Dr. KIein - Pejsova

For this lecture, I thought that we needed previous background of the Jews in Hungary before World War I. I was unclear about how the lines were drawn and what the treaty put in place for Jewish citizens. I did think that it was very interesting how Slovakia became a breeding place for Jewish culture and tradition when Jews previously had been ostracized by their peers. I wish we could have learned more individually what life was like for Jews in each community. I felt that she talked a lot about Jewish life as a whole and even she pointed out that in various parts of the nation, life was extremely different. It's crazy to think that borders that were drawn fairly randomly decided how Jewish citizens would be treated and how much their treatment differed from the neighboring countries. It was interesting the story she told about the Memorial for Jewish Soldiers in Budapest because this could have been an opportunity for Slovakia's government to use the Jewish people as a scapegoat and turn the other Slovakians against them but instead they placed a ban that interfered with Jewish people talking to the Hungarians but did not place harm on the citizens' views on Jews. It was sad knowing that the culture that she talked about so excitedly would be destroyed in World War II. However, t was refreshing to hear of a place that wasn't filled with antisemitism as so many other countries of that time.