Ferenc Erős Collection

Ferenc Erős (1946-2020) was a social psychologist, PHD in psychological sciences and doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In addition to his research work at the Psychological Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, he taught at the universities of Budapest, Pécs and Szeged. His main research areas were social traumatization, especially concerning the Holocaust, its memory, related identities and transgenerational processes; furthermore, the social psychology of prejudice and discrimination; and the theoretical and historical issues of psychoanalytic social psychology. Erős was editor-in-chief of several professional and public journals (e.g. Thalassa, Imágó Budapest, Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle, BUKSZ, Journal of European Psychoanalysis), and author of numerous books and articles.

Erős’s research collection "Jewish identity among the generation born after the Holocaust" contains in-depth interviews with second-generation Holocaust survivors. The focus of the research conducted between 1980 and 1988 is post-Holocaust Jewish identity and the narratability of Holocaust trauma. This was one of the first investigations in Hungary that dealt with the taboo memory of the Holocaust, the processes of coping and transmission within the family, and the transgenerational aftereffects. The research, which breaks the collective silence surrounding the Holocaust and Jewish identity, was partly inspired by the work of foreign colleagues. Erős encountered scientific approaches to the topic of Jewish identity in 1976, during a six-month American scholarship, where he met the psychologist David Rapaport, whose work on second-generation Holocaust survivors had a great influence on him. He also learned the basics of oral history methodology from American literature. The idea of conducting interviews in their wider circle of acquaintances came up already at the end of the 1970s, when Erős and psychiatrist András Stark were considering such a project, originally not for scientific purposes but purely out of curiosity. The idea eventually resulted in a series of investigations, and the same research topic followed Erős throughout his career; he gave the last lecture of his life on this subject. Interest in Jewish identity and assimilation processes also stemmed from the personal family background of the researchers. As second-generation Holocaust survivors, Erős and his colleagues wanted to learn more about their own feelings, experiences, and see how common they are. In addition, they were also concerned with the fate of post-war Jews, their social integration, and wanted to gain a better understanding of the coexistence of Jews and non-Jews in Hungary. Moreover, all of this resonated with current trends in the international scientific life of the time, namely, Holocaust research, trauma studies, and discussions about interviewing methodology.

Using the snowball method, the researchers reached out to interviewees from their own circle of acquaintances, asking them what it meant for them to grow up in a family where the parents were Holocaust survivors. More specifically, whether and in what ways persecution, deportation, the loss of family members and acquaintances were remembered in the family, and when and how they themselves became aware of their Jewish origin. In the beginning, the work was carried out without any support, in a hostile institutional environment, with several interruptions due to the suppression of the topic during the socialist era and its classification as belonging to the political opposition. Later on funding was received from several sources (Institute of Psychology at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Sociology Institute of Eötvös Loránd University, the J. and O. Winter Fund, the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund), which helped the recording of further interviews and the processing of the data.

A total of 150 interviews were conducted as part of the research, of which 122 and nearly the same number of data sheets survived and were added to the archive. The project documentation is no longer available. The interviews were conducted by Ferenc Babusik, Ildikó Bakcsi, Zoltán Csallog, Ferenc Erős, János Gadó, Tibor Gáti, Péter Geltz, Albert Horváth, Judit Keleti, András Kovács, Anna Kovács, Katalin László, Klára László, Katalin Lévai, Mónika Oláh, Mária Rozsnyai and Zsuzsa Vajda. The length of the interviews varies between 30-200 pages, each transcripts containing 2-3 conversations. A detailed quantitative personal questionnaire (data sheet) including basic sociological information is attached to each conversation. The outline of the interviews follows a chronological logic, including family history before, during and after World War II, the main milestones and aspects of personal life history (childhood, school, employment, lifestyle), experiences related to discrimination and anti-Semitism, and experiences and opinions related to Jewish organizations and Israel. The focus of the discussions is the relationship between identity and the Holocaust and inter-generational communication. The research leaders were Ferenc Erős, András Kovács and András Stark. So far, the systematic processing of the interviews has only been partially accomplished.