Journal Article

Development and Bifurcation of an Institution

Szécsényi, András

2015

Overview

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.

• Publisher: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont Történettudományi Intézet,Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences,Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities (RCH), Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS)
• Subject: Civil defense / Concentration camps / Forced labor / History of the Holocaust / Holocaust / Interwar Period (1920 - 1939) / Jewish peoples / Labor / Labor camps / Military defense / Public welfare / Universities / WW II and following years (1940 - 1949)