The Holocaust in Hungary was the dispossession, deportation, and systematic murder of more than half of the

Hungarian Jews The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived i ...

, primarily after the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944. At the time of the German invasion, Hungary had a Jewish population of 825,000, the largest remaining in Europe, further swollen by Jews escaping from elsewhere to the relative safety of that country. The Hungarian Prime Minister

Miklós Kállay Dr. Miklós Kállay de Nagykálló (23 January 1887, in Nyíregyháza – 14 January 1967, in New York City) was a Hungarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary during World War II, from 9 March 1942 to 22 March 1944. By early 1 ...

had been reluctant to deport them. Fearing Hungary was trying to pursue peace with the Allies, Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion. New restrictions against Jews were imposed soon after Germany occupied Hungary on 19 March 1944. The invading troops included a ''

Sonderkommando ''Sonderkommandos'' (, ''special unit'') were work units made up of German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber vict ...

'' led by SS officer

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

Budapest to supervise the deportation of the country's Jews to the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

in occupied Poland. Between 15 May and 9 July 1944, over 434,000 Jews were deported on 147 trains, most of them to Auschwitz, where about 80 percent were gassed on arrival. After the publication in June 1944 of parts of the Vrba-Wetzler report—a report compiled in April by two Auschwitz escapees that described in detail how Jews were being gassed in the camp—diplomatic pressure and the Allied bombing of Budapest persuaded Miklós Horthy, the Regent of Hungary, to order a halt to the deportations on 6 July. By the time they had stopped three days later, almost the entire community of Jews in the Hungarian countryside had gone. The killings have puzzled historians, because they took place as World War II appeared to be drawing to a close. The

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

had begun the liberation of Europe — the Normandy landings were on 6 June 1944 — and world leaders had known for some time that Jews were being murdered in gas chambers. As a result, the Holocaust in Hungary has triggered a long debate about why Germany pressed ahead with it, and whether governments, journalists, and community leaders should have done more to publicize and disrupt it.

Jews in Hungary

In the 1941 census, the population of Hungary was 14,683,323. Of these, 725,005 regarded themselves as Jews (4.94 percent) and another 100,000 were Jewish by descent who identified as Christian. Over 400,000 lived in post-Trianon Hungary and another 324,000 lived in territories acquired by Hungary since 1938:

Northern Transylvania Northern Transylvania ( ro, Transilvania de Nord, hu, Észak-Erdély) was the region of the Kingdom of Romania that during World War II, as a consequence of the August 1940 territorial agreement known as the Second Vienna Award, became part of ...

from Romania (164,000), part of Upper Hungary from Czechoslovakia (146,000), Carpathian Ruthenia (78,000), and Bácska and other areas that had been part of Yugoslavia (14,000).

German occupation

Invasion

On 18 March 1944, Adolf Hitler summoned Horthy to a conference in Austria, where he demanded greater acquiescence from Hungary. Horthy resisted, but his efforts were fruitless. While he was at the conference, German tanks rolled into Budapest, and on 23 March the government of Döme Sztójay was installed. Among his first moves, Sztójay legalized the Arrow Cross Party, which quickly began organizing. During the four days' interregnum following the German occupation, the Ministry of the Interior was placed in the hands of

László Endre László Endre (January 1, 1895, Abony – March 29, 1946) was a Hungarian right-wing politician and collaborator with the Nazis during the Second World War. Early years Born into a wealthy Abony family, Endre obtained a degree in political scien ...

and

László Baky László Baky (13 September 1898 in Budapest – 29 March 1946) was a leading member of the Hungarian Nazi movement that flourished before and during World War II. A military academy graduate, he came to prominence in Szeged in 1919 for his ...

, right-wing politicians known for their hostility to Jews. Their boss, Andor Jaross, was another committed

antisemite Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

Adolf Eichmann

''SS- Obersturmbannführer''

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

Yellow Star and ghettoization laws, and the deportations, were accomplished in less than eight weeks, with the enthusiastic help of the Hungarian authorities, particularly the

gendarmerie Wrong info! --> A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (literally, ...

(''csendőrség''). The plan was to use 45 cattle cars per train, four trains a day, to deport 12,000 Jews from the countryside every day, starting in mid-May; this was to be followed by the deportation of Jews from Budapest from about 15 July. Rudolf Höss, the first commandant of Auschwitz, returned to the camp between 8 May and 29 July 1944 as the local SS garrison commander to oversee the Hungarian Jews' arrival and gassing. As a result, the Germans called the murders ''Aktion Höss'' ("Operation Höss").

