The Kunmadaras pogrom was an anti-Semitic

pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...

that took place shortly after the Second World War in

Kunmadaras Kunmadaras is a large village in Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, Hungary. History The first written record of the existence of the village is from 1393. According to it the area was given to György Madaras, after whom the village was named, by the ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

. The pogrom took place on 22 May 1946. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, four Jews were killed. The riot began in the marketplace as a spontaneous protest against a suspected profiteer. Since the traditional occupation of the Jews in the area was trade, the image of a profiteer was conflated with that of a Jew. Thus the riot grew into an anti-Jewish pogrom. The frenzy was further instigated by the rumors that the Jews were stealing Christian children. The historian Péter Apor made a peculiar observation about the subsequent trial of the pogromists: "The People's Tribunal managed to produce a narrative of an anti-Semitic pogrom without involving the Jewish victims." The pogrom was portrayed as a resurgence of

fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...

pitched against the nascent people's democracy. Nine rioters were convicted on 26 July 1946 of having instigated and participated in the violence, with sentences ranging from the death penalty for three of those convicted, to six years imprisonment.

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