.jpeg)
TÖLGYESI KATALIN (BIATORBÁGY)
Curator, educator and journalist; founder of the ARTalakulás Gallery
For more than a decade, she has been working out of personal commitment to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust is not just historical knowledge, but part of the social responsibility of the present. The basic idea of her program, "The Pain of the Shoah – the Trauma of Our Nation," is that the Shoah is not exclusively a tragedy of the Jewish people, but a common trauma of Hungarian society that needs to be processed.
As the founder and curator of the ARTalakulás Gallery, she organizes the exhibitions herself, leads the exhibitions, and engages in direct dialogue with students, teachers, and local communities. She uses art as a pedagogical tool: with the help of images and works, participants are confronted not only with the history of the Holocaust, but also with the social consequences of prejudice, exclusion, and hatred. The program has also appeared in Budapest and several rural cities – including Miskolc, Székesfehérvár, Budaörs, Sopron, and Nagykanizsa. She has established long-term partnerships with schools, libraries, cultural institutions, and civil society organizations. In her work, she considers it important for young people to recognize that hate speech, prejudice, and exclusion are still a real threat today. Her method connects historical memory with issues of empathy, human dignity, and democratic responsibility. Her activities were recognized by the Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA) with the Art Pedagogical Certificate of Recognition in 2024.
For me, the most important thing in my job is – the candidate wrote
For me, the Shoah is not just a historical event, but a shared national trauma that we all have a responsibility to process. Art has a special power, so in the guided tours, school classes and lectures related to my fine art exhibitions, I want to present not only the facts of the past, but also where indifference, prejudice and hatred can lead.
I seek answers with young people about the impact of an unresolved tragedy on a community, and what personal responsibility we have to ensure that unimaginable horror does not happen again. I believe it is important for us to understand that we are connected, and that we can only build a more inclusive society if we are able to understand each other's pain.
I have been doing this work for over ten years, on my own and with the support of my family. I have reached thousands of young people in many cities across the country, and I experience that they welcome these encounters with openness, understanding, and sensitivity.
It was a particularly defining experience for me when Éva Fahidi, at my invitation, shared her personal story in front of about two hundred students at the opening of the exhibition titled Parallels in Budaörs in 2019. Her words still guide me today: "We do not want to hate, we have decided to do so." I feel that this message is the common responsibility of all of us and at the same time the most important goal of my work.
References
Hungarian Academy of Arts – professional commendation, for more than ten years of pedagogical work, programs held in several cities and the participation of hundreds of high school students:
https://www.parlando.hu/2025/2025-1/Muveszetpedagogia.pdf
Hungarian Pedagogical Society – the SZIMHA RE-MEMORY department based on the program and the leadership role of Katalin Tölgyesi:
https://pedagogiai-tarsasag.hu/szimha-re-memoria-szakosztaly/
Erzsébetváros – interview about personal motivation, methodology and work in educational institutions:
https://erzsebetvaros.hu/articles/beszelni-az-elmondhatatlanrol
SopronMédia – personally guided sessions and an exhibition of students' works:
https://www.sopronmedia.hu/cikkek/beszed-hatalma-cimmel-nyilt-kiallitas-a-liszt-kozpontban
Székesfehérvár – exhibition, school groups and institutional collaborations:
In 2019, Éva Fahidi, at my invitation, at the opening of the exhibition titled Parallels in Budaörs