Deportation to Auschwitz

First transports

The first train left Budapest on 29 April 1944 carrying 1,800 men and women aged 16–50 who were deemed fit to work. A second train left Topolya on 30 April carrying 2,000. The transports went through "selection"; 616 women (serial numbers 76385–76459 and 800000–80540) and 486 men (serial numbers 186645–187130) were chosen to work, and 2,698 were gassed.

Mass transports

Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944 (Auschwitz Album) 1b

The mass transports, the first organized by the '' Reichssicherheitshauptamt'' (Reich Security Head Office or RSHA), began leaving Hungary for Poland on 14 May 1944. The Hungarian government was in charge of them up to the northern border. The commander of the Kassa railroad station kept a record of the trains. The first freight train passed through Kassa on 14 May. On a typical day, there were three or four, each carrying 3,000–4,000 people. There were 109 trains for 33 days, until 16 June. On several days, there were six trains. From 25–29 June, there were 10, then 18 on 5–9 July. Another 10 trains were sent to Auschwitz via other routes. The first three trains, each consisting of 40–50 cars, arrived at Auschwitz on 16 May. After unloading their belongings, the deportees were organized into rows of five, then led to the crematoria. According to

Danuta Czech Danuta Czech (1922 – 4 April 2004) was a Polish Holocaust historian and deputy director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, Poland. She is known for her book ''The Auschwitz Chronicle: 1939–1945'' (1990). Background Czech was ...

, it was from this night onward that smoke became visible from the crematoria chimneys. The camp resistance referred to the deportations in a report covering 5–25 May 1944: Ferenczy László

From 3 June, the electric fence was kept switched on during the day, instead of only at night (as there were guards during the day), because of attempts by Hungarian Jews to escape from the crematoria. The camp resistance reported on 15 July that there had been a pause of several days in the transports after 13 June, and that between 16 May and 13 June, over 300,000 Jews from Hungary had arrived at the camp in 113 trains. According to Höss during his trial, the facilities at Auschwitz could not cope with the numbers, and he had to travel to Budapest to re-organize the transports, so that two or three trains would run on alternate days. Altogether, 111 trains were to be used. According to Höss, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, wanted the deportations to speed up. By 9 July 1944, 434,351 Jews in 147 trains had been deported, according to László Ferenczy of the

Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie The Hungarian Royal Gendarme Veterans' Association ( hu, Magyar Királyi Csendőr Bajtársi Közösség), commonly known by its initialism of MKCsBK, is an international veterans' organization founded in its initial form in 1947 with the goal of m ...

. According to Edmund Veesenmayer, the Reich plenipotentiary in Hungary, the figure was 437,402. About 80 percent of deportees were gassed on arrival. Because the crematoria were unable to cope with the number of corpses, pits were dug where bodies were burned. Photographs taken at Auschwitz (the

Auschwitz Album The Auschwitz Album is a photographic record of the Holocaust during the Second World War. It and the ''Sonderkommando'' photographs are the only known pictorial evidence of the extermination process inside Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the German ext ...

) were found after the war showing the arrival of the Hungarian Jews at the camp.

Selection

The 20 percent of new arrivals from Hungary selected as prisoners were used as slave labourers or in medical experiments. On 22 May and again on 29 May 2,000 were selected for admission. On 28 May, 963 were transferred from

Auschwitz I Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria; and on 5 June 2,000 were sent to the

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

in Germany. The following day, Hungarian inmates with A-series serial numbers were transferred to

Auschwitz III Monowitz (also known as Monowitz-Buna, Buna and Auschwitz III) was a Nazi concentration camp and labor camp (''Arbeitslager'') run by Nazi Germany in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland from 1942–1945, during World War II and t ...

, a labour camp for

IG Farben Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate (company), conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies—BASF, ...

, and another 2,000 were sent to Mauthausen that day and on 13 June. On 29 May, Miklós Nyiszli, a doctor who later worked for the camp's doctor, Josef Mengele, was admitted with his wife and daughter, although they were sent to different parts of the camp. Any twins within the transports were selected; Mengele was notorious for his medical experiments on twins. On 17 May, any boys on the Hungarian transports born as a twin were admitted as prisoners (so-called "depot prisoners") and given serial numbers A-1419–A-1437. On 18 May, 20 females who were twin sisters were selected and given serial numbers A-3622–A-3641. Twins were picked out repeatedly, including on 19, 20 and 21 May.

