‘They needed some styling, shortening and editing’: The Impact of Editing in Gábor Sztehlo’s Memoir of Holocaust Rescue

In 1984, the Hungarian Evangelical Church Press posthumously published the Hungarian-language memoir of Gábor Sztehlo, a Lutheran pastor credited with saving hundreds of Jewish children during the Holocaust. Uncovered in the archives, the memoir’s original manuscript was recently published by Gergely Kunt. This article compares the original and published texts to reveal the significant differences between them. Recognising which topics were deliberately omitted and altered from the published version reveals how attitudes at the time sought to tell a certain history: one that was politically expedient in a communist country and acceptable to the Church authorities who supported its publication.