A holokauszt és a közigazgatás Magyarországon (1944)

Általános értékelés és esettanulmány

Absztrakt

The role of public administration in the Holocaust has recently become an intensely debated issue. In this respect a large number of researchers are concerned, rightly, with the legal framework and the applied means of the administrative apparatus, but few take up the issue of the moral responsibility of the public servants themselves. It is this aspect that is highlighted by the present study which seeks to answer the emerging questions on both a theoretical and a historical level. Of the theories concerning this topic the most significant is that of the noted sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. The Polish-born sociologist holds that the major factor leading to the Holocaust can be found in the working of the bureaucratic machine but he tends to neglect – or at least underestimates – the role of anti-Semitism. This study makes an attempt to refute his thesis. In order to achieve this aim the author, on the one hand, depicts the activity of the bureaucratic apparatus and throws light on “official anti-Semitism” by presenting original documents, on the other hand analyzes the role of anti-Semitic prejudices in a local community. The study uses Mezőberény, a small town in Békés county, Hungary as an example. The rise of right-wing ideologies from the 1930s is demonstrated from a Mezőberény perspective, analyzing how the extreme right-wing anti-Semitic movements prepared the grounds for the Holocaust of 1944.