Sociologist, Holocaust researcher, documentary filmmaker based in Hungary/Ireland
Budapest, Hungary
Joined April 2009
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Seventy years ago today, on 23 October 1956, the Hungarian Revolution began. One of its most iconic faces was 15-year-old Erika Szeles. Her photograph, taken by Danish photojournalist Vagn Hansen, appeared on the cover of the Danish weekly Billed Bladet on 13 November 1956 and became a symbol of the Hungarian struggle for freedom. By the time the photograph was published, Erika was already dead.
What is far less widely known is that Erika was also a Holocaust survivor. Born into a Jewish family in Budapest, she was just three years old when she survived the murderous persecution of Hungarian Jews. In the final months of 1944, thousands of Budapest Jews were hiding under false identities, starving in the Budapest ghetto, or falling victim to deportations, death marches and mass shootings along the banks of the Danube. Erika and her mother, Noémi Blumenfeld, survived, but her father, Sándor Szeles (Schlesinger), was murdered during the Holocaust.
After the war, Erika grew up with her mother, a devoted communist. Yet Erika became increasingly interested in political reform, following the debates of the anti-Stalinist Petőfi Circle and hoping for democratic change in Hungary. When the revolution broke out in October 1956, she joined the uprising. Later, as the Soviet military assault intensified, she helped care for wounded revolutionaries. On 7 November 1956, while attempting to rescue a wounded fellow revolutionary, Erika was shot by Soviet forces. She died that day, aged just 15.
Exactly twelve years earlier, on 7 November 1944, Hannah (Anikó) Szenes, another courageous young Hungarian Jewish woman who fought against Nazi persecution, was executed in Budapest. Two heroic young Hungarian Jewish women, two different struggles against oppression, and two lives tragically cut short.
Today, on the 70th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, we remember Erika Szeles with pride and sorrow. Her courage, her Jewish heritage and her extraordinary story deserve to be remembered.
"A majority (42%) of Jewish Israeli respondents see Hungary as a friend, followed by Germany (41%). France and Spain are considered to be the most antisemitic countries on a list of nine states."
The recent HU-EF Barometer of September 2026 is published on "Mutual perceptions: Germany, Great Britain, France, Poland vis-à-vis Israel"
hu-ef-barometer.huji.ac.il/
Read Maurice Cohen’s powerful speech on how anti-Jewish prejudice is poisoning and undermining the life of the Jewish community in Ireland.
It is unbelievably sad that in Ireland an International conference on Antisemitism was marred by the very JewHate it is seeking to combat before it had even started.
Here is a verbatim report of what happened. It should be shared worldwide and
@HerbertParkH should be very very ashamed. @WorldJewishCong
Borbala Kriza retweeted
Powerful message of solidarity by the J7 standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Irish Jewish community in Herzog Park, sending a clear message to the Irish government that they must take action against the rising levels of antisemitism in this country.
The J7 brings together the leaders of the largest Jewish communities in the diaspora - namely, Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States - together to turn the tide against rising antisemitism we are seeing not only in Ireland but globally.
There could hardly have been a more meaningful location to send that message than at Herzog Park, where a coalition of hate has attempted and continues to attempt to erase Jewish history in Dublin.
As put by @JGreenblattADL: "Anti-Israel rhetoric in Ireland is creating an increasingly hostile environment for Ireland’s Jews, directly affecting the safety and daily lives of this small, historic Jewish community."
Throughout the day, we met with members of the community who delivered a stark assessment of the pressures upon the Jewish community in Dublin.
In these times, the most powerful community that can be sent to not only the Irish government - but every government - is that no matter where antisemitism arises, the Jewish community across the globe will stand together against it 🇮🇪🇬🇧🇺🇸🇦🇺🇩🇪🇫🇷🇦🇷🇨🇦
📍Herzog Park, Dublin.
On 31 July 1944, Convoy 77, the last major convoy of Jewish deportees from Drancy camp (France), left for Auschwitz, carrying 986 men and women and 324 children. Of the 1,310 deportees, 836 were sent directly to the gas chambers upon arrival.
An inspiring international public history and educational project, Convoi 77, brings together students from 32 countries to reconstruct the lives and fates of these deportees, the majority of whom were murdered immediately upon arrival at Auschwitz.
As part of this initiative, a group of enthusiastic Hungarian teachers and students is working to reconstruct the lives of the Hungarian Jews on this train before their deportation.
I am proud to support their research as a consultant, introducing them to various historical sources on the Hungarian Holocaust and helping them uncover previously unknown documents that shed new light on the biographies of these victims.
Among them are the Weiss brothers from Kispest, sons of Abraham Weiss, a shoemaker, who emigrated to France in the early 1920s. Both brothers perished in Auschwitz, just a month after the deportation of the Jewish population of their hometown, Kispest.
(The Kispest Synagogue in 1909, the year the Weiss family moved to Kispest.)
Unfortunately, I couldn't attend last night's memorial event in Dublin, but I wholeheartedly support Ireland's small Jewish community in its struggle for survival and resilience amid the growing wave of irrational anti-Jewish hostility across the country.
Honoured to have been present last night at a deeply moving memorial for the victims of the October 7th massacres.
Adam Ma’anit spoke in composed but harrowing detail about the last hours of family members sheltering from Hamas terrorists who had entered their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The brutality of the violence meted out on an ordinary defenceless family, that was also live-streamed by Hamas on one of the victims Facebook page are details that we will never forget.
He spoke of the hope and despair for his cousin held hostage in Gaza, murdered and returned in a coffin.
He reminded us of the constant threat of violence as when his 16 yr old cousin Orly, was murdered in 2002 in Haifa during the Second Intifada.
Orli Degani, the incoming Chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland spoke about how Jews living in Ireland are only "acceptable" if they hold a certain position on Israel.
Our thanks to all the speakers including Dr Alexandra Herzog who reminded us of the meaningful ties between her family and Ireland. And to Maurice Cohen, who spoke so eloquently about Jewish resilience through the millennia and was insistent that, in spite of the unprecedented hostility towards Jews in Ireland, the community is rallying and determined to flourish.
For all the victims of October 7th, may their memory be a blessing.
Budapest remembers
Három évvel ezelőtt az október 7-i terrortámadás 1200 ember életét követelte, 251 embert pedig túszként hurcoltak el.
A Lánchíd kék megvilágítása a tegnapi estén a megemlékezés és az együttérzés jelképe, valamint közös kiállás a terror minden formájával szemben.
Köszönjük mindenkinek, akik velünk együtt emlékeznek, kiállnak az áldozatok mellett, Izrael népe és a zsidó emberek mellett, és nemet mondanak a terrorra.
Ma is emlékezünk az áldozatokra, és gondolunk mindazokra, akiknek szerettei nem tértek haza.
Borbala Kriza retweeted
On 4 October 1936, thousands stood together to stop British fascists marching through London’s Jewish East End.
Jewish residents, communists, trade unionists and anti-fascists blocked streets and built barricades. The march was called off. It became known as The Battle of Cable Street.
Proud that Hungary provided a safe venue for yesterday’s Ireland–Israel game. As someone who loves Ireland, I’m deeply disappointed it could not be played in Dublin.
