Blutinger - Post-Holocaust H Memorialization

An Inconvenient Past * 73

An Inconvenient Past:Post-Communist HolocaustMemorializationlJeffrey BlutingerCalifornia State University at Long Beach

This article examines the difficulties faced by three Eastern European countriesin commemorating the Holocaust in the post-Communist era. Since 1989,many of these countries have sought to fashion new national identities by look-ing to their pre-Communist past. In the case of Slovakia and Hungary however,their pre-Communist predecessors were Nazi allies, and while Poland never col-laborated with Nazi Germany, the Home Army had a difficult and complicatedrelationship with Jews and Jewish underground organizations. I identify threebasic approaches taken by these countries' memorials regarding the fate of theirJewish communities during the war: aphasia (an unwillingness to speak aboutthe Holocaust),"deflective negationism" (shifting blame to others), and finally, anopen examination of the Holocaust.

In February 1999, just months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, members ofthe local Association of Home Army Soldiers in Krakow decided to liberatetheir own past. They entered what had been the Lenin Museum, removed allthe displays on Lenin and the October Revolution, and set up their own ex-hibit on the Armia Krajova, the Home Army. Forty-five years after their heroicstruggle for Polish independence was crushed by the combined forces of Hit-ler and Stalin, and after decades of official propaganda describing the Home

'An early and abbreviated version of this paper was presented at the WesternJewish Stud-ies Association conference at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles in April 2008.

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Army as a reactionary and oppressive force, a museum dedicated to the leadingPolish World War II resistance movement was finally opened in Poland.

"The former soldiers who created these exhibits were not trained in his-toriography or theories of commemoration; they simply wanted to recover apast that had been officially forgotten and to celebrate a national rebirth byremembering their great struggle. The question they faced was which parts ofthe national past should be remembered and which should be forgotten. Spe-cifically: to what extent should the Holocaust, and the role of Poles and theHome Army in the Holocaust, be included in the museum's exhibits?

The problems faced by these former Polish Home Army soldiers werenot unique; across Eastern Europe, the new governments that emerged in theyears following 1989 faced the difficult task of creating new post-Communistnational identities. As with the creators of the Home Army Museum in Kra-kow, many countries looked back to the pre-Communist states that existed be-fore Soviet occupation as a potential source of a renewed national identity. Butas with the Krakow museum, this attempt to restore a national self throughidentification with the historical past raised serious problems regarding me-morialization of the Holocaust.

This is because any discussion of the Holocaust often raises difficult ques-tions of how the pre-Communist state treated their Jewish citizens before,durin& and even after the war years. In many cases, the pre-Communist pre-decessors were Nazi allies who actively collaborated in the spoliation, enslave-ment, deportation, and murder of their Jewish population. Thus, attempts tomemorialize the Holocaust call into serious question the moral fitness of thesepre-Communist states to serve as models for their new post-Communist suc-cessors. As a result, how a country chooses to memorialize (or forget) the Ho-locaust says as much, if not more, about how the organizers of the museum ormemorial see their national present as it does about how they remember theirnational past.

One of the reasons that this problem has only emerged since 1989 is thatunder Communist rule, the Soviet Union was typically depicted as the prima-ry victim of Nazi aggression, and those imprisoned, tortured, and murderedin the concentration camp system were usually described as opponents of fas-cism, and rarely, if ever, as Jews. Two examples, one from Poland, the otherfrom East Germany, should suffice. In 1964, the Polish government erected amemorial on the site of the Plaszow Slave Labor Camp. The camp had beenplaced on top of the Krakow Jewish cemetery, and while some Polish Catho-lics were imprisoned there, most of the inmates were Jews. The monument hasfive enormous abstract figures carved from stone, their heads bowed from theburdens of enslavement, and a large horizontal crack partially severing their

Shofar * An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies


upper bodies. The text on the reverse side refers to the 'martyrs murderedin the Hitlerite genocide in the years 1943-45, eliding the fact that mostof those murdered there were Jewish. The omission or minimalization of theJewish victims was typical of Polish Communist-era memorials; one can findsimilar examples at other Holocaust sites, such as the original memorials setup at Auschwitz-Birkenau and BeIzec.'

Since 1989, many of these Communist-era monuments in Polandhave been amended or replaced. In Plaszow, however, the original memorialstilf stands but has now been supplemented by a smaller, tombstone-shapedplinth, set up by the local Krakow Jewish community. In Polish on one sideand Hebrew on the other, its text states

Here in this place, in the years 1943-1945, several tens of thousands of Jewswere brought from Poland and Hungary, and were tortured, exterminated, andincinerated. We do not know the names of the murdered. We shall name themwith one word:JEWS.

Here in this place, an exceedingly horrible crime was committed. The humantongue does not know the words to describe the hideousness of this crime, itsincredible bestiality, ruthlessness, and cruelty. We shall name it with one word:HITLERISM.

In memory of the murdered, whose final scream of despair is the silence of thisPlaszow cemetery, we pay homage, the survivors of this fascist pogrom, theJEWS.3

The use of large, all-caps lettering for the word "Jews" constitutes an angryrejoinder to the enforced silence embodied in its larger, but more ambiguousneighbor.

"2The original text at Auschwitz-Birkenau stated, "Four million people suffered anddied here at the hands of the Nazi murderers between the years 1940 and 1945* (James E.Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning [New Haven: Yale Uni-versity Press, 1993], p. 141). The original text at Belzec stated,"In memory of the victimsof Hitler's terror murdered from 1942 to 1943* (Susanne Bleiberg Seperson,'Institution-alization of Memory: From BeIzec to a Paradigm' paper presented at the annual meetingof the American Sociological Association, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 10 August 2006,online PDF, 2008-06-27 ht://www.allacademic.com/meta/pl04540 index.html).

3Observed by the author in July 2006. It is not dear when the smaller, more Jewishlyspecific monument was first erected. Sam Offen, a survivor of Ptasz6w, described what ap-pears to be an earlier version of the text of the monument when he visited the site in 1985.The version standing at that time does not appear to have included the large, all-cap letter-ing for "Jews" and"Hitlerism" (Sam Offen, Wben Hope Prevails: 71e Personal Triumph of aHolocaust Survivor (Livonia: First Page Publications, 2005], p. 94).

