Trudy Gold
The Jews of Hungary, Part 1
Trudy Gold - The Jews of Hungary, Part 1
- Morning.
Morning, Trudy. Morning, Judi.
Morning. You look well in New York.
Thanks. Sun is shining.
Oh, lovely. It’s about to storm here, but nevermind.
It’s absolutely incredible to watch how the numbers just ramp up, you know? It’s-
It’s fabulous.
Yeah, you’ve been on for a minute and there are already almost 1,500 people logged in, of devices logged in.
That’s fantastic. And Wendy, do you remember we asked that when people ask questions, if they put their country or town, it’d be really good fun. So when they ask questions on the chat.
Yeah, that would be very nice. Ah, yes, I agree. And I also think that it would be nice to connect people in different cities.
[Trudy] Yes.
For those who want to be connected.
[Trudy] Yeah.
So alright, let’s just give it another 30 seconds. Wasn’t William excellent yesterday?
Oh, he’s wonderful.
[Wendy] Oh, yes.
[Trudy] He’s very fabulous.
Yeah, yeah. Every day, everybody, you know.
[Trudy] Yeah.
I’m thrilled with our faculty.
[Judi] We’ve got some notes coming in. We’ve got someone from Montreal, Canada, Vancouver.
Fabulous.
[Judi] Karen says, “Trudy, I love your haircut. You look younger.”
Thank you.
And Rosa saying, “A bit bigger than your class at LJCC.” We have Karen from Boston. Hi, Karen.
Oh, this is lovely. Just tell me when you’re ready for me to start.
Well, you know what, the numbers are just ramping up. So I just wanted to just give everybody, let’s give them another, a few seconds.
[Trudy] Right.
I feel like the lecture hall is filling up very quickly.
It is.
Can you imagine?
We have Helen from Malta, Wendy and Trudy. We’ve got Helen in Malta.
Oh, fabulous. Ooh, Malta.
Steve is from Scottsdale.
Steve, welcome.
[Judi] We have Bob in Memphis.
[Trudy] Fabulous.
All right, let’s move. It’s time.
[Judi] Rona from Mouille Point point in Cape Town. Hi, Rona. Manchester, UK.
All right. I just welcome everybody. We are almost 2,000 devices now. So what I want to say is it’s three minutes past 12:30. So over to you, Trude, “The Jews of Hungary.”
Thank you very much, Wendy.
Thank you.
And welcome back to New York. We miss you here, though.
Thank you.
Visuals are displayed throughout the presentation.
- Okay, good evening everyone from London where it’s a rather grey evening. Now, tonight I’m beginning to talk about the Jews of Hungary. And this evening, I’m actually going to give a background, because I think a lot of you will get a sense of deja vu when I talk about the Jews of Hungary. But before I do that, I have a request. One of our group is Tomi Komoly. Tomi Komoly’s uncle was a hero, a man called Otto Komoly, who I’ll probably be talking about if I can stick to schedule this week. He was in charge of the Rescue Committee in Budapest and saved thousands of people with the Red Cross. And he tragically was murdered by the Arrow Cross in January 1945. His nephew would very much like to hear from any of you. If any of you have family who were saved by him or know who know more about this story, can you please, Judi’s agreed that on this specific subject, if you get in touch with her, she will pass everything on to me that I can then pass it on to Tomi. So, you know, this is quite serious. We have a man who wants to honour his grandfather, who wants to honour his uncle.
Evidently, it’s never been done properly. So this might be a way where Lockdown University could help. So the Jews of Hungary. So as I said, I want you, as I go through this extraordinary story, I suppose we should start with the horror. In March 1944, Hungarian Jewry was the last huge Jewish community to actually be attacked by the Nazis in terms of the deportations. Yes, there had been some deportations, but, in the main, Admiral Horthy, and I’ll be talking a lot about him, had managed to stop the deportations. So he’d run Hungary, allied to the Nazis. So it’s not until March 1944 when Horthy believes that the Germans are going to lose the war, and he wants to pull out. It’s at that stage he’s summoned to Klessheim Castle by Hitler. And on March the 19th, 1944, the Nazis move in. A month after that, there is a meeting between Adolf Eichmann and members of the Rescue Committee. And of course that will lead to an area of great controversy that I’ve dealt with once about eight months ago, but I will be dealing with later on in the course. So this was a huge community that had a long history, and it came to a tragic end. And what makes it even more poignant, I keep on telling you this, and I know many of you know this, it was actually in December 1942 that you had the Inter-Allied Declaration, 17th of December, 1942.
So not only do we have to deal with the horror of what the Nazis did, we have to deal with the horror of what the Allies didn’t do. because by this period, the Shoah is an open secret. I’m even going to talk about a man called Rudi Vrba who escaped from Auschwitz, bringing back evidence. I’m going to talk about a man called Rabbi Weissmandl who had managed to bribe the SS in Slovakia and had stopped deportations for a while, who listed country by country the number of Jews that had been murdered. And it’s open season now. There are articles in the press. There are even broadcasts on the radio. If you look to the New York Times, the London Times, there are articles on the murder of the Jews of Europe. For the Zionists in Palestine, in America, the problem was absolutely heartbreaking. By the time we get to Hungarian Jewry, they are begging that the railway lines be bombed.
Now, whether it would’ve been affective or not is another story. But the point is that’s what was dreamt of. And frankly, some of the survivors later said that they wouldn’t even have cared if they’d been killed, because at least they wouldn’t have had to die in the gas. So, basically, and what is fascinating about this is that bomber command never received the order that was sent by Churchill. The Americans, John McCloy who was in charge, he even refused to consider it. So basically all the Allies would allow were a few parachute drops. And then we will deal also with those incredibly brave people, including the famous Hannah Senesh. But now I want to start at the beginning. As I said, there are so many deja vues in this story. We’ve had such a strange history, have we not, in the world of the West, in the world of Christendom. It’s a story of we’ve had to learn to survive on our wits. When times are good, we manage. When times are bad, we have to flee. And then we come back, and we come back, and we come back. The Zionist answer to this is quite simple. You never really controlled your own destiny. Now whether Zionism itself succeeded is another story.
