Abstract
The fifth chapter discusses why no visual representation of women perpetrators exists. Though Hungarian state archives hold a plethora of films, newsreels, and press photos made during and after the Second World War, there are hardly any visual traces of far-right women. The existing pictures are of bureaucrats, wives of politicians, and sometimes of uniformed women who were obviously photographed for propaganda purposes. During the people’s court processes seven Hungarian women were sentenced to death for war crimes, still, in the archives there is only one picture of an anonymous woman’s execution. The chapter analyzes the symbolic goals of the efforts, which aimed at the erasure of the visual traces of female perpetrators, and their more than symbolic consequences.
Republished with permission. Original publication: Pető, Andrea. 2016. Forgotten Perpetrators: Photographs of Female Perpetrators after WWII. In Gendered Wars, Gendered Memories. Feminist Conversations on War, Genocide and Political Violence, eds. Ayşe Gül Altınay and Andrea Pető, 203–219. London: Routledge.
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Notes
- 1.
Anette Kretzer. 2009. NS-Täterschaft und Geschlecht. Der erste britische Ravensbrück-Prozess 1946/47 in Hamburg. Berlin: Metropol Verlag. Claudia Taake. 1998. Angeklagt. SS-Frauen vor Gericht. Oldenburg: Universität Oldenburg. Gudrun Schwarz. 1992. Verdrängte Täterinnen. Frauen im Apparat der SS (1939–1945). In: Nach Osten. Verdeckte Spuren nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen, ed. Theresa Wobbe, 197–227. Frankfurt: Verlag Neue Kritik.
- 2.
The wide range is due to two factors: regional differences (in some areas the membership is 30%, in some it is closer to 10%) and uncertainty in numbers as membership files have not been made available to me. Pető, Andrea. 2009. Arrow Cross Women and Female Informants. Baltic Worlds, 2/3–4: 48–52.
- 3.
The number of executed women in Hungary is seven.
- 4.
Kovács Klára, secretary of Szálasi keeps the minutes, Getty Collection, 508,770,000. and Meeting of the Great Arrow Cross Council in the House of Loyalty, Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Történeti Fényképtár/Hungarian National Museum’s Historical Photo Department, no. 1489–1954. Interestingly the latter photo was published on the Suttogó [Whisperer] website without the secretaries.
- 5.
Varga József and Kis Károlyné, www.suttogo.hu. Meeting, www.suttogo.hu.
- 6.
The party celebrates the name day of Ferenc in the 9th district of Budapest in 1940, www.suttogo.hu.
- 7.
Meeting in the House of Loyalty, Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Történeti Fényképtár/Hungarian National Museum’s Historical Photo Department, no. 1511–1954.
- 8.
Salló János at the opening of the exhibition of the National Front in 1939, Getty Collection, 50,440,527.
- 9.
Hubay Kálmán and his wife, Getty Collection.
- 10.
Woman in Uniform, Magyar Fotográfiai Múzeum/Museum of Hungarian Photography, no. 0144063.
- 11.
Portrait of the wife of Szalasi, Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Történeti Fényképtár/Hungarian National Museum’s Historical Photo Department.
- 12.
Szálasi in Andrássy út 60 during his interrogation shows a handkerchief made for him by the women of the party, MTI Fotótára/Archives of the Hungarian News Agency, FMAFI 1945–34036.
- 13.
See, for example, Women participating as audience at the people’s tribunal, Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Történeti Fényképtára/Hungarian National Museum’s Historical Photo Department, no. 64–730.
- 14.
The trial of Balogh, Rendőr Múzeum/Museum of the Police, 385.
- 15.
Execution of Manci, Yad Vashem Photo Archive 144BO8.
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Pető, A. (2020). Invisibility on Photographs. In: The Women of the Arrow Cross Party. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51225-5_5
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