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T"he monument erected by the East German government in 1961 at theSachsenhausen Concentration camp represents a slightly different way mem-ory of the Holocaust was suppressed under Communism. The Nazis openedSachsenhausen in 1936, and at the beginning& most of the inmates were eitherpolitical opponents of the regime, gay men, the 'asocial" or JehovahVs witness-es. After the November pogrom of 1938, large numbers of Jews were also sentto the camp, and during the war, tens of thousands of Russian POWs wereimprisoned there.

In 1961, the East German government erected a monument at the campthat celebrated the role of the Soviet army in liberating the camps and defeat-ing Nazism. As on many other memorials from this period, victim groupswere listed, not according to the reasons for their imprisonment, but rather bytheir countries of origin, thereby omitting Jews from the ist.4 In front of thememorial, the government placed a statue of a Soviet soldier liberating impris-oned freedom fighters, depicting "the victory over fascism." In fact, the origi-nal design of the statue was rejected because it depicted the liberated prisonerstoo realistically-1as some sort of wretched figures"-instead of the resistancefighters the commitree requested, and the artist was asked to make the prison-ers not appear so weak and helpless.' As of 2007, the original Communist-eramemorial still stands unchanged, but the audio tour provided by the museumcounters its silences by analyzing its history and omissions.

With the end of Communism, the new states that emerged were free tocreate more inclusive memorials and museums. But the ability to create new,more historically accurate accounts did not mean that such memorials wereactually built An examination of memorial sites in Poland, Slovakia, andHungary reveals three basic approaches taken by governments since 1989 toaddress their war-time Jewish pasts: aphasia (either a total or partial unwill-

4For other examples of what has been referred to as"organized forgettingj by Commu-nist governments, see Michael Shafir, "Between Denial and 'Comparative Trivializatiori:Holocaust Negation in Post-Communist East Central Europe,' in Randolph L. Braham,ed., 7be Treatment of the Hoocaust in Hungary and Romania During the Post.Communist Era(New YorkL Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 45- 54.

5Letter from Rudi Wunderlich (1958), one of the organizers of the Sachsenhau-sen Memorial committee, quoted in Uhrike Kopp, "Die Projektierung der GedenksatteSachsenhausen und die Diskussionen im Wissenschafrlich-Krinstlerischen Beirat beimMinisterium ffir Kulur," in Gainter Morsch, ed., Von der Erinnerung zum Monument: DieEnstebungsga d)ick der Nationaken Malm- und Gedenkstftte Sacbsenbausen (Berlin: EditionHentrich, 1996), p. 225.

6Kopp,'Die Projektierung der Gedenkstirte Sachsenhausen," p. 225.

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ingness to speak about the Holocaust); deflective negationism77 (Le., negatingthe Holocaust, either by shifting blame to others or by trivializing it); andfinally, an open examination of the Holocaust and the role that the local popu-lation played in it. As we shall see, in many Eastern European countries therehas been a shift over time from the aphasic approach to a greater willingnessto confront the past directly.

1. Aphasia

After the events of the fall of 1989, few Eastern European countries were pre-pared to face the difficult parts of their national pasts. Instead, memories thathad been deeply repressed by Communist rule finally f6und their voice. Forexample, in Poland, despite its valiant role in fighting Nazi occupation, therewere no official monuments, memorials, or museums to the Home Army. Fordecades, Polish textbooks had derided the Home Army in favor of the muchsmaller, and more pro-Soviet, People's Army (the Armia Ludoua).

The first museum to the Home Army was rather ad boc- in February1990, members of the local Association of Home Army soldiers entered whatwas then the Lenin Museum in Krakow, removed all the displays of Lenin andthe October Revolution, and set up their own exhibits on the Home Army.In 1992, after the building housing this collection was returned to its originalowners, the museum was moved to the former staff quarters of the Austrianarmy where it remains to this day, becoming a municipal museum of the cityof Krakow in 1997.8

As one might expect, the museum is totally devoted to the history, struc-ture, achievements, and fate of the Home Army, with exhibits on weaponrytraining, leadership, and publications. There are large displays on the orga-nization of the Home Army, its resistance work, and its efforts to rally thePolish people against Nazi occupation. Yet despite its complete focus on theSecond World War in Poland and the struggle against Nazism, there is virtu-ally no mention of Jews in the entire museum. Not only does the museum notdeal with the relationship between the Polish underground and the Jewishunderground during the war, the museum even ignores the positive work ofthe Home Army.

In fact, even the presence of Jews in Poland during the war is only hintedat twice in the museum. The first is a display containing a diagram of the vari-

"7Shafir,'Between Denial and 'Comparative TrivializationrC pp. 63-94.'Observed by the author on a visit to the museum in July 2007.

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ous badges worn by prisoners in Nazi concentration camps that includes theStar of David. The second are the various maps showing the stages of theWarsaw 'Rising of 1944," which indicate the 'ruins of the ghetto," by blankingout streets destroyed in the ghetto uprising of 1943.V° Other than these twooblique references, the museum displays complete aphasia regarding the geno-cide of the Jews that the Nazis carried out in Poland.

Instead, the museum focuses particularly on the Soviet role in Polish suf-fering during the war. For example, there is a special exhibit on the KatyAmassacres of 1940, when thousands of Polish Army POWs were killed bySoviet forces. It also contains a special exhibit on the Warsaw'Rising of 1944,where Soviet forces stood by and allowed the Germans to raze Warsaw to theground. Both events, so critical to the Polish experience of the Second WorldWar, were either completely or partially suppressed by the Polish Communistgovernment. This museum constitutes one of the first efforts to counter thesedecades of silence, so one should not be surprised that it omits discussion ofdifficult topics, such as the role of some Polish partisan groups in killing Pol-ish Jews.

If the Home Army Museum in Krakow is an example of complete apha-sia, the Museum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava, Slovakia, displays partialaphasia. Located in the former Jewish district, it is the frequent destinationboth for school groups and for foreign tourists who visit Slovakiais capital.It includes material on the history of the Jews of Slovakia, various Jewish re-ligious and cultural items returned to Slovakia from the Jewish Museum inPrague, a display on Jewish publishin& and exhibits on both the Jewish lifecycle and the yearly holiday cycle. In addition to the interior of a synagogue,the museum also has a small Holocaust memorial, featuring prominent Slova-kian rabbis who were murdered. The museum's description of the Holocaust,however, is extremely brief.

