Arts paper by Kálmán, Gábor
“There was once”
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
“There was once” is a feature-length documentary film in progress. Mrs. Gyöngyi Mago is a high school teacher in Kalocsa, Hungary. While looking for a subject for her dissertation she discovered a forgotten part of local history, the Jewish community that once thrived but is now non-existent in her city.
Engaging her students in her research, Mrs. Mago, who is not Jewish, teaches tolerance and fights prejudice in her classroom. Her quest is set against a background of renewed racial tensions, growing intolerance and the recurrence of neo Nazism in Hungary today. She has managed to persuade the City leadership to commemorate this extinct community on the 65th anniversary of the liquidation of the local ghetto and deportation of the Jews to Auschwitz and other camps. The memorial was attended by a few survivors, many members of the second and third generations, students and current inhabitants of Kalocsa. The Mayor and the Archbishop also participated. In the middle of the service at the newly restored Jewish cemetery a young girl visiting from New York was injured by a missile from a sling shot. At the same time a neo-Nazi demonstration was taking place a few blocks away.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
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