Integrating Victims, Externalizing Guilt? Commemorating the Holocaust in Hungary

Since its rightward political shift, questions concerning how Hungarian society has reflected on the role the country played during the Second World War and how it has confronted its co-responsibility for the Holocaust in particular have been raised with new urgency. After introducing some of the central divisive issues in the interpretation and commemoration of the Holocaust in Hungary, the author analyses current trends based on a case study of the Holocaust’s 70th anniversary. The article assesses the sustained attempts of reinterpreting the recent past of the country in the name of a renewed national canon.