutatásokon alapul, a levéltári forrásanyag részben a főiskola központi szerveinek irataira, részben a főiskolai KISZ iratainak feldolgozására épül. Ebből következően elsősorban szervezeti dokumentumok vizsgálatáról van szó, ego-dokumentumok hiányában a KISZ által uralt hallgatói élet résztvevői elbeszélésére csekély lehetőség nyílt. A tanulmány elsősorban arra keresi a választ: hogyan, milyen keretek között működött a kommunista pártszervezet a Főiskolán. Másrészt arra is kíváncsi, mennyiben befolyásolták a Kádár-korszakban enyhülő ideológiai keretek a művészhallgatókat mindennapjaik során és mindez hogyan hatott ki az ifjúság életére.  

Gabriella Trebits was a prisoner of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp between November 1944 and April 1945. The spaces present in her diary include both the places of the camp and her typhoid hallucinations. Gabriella described venues through their sensuous dimensions. Since the sensory experiences of everyday life mingled with her visions, her diary became a “textual journey” between real and imagined places. Her narratives helped her to express the difficulties caused by her physical environment and the confusion caused by her hallucinations. As a result, the references to changes in her sensory impressions created a discursive space for the diarist to express her feelings. Since her narrative depicts a suffering and painful condition, we use Joanna Bourke’s concept of pain talk in our analysis. Moreover, the diary demonstrates that it was possible for typhoid patients to connect with their environment despite their isolated situation. Even on the periphery of the camp space, social life persisted. This exploration will not only uncover the narrative strategy of one diarist but also contribute to a deeper understanding of the ways in which tens of thousands died of starvation and diseases―without mass executions or gas chambers―in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the spring of 1945.

The paper focuses on Hungarian Jews who had been deported from Hungary to Bergen-Belsen and ended up in a Jewish displaced persons camp (hereinafter referred DP) before the liberation near the settlement of Hillersleben in the Magdeburg district of Sachsen-Anhalt, one of the states of Germany from April to September, 1945. In the first section of this paper, I explore the historical framework of this Hungarian group based on the current historiography and some narrative sources. In the second (main) part, I offer a case study in which I analyze the spatial experiences of György Bognár, a survivor of this aforementioned group. This camp alone did not play any special role from the perspective of Hungarian survivors. On the contrary, it provides evidence of the typical experiences of Jews in Germany in 1945. Giving voice to ego-documents and mainly to Bognár’s diary, I offer an account of how a 16-year old Hungarian Jew perceived and described the space in which he lived in this “half-life” between concentration camp and liberation. Primarily by using his diary entries, I attempt to offer insights into the spatial experiences of the DPs, though I also draw on other sources. I also explore the main markers of the maps he drew of the camp. I compare these sources with the notes I took during a visit to the site in 2016. My primary goal is to use spatial analyzes of the available narrative sources to further an understanding of how someone in one of the DP camps perceived his surroundings. In the last section, I reflect briefly on how the territory and the space of the former DP camp changed function after the camp was closed.

“Glaube an den Menschen” [Faith in humanity: A diary from BergenBelsen]. By Jenő Kolb. Edited by Thomas Rahe and Lajos Fischer. Translated from the Hungarian by Lajos Fischer. Bergen-Belsen – Berichte und Zeugnisse 7. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2019. 280 pp.

Previous studies of the Hungarian labor service have been characterized by an exclusive interest in the years between 1939 and 1945. Accordingly, they have tended to focus on its anti-Jewish impetus. However, the emergence of labor service in Hungary goes back to the mid-1930s, when a voluntary system was established. Placing this Hungarian institution into a transnational perspective, I trace the process of its ideological legitimation, its key practices, and its gradual growth and significant transformation over the years. I demonstrate that Hungary actually had two divergent systems of labor services in the war years, and I analyze the ways in which the infamous labor service of the post-1939 years could be seen as a continuation of its less familiar predecessor. I thus make a contribution to the historicization and broader contextualization of a key Hungarian institution of persecution during World War II.