I was rereading Walter Laqueur the other day, and one of the things he pointed out in his thesis on Zionism, that the problem was that Zionism was a movement to save European Jewry. Not one of the Zionist writers mentioned the Jews of the Arab world. “By the time,” he says quite boldly, “By the time the state was created, it was too late to save the bulk of them.” And ironically, certainly in the first three years of statehood, the majority of the people who fled to Israel were Jews from the Arab world, because the rise of Zionism led to the rise of anti-Zionism, which toppled over in so many instances to anti-Semitism. And this is something that Lyn Julius will be doing a couple of sections on. She is an expert on the Jews of the Arab world. But I’m really saying this as a preamble. Because I really think that with a group such as you, you’ve got so much experience. You come from so many different disciplines.
Can we make some sort of sense of our history? So let’s begin. I’m going to show you a map of Hungary. This is from Martin Gilbert’s “Jewish History Atlas,” The Jews of Austria-Hungary. Because by 1900, Budapest, which was known as Judapest, was 23% Jewish. It was the third largest Jewish city in the world following on from New York and Warsaw. It was an absolute centre, and it was a centre of Jewish life. You just have to think of some of the extraordinary characters who came out of Budapest in the 19th century. Just think of Theodor Herzl, just think of Max Nordau. Just think later on of all the scientists, the writers, the artists, the film stars, the industrialists, the man who created the biro, the man who created the long-playing records. Some of my favourite film directors are Hungarian, Alexander Korda, Michael Curtiz, some of the great musicians. So it was an incredibly rich community that is going to be chopped in half. Over half of Hungarian Jewry are going to be murdered in a three month purge between April, the end of April and July 1944, when, as I said, the Nazis, not only is it an open secret, but the Nazis are losing the war. And in the end, killing Jews is going to be more important than winning the war. That sounds a fantastical statement, but I’m going to stick by it.
So let’s go back into history. Can we just have the opening slide rather than dwell on that, if you don’t mind, Judi? Let’s just, okay. Jews were there in Roman times, way before the coming of the conquering Magyar Tribes from the east. It becomes Christianized in the year 1000. Bishop Gellert. Those of you who’ve been to Budapest, it’s a wonderful city. There were three parts to the city, Buda, Obuda, and Pest. They were unified in 1865 to create the capital city. The settled immigration of the Jews begins with an influx of Jews from Bohemia, Moravia in the 11th century. And then, of course, you have the ascendancy of the church, and that means problems. In 1092, intermarriage between Jews and Christians are banned. Jews are forbidden to work on a Sunday. Mediaeval decrees that ordered Jews to wear special identification, either a yellow patch or a high pointed hat. And then you have the Mongol invasions, 1241 to 1242. Central Europe is attacked from the east. The Mongols ravaged the country.
And as a response to that, once that is all over, the country is decimated. And in 1251 King Bela, who built the great castle, those of you who’ve been to Budapest would’ve seen that, he had a daughter, Margaret, who is the great hero of the nation, Saint Margaret, Margaret Island. He actually welcomes the Jews back. Why? Because his country’s been depopulated. Now I want you to imagine a country, huge country, an agrarian country with a nobility. It’s very similar to Poland. Who on earth is going to oil the wheels of a mediaeval economy. So for a couple of hundred years, the Jews survived. And then of course they’re an urban people in the main. Then after the Black Death, 1348 to 1354, the Black Death, which ravaged Europe. The problem was that nobody understood where this plague came from. They thought it was a curse of God. Can you imagine?
There’s a wonderful book by Philip Ziegler called “The Black Death.” Can you just imagine to the primitive mediaeval mind who knew nothing really of medicine, and knew nothing really of plague and where it comes from. It must be a visitation by the Almighty. Or even worse, it’s been caused by some demonic force. And the Christian Church had really pushed along the notion as the Jew as demon. And consequently, the Jews were blamed for the Black Death. So having been invited back in 1251, a hundred years later, life becomes impossible. They have to go on the move again. The pendulum swings and then, but some come back, they’re useful. Usually there was a Jewish mint master to the court. Quite often financiers would be around the king. And if he was be benign, he would allow other Jews to settle in order to allow them to live a reasonable life. And then can we see the next slide after the map, if you don’t mind, Judi? Can we go on? Yes. This is the Battle of the Mohacs in 1526. Remember where Hungary is. Also, I want you to see one of the great motifs of European history as the ongoing wars between Christendom and Islam.
The Battle of Mohacs, the Turkish empire defeated the armies of the Habsburgs. And by 1541, most of Hungary, including Budapest, was incorporated into the Turkish empire. Now this is important. So right up until 1683, much of Hungary is going to be under the control of the Muslims. Ironically, for the Jews, Muslim sovereignty at this stage was a welcome release for them, because they had much wider ranges of occupation in the Turkish empire. Jews, they were often doctors. They were merchants. They were artisans. Whereas in the Christian world, they are very much controlled by the Christian guilds. Islam didn’t have that problem. And Jewish doctors working with Muslim doctors were so far advanced of Christianity and Christian medicine at this time. At this stage, you can probably say it was far better, no, you can say to live under Islam than live under Christianity. You see, though, the Zionist point. All that we can do is react to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We also know that several Jews became ambassadors to foreign governments.
They had languages, many of them were translators and interpreters. But 1526, 1683, over 150 years later, the balance of power shifts and there is a huge battle between the forces of the Empire and the forces of the Hapsburgs. There is a Siege of Vienna in 1683. Ironically, the Siege of Vienna is financed by a fantastically interesting court Jew called Samuel Oppenheimer. Shall we see his picture? You know, this is the irony. Samuel Oppenheimer, his dates are 1630 to 1703. There was a phenomenon known as the court Jews. The majority of the courts of Christian Europe had a Jewish financial advisor. And he was the advisor to the Hapsburgs. He was a banker. He was a diplomat. He enjoyed the favour of Leopold I. He financed the wars against the Turks. He was so popular with Prince Eugene of Savoy that he brought him a large number of valuable manuscripts, Hebrew manuscripts from Turkey. They were bequested to the Bodleian Library in Oxford by a descendant, David Oppenheim. So you have this incredible court Jew who really controls much of the empire in terms of financing the army, making sure the army has food. He was so needed that he was allowed to settle about a hundred of his followers. And he built a huge mansion in Vienna.
