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“Jewish Issue” and the East- Central European Communist Systems

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“Jewish Issue” and the East- Central European Communist Systems Introduction: The “Jewish Issue” and the East- Central European Communist Systems To the surprise of many, antisemitism resurfaced in East-Central Europe almost con- currently with the collapse of Communism. It was present not only in publications by minor political groups and in the texts of fringe politicians, many of whom were returning émigrés, but was also present, at least in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, and with increasing frequency, in pronouncements made by public figures with close ties to the political centre. One frequent claim was that antisemitism was a tool for political and intellectual actors to rally support among social groups most affected by the transitional crisis. While this explanation is clearly a possibility, or even a likeli- hood, it fails to explain why such efforts were positively received by certain groups, or why a small but not insignificant minority in post-Communist countries proved receptive to the ideological message of political antisemitism. Antisemitic politicians and ideologues were not acting in a vacuum. Sociological research conducted in the years immediately following the collapse of Communism showed that although the public expression of antisemitic views had been a pun- ishable crime throughout the decades of Communism, and Communist regimes’ offi- cial ideology had rejected and condemned antisemitism, a substantial part of society continued to harbour antisemitic prejudice. Indeed, surveys have shown that in the early 1990s, at least 10 per cent of the adult population in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary could be regarded as strongly antisemitic.1 This proportion is clearly greater than what might be explained by the presence and activities of antisemitic élite fringe groups, which were still rather insignificant at the time. We may conclude therefore that in the four decades after World War II, anti-Jewish prejudice had sur- vived beneath the surface of society, despite the prosecution of public displays of antisemitism, and the state’s official rejection of antisemitic ideology. Indeed, in view of the enduring nature of Communist regimes, whose “tenure” spanned several gen- erations, it seems likely that antisemitism also received new impulses. This volume – the documents published and commented upon herein – supports the hypothesis formulated elsewhere that antisemitism: […] did not simply emerge out of nothing after the fall of Communism. In their efforts to impose the fullest possible control over society, the Communist parties that seized power in East-Central Europe after World War II eliminated the political, religious, social and cultural institutions of surviving Jewry, or made them dependent on the state. However, despite their total control over Jewish institutions and Jewish community life, East-Central European Communist Parties contin- uously and systematically identified and regarded the conflicting historical memories about Jews, and the presence of Jews in Polish, Czechoslovak and Hungarian society, as a disturbing factor. They permanently kept the problem on the political agenda, and in this way they permanently 1 See András Kovács, The Stranger at Hand. Antisemitic Prejudices in Post-Communist Hungary (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2011), 32–35. DOI 10.1515/9783110411591-001, © 2020 András Kovacs, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. 2 Introduction: The “Jewish Issue” and the East-Central European Communist Systems (re)constructed their own “Jewish Questions”, which, then, they were eager to “solve”. […] This mostly concealed, but restless preoccupation with the “Jewish Question” kept the whole issue alive in the decades of Communist rule, and it explains to a great extent its open re-emergence after 1990.2 Continuity of the “Jewish question” and antisemitic discourse after the Holocaust Post-Holocaust continuity of the antisemitic worldview, language and prejudice can be observed in several forms, the three most important of which were: (1) discourses in the everyday sphere; (2) reactions to differing Jewish and non-Jewish perceptions of pre-war antisemitism, the Holocaust, and reintegration of Jews in post-war society; and (3) the policies of the Communist parties before and after seizing power. A large amount of material gathered by the Hungarian political police points to the post-war survival of undisguised antisemitic views and a blunt antisemitic language in several radical anti-Communist circles. In her analysis of police surveillance and the ensuing court cases against right-wing youth groups in the 1960s, Éva Standeisky cites the following typical conversation between the leader of a monitored group and his