My father’s cousin is a retired engineer who moved to Israel with his wife, Lory, over four decades ago. Endre Borsai now lives in a retirement home in Haifa, with his wife. On December 31st, 1999, as the twentieth century drew to a close, he wrote a lengthy letter–a very personal testimony–of our family’s experiences during World War II and, […]
Vilmos Hanti is a prominent Hungarian antifascist activist and the 2005 recipient of the cross of the Republic of Hungary’s Order of Merit. Mr. Hanti is the president of the International Federation of Resistance Fighters and he submitted the text of his speech given in Moscow on May 7th, 2015, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary commemorations of the […]
The Polish government is in the midst of a polemical and defensive historical debate around World War II and the Holocaust. The official Polish narrative could have been taken directly from the speaking points of the Orbán government in Budapest, which has enshrined in the country’s constitution the preposterous idea that Hungary was purely a victim of German occupation and […]
Many of us in the United States are disturbed that the Hungarian Postal Service has recently issued a stamp commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Zita Szeleczky. She is not a role model for today’s Hungarian youth, her support of Hungarian fascism was nothing less than shameful, and as an actress she did not exhibit unusual talents. Who […]
It’s impossible to detach public history and collective memory from contemporary politics. How a society portrays the past is determined by current realities, contemporary values or interests, as well as the dominant, “preferred” narratives of history. But the government and public institutions don’t have a monopoly over the past ; where civic engagement is strong, grassroots organizations and local activists […]
Shoah Foundation founder and Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg recently travelled from Los Angeles to Krakow to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp Auschwitz where over one million Jews lost their lives in World War II. In his passionate remarks Spielberg warned of the global rise of anti-Semitism. Today he can find anti-Semitism in his […]
On October 28 six diplomats based in San Francisco gathered at Congregation Emanu-El to discuss the growing anti-Semitism in Europe. “The New Anti-Semitism in Europe” panel attracted close to 200 people at the synagogue, a surprisingly high number, considering that Game 6 of the World Series was playing on a television in a nearby room. European and especially Hungarian anti-Semitism […]