So he is got a hundred families who are there to support him, and they’re allowed to live in the capital city without too much prescription. However, the great hero, the great hero, he himself lifted the siege of Pest. What happens to the great hero? The emperor is back. The Jesuits are back. The growing Christian merchants become jealous of the Jews. And in 1700, his mansion is sacked. The emperor actually did take steps to try and stop the anti-Judaism that was going around. There were all sorts of anti-Jewish treatises, and he spends a large amount of money trying to stop. But in the end, when he dies, the state wouldn’t honour the debts that were owed to him, so, consequently, his heirs went bankrupt. And that was the end. That didn’t stop his nephew, Wertheimer, becoming the next court Jew. You see, they only really survived whilst their masters were in power and why they were useful to their masters. There’s a wonderful book called “Jud Suss Oppenheimer” by Lion Feuchtwanger, which Patrick mentioned. If you can read it, it’s a really interesting book about a court Jew. And it gives you a notion, yes, you can see that he is dressed very much as a nobleman of the period.
You could aim very high, your brain, your expertise, your financial acumen can take you all the way, but you’re only there at the whim of the ruler. And if the ruler changes, you are in trouble. And through the centuries, the majority of the monarchs in central Europe, and if you think of the German lands where there were over 360 city-states, many of them had court Jews. So it’s a fascinating phenomenon. In many ways, he was the richest of them all. We now have Christian rulers. And again, things for the Jews are very, very, very difficult. At the Diet of Pressburg, the number of Jews is restricted, they’re barred from most trades, and many actually fled. Many Jews had already fled Southeast with the retreating Turkish armies. The situation worsens for Jews. Can we see the next slide please? This is Maria Theresa.
You know, inside art history, she’s seen as a great heroine of the Hapsburgs. Of course, the Hapsburgs controlled the whole of this area. It was said of the Hapsburgs, “Let others make war, the Hapsburgs marry.” So Maria Theresa is in control of all the Hapsburg lands, which now, of course, include Hungary. She was a very religious Christian. She was the empress who was involved in the partitioning of Poland. She was the mother of Maria Theresa. She did have a Jewish financial advisor, but she never wanted to have any contact with the Jew. So he would have to talk to her behind a screen. So this woman who is so revered amongst Austrians, as far as Jewish history is concerned, she was really, really difficult. Not only difficult, she expelled Jews from Silesia. Ironically, in England, there was a Sephardi Jew called Moses Hart. And he was a very important merchant. And he actually wrote a letter to the crown, to George the, it would’ve been George III, asking, no, George II, I beg your pardon, asking him to intervene. The letter was written, but nothing happens.
But it shows you that, in England, you had a character like Moses Hart. The pragmatic English, by this time, were dealing very differently with Jews. However, things change. When she dies… Can we have the next slide please? Her son, Emperor Joseph II comes to the throne. He’s born in 1741. He dies in 1790. He comes to the throne in 1780. In his mother’s reign, the Jews had had to pay collectively huge taxes in order to live in Budapest. So you’ve got a situation where life is very, very difficult. But Joseph II, there’s a wind of change in Europe and America. Think about where we are, 1776, the American War of Independence. Think of the proclamation. Think of the proclamation. What is wanted? “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” “All men are created equal.” Now, in terms of the 18th century, this is an incredibly forward thinking manifesto. Yes, it’s not about women. Yes, it’s only about white men, but nevertheless, in terms of the rest, you have to see history in relative terms, so it’s a huge step forward. Now, this man considers himself to be an enlightened despot. He very much saw himself as a patron of the arts. He was fascinated by the new sciences. And as an enlightened despot, he issues a Patent Of Toleration. That Patent Of Toleration, what it does is it gives religious freedom to non-Catholics within the empire. Those non-Catholics were whom?
The Calvinists, the Lutherans, but it doesn’t mention the Jews. In 1782, that is extended to the Jews. This is incredibly important, because what it’s going to do, it’s going to lift a lot of restrictions against the Jewish community. What it meant though was, and the preamble to the act says, “Jews must be useful to the state. I am going to give you certain rights, provided you become useful subjects of the state.” Now, this is the first time in the centre of Europe that these issues are coming to a head. In the French Revolution, if you recall, the French Revolution of 1789 also promulgated the ideas of the Enlightenment. Those wonderful ideas that took over 150 years to gestate. If you think of the watchword of the French Revolution, think about it, what they foresaw was a country where men had equal rights. Now, the edicts, and under Napoleon, the Jews are going to be, it’s the French Revolution that emancipates the Jews, but it’s Napoleon who says to the Jews, “As individuals, everything. To Jews as a group, nothing.” And that’s basically what the new emperor is saying to them. What he says is, he’s going to allow you to enter in more walks of life. You have to take proper surnames.
You can no longer be Asher Ben Isaac. You’ve got to take a proper surname. You’ve got to become a citizen of the state. I want your documents no longer to be in Hebrew and Yiddish. I want you to take on the language of the country in which you live. So on one level, it’s offering the world. On the other level, think what it’s taking over. But remember Hungary, and it, of course, although it’s promulgated in Vienna, this is the centre of the Hapsburg empire. So consequently, it also applies to the Jews of Hungary. Now, who are the Jews of Hungary? They are very diverse. And the further east you go, the more religious they are. I shouldn’t use that term. All Jews were religious at that stage of life. This is the first time there’s even really a choice. And it hasn’t really come yet. This is the beginning of a choice. If you think of the outlying regions of Hungary, it’s a centre of Hasidism. It’s a centre of totally traditional orthodoxy. And do you really think in the small towns and in the small villages, they changed the language of the state. No, that’s for much later.
And, in many cases it didn’t happen at all. But, certainly, this is the beginning. the Edict of Toleration, which excited many Jews because, and this is the other issue that is so fascinating. Is freedom a threat to Judaism? Is freedom a threat to Jewish identity? Many of you will know the story of when Napoleon invaded Poland. Zalman of Liadi, Zalman of Liadi, what did he say? He wrote a letter to another rabbi where he said, “I would rather my people even suffer under the czars and maybe even die than live in peace under Napoleon, because Napoleon would be the end of the Jewish people.” Now what’s he worried about? He’s worried about assimilation. He’s worried about the lure of the outside world, because the world of the 18th century was very different from the world that the Jews had left back in the 14th, 15th century. You know, if you think of all the persecutions in the Christian world, becoming more and more closed in, and now Europe is beginning to open up. Now, and through the first half of the 19th century, many restrictions on Jewish life were gradually removed.