friends: If this were truly a government or system chosen by the Hungarian people, then they would not seek to deny people their intellectual freedom. In this regard, the Jews are their most faithful supporters. They keep some professions as a privilege for themselves, not allowing others access. And so the press, theatre, TV and radio, and foreign trade are primarily in their hands. Since they are Jews, they neglect the interests of the Hungarian people, and for the sake of their own power they place the country in the service of the Soviet Union.3 A whole series of memoirs published after 1990 prove that post-war experiences and events in the aftermath of the Communist takeover reproduced pre-war narratives4 2 András Kovács, Antisemitic Elements in Communist Discourse. A Continuity Factor in Post-War Hungarian Antisemitism. In Antisemitism in an Era of Transition: Continuities and Impact in Post-Com- munist Poland and Hungary, eds. François Guesnet and Gwen Jones (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2014), 137. 3 Éva Standeisky, Mélyrétegi metszet. Jobboldali fiatalok az 1960-as években [Deep Cross-Section. Right-wing youths in the 1960s]. In Éva Standeisky, Antiszemitizmusok [Antisemitisms] (Budapest: Argument, 2007), 96–130 (104). On everyday antisemitism in Poland, see Alina Cała, The Image of the Jew in Polish Folk Culture (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995). On antisemitism in reporting on the post-1967 antisemitic campaign, see Božena Szaynok, Poland–Israel 1944–1968. In the Shadow of the Past and of the Soviet Union (Warsaw: Institute of National Remembrance, 2012), 430–. 4 See Viktor Karády, Zsidóság és modenizáció a történelmi Magyarországon [Jewry and Moderniza- tion in Historical Hungary]. In Viktor Karády, Zsidóság és társadalmi egyenlőtlenségek (1867–1945) [Jewry and Social Inequalities (1867–1954)] (Budapest: Replika, 2000), 7–40; and Krisztián Ungváry, A Horthy-rendszer mérlege [The Balance-Sheet of the Horthy Regime] (Budapest and Pécs: Jelenkor and OSZK, 2012), 20–38. Continuity of the “Jewish question” and antisemitic discourse after the Holocaust 3 that set and maintained boundaries between Jewish and non-Jewish sections of the middle class.5 In these narratives, which appeared mostly in private communication, traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes and prejudices were continuously present. As the late historian Pál Engel recalled family discourse in his childhood in the early 1950s: “In addition to my ‘Christian’ middle-class upbringing, I began to realize gradually my place in society, that there were ‘proles’, ‘petty bourgeois’, and ‘Jews’. We, however, were ‘gentlefolk’.”6 Even decades after the war, rival intellectual and middle-class groups interpreted confrontations in multiple areas as a conflict between Jews and non-Jews, and used narratives rooted in contradictory and opposing historical memories. In Hungary, which had the region’s largest post-Holocaust Jewish population and where Jews were, throughout the Communist period, very much visible in prominent intellectual positions, such conflicts sometimes became so acute that they even attracted the attention of the political leadership. A Party functionary described the situation after an inquiry in 1967 at the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as follows: [E]veryone is aware of the conflicts, they [those who complain that Jews are dominating the profes- sion – AK] have precise statistics on Jewish and non-Jewish functionaries filling leading historian positions, as they would say, even with a lantern one cannot come across elements of popular [that is, non-Jewish – AK] ancestry in these positions. […] [T]he question should be addressed in some form, because according to them, the statistics they reported on are the institutionalised reason for the increase of antisemitism.7 The surviving elements of pre-war discourses on the “Jewish Question” and the old antisemitism were not the only factors to sustain the language of prejudice and stereotyping. Additional impulses came from the perception of conflicts that arose between surviving Jews and non-Jews after the war. In the immediate aftermath of the war, significant tensions arose in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland around such issues as: antisemitism in the interwar period; responsibility and legal accountability 5 István Bibó, A zsidókérdés Magyarországon 1944 után [The Jewish Question in Hungary after 1944]. In István Bibó Válogatott tanulmányok [Selected Studies], ed. Tibor Huszár (Budapest: Magvető, 1986), 621–798 (754–778); András Kovács, A zsidókérdés a mai magyar társadalomban [The Jewish Question in Hungarian Society Today]. In András Kovács, A Másik szeme. Zsidók és antiszemiták a háború utáni Magyarországon [The Eye of the Other. Jews and Antisemites in Post-War Hungary] (Budapest: Gon- dolat, 2008); Aleksander
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