Blood/Witness

Szabolcs KissPál Documentary Radio Play

The events that took place hundred years ago are still leading to sharp, heated debates: which events do we consider national tragedies from the turn of the 1910s and 1920s? Whom do we consider victims to be emphasized as mementos for the collective memory? Whose blood was spilling from, so to say, the wounds of the nation? The documentary radio play by Szabolcs KissPál explores this issue through, on the one hand, the microhistories of the everyman of the era—the Jewish victims of the Red and White Terror—, and, on the other, through the great national narrative—the history of the Monument of National Martyrs, inaugurated in 1934, toppled in 1945, and reconstructed in 2019.

Produced by the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives as part of the exhibition From Harvest to Harvest – Hungarian Calvary 1918–1919, supported by the  Zsidó Kultúra 2028, in January, 2021.

Sound: Miklós Erhardt, Gábor Erlich, Ádám Jeneses, Szabolc KissPál, Richárd Melykó, Eszter Őri

Acknowledgment: Gergely Bödök (CLIO Institute), Ábel Kotormán, Benjamin Péter, Zsuzsa Toronyi (MILEV), Hedvig Turai, Vilmos Vajdai, Karmen Veress

Audio extracts in order of appearance: Ádám Gellért(M5), László Anka (Kossuth Radio), Konrád Salamon (M5), Hungarian Film Archives , Ignác Romsics (InfoRádió), Gergely Bödök (M5), Euronews, ATV.

Music extracts in order of appearance: Warszawianka (Russian Red Army Choir), Warszawianka (Tabernacle choir), Warszawianka (Magyar Néphadsereg Ének- és Zenekara), Klezmatics: In Kampf, Pártos Ödön: Yizkor (Yael Shachar – viola, Itai Daniel – piano, Kol Hamusica Radio), Warszawianka (Monsieur Jack – piano)