Now, as you move restrictions on Jewish life, of course, restrictions have been moved on all sorts of characters living within the empire. One of the problems of the Hapsburg Empire is it ruled over many, many different nationalities. In order to make these empires productive, but remember, Joseph is an enlightened despot, but he’s a despot. In order to make these empires productive, you need to create a modern economy. In order to create a modern economy, what do you need to do? You need to create an educated class. And once people begin to be educated, why should they be ruled by this family? Why should there be all these kind of restrictions against them? And basically, this is exactly what’s going to happen throughout the whole of the Hapsburg Empire.
Just as it happened to the German Princes, 1848. Please don’t forget, there were 54 different revolutions throughout Europe. It was really the rise of the emerging middle classes. They were all suppressed, but the point was made, and Hungarian nationalism really went on the march. The Emperor Franz Joseph, he reigned from 1848 to 1916. The Emperor Franz Joseph is in Vienna with his beautiful wife, Elizabeth, the Princess Diana of the 19th century. She had a huge sympathy for Hungary, and, in the end, a deal was struck. And in 1867, from now on, we deal with the dual monarchy. It is the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1873, Budapest is amalgamated from, as I said before, from Buda, Obuda, and Pest. And what is going to happen now? Judi, is it all right, the noise?
[Judi] Yes. It’s fine. I think it’s coming from another device. Don’t worry.
Okay, darling. Okay. Jews are going to pay now a huge part in the development of Hungary, because they are fully emancipated by 1867. And this is when the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is really going to develop. But it’s mainly an agrarian country. And here you have these characters who are now free in terms of, they can go to university. It had begun under under Joseph II. But now there is nothing that you can’t get into if you have the ability. So this agrarian country with a large nobility that doesn’t really want to sully its hands with trade, you are going to have one of the most extraordinary Jewish success stories in the modern world. They’re going to do so well that 34 of the top industrialists are actually going to be ennobled. They’re going to become important in shipping, in textiles, lumber, railways, milling, sugar refineries, the cement business, the petroleum business.
Most of the commercial, and I’m saying this carefully, most of the great commercial empires were actually created by Jews. Let me give you an example of one, the Weiss Empire, Manfred Weiss set up a canning factory, and it grows to become the largest employer in central Europe. By the time we hit the 20th century, sorry, the eve of the First World War, it’s employing 200,000 people and also goes into the armaments business. The Weiss family intermarries with another Jewish noble family, the Herzogs, who have one of the greatest art collections in Europe. Many of these noble families intermarry with other Jewish families. So let’s actually look at the economic situation of the Jews. By 1910, 23% of the citizens of Budapest were Jewish. Now, the figures are quite extraordinary. 89% of those on the stock exchange were Jews. The further east you go, the more the stock exchange are Jews. And you know, it doesn’t matter if they’re beginning to wear their Jewishness very lightly. You know why? Because there’s a problem. In the world of nationalisms, The whole issue is, can a Jew really be a Hungarian? Can a Jew be an Austrian? Can a Jew be a Czech? Remember, all these national groups are still within the Habsburg Empire. Can a Jew be a Frenchman?
Think of the Dreyfus affair. England was never at the acute level. And as the great Yehuda Bauer said, “Isn’t that because, by the time nationalism really ferments in England, England has the greatest empire in the world. And the lower middle classes, the ones most likely to be affected by the disease are in India with five servants.” So that’s the very cynical view of the great Yehuda Bauer. So let’s have a look at the figures. I’ve mentioned the stock exchange. 61% of the merchants were Jewish, 58% of the printers, 41% of the innkeepers. This isn’t just in the capitals. This is in many of the towns and the villages. Who do you think provided the innkeeping? Who do you think were in the liquor business, it’s Jews. 25% of the bankers, mainly in private banking. Tailors, shoemakers. 50% of the physicians are Jewish. This is very, very important. So it’s the lawyers, the doctors, it’s very much a similar position to Jews throughout Europe.
But if you think about it, also, the Jews, particularly of Budapest, are becoming very nationalistic as far as Hungary is concerned. In a census, 64% of the Jewish population listed Hungarian as their mother tongue. 33% said German was their mother tongue. If you think of the great Theodor Herzl, who was of course born in Budapest, and he goes to the University of Vienna when he was 20, he very much turned to German culture, because he saw it as the high culture of the Empire and really of Europe. Not only were there huge economic successes, Jews were also agricultural landowners. And 34%, though, of the Jews were the wage-earning employed class. But 60% were self-employed, whether you have a bank, a huge industry, or a market store. But the majority had become middle class in the cities. The further east you go, the poorer they are, and, of course, the more religious. The religious divisions, Budapest and the Southwest, which moved mainly towards Europe, mainly Neolog. Neolog is a kind of Judaism that is sort of, I would put it about American conservative. Can we see the Great Synagogue, please, Judi?
If you go on a slide… Now, this is the great Dohany Street Synagogue that was completed in the 1850s. I’ve been there. It is absolutely magnificent. And I hope that when lockdown goes, you have the opportunity to visit, because it is truly magnificent. There’s only one synagogue in the world, in New York, that is bigger than the Dohany Street Synagogue. And that was the synagogue, actually Herzl lived next door to it, although he hardly ever went. But that’s not the point. And it also gives you a notion of the self-confidence of Hungarian Jewry. This is the synagogue the rich prayed at, but it’s a beautiful, beautiful building, and it’s very opulent. It’s very much in keeping with a community that sees itself as have arrived. And the wardens would’ve worn top hats. It was a time of great decorum. But they also would’ve attended the beautiful Vienna Opera House, I beg your pardon, the Budapest Opera House. Budapest had a great opera house as did Prague. So it’s a centre of culture as well. Now, the rest of the community, of course, were traditional Orthodox, okay?
