This article reveals a previously ignored area of Holocaust memory in Hungary, and proposes further theoretical and empirical memory studies, arguing that the Eichmann Trial had a symbolic impact on the cultural productions on the genocide forming the collective memory in Hungary during the 1960s. Taking the symbolic impact of the trial as a starting point, in this paper I explore the theoretical implications of the process in which the survivor-victim transformed into a witness and a social actor by showing the unique case of Erzsi Szenes, a Hungarian witness in the Eichmann Trial and the Auschwitz Trial. After outlining the theoretical framework on the significance of the role of the witness, I address the topic of Hungarian witnesses followed by a textual analysis of the testimony of Erzsi Szenes at the Jerusalem trial. In the second half of the paper, the development of Israeli--Hungarian cultural diplomacy between 1964 and 1966 is examined, which lead to the reappearance of Erzsi Szenes in Hungarian publicity with the publication her Holocaust diary, entitled The Soul Resists, in 1966. Erzsi Szenes can be considered as a symbolic figure of the social transformation of the victim--from victim to witness--and her case might be interpreted as a symbolic example of political obstruction because of the Soviet directives following the events of 1967, thereby highlighting one unstudied facet of the complex relation between politics, culture and memory culture during the 1960s in Hungary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]