The Nazis' Last Victims: The Holocaust in Hungary

1997

PREFACE

This volume is an outgrowth of an international scholars’ conference held in Washington, D.C., under the auspices of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on May 22, 1994, in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary. The conference was devoted to a scholarly evaluation of one of the most controversial chapters in the history of the Nazis’ war against the Jews. The Holocaust in Hungary, like the history of Hungarian Jewry in general, is full of paradoxes. While the Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe were being systematically subjected to the Final Solution program, the Jews of Hungary continued to enjoy a relatively tranquil life. Although subjected to many discriminatory measures depriving them of basic civil and economic rights, the approximately 825,000 Jews of Hungary (including some 100,000 converts identified as Jews under the racial laws) continued to enjoy the physical protection of the conservative-aristocratic government of Miklós Kállay until the German occupation of March 19, 1944.

The pre-occupation era was not totally devoid of physical violence: more than 60,000 Hungarian Jews lost their lives prior to 1944. Of these, nearly 18,000 were alien Jews who were massacred near Kamenets-Podolsk in August 1941, around 1,000 were killed by elements of the Hungarian army and gendarmerie in the Bácska area in January–February 1942, and some 42,000 were labor servicemen who perished or were murdered, mostly along the Soviet front. Nevertheless, before the German occupation Hungarian Jews in general were almost oblivious to the tragedy that befell the Jewish communities in neighboring countries. By late 1943, most of them were convinced that they would survive the war economically impoverished but physically relatively intact. Their optimistic assessment was reinforced by the Kállay government’s increasingly conciliatory domestic measures and daring foreign policy initiatives that were clearly designed to bring about Hungary’s honorable extrication from the Axis Alliance. Unfortunately, however, the leaders of the Third Reich were fully aware of Hungary’s intentions to follow the example of Italy—a move they were resolved to prevent for military, economic, and strategic reasons.

The German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944, put an end to the Kállay regime, sealing the fate of Hungarian Jewry. The new Quisling government of Döme Sztójay, which included a number of rabidly antisemitic figures, was resolved not only to continue the war on the side of the Axis, but also to urgently solve the Jewish question. Appointed with the blessing of Admiral Miklós Horthy, who decided to stay on as Regent of Hungary and thereby preserve the facade of national sovereignty, the new government’s pro-Nazi, anti-Jewish policies were generally accepted as legitimate by the public at large. These policies were loyally carried out by the organs of state power and administration, which proved fatal to the Jews. Guided and actively assisted by the SS, these organs were entrusted with the implementation of the Final Solution program, including the isolation, expropriation, ghettoization, concentration, and deportation of the Jews. The legal cover for these measures was provided by the many legislative and administrative decrees that were enacted by the various governmental agencies, as well as by the understanding that Hitler and Horthy had reached at Schloss Klessheim on March 17 and 18. Under that agreement the regent consented, among other things, to the delivery of some 300,000 Jewish workers for deployment in German war industries. Exploiting that agreement, the German and Hungarian dejewifiers decided to round up and deport all the Jews, facetiously arguing that the Jewish workers would be more content and productive in the company of their loved ones.

The Eichmann Sonderkommando arrived in Hungary with contingency plans. Aware of the Kállay government’s consistent and resolute opposition to German demands for the implementation of the Final Solution program, it was somewhat skeptical of the new regime’s intentions about solving the Jewish question. The SS, however, were surprised by the enthusiasm with which the Hungarians entrusted with this solution—including László Baky and László Endre, the two rabidly antisemitic undersecretaries of state in the Ministry of the Interior—wanted to carry out the Final Solution program. The schedule and scale of their anti-Jewish operation plans exceeded those of the Sonderkommando. The Sztójay government placed the instruments of state power—the police, gendarmerie, and civil service—at the disposal of the SS and their Hungarian accomplices. Since time was of the essence as Soviet forces were fast approaching neighboring Romania, they subjected the Hungarian Jews to the war’s most concentrated and ruthless Final Solution program. What took years in Poland and elsewhere, the Nazis and their Hungarian collaborators accomplished in less than four months in Hungary. By July 9, 1944 (two days after Horthy had officially halted the deportations), all of Hungary (with the notable exception of Budapest) had become judenrein. Ironically, it was on that very day that Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest on his mission of rescue.