So that is the situation up until 1914, although it must be said, a couple of hundred thousand Hungarian Jews did decide to go to America between 1881 and 1914. Many of them, of course, were the poorer Jews. And when they made it to America, of course, they also were going to have very, very interesting lives. The community becomes a very large community. So I don’t want to over egg it, for the poor, there was always the poverty, and there was anti-Semitism, and there were problems. But as for the wealthy in Hungary, the great art collectors, those with estates, they really did believe that things would get better. And if they experienced anti-Semitism, remember 34 of them had already been ennobled. And the emperor, the Austrian emperor, is also king of Hungary. And the fact that he has ennobled them, and many of them named their children for Franz Joseph, just as in Germany, many Jews called their sons Wilhelm. So basically they are Jewish, but they are citizens of the empire, citizens of Hungary. And also the tension between Hungarian nationalism and the Hapsburgs, what would prevail? But in the end, it’s all wiped out by the First World War. You know, when you look at the events of the 20th century, this terrible century that we’ve had to live through, which has produced some of the most appalling creatures the world has ever known. I’m not just referring to Hitler and his henchmen. I’m also talking about Stalin. I’m talking about Mao. I’m talking about populism. I’m talking about closed systems. Really the trigger has to be the First World War. And I think the problem was it was a glory war. And the Hungarian Jews went to war, over 10,000 of them fought. Many of them were expert fencers. One of the issues that I failed to discuss were how many Jews in Hungary became great sports people.
So, basically, it all comes to an end with the First World War. Because at the end of the First World War, Hungary is on the losing side. And the Allies, when the Allies sit down and they look in Russia, there’s a revolution. But when the Allies sit down at the various treaties that are going to tie up, break up the old empires, the Treaty of Trianon, which is going to, if you like, dismember the Hapsburg Empire and Hungary. Can we see what happens, Judi, with the destruction of the Hungarian Empire? Yeah, okay. This is a brilliant map. Thank you, Judi, so much for finding it for me. You know, she does all my slides. Here you see the dismemberment of Hungary. This is the Treaty of Trianon. And you’ll see that Hungary loses 2/3 of her territory. The Hungarian government is terminated. The personal union between Austria and Hungary is dissolved. There’s a temporary border, and the ceasefire is declared on December 1918. Now, it’s important to remember that Hungary is going to lose 2/3 of her territory to other states that emerge after the First World War, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, which was not part of the Habsburg Empire, but nevertheless gains territory as a result. And this is going to be a terrible thorn in the flesh of Hungarian nationalists.
The first war government under a liberal Democrat, Károlyi, it’s going to be cut short by revolution, because revolution, in all the horror of the end of the First World War, and we cannot minimise the impact of that war. As I said, it’s probably the defining moment in the West that set the seeds for everything else that followed. If the First World War hadn’t have happened, you know, if you want to play the ifs and buts of history, so many other things wouldn’t have followed on, perhaps even including the Shoah. Because yes, there was anti-Semitism, but it’s the disappointed nationalisms, the complete collapse of Germany, the collapse of all the Eastern European countries. I’ve already discussed with you at length what happened after the Russian Revolution, how there were uprisings in the Ukraine, uprisings in Poland, uprisings in Latvia, Lithuania, as these new states emerge with violent nationalism. And what is going to happen in Hungary is the rise of strong nationalism. But there’s going to be a revolution. Because what happens is, the liberal government cannot hold.
And now I’m going to tell the story of a man called Bela Kun. Can we see Bella Kun, please? Bella Kun. Yeah. Bela Kun, 1886 to 1938, a communist revolutionary along with a group of other communist revolutionaries who are going to take over the state. Now, as a communist revolutionary, all he cared about was a revolution. Think of Marx, “Religion is the opium of the masses.” The problem was Bela Kun and most of his colleagues were born Jews. Who is this man? He was born Bela Kohn, K-O-H-N, Kohn. He changes his name to Kun. I’m not really good at pronouncing names, I apologise. I have a blind spot for foreign languages, and many of my friends make fun of me on this. But I don’t know, that’s my blind spot. He was born in Transylvania. His mother converted to Protestantism. He was a very clever lad, brilliant student. You know, it’s fascinating, so many Jewish success stories within a generation. Is it because we had to live on the edge and survive on our wits? Or is it also because of a dream of education? Or is it also because, in the end, a Talmudic education?
Do we believe in inherited characteristics? I’m throwing ideas out. I once had a student who was an epigeneticist, and I had great fun having him in the class. I don’t know if any of you have expertise in that, but that’s something that always has interested me. Are certain characteristics acquired or are they actually transmitted? But certainly he was a brilliant student. He went to an ordinary school, but he wrote the best essay on Hungarian literature in his generation. And as a response, won a scholarship to a gymnasium. His essay was on the poet, Sándor Petőfi. And this is what he wrote, he was only a young boy, “The storming rage of Petőfi’s soul turned against the peoples’ oppressor and confronted them with revolutionary abandon. The country would not be saved through moderation, but through the most extreme means available.” His essay concludes, he’s only a young boy, “His work must be regarded as the law of Hungarian soul, the love of country.” In 1904, he studied law at the Franz Joseph University in what is now Cluj. It’s now part of Romania. It was then part of Hungary, and he changed his name. He made it more Hungarian, from Kohn to Kun.
He becomes, before World War I, he becomes a journalist. He had a very fiery nature, got involved with duels. He married. He was accused of embezzlement. He had two children. He had a very volatile life. And it was at the university, he met up with many Budapest left-wing intellectuals. He fought in the Hapsburg Army. And in 1916, he becomes a prisoner of the Czarist forces. Remember, the Hapsburg Empire is fighting the Russian Empire. He becomes a prisoner of war at a camp in the Urals. And this is where he is exposed to communist ideas amongst his comrades. Remember, it’s the Urals. The revolution in Russia is about to break. And it’s the communist revolution that sets him free. Now it’s within Hungary, it’s within this group of young radicals on November the 4th, 1918, in a Moscow hotel, Hungarian prisoners of war that have previously been prisoners of the Russian Czars and are freed by the communist. They form a central committee. They demand the resignation of Károlyi and the merging with the socialist parties. And therefore, Kun, the decision is made to go to Hungary and to try and take over. And what happens is he founds the Hungarian group within the Russian Communist Party. He travels widely. He meets Lenin. He wants what he wants.
He very much takes the view that Trotsky later took. He believed in permanent revolution. He also believed that the Russian revolution should be a signal for the start of a world revolution. That is what he wanted. Why do you think characters like Winston Churchill were so violently opposed to communism? People like Bela Kun wanted all the old boundaries to topple. He wanted to free the proletariat. On one level, they are young idealists, and, of course, that is their dream. I think I’m going to stop there, because I can see there’s a lot of questions. We can pick this up on Thursday. I’m afraid, Wendy, I’m probably going to need another session on Hungary. But I wanted to go slowly, because I keep on having this sense of deja vu. Bela Kun, the internationalist who had nothing in common with the Weiss family.
