“Hungary, Silence and Memory: A Microhistory of the György Family”
Professional Background
Dr. Julia Creet is associate professor of English, York University (Canada). She earned her PhD in history of consciousness from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in May 1995. Dr. Creet possesses linguistic skills in French and Hungarian in addition to being a native English speaker. While in residence in the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Dr. Creet conducted research on her project, “Hungary, Silence and Memory: A Microhistory of the György Family.”
Dr. Creet has numerous published works to her credit, including Memory and Migration: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Memory Studies (2011), which she co-edited with Andreas Kitzmann. She has also published several book chapters, including: “The House of Terror and the Holocaust Museum: Memorializing Hate in Post-89 Hungary,” in European Cultural Memory Post-89 (2012), eds. Conny Mithander, John Sundholm, and Adrian Velicu; and “On the Sidewalk: Testimony and Gesture,” in Memory, Haunting, Discourse (2005), eds. Maria Holmgren Troy and Elisabeth Wennö. Dr. Creet has written several articles published in scholarly journals, including: “Transnational Archives: The Canadian Case,” in Journal of Aesthetics and Culture (2011); and “Calling on Witnesses: Testimony and the Deictic,” in Journal of Aesthetics and Culture (2009). Recent lectures given by Dr. Creet include: “H.G. Adler’s The Journey and the Literary Deictic,” at the H.G. Adler, Life, Literature, and Legacy Centre for Jewish Studies in 2012; “Deportation, Divorce, and Disavowal: The Anti-Romantic Correspondence of Magda and Imre Farkas,”for the Social Science Historical Association in 2011; “Provocation and Reconciliation: Imagined Memories of the 20th Century,” at the 2011 Memory, Mediation, Remediation Conference; and “Testimony of the Deictic,” at the 2010 Congress of the Social Sciences and the Humanities.
Fellowship Research
For her Tziporah Wiesel Fellowship Dr. Creet used the Museum’s rich archives on the Holocaust in Hungary, including the Jewish Displaced Persons Project and Kau, in order to complete her microhistory of the György family. The Györgys were Jews who lived in Hungary through the mid-twentieth century. Like so many others, they were displaced as a result of anti-Jewish policies of both the Hungarian regime and later the Nazi occupiers. The focus of Dr. Creet’s research was Magda Creet (nee György), who survived the Holocaust but who went to great lengths to hide the fact that she was Jewish. Dr. Creet gained a much greater understanding of the Hungarian Holocaust in order to provide a better background for her research and her readers.
Dr. Creet was in residence in the Center from February 1 to May 31, 2014.