Vrba–Wetzler report

Just before the deportations of Jews from Budapest began, the Vrba–Wetzler report reached the Allies. The report provided a detailed description of the gas chambers, and what was happening inside the camp; it had been dictated in April 1944 to the

Slovakian Jewish Council Slovak may refer to: * Something from, related to, or belonging to Slovakia (''Slovenská republika'') * Slovaks, a Western Slavic ethnic group * Slovak language, an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages * Slovak, Arkan ...

by two Auschwitz escapees, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler. Horthy's son and daughter-in-law both received copies of the report in early May, before mass deportations began. Information from the report about the murder of Czech Jews in Auschwitz was broadcast in Germany by the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

on its women's program at noon on 16 June 1944, with a warning that the Germans would be held responsible after the war. It was also published by the ''New York Times'' on 20 June. The Western Allies landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944. On 15 June, the Mayor of Budapest designated 2,000 "starred" houses to which every Jew had to move; the idea was that the Allies would not bomb Budapest with starred houses scattered around the town. On the basis of the Vrba–Wetzler report, world leaders, including

Pope Pius XII Pope Pius XII ( it, Pio XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (; 2 March 18769 October 1958), was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. Before his e ...

on 25 June, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on 26 June, and King Gustaf V of Sweden on 30 June, appealed to Horthy to stop the deportations. Roosevelt threatened military retaliation, and on 7 July, Horthy ordered an end to them.

Rescue efforts

Aid and Rescue Committee

Joel Brand

Joel Brand Joel Brand ( hu, Brand Jenő; 25 April 1906 – 13 July 1964) was a member of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee (''Va'adat ha-Ezra ve-ha-Hatzala be-Budapest'' or ''Va'ada''), an underground Zionist group in Budapest, Hungary, that smuggled ...

, a leading member of the Budapest

Aid and Rescue Committee The Aid and Rescue Committee, or ''Va'adat Ha-Ezrah ve-ha-Hatzalah be-Budapesht'' (''Vaada'' for short; name in ) was a small committee of Zionists in Budapest, Hungary, in 1944–1945, who helped Hungarian Jews escape the Holocaust during the Ger ...

, became known for his efforts to negotiate with Eichmann to stop the deportations. In a meeting with Brand in Budapest on 25 April 1944, Eichmann offered to exchange one million Jews for 10,000 trucks from the Allies, to be used exclusively on the Eastern Front. Eichmann called the proposal "blood for goods". Using German travel documents, Brand travelled to Turkey to transmit the offer to the Jewish Agency, but the British government put an end to the talks by arresting Brand and leaking details to the media. On 20 July '' The Times'' called the proposal "one of the most loathsome" stories of the war and a "new level of fantasy and self-deception."

Rudolf Kastner

Another member of the Aid and Rescue Committee, Rudolf Kastner, was involved with Brand in negotiating the "blood for goods" deal with Eichmann and a separate — successful — deal with SS officer

Kurt Becher Kurt Andreas Ernst Becher (12 September 1909 – 8 August 1995) was a mid-ranking SS commander who was Commissar of all German concentration camps, and Chief of the Economic Department of the SS Command in Hungary during the German occupation i ...

to allow 1,685 Jews to leave Hungary for Switzerland, in exchange for money and other goods. This became known as the "Kastner train". After the war, Kastner testified in favour of Becher and other Nazis at the Nuremberg tribunal. Kastner later emigrated to Israel, where he became involved with Mapai and worked as a press officer for the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. In 1954, he became the subject of a libel case brought by the Israeli government on his behalf against Malchiel Gruenwald, who alleged that Kastner had collaborated with the Nazis. It was the first big Holocaust trial in Israel. Gruenwald had alleged in a self-published pamphlet that Kastner had known Jews were being gassed at Auschwitz as early as April 1944, after being given a copy of the Vrba–Wetzler report, but he had done nothing to warn the wider Jewish community in Hungary. Through his inaction, Gruenwald alleged, Kastner had helped the SS avoid the spread of panic, which would have slowed down the transports. In June 1955, the judge,

Benjamin Halevi Benjamin Halevy ( he, בנימין הלוי, 6 May 1910 – 7 August 1996) was an Israeli judge and politician. Biography Halevy was born Ernst Levi in Weißenfels, Germany and educated at the Universities of Freiburg, Göttingen and Berlin. H ...