In fact, when he took control in Hungary in a regime that was known as the Red Terror, the Weiss factory is going to be nationalised, and Manfred Weiss, who’d become a great philanthropist both to Jewish and non-Jewish charities, he tries to poison himself. He survives, but dies in 1922. Bela Kun was not interested in Jew and Gentile. He wanted to change the world. Think of the words of Rosa Luxemburg, “There is no room in my heart for Jewish suffering. Not that I will not die and bleed for the Jews, but I must die and bleed for everybody too.” And they did believe, believe it or not, that if war came, they could create this wonderful revolution and all the differences between people would disappear. They wanted freedom of the press, freedom of association. When you read their manifestos, it sounds absolutely beautiful, but in practise it never quite worked out like that. So I’m going to stop there with Bella Kun on the eve of his Red Revolution, which, of course, is going to be suppressed. So let’s have a look at the questions. My goodness, we’ve got a lot of them.
Oh, what is nice, Judi, what I’m seeing is people are saying where they come from. Toronto, Canada, Rose, who says, “Used to be at the LJCC,” Vancouver, Skokie, Boston, Malta, Scottsdale, Toronto, Memphis, Portland, Toronto. Oh, this is wonderful. Cape Town, Beachwood, Ohio, Baltimore, Toronto, Manchester, UK, centre of the World. Love it. Love it. That’s from Gita. Let me go on. Let’s get to the questions. Sorry about my hand, but I work from a tablet. Manchester, Toronto, Joburg, Toronto, Cheadle Ches, Prince Edward County. I am in Guelph, Ontario. Eva Clark in Cambridge, Toronto, Toronto, Toronto. My goodness. Yeah. Toronto, Toronto. Oh yes.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: This is Jillian Horowitz, “Incredibly, Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler escape from Auschwitz. What was the real reason their 32-page, what was happening in Auschwitz was not taken seriously? I met Rudy Vrba, who’s spoken on our inaugural Holocaust lecture here in northern Canada.”
A: Jillian, I promise I will spend a lot of time on Rudy Vrba. I also had the honour to meet him. It’s just I felt that a subject so important as Hungary, and it’s such a big community, I wanted to give you a background.
Toronto, Boca Raton. Oh, I love Boca Raton. Toronto, Joburg, London, Ohio, Mavis Shirley in Toronto. We’re running out of time. I’m having to run through. It’s so lovely. What I said was, when you ask questions, why don’t you let me know? What we seem to have is an awful lot of people from all over the world. If I was just reading this, I’d think that there were more from Canada than anywhere else. Alan from Tel Aviv. Marcia from Nyton. And Netanya, Atlanta. I’m running on, I’m looking for questions now.
This is wonderful. Seapoint again. Oh dear. Dormuth. Ah, yes. This is from Cynthia. Again, it’s about Rudy Vrba, “broke out of Auschwitz. Their report wasn’t published.” I’m going to spend a lot of time on that, Cynthia, it’s a very important question, but it will either be on Tuesday or the following Tuesday.
“Why before March 1944 did Admiral Horthy not go after his Jews?” Robert, I’m going to answer that properly. I don’t want to give you a short answer. It’s a very important question. What I’m going to be doing on Thursday is talking about Bela Kun’s Revolution. And then of course, Admiral Horthy.
Q: “What date was this when the Open Secret came out and articles appeared?”
A: Look, Marlena, evidence, the actual Final Solution, as I’ve said many times, begins with the invasion of Russia, which is in ‘41 in Operation Barbarossa on Sunday, June the 22nd, 1941. Within a week, the murders begin. The Russians are the first to send back articles, to send back briefings. Comes out of Russia, and then more is coming out of Poland. You already had the ghettos and so many people dying of starvation and beatings. But there’s so much evidence comes out. The Wannsee document, the Wannsee Conference was January 1942. There’s so much that comes out in '42, that that’s when, December the 17th, 1942, you have the Allied Declaration. And there’s a lot in the newspapers. There’s BBC broadcast. So, the fact that Hungarian Jewry, nobody did anything, really, apart from a few remarkable individuals who I will be talking about. So I promise that we will be dealing this in great detail.
“Trudy, I asked Judi to have a Holocaust survivor from Hungary. Cesare Frustaci was the son of the prima ballerina of Hungary. He was picked to present Ciano, the son of Mussolini, a bouquet of flowers when he visited Hungary. His father was Catholic, so his mother put him on the street with his papers and told him not to come to the yellow star house. His mother was sent to Spandau. She survived and walked from Germany to Hungary to find her son.” Wow.
Q: “How valid are the accusations that Soros was a collaborator?”
A: I would say very invalid. We will talk about that.
Q: “When I visited Hungary, it was mentioned in Hungary, the Jews in the rural areas were rounded up first.” In other countries, the Jews were mostly rounded up in the cities. Do you know why that strategy changed?“
A: That is a very important question. Let me answer that in detail. Do you remember when we had the honour of listening to Elie Wiesel’s son and David talked about Elie Wiesel. You remember that he said that he didn’t know. And he was taken in, I think it was in the beginning of May 1944. And he said he didn’t know. "Why wasn’t there a trial or some conversation with the Allies like for not saving or stopping destruction of Hungarian Jewry? In effect, was there lack of action collaboration?” Look, do we expect the same morality from states that we expect from the private individual? Look, in the end, very few people behaved magnificently. I will be talking about some that did. And certainly the majority of countries had a very, very bad record. There’s an interesting quote of Howard Jacobson’s. He said, “The world can’t forgive the Jews the Holocaust.” And that’s why he sees the attitude towards Israel. And I’m not talking politics here. Please, it’s nothing to do with politics. It’s about the existence of the state of Israel and whether Israel receives a worse press than any other country. Is Israel the bête noire of the United Nations? And Howard Jacobson says, “In a way, they can’t forgive us the Holocaust.” And she goes on to say “Two years 'till she found him. He’s written a book and remembers seeing Raoul Wallenberg.” Fascinating story.
This is from Anne. “I’m in London and have Hungarian roots from my mother’s father and would love to meet other relatives. The last name was Gestetner, and, of course, the Gestetner family. Yes, yes, of course, the Gestetner family. And David Gestetner, I believe he’s sometimes online. No, yeah, I mean many of the inventions that the Hungarians came out with. I mean, and if you think about a group known as The Martians, which later on Professor Wolf is going to talk about, because think about Leo Szilard, think about Johnny von Neumann, who was considered by many to be the genius of his age, and Edward Teller, the father of the bomb.