According to the text displayed in the museum, the antisemitism thatswept through the region in the 1930s was the result of 'national tensionsbetween Czechs and Slovaks: After the dismemberment of Czechoslovakiain 1939, 'the Slovak state emerged under the tutelage of Berlin," and this ledto the destruction of Jewish life in Slovakia. The next sentence indicates thatmost of the few Jews who survived left the country by 1949.1' The aphasia

'The revolt of 1944 is referred to as the'Warsaw 'Rising' to avoid confusion with themore well-known Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

"0Observed by the author on a visit to the museum in 2007.

"Observed by the author on a visit to the museum in 2007.



here is the complete omission of any discussion of bow and why SlovakianJews died.

In fact, the war-time Slovakian state was led Father Jozef Tiso, his fascistSlovak Peoplis Party, and his paramilitary Hlinka Guards. The Slovak Peo-ple's Party was strongly fascist and antisemitic. Upon coming to power, Tisostated that he looked forward to the day when 'Jewishness is finally excludedfrom our national ife, since it has always been a corrupting element in Slova-kia and the most important vehicle of Marxist and liberalistic ideas."2 Tiso6spolicy of 'Slovakia for the Slovaks" ultimately led to the expulsion of Czechs,Roma, and Jews from Slovak territory."3 The Slovakian legislature adoptedanti-Jewish laws modeled on Nazi legislation; in 1942, it passed a law requir-ing the deportation of Jews from Slovakia and paid the Nazis 500 RM for eachJew to cover their expenses in shipping them to the death camps. Out of the89,000 Jews in Slovakia in 1942, fewer than 17,000 survived to liberation.

What is striking is that despite the omission of this history from its ex-hibits, the museum's director, Dr. Pavol Meg&n, has been one of the leadingfigures in Slovakia fighting for a more open discussion of Slovakiads past andits role in the Holocaust. In 2000, he wrote a comprehensive study of antisem-itism in Slovakian politics since the end of Communism, which he publishedwith the financial support of the Slovak Ministry of Culture.'4 In 2004, hereorganized the exhibit in Auschwitz on Slovakia's Jews, and in 2006, he spon-sored a special month-long exhibit on the Slovakian anti-Jewish laws in theMuseum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava." In September 2005, the Museumof Jewish Culture opened a new museum in a restored synagogue in the townof Nitra, focusing specifically on the Holocaust in Slovakia.16

Given Megian's strong activism against Holocaust denial in Slovakia, thepartial aphasia displayed in his museum is even more curious. The forerunnerof the museum was founded in 1991 in what was still Czechoslovakia, as a

12Quoted in Pavol Melfan, Anti-Semitism in Slovak Politics (1989-1999), trans.Martin R. Ward and Jo Eliot (Bratislava: Museum of Jewish Culture and Tel-Aviv Uni-versity, 2000), p. 30.

"Melian, Anti-Semitism in Slovak Politics, p. 31."MMelan, Anti-Semitism in Slovak Politics."sSrephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism,

"Slovakda 2001-2: in Annual Report (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University, 2003);"Around Slova-kia,* The Slovak Spectator, VoL 15 (September 2006).

"6"Slovaida Gets its First Permanent Holocaust Exhibition: AP Worldwide, 9 Sep-tember 2005.

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Department of Jewish Culture within the Historical Museum of the SlovakNational Museum. The current museum opened in 1993, the year Slovakiaseparated from the Czech Republic, and,the following year it became an inde-pendent specialized museum affiliated with the Slovak National Museum."7 Inresponse to my query if there had been any political pressure on the museumnot to go into detail about how and why Slovakian Jews died in the Holocaust,Mei&ran's assistant wrote the following:

I asked Dr. Meftan whether there was a political pressure on our museum inthis regard. He answered that our permanent exhibition in Bratislava regardingTisols government is limited to Jewish laws (signed by (President Jozef] Tiso,(Prime Minister Vojtech] Tuka, and [Hlinka Guard Commander Alexander]Mach) due to an intention to describe history of SlovakJewry in general (includ-ing every important part such as Jewish life, religion and the memory of holo-caust), not to go in details on each specific chapter. However, the holocaust hasan important place in our museum, and it is being described in detail (includingTiso's role and criticism of his politics towards Jews) in our exhibition in Nitrasynagogue dedicated specifically to holocaust.'s

While this is a clear denial from Melin of any political pressure on himto suppress references to Tiso and his fascist state, the argument that it doesnot matter that the Bratislava museum omits these details since they are cov-ered in the Nitra museum is rather problematic. The Nitra museum was onlyopened eleven years (and a change of government) after the Bratislava muse-um. While the Nitra museum represents a welcome supplement, it is hard tobelieve that when the Bratislava museum was opened, the museumds designerscould have expected that visitors would be able to get the missing informationthere. Even today, the aphasic display is located in the capital city and is oftenvisited by tourists, while the new Holocaust museum is in Nitra, a small citylocated an hour and a half away by train, and much less seen by visitors toSlovakia.

The key factor here appears to be the change in the political situation inSlovakia between the time when the Bratislava museum opened and when theNitra museum opened, with the turning point being 1998, when the right-wing government that came to power in 1993 was replaced with a more mod-erate government.

'VE-mail from Michal Vanek, Museum of Jewish Culture to Dr. Jeffrey Blutinger,dated 17 March 2008.

"E-mail from Michal Vanek, Museum of Jewish Culture to Dr. Jeffrey Blutinger,dated 7 April 2008.



