Parallel memories? Public memorialization of the antifascist struggle and martyr memorial services in the Hungarian Jewish community during early communism

This paper offers a critical reassessment of the “myth of silence,” arguing that memorialization of the Holocaust did occur during the first years of communism in Hungary. Though such efforts were indeed marginalized, some elements of the history of the wartime destruction of Hungarian Jewry did in fact make their way into official versions of the history of the war. States that the communist regime tolerated the Jewish community’s memorial services for Jewish victims despite its preference for antifascist commemorations that focused on communist political martyrs and heroes. A close examination of the content and context of memorial celebrations and so-called martyr memorial services held by the Hungarian Jewish community reveals that these celebrations came to fill in the hole left by the lack of community events and services no longer available to many Jewish survivors, particularly in provincial Hungary.