Anyway, this is from Esther. "I met a young Hungarian at the university that was saved by volunteering at the Red Cross and came to Jerusalem.” Wonderful city, indeed.
This is from Kathy. “I was born in Hungary. My parents were survivors, my mother from Auschwitz. You have Munkács on the map, the town where my father lived. We lived in Kisvárda.” My partner’s mother’s family came from Munkács. I’ve been there. You will be able to access the recording of this session once the website is up.
This is recommending “Kasztner’s Train” by Anna Porter. Yes, Anna Porter is sometimes online. It is wonderful, also the film.
Can I speak more slowly? I will try, Helen.
Mokatz is the pronunciation. I told you I’m very, it’s pronounced as mooncatch, I thought.
Q: Barry, “Did it not suit the Allies not to intervene as the Nazis were devoting so much of their resources on the Shoah?”
A: Oh, that’s a complicated question. There are so many books on it.
Ken, for more on this, see Trachtenberg, “The Devil and the Jews.” Good to hear from you. Ken.
I haven’t forgotten what I asked you to do. I’ve just very slow. Munkács, yes, I thought that.
This is from Jane. “Yitzhak, my brother-in-law’s father lived in Hungary in 1944. He and his wife who were pregnant and four children under 10 were taken to Auschwitz. The pregnant wife and four children were gassed on arrival. Yitzhak survived, and he married a fellow survivor after the war and stayed in Hungary,. Left after the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and arrived in New York speaking almost no English. Rivik, his wife, could only speak three words of English, and got through Ellis Island and US immigration by giving the answers to three questions when she was asked. They had 12 children who went on to have many children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and got their own back on Hitler by surviving and thriving. Yitzhak never spoke about his experiences. But when my brother-in-law told his father that he was going to Poland, his father asked for me to arrange Kaddish to be said at Auschwitz for his first wife and children.” Oh such a terrible story.
“Are there any estimates on how many Inquisition refugees arrived with the Ottomans in Hungary and remained in 1699?” That’s a very interesting question. It is not my field of expertise. I will see if I can find an answer for you.
Q: “Are the South African Oppenheimers, Ernest and Harry, to the same family line?”
A: I don’t know is the answer to that, but I’m sure someone online will. There are many.
Lucy, the book on the court Jews is written by Lion Feuchtwanger. He was a German Jew, a very important writer, and he was saved. He got out. It’s called, "Jud Suss Oppermann.” Later on, the Nazis made a terrible, it was made into a film by William Dieterle in England called “Jew Suss Oppenheimer.” It starred Conrad Veidt. Conrad Veidt was a liberal married to a Jew. So he had to get out. And it was Alexander Korda who produced the film, the Hungarian Alexander Korda, who, of course, really built up the English film industry. The Nazis made a terrible film called “Jew Suss Oppenheimer.”
Yes, Maria was the mother of that Marie Antoinette, of course, Joseph’s second sister was Marie Antoinette.
This is from Tony. “My great-grandfather was born in Madar Village, county of Komarón.” Sorry, I’ve just lost that. Let me get back to it. It just disappeared on me. Sorry. Looks very interesting. Oh dear. Sorry, sorry, sorry. The minute you lose your place, it jumps back. Yeah, I’m nearly there. It keeps disappearing on me.
Jude, what do I do? Wait a minute, I’m going back now to find the letter I was with, sorry. I’m sorry I’ve lost yours, but it looked very interesting. Do you think you could resend it on Thursday?
“My daughter-in-law’s Bubbe is from Budapest and had two aunts who had a thriving import business. The Herzog family from Slovakia was making wine about 150 years ago. Friends of my family. Well, I was lucky enough to host the great Yehuda Bauer many times when he came to Birmingham Temple. We would fight amongst ourselves who was going to pick him up.” Yes, he is a great, great historian. He said once that you need a lot of languages. And I believe he has a dozen.
“After World War I, surely many Hungarian nationalists. like Czech nationalists, were happy to see the Austro-Hungarian empire collapse as it created a nation along linguistic lines.” Yes, but the problem was they’d lost 2/3 of their territory, and that really made them very mad.
Ah, this is from Ken. “Acquired characteristics can be transmitted,” that is fascinating, “Within a generation.”
This is from Hindi. “A number of years ago we came to the Dohany Synagogue, before the Shabbat service, not expecting it would be so early in the evening. I had trouble getting permission to enter, not because I was wearing jeans, but because of my exposed arms. Fortunately, I had a rain jacket. And there was a mechitza and women in sheitels. So I was surprised that the choir was mixed. And in the quadrangle, there was this amazing sculpture given to the synagogue by the actor Tony Curtis. It was amazing. Yes, of course, Tony Curtis’s family came from Hungary, as did Hedy Lamarr. Many people who went into the film business, Leslie Howard, you know, the quintessential English gentleman who of course played the Southern States chap in "Gone with the Wind.” He was half Hungarian Jewish. Tony Curtis paid for a lot of renovations. Yes, a lot of Jews did convert. In fact, I think the figures were as many as about 30,000 converted in the 1920s, either for pragmatic reasons, because you’re going to see an increase in anti-Semitism, and many of them, because you did have excessive Hungarian nationalism. And we’re going to talk about were Jews really Hungarian. And the other problem is really going to be the Communist Revolution.
Ken, again, “Strict Darwinism, acquired characteristics cannot be transmitted.” Right.
This is from Susan. “Sinek, my grandfather had large Tokaj estates. He was so wealthy, he lent money to the emperor and was given a title of Baron.” Yes, I think 34 Hungarian Jews were ennobled. I mean, Balein the great shipbuilder. If you think of the railway kings, yeah.
“Vodehai Buchsbaum, a minister in Bela Kun’s government after became Ultra Orthodox in Jerusalem.” That is interesting.
Marlena from France. Yes, Pan from Israel. Oh, there’s quite a few from Israel. But I think Canada at the moment of people who are.
“There’s a wonderful monument to Wallenberg outside the synagogue.” Yes, of course there is, Clive. Lovely to hear from you, Clive. It is amazing. I mean, Budapest is a fascinating city. And, of course, today there is a huge problem for Jews again in Budapest.
