Hungarians Otthon: Camp Kilmer, Világmagyarság, and the Hungarian Crisis

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Much of the attention on the resettlement of Hungarian refugees in 1956-1957 focuses on the experience of those refugees. While this is immensely useful for scholars and descendants, inherently there are some important limitations in such work. For example, the nature of displacement and refuge restrict a person’s agency as they must enter the resettlement machinery and its limited options. The refugee knows what their daily life looks like, yet the resettlement process is a black box in the background. This makes it challenging to argue continuity between the revolution and resettlement, since in the former Hungarians are critical actors while in the latter, they are largely passive recipients of benevolence. Yet that changes when remembering that there were non-refugee Hungarians in the camps too. Nestled within the records of the federal resettlement effort, diasporic newspapers, and even corporate publications is a wealth of evidence revealing a Hungarian diaspora providing critical services to their Hungarian brothers and sisters by working in the various agencies operating from the Kilmer Reception Center. My research argues that the Hungarian American community, like other parts of the global Hungarian diaspora, demonstrate that both the revolution and resettlement are stories of Hungarians driving a global Cold War moment. Moreover, when viewed from the perspective of the világmagyarság these are a single Hungarian Crisis.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Patrick C. Leech is a History PhD Candidate at Baylor University and a Fulbright Hungary alum. His dissertation, “Hungarians Over Here: Diaspora, Refugees, and US Cold War Politics,” considers how the Hungarian American diaspora participated in a global Cold War by examining their work resettling refugees from the 1956 Revolution. Broadly, his work considers Hungary’s role in the global Cold War.