An exhibition focusing on the Holocaust in Hungary titled “Persecution – Rescue – New Beginning” opened in the premises of the Hungarian Embassy in Berlin on September 27, 2012. The displayed material from the collection of the Holocaust Memorial Center introduces the developments that led up to the tragedy and the history of Shoah from 1920 to the liberation.

The exhibition that will be available for the German public for six weeks puts the spotlight on the political anti-Semitism of the Horthy era, dealing with the “Jewish Laws” introduced after the First World War and with the forced labor service set up in 1939. It describes the ghettoization and the deportation of Jewish communities from the whole country except of Budapest in 1944, and the destiny of Hungarian victims dragged away to Auschwitz and other camps. The exhibition in Berlin, similar to the one on display in Budapest, doesn’t avoid the responsibility of the Hungarian authorities in these developments, but also details the consequences of the German occupation and the involvement of the Eichmann commando. The aim of the exhibition is to provide a complex view on the history of the Shoah in Hungary, including the rescue activities and the years of liberation, the new beginnings and the emigration.

The exhibition also provides an opportunity for a panel discussion of Hungarian and German historians on this topic.

For more details on the exhibition click here.

Source: Ger-mania.hu/ András Heltai