At the time when the Bratislava museum exhibit was prepared, there wasa concerted campaign in Slovakia to rehabilitate Father Tiso and the first Slo-vakian Republic. In July 1990, members of the far right-wing Slovak People'sParty (which took its name from the same fascist party that had governedwar-time Slovakia), along with the support of the leadership council of theChristian Democratic Movement, put up a plaque honoring Tiso on the wallsof the teachersd college he had founded. However, after widespread protests,the plaque was first covered and then removed.1" The following year, support-ers of Tiso installed a commemorative plaque on the home in which he wasborn. The inscription compared him to Svatopluk, a ninth-century prince whoestablished a small empire in what would eventually become Slovakia, andwho is seen by some Slovak nationalists as the putative father of the coun-try.20 Although Vaclav Havel, the president of what was still Czechoslovakia,objected to the honoring of a war criminal, the Slovak prime minister thoughtthat Tiso's war-time actions required"further study," daiming that Tiso"servedas a brake against greater Germanization."2' In April 1997, CardinalJan Chry-zostom Korec led a memorial service for Tiso on the fiftieth anniversary of hisdeath, and a few months later a statue of Tiso was unveiled in Cajakovce.22

This whitewashing of the war-time past was not limited to a few plaques;several Slovak scholars tried to repackage Slovakian history to dear Tiso andthe Slovak state. At a conference on Tiso in 1992, several participants argued,contrary to the historical evidence, that Tiso was not guilty of organizing themass murder of Slovakian Jews through deportation to the death camps, thatin fact he tried to rescue Slovakian Jews, and that the main guilt for the exter-mination should fall on the Nazis and Tisols prime minister, Vojtech Tuka.2One of the participants in this conference, Milan Stanislav 1burica, later wrotethe textbook on Slovakian history for use in elementary schools. Entitled Slo-yak History for Slovaks, the book idealized the Tiso state and was publishedwith the support of the Slovak Education Ministry in late 1996.24 The book

""Plaque to Fascist Unnerves Slovaks, New York Times, 22 July 1990, p. L9."2'Henry Kamm,'War Criminal Gets Slovak Memorial,' New York Times, 3 Decem-

ber 1991, p. A5.21Kamm,"War Criminal Gets Slovak Memorial," p. A5.n'Jews Criticize Cardinal For Serving Mass For World War 11 Criminal" CTK News

Agency, Prague, 25 April 1997 (BBC Summary of World Broadcasts).2Meian, Anti-Semitism in Slovak Politics, pp. 80-89.'Jews Angry at Ruling Movement's Approval of Book Idealizing Pro-Nazi War

State," CTK News Agency, Prague, 19 June 1997 (BBC Summary of World Broadcasts).

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blamed the deportation and massacre of SlovakianJews on Tisds deputies andemphasized the positive aspects of the fascist state.25 According to b5urica,"Dr.JozefTiso decided to solve the Jewish question in conformity with Chris-tian moral principles," and claimed that conditions in Jewish labor camps were"dose to the normal living conditions of the Slovak people."2

In May 1995, members of the Slovak parliament debated whether thewar-time state was actually fascist. Jozef Prokes, a member of the Slovak Na-tional Party, which was one of the three parties that made up the governingcoalition, argued that "a state cannot be fascist. It is the same as a house; ahouse cannot be fascist."• Several Slovakian Catholic officials supported theeffort to rehabilitate Tiso and the Slovak state, arguing that Tiso only did whathe did because he was pressured. In 1997, the Slovak National Party appealedto Slovaks to'honor the memory" of Tiso, and described him asla great son ofthe church and the nation:2

MAs official support for the rehabilitation of Tiso only came to an end af-ter the elections of 1998. While far-right groups continue to agitate on behalfof Tiso and his fascist state, the political situation has significantly changed.b)urica's textbook was withdrawn from'Slovakian schools, and the EducationMinistry strongly supported teaching about the Holocaust in Slovakia."' In2000, the new Slovakian president, Rudolf Shuster, participated in the Stock-holm Forum on the Holocaust and then later traveled to Israel and visited YadVashem, partly in response to the efforts by fascist groups to put up plaques inTis's honor. Shuster also helped enact a law declaring September 9, the day in1941 when war-time Slovakia adopted its anti-Jewish laws, to be a memorialday to victims of the Holocaust and racist violence." In 2005, Slovakia be-

"sPeter Smith, "Disputes Over How to Treat Nazi Regime Still Haunt Slovak

Schools: Prague Past, 10 February 1999.

2Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism,"Slovakia: Annual Report (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University, 1998).

-'7imea Spickova,"Father Tisds Rehabilitation Sparks Slovak Dispute,' Prague Post,10 May 1995.

2'Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism,"Slovakia," Ann,ua Report (1998).

"2Smith, "Disputes Over How to Teach Nazi Regime Still Haunt Slovak Schools,"Prague Post, 10 February 1999.

"3Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism,"Slovakia 2000-1" Annual Report (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University, 2001).



came a member of the Task Force for International Cooperation on HolocaustEducation, Remembrance and Research. 1

Similarly, after the elections of the 1998, Meiian became much more ac-tive in combating antisemitism and Holocaust denial in Slovakia. With gov-ernment support, Me1tan not only published his book on antisemitism inpost-Communist Slovakia, but as mentioned above, organized a series of newmuseum exhibits on the Holocaust in Slovakia, including the new Holocaustmuseum in Nitra, as well as reorganizing the Slovakian pavilion in Auschwitz.Thus, it appears that the partial aphasia displayed in Museum of Jewish Cul-ture in Bratislava is simply a vestige from the difficult political climate thatexisted in Slovakia in the early 1990s when the museum opened.

2. Deflecting Negationism

If the early response of many post-Communist governments was aphasic, thenext one was to deflect blame away from the war-era government on to others,either the Germans or a"fringe,' or to trivialize the Holocaust. We already sawan example of this type of deflection in lburica's Slovakian textbook mentionedearlier. The House of Terror Museum in Budapest, however, displays all threeof these techniques. Opened in early 2002, on the site of first the headquar-ters of the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross party and then the headquartersof the Communist government's secret police, the museum at first seems togive equal weight to both. The entry way features identically sized symbols ofthe Arrow Cross and the Hungarian Communist Party and the promotionalmaterials for the museum feature both images equally. In fact, the Holocaustis only mentioned in two and a half rooms in the four-story museum, and thenonly in passing.

The opening room, labeled "Double Occupation, recounts the variouscalamities that befell Hungary after the end of the First World War: the"trag-edy of Trianon7 the 1920 treaty under which Hungary lost two-thirds of itsterritory; the heavy losses suffered on Hungarian soldiers during their partici-pation in the invasion of the Soviet Union (which was sparked, the museumalleges, by bombings by the Soviet air force); the murder of the Jews of Hun-gary; and the occupation of Hungary by both Nazi Germany and the SovietUnion in 1944.32 Admiral Mild6s Horthy, the leader of Hungary from 1919

"11Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism,"Slovakia 2006,7 Annual Report (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University, 2007).

