There are still many unsung heroes and heroines who refused to look away from what was happening to their friends, neighbors, and at times, lyricists, such as happened in the Hungarian entertainment industry. I am researching this story as I collect teaching units about the Holocaust, for use in colleges of education.
Teachers are particularly important to Holocaust memory as schools under the Nazis and their helpers were sites of cruel discrimination, expulsion, and even deportation.
I am developing a teaching unit focused on the question of rescuers. Who were they and how did they make such moral decisions within very complicated and dangerous political circumstances? For this conference, I will present material on the life of Katalin Karady, one of the most popular Hungarian film stars in the World War II era. She evoked the glamour of Hollywood’s Katharine Hepburn in both looks and strong personality. A recent jazz opera version of her life, entitled “Opium Waltz”, indicates renewed interest in her life in Hungary, but her story deserves to be more widely told. Karady’s rescue actions began with the saving of the Jewish composer of her signature song, (which eerily referenced smouldering ashes as a metaphor for unrequited love and loss). She went on to feed and house displaced Jewish children and was captured herself, barely surviving the experience. The destruction of her movie career was another price paid, after she fled Hungary. When she applied for a visa to the United States, she was continuously denied one, until the intervention of Robert and Ted Kennedy, the reasons for which, are still unclear. In 2004, Yad Vashem recognized her as a Righteous Among the Nations, for her rescue attempts during W.W.II. This presentation will examine her impact, and the mystery which still surrounds her life and legend.