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Ordinary women and men: superintendents and Jews in the Budapest yellow-star houses in 1944–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2012

MÁTÉ RIGÓ
MÁTÉ RIGÓ*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Cornell University, 450 McGraw Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853–4601, USA
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Abstract:

The present article investigates how everyday people shaped the outcome of discriminatory measures during the Nazi persecution of Budapest Jews, primarily by looking into micro-level social interactions between superintendents and confined Jews during ghettoization in the Hungarian capital (1944). I argue that besides a multiplicity of relevant political, social and military reasons determining the fate of Budapest Jews, the urban specificity of the Holocaust also needs to be taken into account, given that location and access to urban space enabled different personal strategies to contest or aggravate anti-Semitic persecution. Especially older, nineteenth-century apartment buildings fostered the autonomy of superintendents, who could act independently of various authorities, exploiting certain Jews while aiding others. The article demonstrates how many superintendents made use of this power effectively as the successive regimes toughened their anti-Semitic policies. In addition, the investigation of individual motives and the micro levels of segregation and discrimination highlight major differences between and within apartment buildings, despite the supposedly homogeneous discrimination against Jews envisaged by Nazi policy makers.

Type
Eastern European Cities
Information
Urban History , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 71 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

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30 I have replaced the original names of superintendents and residents with fictitious ones, except in the case of well-known public figures. Budapest City Archives (BFL) XVII/997, documents of the 291/a vetting committee of Hungarian superintendents and assistant superintendents, the case of Mrs Sándor Dobozi.

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33 Á.E. Tausz, ‘Kapuzárás után’, Házfelügyelő, Aug. 1947, 3.

34 Both házmester and házfelügyelő mean superintendent and the two words had been used interchangeably to denote the profession. According to the article, the change was necessary given that by 1945 the word házmester took on a pejorative meaning. As of 1945, Communist papers such as Szabadság and Szabad Nép featured superintendents as acolytes of the capitalist owner, while the residents were seen as the representatives of the exploited masses. See É.B., ‘Háziúr az újjáépítési kölcsönből leszedette a háztetőt’, Szabad Nép, 20 Dec. 1945, 3; Nagy, Á., ‘Lakóközösség kontra háztulajdonos, házmegbízott kontra házfelügyelő: osztályharc a bérházban: a budapesti házfelügyelők igazolása 1945-ben’, Budapesti Negyed, 17, 1 (2009), 163–88Google Scholar.

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43 In some cases, superintendents were vetted along with their spouses, even though officially only one member of the couple held the position.

44 See Nagy, ‘Lakóközösség kontra háztulajdonos, házmegbízott kontra házfelügyelő’.

45 Ibid.

46 See, for instance, ‘Több nagyértékű kép hiányzik’, Esti Újság, 23 May 1944.

47 BFL XVII/997, the case of Mrs Sándor Dobozi.

48 Ibid.

49 BFL XVII/997, the case of Mrs Sándor Dobozi.

50 ‘Ms. Györgyike Haskó interviewed by Judit Réz’, Budapest, 2005, Centropa Hungary Database, www.centropa.hu/object.cb5c417c-3df0–48a5-b96b-30fa79c1cfd9.ivy?full=true, accessed 10 May 2009.

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55 BFL XVII/997, District VII, the case of Mrs Dénes Koros.

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57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.

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