The Forgotten Massacre: Budapest in 1944

by Andrea Peto

Overview

The book discusses a formerly unknown and invisible massacre in Budapest in 1944, committed by a paramilitary group lead by a women. Andrea Pető uncovers the gripping history of the fi rst private Holocaust memorial erected in Budapest in 1945. Based on court trials, interviews with survivors, perpetrators, and investigators, the book illustrates the complexities of gendered memory of violence. It examines the dramatic events: massacre, deportation, robbery, homecoming, and fi ght for memorialization from the point of view of the perpetrators and the survivors. The book will change the ways we look at intimate killings during the Second World-War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783111095097
Publisher:	De Gruyter
Publication date:	12/19/2022
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.06(h) x (d)

About the Author

Andrea Pető, Central European University Vienna.

Table of Contents

List of Acronyms xi

1 Introduction 1

1.1 The reasons for forgetting 7

2 What makes Csengery 64 important? 13

3 The House 20

4 Piroska Dely in Budapest 26

4.1 Her biography 27

4.2 Her trial 28

4.2.1 The People's Tribunals 28

4.2.2 Between sloppiness and rigor: The People's Tribunals' activity 33

4.2.3 Piroska Dely in front of the People's Tribunal 35

4.2.4 Was she present at all? 38

4.2.5 Changing explanations 40

4.2.6 The power objects: The Arrow Cross armband and the weapon 46

4.2.7 The power of "executive power" 47

4.2.8 The endgame 49

5 Death and the Maiden 51

5.1 Those who speak for the dead 53

5.1.1 Why were they killed? The "Jewish resistance" version 55

5.1.2 Why were they killed? The Széplaki version 57

5.2 Murders at night 58

5.2.1 The Strucky version 59

5.2.2 The Steiner version 61

5.3 What happened to the dead? 63

6 The Perpetrators 65

6.1 The janitors' greed 66

6.2 The collaborating projectionist, translator, courier, driver, SS-soldier, and father 69

6.3 The verdict 73

6.4 The truth of the perpetrators' memories 76

6.5 The Szamocseta story - As told by them 78

7 The Greed 82

7.1 The birth of wealth 83

7.2 The loss of wealth 87

8 Revenge and Forgiveness 90

8.1 The frameworks of justice 90

8.2 Moral witness or political witness? 92

8.3 The affect of testimony 94

9 The Survivors and the Surviving Memories 98

9.1 Taking an inventory 99

9.2 In defense of the right to memory 101

9.3 The missing dialogic collective memory 104

9.4 Csengery Street 64: A memorial or a monument? 109

10 Conclusion 111

References 118

Archival Sources 128

List of Interviews 128

Manuscripts 129

Appendix 1 The chronology of Piroska Dely's trial, its background and afterlife 130

Appendix 2 The Chronology of the Szamocseta Case 139

Appendix 3 The story of the Csengery Street massacre 148

Appendix 4 Persilschein 159

Appendix 5 Tenant registry 161

Appendix 6 The text of the memory plaque 170

Appendix 7 The victims of the Csengery Street massacre 171

Appendix 8 Petition for the Csengery Street commemorative plaque 174

Appendix 9 Interview with the son of Nandor Szamocseta 176

Appendix 10 List of illustrations 178

Index of Names 179

Index of Subjects 182