Yes, Linda’s saying she’s visited family graves. No, the Great Synagogue was not the head office. I think it’s where one of the big hotels is. I’ll have to check that for you.
This is from Sue. “We have been literate, studied, reflected for generations. Once higher education opened to Jews, they grabbed and thrived. Talmudic studied it best, encourages high level of thought and debate, as well as understanding that there can be different perspectives. A huge leg up of when independence of thought is needed for new developments.” Yes. You see, I don’t think of it as a mystery. There’s a brilliant book, “The Jewish 20th Century” by Yuri Slezkine, where he says, basically he gives the two characteristics. He talks about the Talmudic learning. And look, let’s be careful, not that many Jews were learned Talmudists, but I suppose we did learn to worship education. It’s all we ever had. Plus, of course, the fact that you had to survive. I remember the great George Steiner, who very much promulgated the idea that since the Shoah, we should always have our suitcase packed. Well, I wouldn’t go that far by any means. Not here, but maybe I’m being smug. But, basically, they did have to become very mercurial in order to survive. And you could make the case that modernity was made for the Jews. They were outside the system. And the success story in Hungary was extraordinary. But then it was in most of the, it was, funnily enough, I think it was less in England, and that’s because the English had a very well-developed middle class. Only 5% of the stock exchange was Jewish. Whereas the further west you go, I mean in France they called the Bourse the Jewish Stock Exchange.
From Plettenberg Bay, oh, I do want to travel.
This is Sonya, originally from Bratislava, Pressburg, and now from Toronto.
This is from Shani. “My father came from Bratislava to the UK. My family name was Kalisz.” Toronto, New York City. Hale, Cheshire, Zurich, Switzerland. Ah, lovely. We haven’t had a Swiss before.
“There’s a room at the front inside the synagogue that holds many Torahs, quite beautiful.” Yes.
Juliet from Hampstead, London. Peter Bris.
Q: “So would it be fair to blame Kaiser Franz Joseph for World War I since he attacked Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand?”
A: No, I don’t think we can. I think it’s much more complicated than that. A separate lecture, a separate time. Ask Patrick the question, because he actually knows the granddaughter of the man who really was responsible for First World War. Ask Patrick.
Oh, this is from Robin. “Are you the Peter Bris married to Sabina and friends of the Fletchers?” Aha. Friends are being made.
Northwest 6th, not far from me, Antony. Hazel from Toronto. Betty and Aubrey Lowenstein. Lima, Peru. Wow, Rosie. She likes the lecture. Lovely to hear from you.
This is from Doreen Shapiro, “Wonderful fiction book on Hungary Jewish community, "The Invisible Bridge.” That’s from Johannesburg.
“Kasztner’s Train,” only for wealthy Jews. I was not one of them. Be careful, Georgina. That’s not quite true.
Tomi Komoly has answered this. 150 wealthy Jews each paid for everyone else. I have a full analysis of its 684 passengers. Most of the information is fake news, ahead of its time. There were several poor Zionists and 40 Orthodox Jews, including the Satmar rebbe. Thank you, Tomi, for giving this. And Tomi is the chap I mentioned at the beginning. He is the nephew of Otto Komoly who was such a hero. And this is one of the problems. There have been so many stories. The Kasztner affair is still an affair that rips us apart. There are so many things in Jewish history that are still resonant. And what I want to say is this, the one thing we never had was power. Whoever we want to blame, let’s put the blame really where it was. The blame was at the door of the Nazis, the Germans, their helpers, and perhaps at the Allies who didn’t do anything. You know, I was doing a bit of research on the German officer in charge of Budapest. No, I’ll save that for next week.
Q: “Was the synagogue in Budapest damaged during the war?”
A: Do You know, I don’t think the structure was damaged. It survived.
Thank you, Tomi. Tomi has answered that.
Mendell tells us the wonderful performance of the music of “Schindler’s List” on the Dohany Synagogue.
And Michael’s talking about Vrba. Yes, he’s been mentioned. I will be talking about him. I’m doing this in chunks.
Well, I’m going to be talking about Bela Kun and Horthy, and perhaps we will get up to 1944 when the Arrow Cross take over. But I certainly will be dealing with all of this.
The Jews were liberated by Louis Kossuth. Yes, but remember, the revolutions failed. It wasn’t rescinded. Many of the liberal reforms were taken away from all sorts of people.
“I visited the Dohany Street before the restoration. Virtually every man’s seat was named with the title Baron.” Yes, it was the street for the rich, the shul for the rich. I remember when I went there with my partner whose family came from Hungary, and he actually dovened there. And it was very funny because he said, “My father would never have come in. He was much too poor.”
[Judi] Trudy, I don’t think we are going to be able to get through all the questions today.
No we can’t.
[Judi] And we have another talk starting in 45 minutes.
Yes, can I just read one thing, which is important.
Yes, of course. “The heirs to the Herzog art collections have brought lawsuits against the Hungarian government. Do I know the status of the case?” No, I don’t, Linda. And I think, if anyone online does know, it’d be very important. Can I ask you, some of your questions are very important. Can you repeat them on Thursday when I speak again perhaps? Hi, Wendy.
Hi, Trudy. So I just wanted to say thank you for an outstanding presentation.
Thank you.
And just to say to our participants that Ralph Meir and John Marcus will be in conversation. It’ll be chaired by Dennis Davis, and they’ll be talking about transforming countries into democracies, South Africa and more recent cases for those people who’d like to join us in 45 minutes.
That’s fantastic, Wendy. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Sorry.
Wendy, I think I’ve done it again. I think I’m going to have to do this in three sessions.
I heard you say that. That’s fine. You could do it in three. You could do in four. You could do, there’s no problem.
It’s your fault.
I was on.
It’s your fault. You always say go slower.
Slow down.
Slow down, slow down
Well there’s so much to say, you know? And what is amazing though, what is amazing about your group is the questions and the answers. We’ve got so many people online who are enriching these series by their own knowledge. It’s wonderful.
Exactly. So, you know, sharing and sharing of ideas, sharing the discussion, which is enriching. So, and you know, masters of our own destiny.
All right, masters.
Like I said, we did have over 2,300 people online today. So well done, everyone. And thank you. That’s a fantastic number today, Wendy.
[Wendy] Well done, well done.
Thank you all for being with us, and I’ll see you on Thursday. Lots of love.
[Wendy] Very good. Thanks a million. Take care. Bye.