The yellow-star houses were a network of almost 1,950 designated compulsory places of residence for around 220,000
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
from 21 June 1944 until late November 1944. Both the houses and their residents were obliged to display the yellow star by Budapest mayoral decree.
Unique in the Holocaust
Although houses reserved for Jews were occasionally marked in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, and
Nazi-occupied France
The Military Administration in France (german: Militärverwaltung in Frankreich; french: Occupation de la France par l'Allemagne) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zo ...
and
the Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, the Hungarian legal prescription of marking all Budapest houses in which Jews were obliged to reside with a yellow star was unique in the history of the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
.
Antecedents
A series of anti-Jewish laws and decrees introduced from 1938 onwards gradually excluded Jews from participation in intellectual professions, banned marriages and sexual relations between Jewish men and non-Jewish women, and designated individuals as ‘Jewish’ on the basis of family lineage, thus defining those who had converted to Christianity as Jews.
On 25 November 1940, Hungary joined the
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
*Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinate ...
, and declared war on the Soviet Union on 27 June 1941.
Jewish men and others defined as ‘politically unreliable’ were conscripted for
forced labour
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
in auxiliary roles from 1941 onward. By 1942, tens of thousands of Jewish forced labourers had been sent to the Eastern Front to face arduous conditions.
In a bid to stop her wartime ally from leaving the war, Germany troops occupied Hungary on 19 March 1944. Former Hungarian ambassador to Berlin
Döme Sztójay
Döme Sztójay ( sr-cyr, Димитрије Стојаковић, 5 January 1883 – 22 August 1946) was a Hungarian soldier and diplomat of Serb origin, who served as Prime Minister of Hungary in 1944, during World War II.
Biography
Born i ...
was appointed Prime Minister by Regent
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya ( hu, Vitéz nagybányai Horthy Miklós; ; English: Nicholas Horthy; german: Nikolaus Horthy Ritter von Nagybánya; 18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957), was a Hungarian admiral and dictator who served as the Regent o ...
population
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...
mayor of Budapest
The Mayor of Budapest ( hu, Budapest főpolgármestere) is the head of the General Assembly in Budapest, Hungary, elected directly for 5-year term since 2014 (previously municipal elections were held quadrennially). Until 1994 the mayor was elect ...
issued the first decree and a list of over 2,600 designated yellow-star houses. The deadline for moving in was midnight on 21 June 1944.
A second Budapest mayoral decree issued on 24 June 1944 attached a final list of 1,944 designated yellow-star houses.
In the intervening period, residents submitted petitions to Budapest Metropolitan Council: non-Jews wanted their houses removed from the list, while Jewish residents wanted their houses added. Compared to the first June 16 list of houses, the second list contained far fewer houses on the western Buda side of the Danube.
Mass relocation was overseen by the police and the
Jewish Council
A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every com ...
in Hungary.
The 1,944 yellow-star houses functioned as compulsory places of residence for Budapest Jews until late November 1944 when, following the
Arrow Cross
A cross whose arms end in arrowheads is called a "cross barby" or "cross barbée" in the traditional terminology of heraldry. In Christian use, the ends of this cross resemble the barbs of fish hooks, or fish spears. This alludes to the Ichth ...
takeover of power on 15 October 1944, Jews were moved into the 7th district ghetto, or to a ‘protected’ house in the 13th district, where neutral states in World War II (Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and the Vatican), as well as the Italian diplomat
Giorgio Perlasca
Giorgio Perlasca (31 January 1910 – 15 August 1992) was an Italian businessman and former Fascist who, with the collaboration of official diplomats, posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in the winter of 1944, and saved 5,218 Jews fr ...
, and the
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...
provided protection for those holding protection documents in 119 ‘protected’ houses, 98 of which were also yellow-star houses.
Further reading
Nick Barlay, ''Scattered Ghosts: One Family’s Survival Through War, Holocaust and Revolution'' (London: IB Tauris, 2013)
Tim Cole, ''Holocaust City: The Making of a Jewish Ghetto'' (London and New York: Routledge, 2003)
Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, ''When the Danube Ran Red'' (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2010)
Máté Rigó, 'Ordinary Women and Men: Superintendents and Jews in the Budapest yellow-star houses in 1944-1945’, ''Urban History'', vol. 40, no. 1., February 2013, pp. 71–91
Ernő Szép, ''The Smell of Humans: A Memoir of the Holocaust in Hungary'', translated by John Bátki (Budapest: Corvina and Central European University Press, 1994)
Béla Zsolt
Béla Zsolt (born as Béla Steiner, 8 January 1895 – 6 February 1949) was a Hungarian radical socialist journalist and politician. He wrote one of the earliest Holocaust memoirs, ''Nine Suitcases'' (''Kilenc koffer'' in Hungarian). Tibor Fis ...
, ''Nine Suitcases'', translated by Ladislaus Löb (London: Pimlico, 2005), pp. 317–24
See also
*
History of antisemitism
The history of antisemitism, defined as hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group, goes back many centuries, with antisemitism being called "the longest hatred". Jerome Chanes identifies six stages in the his ...
*
History of the Jews in Hungary
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 ...
*
Arrow Cross Party
The Arrow Cross Party ( hu, Nyilaskeresztes Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom, , abbreviated NYKP) was a far-right Hungarian ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary they named the Government of National ...
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya ( hu, Vitéz nagybányai Horthy Miklós; ; English: Nicholas Horthy; german: Nikolaus Horthy Ritter von Nagybánya; 18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957), was a Hungarian admiral and dictator who served as the Regent o ...
Carl Lutz
Carl Lutz (30 March 1895 – 12 February 1975) was a Swiss diplomat. He served as the Swiss Vice-Consul in Budapest, Hungary, from 1942 until the end of World War II. He is credited with saving over 62,000 Jews during the Second World War in a ...
*
Giorgio Perlasca
Giorgio Perlasca (31 January 1910 – 15 August 1992) was an Italian businessman and former Fascist who, with the collaboration of official diplomats, posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in the winter of 1944, and saved 5,218 Jews fr ...
*
Angelo Rotta
Angelo Rotta (9 August 1872 – 1 February 1965) was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church. As the Apostolic Nuncio in Budapest at the end of World War II, he was involved in the rescue of the Jews of Budapest from the Nazi Holocaust. He is ...
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. 31 J ...