3 1Ahile almost all the museum's displays are in Hungarian only, the House of TerrorMuseum provides a handout with an English translation of the principal text at the en-

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until October 1944, is presented as a noble figure who sought to safeguardHungary from the twin threats of Hider and Stalin and recover the territoriesit had lost at Versailles. Blame for the persecution and murder of HungarianJews is deflected away from Horthy and the Hungarian state and on to theGermans and a local"fringe" element: the Arrow Cross fascist party.

"The museumns description of the Holocaust in Hungary is limited to afew paragraphs. The most complete is in the first room of the museum:

After the Germans occupied Hungary the National Socialist'regulation of theJewish question, the "final solution' took its course with the active co-opera-tion of the Hungarian authorities. The Jews, who had already suffered from therestrictions of the Jewish Laws enacted in 1938, 1939, and 1941, were now indirect peril of their lives. Measure after measure-time-tested all over Europeby"experts, members of the infamous Judenkommando-succeeded each otherwith lightening speed. The decree ordering Jews to wear the yellow star was fol-lowed by the worst possible scenario: on May 15, 1944 the dreaded deporta-tion trains began to roll. Within two months 437,402 Jews from country re-gions were transported to Labour-iLe. death-camps under the jurisdiction ofthe Third Reich."

From the museum's text, one might mistakenly conclude that the murder ofHungarian Jews began only with the Nazi occupation of 1944. In fact, over40,000 Hungarian Jews had already died at the hands of the Hungarian gov-ernment as members of slave labor battalions sent to the Eastern front. Inaddition to the anti-Jewish measures referred to in the text but never defined(they were modeled on the Nazi Nuremberg Laws), the Horthy governmentstripped Jews of their rights and seized Jewish men for slave labor. As we shallsee in greater detail below, the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau was coordinated and managed by the Hungarian government.

The second room, really just a short corridor connecting two larger rooms,is called "Passage of Hungarian Nazis,: which simply states that the new gov-ernment that came to power in March 1944 "handed over the countryside'sJewish population to the Nazi's murderous racial hatred. The majority wasdeported to Auschwitz. Almost all of them perished"M The bulk of the text in

trance to almost every room in the museum. The texts quoted here are from the handoutsdistributed by the museum to visitors in June 2007.

""Double Occupation:" handout provided by the House of Terror Museum, TerrorHzL, Budapest, June 2007.

'Passage of Hungarian Nazis," handout provided by the House of Terror Museum,Terror HIA, Budapest, June 2007.

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this room is devoted to the struggle for control of Hungary in the summer andfall of 1944, and the Nazi-instigated coup by the Arrow Cross that deposedHorthy in October 1944.

The last reference to the Holocaust is in the third room, labeled'Hungar-ian Nazis:. This is the only room of the museum devoted to the four-monthreign of the Arrow Cross. The room itself designed to look like a conferenceroom and a speech given by Ferenc Szilasi, the head of the Arrow Cross, playsin the background. As SzAlasi's speech is in Hungarian only and no transla-tion is provided, one might think it is an example of his antisemitic or fascistbeliefs. In fact, in the speech he is calling for a patriotic defense of Budapestagainst Soviet forces.35 Most of the text provided to museum visitors concernsthe government and actions of the Arrow Cross, but one paragraph describesEichmann's activities in Budapest after the Arrow Cross takeover in October1944, as well as the establishment of the Budapest ghetto and vague referencesto shootings and lootings prior to the defeat of the Arrow Cross by Sovietforces (pointedly not using the term "liberation7).

The remaining sixteen rooms of the museum are devoted to the sufferingsof Hungary under Communist rule, this despite the fact that at a minimum,twice as many Hungarians were killed by the Arrow Cross than by HungarianCommunists or Soviet forces between 1949 and 1956.36 In fact, in the fifthroom of the museum,"Changing Clothes," the museum shows videos of actorschanging out of their"Arrow Cross" uniforms and putting on the clothes of theHungarian Communist Party essentially arguing that the former was merelyprequel to the latter.

"3 NMichael Shafir,"Hungarian Politics and the Post-1989 Legacy of the Holocaust," inRandolph L. Braham and Brewster S. Chamberlin, eds., The Holocaust in Hungary: SixtyYears Later (New York: Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, Graduate Center of theCity University of New York, 2006), p. 277.

"36An estimated 45,000 to 60,000 Jews were killed in Hungary prior to the Germanoccupation of 1944. Between April and July 1944, some 437,000 Jews were deported toAuschwitz-Birkenau. Another 20,000 Jews, in addition to many Hungarian Christians,were killed by the Arrow Cross between October 1944 and January 1945. By contrast, theHungarian Communists killed about 3,000 people, with perhaps another 9,000 to 10,000who died indirectly because of Communist rule (Braham, "Hungary and the Holocaust.The Nationalist Drive to Whitewash the Past," in Randolph L. Braham, ed., The Treat-ment of the Holocaust in Hungary and Romania During the Post-Communist Era (New York.Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, Graduate Center of the City University of NewYork, 2004), pp. 27-28, n 3, p. 31, n. 31).

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And this is perhaps, one of the most troubling aspects of the museum: itscomparative trivialization of the Holocaust. This trivialization was not acci-dental; it underlay the history of this museum and its leadership. In 1998, thecenter-right FIDESZ party won the parliamentary elections, and its leader,Viktor Orbin, became prime minister. According to Orbin, his model forhow to lead Hungary was Pil Teleki, who had been prime minister during theinterwar period.17 In addition to pursuing a policy of trying to recover Hun-garian territory lost at the Trianon, Teleki also introduced the first numerusclauses in post-war Europe in 1920, helped draft the First Anti-Jewish Lawof 1938-39, and then significantly tightened the definition of Jew during hissecond stint as prime minister between 1939 and 1941.

As in Slovakia, there has been a concerted effort in Hungary to rehabili-tate the country's war-time leadership. The reburial of Imrte Nagy in 1989 wasfollowed by the reburial of Admirial Horthy in 1993.' Upon becoming primeminister in 1998, Orbin began a policy of reconstructing Hungary's historicalpast. He began with the Hungarian pavilion at Auschwitz, which dated fromthe Communist era. The existing plans to update the pavilion were scrappedin favor of a more radical reworking. Outside experts brought in to review theproposed changes, however, unanimously rejected them on the grounds thatthe text of the new pavilion

(a) basically falsified the history of the Jews in Hungary in general and the Ho-locaust era in particular and (b) appeared to have a political objective: the reha-bilitation of the Horthy era by transferring almost all responsibility for whatevercrimes were committed in Hungary almost exclusively to the Nazis."