The studies included in this volume shed light on many of the historical, political, and socioeconomic factors that shaped Hungarian and Hungarian-Jewish history from 1867 to 1945. They provide analytical insights into the dynamics responsible for the spectacular development, decline, and, finally, destruction of Hungarian Jewry. During their relatively short history as Hungarian citizens enjoying full freedom and equality, Hungarian Jewry experienced unprecedented multilateral progress. This period, which coincided with the lifespan of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867–1918), was followed by one that saw the gradual erosion of their rights and opportunities under the counterrevolutionary regimes that ruled Hungary after World War I. The interwar policies aimed at revising the consequences of the Trianon treaty—Hungary was compelled to yield two-thirds of its territory and three-fifths of its population to the successor states—eventually led to the Hungarian government’s embrace of the Third Reich. The pursuit of revisionist objectives in tandem with the Axis soon led to the adoption of ever more restrictive anti-Jewish measures, which, together with the relentless antisemitic propaganda campaign waged by various fascist parties and movements, prepared the ground for the general acceptance of the Final Solution program after the German occupation.

The study by Randolph L. Braham provides a retrospective analytical overview of the political, cultural, and socioeconomic forces that shaped the relatively brief history of Hungarian Jewry following its emancipation in 1867. Focusing on the Holocaust era, it identifies the paradoxes that characterized this history, emphasizing the ultimately negative consequences of the political attitudes and cultural perceptions the Jews, and especially the Jewish elites, acquired during the so-called Golden Era. The study demonstrates that, paradoxically, these attitudes and perceptions proved counterproductive during the counterrevolutionary period that followed the dismemberment of Hungary in 1918. Among the most patriotic people in Europe, the Hungarian Jews emerged as scapegoats for all the ills of the truncated country and, their past national services notwithstanding, were sacrificed during the Holocaust era.

The scapegoat factor is emphasized in the study by Attila Pók. Using the social-psychological concept of scapegoating, he analyzes the impact of social tensions on individual and group behavior. Fully familiar with the domestic and foreign literature on the subject, Pók succeeds in identifying the relationship between the various forms and stages of Hungarian antisemitism and the destruction of Hungarian Jewry.

Some horrifying background details about that destruction are provided by Rudolf Vrba, who escaped from Auschwitz together with Alfred Wetzler in early April 1944. The account by these two young Slovak Jews about the largest extermination camp in Nazidominated Europe was originally recorded and distributed a few weeks after their escape. Vrba’s frustrations over the failure of the free world to heed his warnings about the impending deportations from Hungary were expressed in his I Cannot Forgive, first published in 1964. In his current study, Vrba offers a shattering eyewitness account of the preparations that were made in the death camp in anticipation of the arrival of massive Hungarian transports. He describes his encounters with various Jewish and Christian secular and ecclesiastical leaders and takes issue with those who questioned some aspects of his account.

When Horthy halted the deportations on July 7, 1944 (they were in fact continued until July 9), only the Jews of Budapest still remained in the country, although segregated in special yellow star-designated buildings. They, too, experienced the ravages of fascism after October 15, 1944, however, when the Arrow Cross (Nyilas) Party acquired power through a coup staged with the assistance of the Germans. Details about this last phase of the Hungarian Holocaust, including the death marches to the borders of the Reich and the two ghettos of Budapest, are provided by László Karsai.

