16 No. 74 JUSTICE An illustrative example of this attitude can be found in the statements of József Darvas, a leader of Hungary's National Peasant Party, but a secret member of the Communist Party at the same time, who later became Minister of Public Education following the Communist takeover. Writing in a Communist Party newspaper in August 1945, Darvas remarked: “There is definitely a part of Jewry, fortunately, a smaller part ... which, by invoking their greater suffering ... expects, even demands, preferential treatment.” A few weeks later, at a public meeting, he declared: “There is a stratum here which has had to endure truly inhuman sufferings. This layer is now demanding privileges by right of suffering. ... We ... just as we condemned racial persecution in the past, do not recognize racial privilege today.” These remarks were not incidental or merely the personal opinions of a local official; they reflected the broader party line. Today, it is widely acknowledged that Communist parties often benefited from inciting and politically exploiting antisemitism. On occasion, they even played a direct role in sparking pogroms and other forms of violence, such as those in Miskolc, Hungary, and in Kielce and other locations in Poland. In his analysis of post-war pogroms in Poland, Jan Gross concludes that the Polish Communist Party made its position clear during the postwar anti-Jewish riots: it was ready to turn a blind eye to crimes Poles had committed against Jews during the German occupation, suppress any questions about Poland's past raised by the new pogroms, and tacitly accept the desire of certain segments of Polish society — expressed through violence — to make Poland “Jew-free.” Overall, the picture is undeniably bleak. It shows a profound gap between the principles expressed by the newly passed laws and the political and social realities of the era. While post-war legislation declaratively aimed to abolish legal discrimination, provide compensation, and support survivors as well as re-establish Jewish communities and organizations, the implementation of these measures was severely limited. Bureaucratic obstacles, political motives, societal antisemitism, and even the prejudices of individuals responsible for implementing these laws effectively prevented their enforcement. In every country, the funds designated for revitalizing Jewish communal life were minimal, while efforts to provide individual reparations were either insufficient or entirely absent. Ultimately, in the years following the war, the states and their non-Jewish citizens remained the primary beneficiaries of the mass murder of Jews. It is telling that until 1951, a significant number of survivors who had returned, chose to emigrate, feeling it was impossible to rebuild their lives in their home countries. More than half of the Jewish survivors from Poland, over a third from Czechoslovakia, and a quarter from Hungary sought new beginnings in other parts of the world. We do not know how much the trauma could have been alleviated if the politicians and society of the home countries, confronted with the everyday reality of the concentration camps, had undergone a deep catharsis and shown more empathy for the suffering of the returning Jews. What we know now is that this didn’t happen. Not even a narrow escape route for alleviating the trauma was given. Primo Levi, the renowned writer, and former Auschwitz prisoner, wrote years after returning home: “Now everything has dissolved into chaos; I find myself alone in a gray, foggy void. I understand what this reality represents, something I have always known deep down: I am back in the camp again, and nothing outside the camp holds any truth.” For another survivor, Jean Améry, being Jewish meant carrying the indelible mark of past tragedy. He wrote: “On my left forearm, I bear the Auschwitz number, which can be read faster than the Five Books of Moses or the Talmud, yet it provides a more accurate explanation.” Similarly, Elie Wiesel, in his haunting brevity, summed up this shared experience: “After Auschwitz, everything leads us back to Auschwitz.” This enduring trauma was too much for some to handle. Primo Levi, Jean Améry and Tadeusz Borowski eventually succumbed to the weight of their memories; all of them took their own lives years after Auschwitz. Yet, Améry left a powerful message for us, for future generations: It is certainly true that moral indignation cannot hold its ground against the silently erosive and transformative effects of time. It is hopeless, even if not entirely unjustified, to demand that National Socialism — and the Holocaust — be felt as an outrage with the same emotional intensity as in the years immediately following the Second World War. No doubt, there exists something like historical entropy: the historical “heat gradient” disappears… But in viewing historical processes, we should not foster this entropy; on the contrary, we should resist it with all our power. Today, as Jews have once again become targets of hatred and victims of terror across the world, Améry’s warning
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