Central Europe “not just about death camps and shtetls”

Hungarian-born Tamas Buchler is doing what he can to dispel the myth that central Europe is all about death camps, encouraging people to recognise that Jews have a good life there today.

Speaking at Limmud Johannesburg last weekend, Buchler said the image of central Eastern Europe Jews being happy and thriving is suppressed to reinforce the narrative that American Jews are in “the golden country”, living the American dream.

“Actually, life is really great in Europe. It’s safer and cheaper,” said Belgium-based Buchler, the project co-ordinator of Networks Overcoming Antisemitism – A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe.

Buchler said central Eastern Europe didn’t fit into the mainstream Zionist narrative in Israel and the American Jewish narrative. “When American Jews think about central Eastern European countries, they usually think about shtetls, Yiddish, Fiddler on the Roof, etc. This cultural context isn’t true. Yiddish was never a language in Hungary. Most of the Jews in Czech Republic, Slovakia, never heard the word ‘shtetl’ in their life. They were urban, cosmopolitan Jews, most of them heavily assimilated.

“The initial Israeli experience of central Eastern Europe is the March of the Living, a government-subsidised programme for young Israelis. It’s a brutal experience. They visit the death camps in Poland. They see death of Jews, genocide, antisemitic Eastern Europeans, ugly landscapes, and unkind people. So, they grow up thinking that this is central Eastern Europe. There’s no counter-narrative.”

“A couple of years ago, an Israeli woman started an artistic project called, And Europe Will Be Stunned,” Buchler said.

Israelis dressed up as kibbutzniks, and marched in the streets of Warsaw in 2010 for this project. “A tower and wall were built in line with the idea that you start building a kibbutz by raising a tower and getting a fence.”

The idea behind the project centred on what would happen if Israeli Jews of Polish origin left Israel and moved back to Poland, said Buchler. “All of a sudden, Jews arrive in contemporary Poland and build a kibbutz in the middle of a park. Of course, it’s a mad idea. Nobody ever considered it for a second, but she wanted to play with the idea of the way we think about Europe and Israel today.”

“Often, most American Jewish media and Israeli media talk about the possibility of massive immigration from Europe due to antisemitism. This is factually untrue.

“Statistically speaking, Jews haven’t had a safer place in the world than central Eastern Europe since World War II. Jonathan Ornstein said that if you look at hate-crime statistics, Poland is by far the safest place for Jews.”

As for Hungary, the majority of Jews in Budapest survived World War II, and continued to thrive afterwards, said Buchler of the city where he was born and raised.

“Today, Budapest is home to 120 000 Jews, the third most Jews in any European city behind Paris and London. Even with the Hungarian government being homophobic, racist, and not nice people to work with, it’s a trailblazer when it comes to combatting antisemitism.