The following is an adapted version of an article written by Barnabás Leimeiszter, originally published in Magyar Krónika.
Fortepan, a free-to-use Hungarian community photo archive, features images from the summer of 1944 that bring to life both horrors and moments of joy, now presented by Magyar Krónika below.
The featured image of this article may look familiar to many. It was Vincent Till Baumgartner who sent Fortepan a photograph taken in 1944 of six people, three men and three women. They are all elegant figures, dressed in a metropolitan manner, the ladies in polka-dot and floral dresses, the men in bow ties. A trip to the countryside? In the background, we see a woman in a headscarf walking away in the other direction. They are marching along a dirt road—it must be semi-warm weather, judging from the fact that although two of the women are wearing blazers, the woman on the far right seems to be undressing hers with a smile made for movie screens.
The most interesting figure, however, is the one in the middle: he is wearing a so-called babmérő cap (Editor’s note: a World War II Royal Hungarian Army officer’s cap), a white shalloon uniform, and shoes, which, logically, should have been boots with the baggy trousers. He must have been a lieutenant doctor, professional or reserve, who knows. But why is the image so familiar? After a moment’s reflection, we can remember the recurring scene in Luis Buñuel’s surrealist The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, in which the bourgeoisie, unable to get dinner together, march in a line across a field, striding into the void.
We could say there is a certain discreet charm to the images from the summer of 1944, selected from Fortepan’s collection. But this charm, we might add, is rather almost morbid: we wonder at the cheerfulness captured by amateur and professional photographers during those dark months. People sunbathing, going on holiday at Lake Balaton, picnicking in flowery meadows, fooling around in front of the camera. Were they indifferent to the tragic events taking place during that period?
Well, hardly anyone could afford to be indifferent at that time. It was impossible to ignore the fact that there was a war on, when—and we will mention just one of the everyday horrors taking place in the hinterland that was increasingly resembling a battlefield—the lives of a large part of the population were in constant danger from the increasing air raids, and they had to be prepared for the possibility that their homes might be destroyed at any moment.
‘The cheerfulness, the serenity…are a defence against the oppressive reality’
It is pretty telling that there is a smile even on the faces of Jewish family members who were photographed on the balcony of their home with a yellow star on their chest.
The cheerfulness, the serenity—of course, the more we look at these photos, the more forced they seem, the more falsely they are glittering—are a defence against the oppressive reality. It is a flat truth, we know it from historical research and literary memories, but these photos prove it as well: this is how people work, in this grotesque way. Their capacity to adapt is infinite. The front line is approaching, but the films are on, the theatres and cinemas are open, and the cafés are crowded, even though the compulsory obscuration and the disruption of supplies make it increasingly impossible to live as usual. Or rather: people get used to what is impossible to get used to.
Tivadar Lissák’s famous photo is perhaps the most expressive visual document of these turbulent times: a cute little girl standing at the entrance of the air-raid shelter, at the end of the downward-pointing arrow—perhaps they did not yet suspect the depths to which it was pointing, the descent it was foreshadowing.
But her smile, unlike that of the adults, is completely sincere. Honest because it is a grimace rather than a smile, a struggling grimace. As if to indicate that she has sensed and foreseen the weeks and months ahead.
‘People get used to what is impossible to get used to’
How the people in the photographs got through these months, if they got through them at all, how they felt about the war and the current political situation, what thoughts, hopes, or fears they had with the obvious defeat and Russian occupation ahead of them, we cannot know. These gazes are full of question marks.
But let us go back to the figure in the white uniform. Baumgartner has shared another photo of the man, and this one is even more peculiar than the one of him marching along the dirt road: in this one, he, certainly after a couple of drinks, is flirting with women in quite a scantily-clad outfit, covered in flowers, in front of a wall. His hat has already been thrown off, but above his chest is a medal of some kind. It could be a medal from Upper Hungary or Transylvania, awarded to soldiers who took part in the marches that followed the two Vienna awards. What could have been the occasion for the women to be dressed like this, what could have been the euphoric moment of revelry when this picture was taken? It is both mysterious and banal. Just like war, just like—another flat statement—life itself.
All the photos in this article are from Fortepan.
Related articles:
Click here to read the original article.
