Hungarian Lions of Judah in Galicia

The exhibition "Hungarian Lions of Judah in Galicia" was created thanks to the co-operation of the Galicia Jewish Museum and the Hungarian Institute of Culture. The exhibition includes an extraordinary collection of memorabilia, which once belonged to Capt. Akós Biró, as well as objects borrowed from Hungarian museums and photographs from Hungarian, Austrian, Polish and German archives. The diverse collection of materials transports viewers back to the years of World War I, to the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which will disappear from the map of Europe, as a result of the Great War.

The Austro-Hungarian army was comprised of soldiers of all nations, ethnic groups and faiths - citizens from throughout this large empire. Jewish soldiers were no exception. During World War I, 1,5 million Jewish soldiers served in different armies on all of the war’s fronts, with their numbers usually exceeding their actual population percentage in each country. In the case of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, between 275,000 and 400,000 Jews from all over the empire served in the army during World War I.

This exhibition presents a small but very interesting excerpt from the war - the participation of Hungarian Jewish soldiers in the battles on the Eastern Front (that is, the area of Galicia), as well as the historical, social and religious contexts of the military engagement of Hungarian Jews, and their contact with the Jewish civilians of Galicia.