In addition, the exhibit downplayed Hungarian antisemitism in favor of morepositive depictions of cultural symbiosis, and it referred to the antisemitic lawsof the interwar period as part of the European "Zeitgeist." The Ministry ofCultural Heritage was forced to shelve these plans after the criticism of thembecame public.'

One member of the Auschwitz planning committee who continuedto work on this subject was Miria Schmidt, Orbln1s chief counselor. Afterthe scandal broke about the proposed revisions to the Auschwitz pavilion,Schmidt gave a speech to a right-wing political party in which she said that

37Shafir,"Hungarian Politics," p. 259.

"Shaflr,'Hungarian Politics," p. 264."3 Randolph L. Braham,"Hungary and the Holocaust:' p. 11.

4OYehuda Lahav,"Weeks End: In the Spirit of the Zeitgeist," Ha'arez, 7 January 2000.

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An Inconvenient Past + 87

"World War II was not about the Jews or genocide" and said that the exter-mination or rescue of the Jews"was a secondary issue-we may even call it amarginal one-which did not feature among the war aims of either side in theconflict:' 4' Schmidt also argued that the term "holocaust" should apply notonly to the extermination of the Jews during World War II, but also to thegenocide committed by the Communists.42

While the Orbin government had agreed to fund the creation of a Ho-locaust museum to be part of a reconstructed synagogue in Budapest, it in-stead focused its efforts on creating the House of Terror museum, Schmidtwas made its general director, and it opened in February 2002, just prior tothe parliamentary elections scheduled for April. The House of Terror mu-seum is the fruition of the work that began on the Auschwitz pavilion project.Not only does this museum absolve the Hungarian state for the crimes of theHorthy regime, it even subtly whitewashes the Szilasi government as wellAlthough the museum describes the Arrow Cross as Hungarian Nazis, thephotographs of Ferenc SzAlasi, his deputy, and two other Arrow Cross of-ficials, all of whom were executed for their involvement in the deportationsand murder of Hungarian Jews, appear later in the museum as victims of Com-munist atrocities (this despite the fact that they were put to death prior to theCommunist takeover).43

The House of Terror museum has been controversial from the begin-ning. In response to charges that the museum puts too much emphasis on thecrimes of Communism and not enough on the Holocaust, Schmidt arguedthat in many countries, Communism claimed more victims than the Holo-caust, and she condemned the lack of focus on Communist crimes.44 This wasnot a new position for her. At a conference in London, Schmidt was'shouteddown" after she tried to prove that the post-war Communist government wasmore oppressive than the pro-Nazi government that oversaw the mass de-portation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau. 45 After the museumopened, Schmidt gave an interview to the International Herald Tribune where

41Lahav,"Week's End: In the Spirit of the Zeitgeist," Ha4aretz; see also Stephen RothInstitute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism,"Hungary 1999-20007'Annual Report (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University 2001); Shafir,'Hungarian Politics," p. 275.

42Shafir,'Hungarian Politics," p. 275.43Shafir,"Hungarian Politics," p. 277."44Braham,"Hungary and the Holocaust,' p. 33, n. 40.4'Braham,'Hungary and the Holocaust," p. 33, n. 39.

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88* Jeffrey Blutinger

she explained that the focus of the museum was accountability, but then onlysingled out the Communists for examination: "Finally, we can say this outloud: The Communist regime was inhuman. Finally we can teach children thetruth."46 One of the reasons given by Schmidt for the lack of material on theHolocaust in the House of Terror museum was that"this will be the task of thefuture Holocaust museum.47 While the Orbin government originally agreedto open such a museum by early 2002, most of the funding for it was shifted tothe House of Terror museum instead.4 As noted above, the House of Terrorwas part of the reelection strategy of the Orbin government. The construc-tion of a new museum concerning the Holocaust in Hungary was taken up bythe Socialist government that won the April 2002 elections. Unlike the Houseof Terror, which systematically negates the Holocaust through deflection andtrivialization, this new museum confronts Hungary's difficult past directly.

3. Open Examination

The new Holocaust Memorial Center, opened in Budapest in 2004,' marks ashift to a much more open examination of the persecution of Jews and Romain Hungary before and during World War II, and seems designed as a con-scious rebuttal to the House of Terror Museum across town. However, unlikethe House of Terror, where signs are in Hungarian only, the Holocaust Me-morial Center anticipates an international audience with signs in both Hun-garian and English.

The opening room of the museum describes the history of the Jews andRoma in Hungary. According to the museum, "the underlying theme of theexhibition is the relationship between the state and the citizen."50 This theme

"46Mhomas Fuller.'Stark History: Some See a Stunt: Memory Becomes Battlegroundin Budapestes House of Terror, International Herald Tribune, 2 August 2002.

"¢Braham,'Hungary and the Holocaust" p. 13."4Braham,"Hungary and the Holocaust, p. 12.4'While the memorial opened in April 2004, on the 60' anniversary of the ghet-

toization of Hungarian Jewry, the permanent exhibition did not open until February 2006(Adam LeBor,"Holocaust Memorial Opens as Hungary Faces Up to Past: 7e Times [Lon-don], 13 April 2004; Liz Szabo,*Budapest's Holocaust Museum Offers Ethereal Journey;Experience is Moving and Haunting" USA Today, 21 April 2006, p. 8D).

wLiszl6 Karsai, Gdbor K&UAr. and ZokAn Vigi, "Forward," in From Deprivation ofRbs to Genocide, Gy6rgy NovAi, trans. (Budapest: Hungarian National Museum-Ho-locaust Memorial Center, 2006), p. 5 .This book is a collection of the main texts and imagesdisplayed in the museum.


