ABSTRACT
This chapter reconstructs the ways fascist memory-makers crossed paths during Hungary's German occupation and examines how, as part of an extensive anti-Jewish propaganda, Eszter's story resurfaced in a series of press reports, publications, radio programs, and an unfinished propaganda film. With the destruction of Jewish life and culture in the background, Lajos Marschalkó presented his new book on the Tiszaeszlár case, while József Erdélyi's poem received renewed and wider circulation. By reconstructing some of the events in Budapest of 1944, the chapter explores the complex relationship of fascist memory, symbolic violence, and racial practices. In particular, it expands on the nexus of cultural and racial policies during the deportations and explains how Eszter's memory helped establish the link between physical-cultural elimination and the promise of national rebirth. Ultimately, the chapter argues that imaginations of the national past, including Eszter as a figure of memory, were part and parcel of the program of elimination and were connected to notions of a resurrection of the national community.
