** New starting time: 6:00pm **
Photo exhibition and conversation in English with the authors András Lénárt & István Pál Ádám, historians from the Budapest Holocaust Memorial Center, about their recently published Hungarian-language volume on the complex history of the forced labour service (MUSZ) during World War II.
The auxiliary forced labor service was introduced in Hungary primarily for Jews and Leftist activists, so for non-trusted male elements of the society. During the Second World War, they had to support the Hungarian army’s efforts without guns. Most forced laborers were sent to distant areas, because this way the government could eliminate these politically unreliable people. Therefore, the forced labor service took place in many different locations and in a quickly changing war environment. Consequently, forced labor service was radically different in 1942-43 in the occupied Soviet territories close to the Eastern Front than forced labor in the copper mines of Serbia (Bor), or in the area of Kőszeg (Güns) working on the Reichsschutzstellung in early 1945. It is also difficult to tie these different stories together, because they belong as much to the series of anti-Jewish measures as they do to military history. The chapters of this volume are attempts at contextualization, with a special focus on the visual and written memories of the forced labor service.
István Pál Ádám holds a PhD in history from the University of Bristol. His first book about the Budapest concierges’ role in the Holocaust was published both in English (by Palgrave Macmillan), and in Hungarian (by Park). Since July 2022, he has been employed as a historian by the Holocaust Memorial Center of Budapest. Istvan’s research interests include the history of the Holocaust, the social history of various professions and their relations to antisemitism in Central and Eastern Europe.
András Lénárt is a historian and sociologist who serves as a researcher at the Holocaust Memorial Centre Budapest. He has been working on the memory of the Holocaust and of the persecution of Jews since 2013. He was one of the organizers of the CEU OSA www.csillagoshazak.hu project, the editor of jphotoarchive.org, launched in 2022. Since 2019, he has been a lecturer at the Jewish Theological Seminary - University of Jewish Studies, Hungary.
https://bookline.hu/product/home.action?_v=Lenart_Andras_Adam_Istvanpal_Kepek_tak&type=22&id=352136
Tickets: FREE, donations for YUNG YiDiSH WIEN welcome
Pre-registration is obligatory. Please send an email to
cmVnaXN0ZXIgfCB5dW5neWlkaXNodmllbm5hICEgb3Jn with the subject line IMAGES and your name in the body of the email.
The event is partially supported by the 2nd district of Vienna.
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