An Inconvenient Past # 89

is developed over the course of the exhibition through stories of nine diversefamilies and individuals. Some are Orthodox, others are assimilated; some livein the countryside, others in the city; and while most are Jewish, one is Roma.Various cultural items associated with Jews and Roma are displayed whilemusic from a wedding plays in the background."1

The second room, labeled "Deprived of Rights," chronicles the violenceand persecution inflicted on Jews and Roma between 1920 and 1942 by the"right-wing, anti-Semitic, nationalist and anticommunist regime ... estab-lished under the leadership of Mikl6s Horthy:'" To reach the second room,the visitor walks down a darkly lit corridor, with the sound of marching sol-diers. Just as one enters the second room and without any warning, the floorslants suddenly downward, throwing the visitor off balance, as if to illustratethe way Jews and Roma were thrown off balance by various discriminatorydecrees enacted during the interwar period. The museum lays out the variousanti-Jewish and anti-Roma laws adopted in the 1920s and'30s, including theforced military labor service adopted in 1939, that took Jewish men out of theHungarian armed forces and sent them to forced labor companies, where over40,000 died.

From there, one moves to the third room, labeled"Deprived of Property."Here, the museum text explicitly describes the Hungarian government as "anaccomplice in the greatest act of robbery in Hungarian history."3 After re-viewing the early economic restrictions imposed by the Horthy regime, themuseum focuses on the spoliation of Hungarian Jews after March 1944, and,in particular, on the role of individual Hungarians in robbing their fellow citi-zens."Gendarmes often plundered Jews at the railway station.... Hundreds ofthousands of people applied forJewish property, while some simply broke intoand ransacked the sealed homes of deportees:54 The museum expressly statesthat large segments of Hungarian society realized the benefits of economicdiscrimination and expropriation of the Hungarian Jewish community, evenbefore the German occupation."5 The fourth room, "Deprived of Freedom,"

"51Based on the author's visits to the museum inJune 2006 and June 2007.U2LWszl6 Karsai, et aL,"Deprived of Rights," in From Deprivation of Rights to Geno-

cide, p. 11."ULszl6 Karsai, et aL,"Deprived of Property" in From Deprivation of Rights to Geno-

cide, p. 16."U4LWszl6 Karsai, et aL.,"Deprived of Property, p. 20.S5Liszl6 Karsai, et aL,"Deprived of Property," p. 18.

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examines the various policies that stripped Hungarian Jews and Roma oftheir dignity, and states unequivocally that"the collaboration of the [Hungar-ian] civil administration and law enforcement agencies was the engine of theHungarian Holocaust."5 Simply put, the Germans could not have organizedthe ghettoization, expropriation, and deportation of Hungarian Jews with-out the active assistance of the Hungarian government. "During the springand summer of 1944, the entire state apparatus of wartime Hungary, save thearmy-that is, from cabinet members down to the lowliest clerk of the small-est village-was actively engaged in organizing the despoliation and expulsionof Jews:s7 All this stands in direct contrast to the approach of the House ofTerror, in which the economic persecution of Hungarian Jews is only hintedat, and all blame for their ghettoization and deportation is deflected to theGermans and their Arrow Cross supporters.

Before covering the murder of Hungarian Jews and Roma, the museum'sfifth room deals with their loss of dignity. This includes a discussion of thepopular antisemitism of the 1930s, as well as the efforts of both national andlocal administrations to hunmiliareJews and Roma. For example, in one county,"the local branches of the Red Cross were forbidden to accept blood given byJews since deputy prefect Liszl6 Endre considered Jewish blood as 'infected'and'filthy" Again, this museum takes pains to counter the effort to deflectblame onto the Germans or only a fringe element.

The museum exhibition reaches its nadir in the sixth room, "Deprivedof Life," which covers the murder of the Jews and Roma. In contrast to theHouse of Terror, the Holocaust Memorial Center describes how the murderof HungarianJews began well befiare 1944. This includes the killing of tens ofthousands ofjewish men in Hungarian forced labor battalions and the depor-tation in 1941 of some 18,000 Jews from territories annexed by Hungary, whowere sent to the Ukraine where they were shot on arrival. But the main phaseof killing took place in a two-month span in the spring of 1944, when mostof the Jews of Hungary were sent to Auschwitz. Unlike the House of TerrorMuseum, here the blame is shared by both the Germans and the Hungarians,with the text stating that"thanks to the effident collaboration of the Hungar-ian authorities, more than 437,000 Jews from the countryside were deported

"ULszI6 Karsai, et aL,"Deprived of Freedom: in From Deprivation of Rights to Geno-cide. p. 30.

'7LIszI6 Karsai, et aV.oDeprived of Freedom:" p. 31.

"ULiszl6 Karsai, et aL,"Deprived of Human Dignity* in From Deprivation of Rights toGenoide, p. 38.



between May 15 and July 9 in the fastest deportation operation in the historyof the Holocaust... ."9 This sort of open examination of Hungary's role inthe Holocaust is a rebuttal to the deflecting negationism of the more popularHouse of Terror Museum.

The final two rooms of the museum, "Responses," and "Liberation andCalling to Account," continue the focus on the responsibility of the widerHungarian society for the suffering of Jews and Roma during the Holocaust.While"most of the majority society looked upon the sufferings of their com-patriots with indifference,' the museum notes, "there were thousands whorisked their lives trying to help."76 The text of the museum makes dear, how-ever, that any rescue by individuals cannot be imputed to the wider society. Sowhile, for example,*there were many individuals within public administration,law enforcement agencies and the army who stood up against inhumanity themuseum text first notes that'the public administrative apparatus as well as thegendarmerie and police did their best, often exceeding what was required ofthem, in the efforts first to deprive Jews of their rights and property, and thento deport them."6'

While standing in this last room, the visitor hears three sets of sounds.The first is the video of the liberation of inmates from the camps-the surviv-ing remnant. The second is the sound of a Jewish wedding, which comes fromthe opening room of the museum (which is next to the final room), remindingthe visitor of all that was lost during the Holocaust. The third is the distantecho of the melody of prayer, coming from the memorial room: the restoredPava street synagogue. There, above the ark, one can read the synagogue'soriginal Hebrew inscription,"You will hear the plea of your servant and yourpeople Israel," words that ring hollow in this context.

Taken as a whole, the museum is designed to disturb and unsettle thevisitor, from its uneven flooring to its discordant sounds, and particularly inits texts.62 Instead of comforting the visitor by shifting blame and guilt for the

'9Usz16 Karsai. et aL,"Deprived of LW" in From Deprivation offtbis to Genocde, p. 46."61L1szl6 Karsai, et aL,"Responses, in From Deprivation of Ri•gts to Genocide, p. 54.6'LAszl6 Karsai, dt al.,"Liberadon and Calling to Account' From Deprivation of Rigbts

to Genocide, p. 67.62Balint Molnar, the Holocaust Memorial Center spokesman, said in an interview that

the museum was designed in a way to be intentionallyjarring to the visitor: The Holocaustwas an event with no reason, so we wanted the space to be discordant and uneasy" (AdamLeBor,"Holocaust Memorial Opens As Hungary Faces Up to Past, The Times [London],13 April 2004).