, decided in Gruenwald's favor, ruling that Kastner had "sold his soul to the devil". Kastner and his associates had helped to persuade the Jewish community that they were being resettled, Halevi wrote in his 300-page judgement. In return, the SS had allowed the Kastner train to leave Hungary. Israeli historian Tom Segev called the ruling "one of the most heartless in the history of Israel, perhaps the most heartless ever". As a result of the verdict and its refusal to prosecute Kastner for collaboration, the Israeli government lost a vote of no confidence and collapsed. Kastner was assassinated in Tel Aviv in March 1957. Most of the decision was reversed by the Israeli Supreme Court in January 1958. The majority opinion, written by

Shimon Agranat Shimon Agranat ( he, שמעון אגרנט; September 5, 1906 – August 10, 1992) was an Israeli jurist and the third President of the Supreme Court of Israel, from 1965 until 1976. Biography Agranat was born to a Jewish-Zionist family in Louisv ...

, rejected the allegation of collaboration. A dissenting opinion agreed with the original judgement that the ease with which the Nazis had murdered the Jews was "the direct result of the concealment of the horrifying truth from the victims".

Raoul Wallenberg

Using his staff to prepare Protective Passports under the authority of the Swedish Legation, the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saved tens of thousands of Jews in Hungary between July and December 1944. At one point, he appeared personally at the railway station in Budapest, insisting that Jews on the train be removed and presenting the Arrow Cross guards with Protective Passports (''Schutzpass'') for many of them. Budapest named Wallenberg as an honorary citizen in 2003; several sites honour him, including Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park and the building that housed the Swedish Embassy in 1945. Yad Vashem recognized him as Righteous Among the Nations in November 1963.

Arrow Cross rule

Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-680-8285A-08, Budapest, Festnahme von Juden

Horthy dismissed Prime Minister Sztójay on 29 August 1944, the same day the Slovak National Uprising against the Nazis began. After Prime Minister Ferenc Szálasi came to power in October, tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest were sent on foot to the Austrian border in death marches. Most forced laborers under Hungarian Army command were deported (for instance to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany). Two ghettos were set up in Budapest. The small "international ghetto" consisted of several "starred" houses under the protection of neutral powers in the Újlipótváros district. Switzerland was allowed to issue 7,800 Schutzpasses (safe passage documents), Sweden 4,500, and the Vatican, Portugal and Spain 3,300 combined. The big

Budapest ghetto The Budapest Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto set up in Budapest, Hungary, where Jews were forced to relocate by a decree of the Government of National Unity led by the fascist Arrow cross party during the final stages of World War II. The ghetto existed f ...

walled in the Erzsébetváros part of Budapest on 29 November. Nyilas (Arrow Cross guards) raids and mass executions occurred in both ghettos regularly. In addition, between November 1944 and February 1945, the Nyilas shot 10,000–15,000 Jews on the banks of the Danube. Soviet troops liberated the big Budapest ghetto on 18 January 1945. On the Buda side of the town, the encircled Nyilas continued their murders until the Soviets took Buda on 13 February.

Hungarian gold train

The Hungarian gold train was a Nazi-operated train that carried stolen goods, mostly the property of Hungarian Jews, from Hungary to Berlin, Germany, in 1945. After seizure of the train by the

Seventh United States Army The Seventh Army was a United States army created during World War II that evolved into the United States Army Europe (USAREUR) during the 1950s and 1960s. It served in North Africa and Italy in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations and Fran ...

, almost none of the valuables were returned to Hungary or their rightful owners or surviving family members.

Number of survivors

Around 119,000 Jews were liberated in Budapest (25,000 in the small "international" ghetto, 69,000 in the big ghetto, and 25,000 hiding with false papers), as were 20,000 camp survivors and 5,000 forced labourers. Randolph Braham estimated that just over 564,000 Hungarian Jews died between 1941 and 1945. From over 800,000 Jews living within Hungary's borders in 1941–1944, about 255,500 are thought to have survived.

Holocaust Commemoration

Holocaust memorialization and commemoration have taken place in Hungary through memorials and museums. The House of Fates is a controversial Holocaust museum in Budapest. Construction on the $23 million museum was completed in 2015. However, the museum has not opened due to controversy surrounding its content. One CNN article described the House of Fates as “whitewashing the country's role in the Holocaust” to advance what is feared to be the right-wing government’s effort to promote a revisionist Holocaust history. In 2019, the chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Association stated that “the IHRA Plenary agreed to appoint a group of IHRA experts to provide input or suggestions to the international advisory boards of the House of Fates museum.” The museum remains unopened.