Cultural Studies paper by Biro, Ruth
Identifying with Others: Righteous Among the Nations from Different Countries Connect and Experience the Holocaust in Hungary
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
My paper introduces my new identity recently discovered from a DNA test - Eastern European and Jewish Diaspora ancestry, previously unbeknownst to our family. Because my new DNA identity revealed more regions and countries than I originally thought in my ancestry (including Eastern Europe, Spain, and Northeastern Europe) this prompted me to examine the idea of Righteous Gentiles from several different countries who saved Jewish lives in the Hungarian Holocaust. The main portion of my paper features those honored as Righteous Gentiles from several nations who identified with the plight of their Jewish brethren in Hungary. Righteous Gentiles from different counties often collaborated with each other, and after the Holocaust were honored by Yad Vashem for having risked their lives. Among the rescuers, Raoul Wallenberg was aware and proud of his one-sixteenth Jewish ancestry from his great-great-grandfather (his maternal grandmother's grandfather) Michael Benedicks, who immigrated to Stockholm in 1780. In fact, Wallenberg, who saved 100,000 Jewish lives in the Hungarian Holocaust, sometimes exaggerated his Jewish ancestry, stating in 1930 to Swedish Philosopher Ingemar Hedenius that “A person like me, who is both a Wallenberg and half-Jewish, can never be defeated.”
I will discuss several other rescuers: Italian Papal Nuncio Angelo Rotta and his assistant Gennaro Verolino, Swedish diplomats, Per Anger, Carl Ivar Danielsson, and Valdemar and Nina Langlet of the Swedish Red Cross. Tens of thousands were saved by Righteous Gentiles from other countries, as well, and some of these will also be mentioned: Charles Lutz of Switzerland, Polish Charge d’Affairs Henryk Slawik, Spanish diplomat Angel Sanz-Briz, Italian purveyor Giorgio Perlasca, and Scottish missionary Jane Haining. At the conclusion of the presentation, I will apply Frigyes Karinthy’s theory of six degrees of separation from his 1929 short story “Chains” [‘Láncszemek’] to survivors and rescuers. Each member of the AHEA audience will be invited to identify a survivor or rescuer and to apply to the six degree of separation concept. My aim is to propose that through Karinthy’s theory we will be brought closer to both survivors and rescuers -- --AHEA presenters, family members, and others.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Biro holds an MLS and Ph.D.from the University of Pittsburgh. She taught courses at Duquesne University in Children’s and Adolescent Literature, Cultural Diversity, Multicultural and International Literature, and Perspectives on the Holocaust. She presents and publishes on Hungarian Righteous Gentles, Raoul Wallenberg, Hungarian women survivors in the USA, and Hungarian topics in books in English for American youth.