History/Political Science paper by Niessen, James P. (Panel Chair)
Panel proposal: The 1956 Hungarian Refugee Crisis. II. Austria 1956: Catholics and Jews Together and Apart (Accepted)
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Hungarian refugee crisis was a decisive stage in the emergence of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and his agency as international coordinator of refugee relief. Far less known is the role of refugee affairs in the evolution of relations between the Catholic Church and the Jews from the Holocaust to the renunciation of anti-Semitism in the declaration Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Some Austrian and Hungarian Catholics acted against the persecution of the Jews, but a greater number took an ambiguous or complicit stance. The role of the Holy See was complex and remains controversial. The postwar leaders of Catholic refugee relief in Germany and Austria, Alois Eckert and Leopold Ungar, belonged to the small group of Catholic leaders who engaged in the Catholic-Jewish dialog in their countries. Ungar’s newly appointed archbishop in Vienna who became prominent in Vatican II, Franz König, facilitated the interconfessional collaboration of the relief agencies during the 1956 crisis and measures to reduce tensions that included separate emergency housing and Kosher food services. These men were attentive to Christian-Jewish tensions in the camps and expressed concern about incidents publicized by the JDC and the press.
Documentation for this paper includes the records of the Deutscher Caritasverband (Freiburg), the Caritaszentrale Wien (Vienna), and the Joint Distribution Committee (New York).
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
James P. (Jim) Niessen earned his Ph.D at Indiana University with a dissertation on religion and politics in nineteenth century Transylvania. He has published several studies on the Romanian and Hungarian national movements. After supervising the digitization ten years ago of a portion of the records of the President’s Committee for Hungarian Refugee Relief, he shifted the focus of his research to the reception of the 56ers and has published various studies on this topic in Hungary and the US. Since 2001 he is World History Librarian at Rutgers University. He served two terms as President of AHEA in 2014-18.