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Holocaust onto either the Germans or a fringe, and then trivializing it throughcomparison with later oppression of the Communist period, the HolocaustMemorial Center openly examines the Hungarian past, stripping away theveneer left by those who would whitewash it.

Another example of open examination is the new Museum of the War-saw 'Rising. Opened in 2006, this museum commemorates the heroic fight ofthe Home Army to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany in August 1944, be-fore Soviet forces could take over and impose a pro-Soviet government. Afterthe Poles successfully pushed out German forces, an enraged Hider orderedWarsaw to be wiped off the map, and while the Soviet army sat and watchedacross the river, the Germans leveled Warsaw to the ground, killing as manyas 200,000 civilians, and deporting another 700,000 from the city, many tocamps. It took sixty years and the fall of Communism for a memorial to thecity's destruction to be erected in Warsaw.

Unlike the Home Army Museum in Krakow discussed earlier, the newMuseum of the Warsaw 'Rising does not ignore the Holocaust; the persecu-tion of Polish Jews, their ghettoization, the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto andthe annihilation of Polish Jews in Nazi death camps are all covered in detail,with both texts and images.63 More significantly, however, the museum doesnot shy away from some of the more difficwlt aspects of Poland's war-timehistory regarding Jews. In contrast to the situation in Slovakia or Hungary,the Polish government and the Home Army did not collaborate with the Ger-mans. Poland was under an extremely harsh military occupation, and Poleswere subjected to a slow-moving genocide designed to reduce them to enslave-ment. However, the interactions between Jews and non-Jews in Poland duringthe war has been the subject of intense and emotional debate, particularly thecharge of antisemitism in the Home Army. It is this very difficult subject thatthe museum addresses openly.

In a section on Jews in the Warsaw 'Rising, a monitor displays an inter-view with Marek Edelman, the last surviving member of the Warsaw Ghetto'sJewish Fighting Organization, who describes (in Polish with English subti-des) what happened when he and other Jews sought to join the Home Armyduring the 'Rising:

"'3In its discussion of conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto, the museum states that theNazis executed anyone helpingJews, but despite this, "many brave Poles try to save Jews byoffering them food and shelter." But the text then goes on to add that"unfortunately, thereare others who blackmailJews or hand them over to the Germanse (observed by the authoron visits to the museum in June 2006 and July 2007).



On the first day, Jurek went outside and was stopped. What was he doing, acivilian with a gun, with forged ID papers, with black hair of a Jew? So they shothim in the courtyard.

On the second day, Kaminski came and said"you're still here? Do you want tojoin the Rising?" and we said"yes."No,* he said,"you should go where you arewelcome and not where you are not welcome. You should join a group that willtake you.7 Where should we go? So we went to the People!s Army. They weresmall and weak, but the Communists welcomed us."

Edelman then described how Jews liberated from the camps in Warsaw wereweak and frail, and were used to dear away unexploded shells, but no onewould give them weapons."s

In a pull-out drawer beneath the monitor with Edelman's account, themuseum provides information on him for the visitor. It not only describes hiscombat in both the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and the Warsaw'Risingof 1944, it also recounts his experience in Poland after the war, noting that

[h]e got persecuted under pressure from the waves of anti-Semitic purges 1967-1968. In spite of dismissal from work he continued his scientific activity. Since1976 he is connected with the Workersi Reform Committee (KOR). Since 1980he is a member of the board of the L6d& region'Solidarity." He is interned dur-ing the Martial Law.%

The museum here is creating a series of interesting connections. On the onehand, the persecution of Edelman by the Polish government after the war par-allels the persecution of Home Army members after the war. At the sametime, through his continuing activism, Edelman's story links the Polish war-time resistance to the rise of the Solidarity movement.

Most important, though, the inclusion of Edelmanrs critical testimony, ina museum organized around celebrating the Home Army and commemorat-ing the terrible sacrifices of Poles in the destruction of Warsaw, is a sign ofPolish self-confidence in being willing to examine unpleasant aspects of theirown past. This museum is not afraid to admit that some Home Army mem-bers disliked Jews and opposed their participation in the'Rising& and that in atleast in the case discussed by Edelman, Jews were killed by Polish participantsin the'Rising, a remarkable inclusion in such a museum. Furthermore, unlike

"4Observed by the author on visits to the museum inJune 2006 and July 2007."An adjacent wall plaque, however, states that"Polish Jews who were saved from exter-

mination and hid in Warsaw join [sic) the Rising. A large number-among them insurgentsfrom the Warsaw Ghetto-join the Home Army" (observed by the author in July 2007).

"66Observed by the author in July 2007. All grammatical errors are in the original

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the Krakow Home Army Museum, which implicitly distinguishes the Jewishexperience of the war in Poland as something foreign, other, and outside Pol-ish history the Museum of the Warsaw'Rising presents the Polish Jewish pastas an inextricable part of the wider Polish past.

"The former Home Army soldiers who set up the first museum in 1999 exem-plify an early approach to how post-Communist societies have confronted oravoided the treatment of Jews in their countries during the Holocaust. ManyPoles, Slovaks, and Hungarians looked back to pre-Communist national lead-ers and institutions as a source of a renewed national identity. As a result, inall three countries we find that early memorials and museums either avoiddiscussing the Holocaust or negate it by deflecting blame onto either the Ger-mans or a 'fringe element, or through comparative trivialization with Com-munist oppression. Yet over time, there has been a marked movement towardsgreater openness and willingness to examine the war-time behavior of the pre-Communist states. Whether it is in the new permanent Holocaust exhibitionin Nitra, Siovakia, the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest, Hungary, orthe Museum of the Warsaw 'Rising in Warsaw, Poland, these countries arebeginning the process of confronting their difficult pasts. While this move isalso, in part, tied to the relative decline in influence of right-wing nationalistparties (at least in Slovakia and Hungary), it does bode well for the future ofHolocaust memorialization in Central Eastern Europe.


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