Horváth László szerk.: Mátrai Tanulmányok (Gyöngyös, 1999)

THE HISTORY OF THE GYÖNGYÖS JEWISH COMMUNITY László Horváth This book is the result of nearly a decade of research. The material from Hungarian public collections (first of all, that of the Mátra Museum, the Archives of the Gyöngyös Israelite Community and the Archives of Heves County), the sources of Israeli research centres (Yad Vasém (Jerusalem), the Memorial Museum of Jews from Hungarianspeaking Areas (Cfát)), the general secondary literature of the topic, collective memory and the memories of countless families and people are combined in this work. The author did not undertake to write an independent book without any preliminary study; partial results of this research have already been published. In 1995 I published 'Contributions to the Modern History of the Gyöngyös Jewish Community', followed by the survey of the local Israelite cemetery, 'Contributions to the Cultural History of Gyöngyös Cemeteries'. The Gyöngyös Holocaust was treated in the essay 'The 20th Century History of the Gyöngyös Jewish Community till the Years of Disaster', while my commemoration 'The Gyöngyös Jewish Community in 1848' greeted the 150th anniversary in the jubilee issue of Past and Future. A part of the noteworthy illustration material collected during my research was made public in the album about the town's history ('Gyöngyös: A Provincial Town in the Last Decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire'), while in the colour photo album 'Gyöngyös - Inherited Past' an independent chapter and series of photos illustrate the Jewish cultural memories unearthed during this work. These are the prehminary studies that the present book is built on. The Gyöngyös Jewish community was once a group of great numbers, fulfilling a considerable role in the trade, culture and atmosphere of the town. Most of them were killed in 1944 by the 'institutionalised hatred'; we owe it to them to keep their memory alive. The Appendix found at the end of the volume forms an integral part of the book. The extracts and sources there make the work more complete. The sources recall the terrors of the Holocaust period: there is the infamous Anti-Jewish Law as well as the list of Gyöngyös victims... With all my decade-long work, the present book seeks the answer to the questions 'Who was Uncle Kohn of Csapó street; Abraham the chandler from the Upper End; the Drózsas of the Hotel Pannónia or the rakish-moustached fire-chief Rosenfeld in his Hungarian gala-dress? Where did they come from?' Not only they but all the others, the people who may be faceless but are by no means nameless. For everyone had a name; it was child, or father, brother or relative. And we all know what became of them.