What Will Be the Fate of the House of Fates?

The House of Fates is ground zero in a struggle over history and memory, raising questions that are pertinent today not only in Hungary but also across post-communist Europe. The struggle is about the politicization of the Holocaust by an increasingly autocratic government and about who gets to tell its story, and how.

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Reframing Roman Vishniac’s Legacy

Maya Benton was a high school senior living in Los Angeles when the Russian-American photographer Roman Vishniac’s first posthumous book, To Give Them Light, came out in 1993. Renowned for his iconic images of Eastern European Jews taken between the two World Wars, Vishniac had died three years earlier at age 92.

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan

The New Sultan of Turkey

Former Prime Minister—now President—Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist Party are more powerful than ever. Is the nation’s democracy under siege? By Yigal Schleifer Adiminutive 63-year-old with dyed blond hair and a raspy smoker’s cough, Mücella Yapici hardly fits the profile of a criminal mastermind. But Turkish judicial authorities see it differently. Since last year, the architect and urban planner has been on trial for organizing and maintaining an “illegal criminal organization.” If convicted, Yapici could face 30 years in jail. Despite the legal proceedings, I found Yapici in a buoyant mood during a visit to her office, located in Karaköy, a neighborhood on the European side of the Bosphorus that has served as one of Istanbul’s ports since Byzantine times. “I am Al Capone!” Yapici told me by way of introducing herself and her case. “It’s not a...

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Jan Karski at Georgetown University

Becoming Jan Karski

One of the lesser-known heroes of World War II was Jan Karski (1914-2000), an officer in the Polish Underground resistance who infiltrated the Warsaw Ghetto twice… This past April, actor David Strathairn took on the role of Karski in a dramatic reading of Derek Goldman’s play, Remember This: Walking with Jan Karski, at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

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