Holocaust Landscapes

Mapping Ghettoization in Hungary

Abstract

The lecture sought to examine both the wartime mapping out of ghettos by local officials, and the contemporary mapping of ghettoization by the academic researcher as a way to uncover the shifting motivations and experiences of both Jews and non-Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In part, the lecture sought to contribute to recent scholarship on the Hungarian Holocaust by examining the complex involvement of local officials in implementing crucial elements such as the concentration of Jews. But the lecture also sought to ask broader methodological questions by considering the potential of the so-called ‘spatial turn’ in the ‘digital humanities’ to ask – and answer – new questions. In short, the lecture sought to explore whether geographical approaches have the potential to contribute to the interdisciplinary field of Holocaust Studies in general and study of the ghettoization in particular.