One of the most perplexing and agonizing issues raised in connection with the Holocaust in Hungary relates to the absence of any meaningful resistance, even though by early 1944, four and a half years after the beginning of the war, the Jewish and non-Jewish leaders of the world, including those of Hungary, were already aware of the function of Auschwitz. Tragically, the deportations from the Hungarian provinces proceeded with the same ease and smoothness that characterized the resettlements from Poland and elsewhere in Nazi-dominated Europe earlier in the war, when the great secret was still unbroken. The dilemma of rescue and/or resistance confronted the Zionist youth movements especially hard. This dilemma is subjected to careful historical scrutiny by Asher Cohen. The help provided by the international community, including the Allies, the neutral states, the Vatican, and the International Red Cross, was basically too little and too late. Virtually no assistance was provided to the Jews in the Hungarian provinces. The conscience of the world was aroused only in late June 1944, when the Swiss press published some details about the realities of Auschwitz based on the Vrba-Wetzler Report. The reaction of the free world was swift and effective: the protests lodged by the Vatican, President Roosevelt, and the King of Sweden—to cite just a few—compelled Horthy to halt the deportations. This decision also reflected a somber evaluation of the military realities at the time. However, this action, like the assistance provided by the international community during the few months before the liberation of Hungary, affected primarily the Jews of Budapest. Details about this international intervention, focusing on the role of diplomats, are provided in the study by Robert Rozett.

Miklós Hernádi analyzes the political background of the silence about the Holocaust during much of the Communist era in Hungary. This silence, he argues very cogently, not only froze all free discussion on this great tragedy in Hungarian and Hungarian-Jewish history, but also reinforced and hardened ideological positions on this subject. Hernádi discusses the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish-Christian relations in postwar Hungary, emphasizing that the ideological battles revolving around this issue failed to bring about the desired reconciliation because of a lack of contrition and forgiveness, respectively.

Charles Fenyvesi provides some insights into the differences between Hungarian Jews and those born and raised in the neighboring countries. He illustrates the distinct character of Hungarian Jewry by presenting literary portraits of some of his favorite Hungarian-Jewish personalities, including Dezsö Szomory, the great novelist and playwright, and Yitzhak Taub, the legendary Rabbi of Kálló. (Fenyvesi, by the way, is genealogically linked to both of these towering figures in Hungarian-Jewish intellectual history.) Finally, Menahem Schmelzer offers some personal recollections about the impact of the anti-Jewish policies of various Hungarian governments, in particular those of the Holocaust years, on the varieties of Jews and Jewish communities dwelling in Hungary.

The views and interpretations expressed by the authors are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors or of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Some of the studies, including those of Braham, Hernádi, Pók, and Vrba, have been published with minor variations elsewhere. We wish to express our appreciation to the organizers of the conference, including Dr. Michael Berenbaum and Dr. Wesley Fisher, then director and deputy director, respectively, of the Research Institute. We are also indebted to Elizabeth Braham for her editorial assistance. We owe special thanks to the contributors for their cooperation and for sharing their expertise with the community at large.

Randolph L. Braham

Scott Miller

July 1997

1. Members of a Jewish Hungarian labor service unit lined up waiting to be fed, Abony, Hungary, 1940. (Museum of Contemporary History, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

2. Jewish youth from Técsõ, Hungary, members of HaNoar HaZioni (Zionist Youth), dancing on the shore of the Tisza River, 1942. (Leo and Edith Cove, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

3. Rabbi Immanuel Loew and actor Oszkár Beregi (in top hat) at the dais in the Szeged synagogue. Szeged was a center of the modernist Neolog movement of Hungarian Jewry. (Béla Liebmann, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

4. Photographed in May 1944, a burned-out synagogue in Sighet (Sziget)after the deportation of the Jewish population. Sighet was a center of traditional Jewish living and learning in northern Transylvania, a region annexed by Hungary from Romania in 1940. Most of Sighet’s Jews perished in Auschwitz. (Albert Rosenthal, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

5. The passport photo of Raoul Wallenberg, returned in 1990 to Wallenberg’s family in Sweden. The passport was issued in Stockholm on June 30, 1944, and taken by Wallenberg to Hungary. (Courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

6. Swedish Schutz-Pass provided by Raoul Wallenberg for Frau Alexander Flamm, née Gizella Szántó, and her two children, Georg Thomas and Stefan Johann. The Flamms survived. Georg and Stefan live in Budapest.

7. The first session of the Hungarian council of ministers under the new fascist government of Ferenc Szálasi (center, with hands folded) meets in the Buda palace, October 15, 1944. (U.S. National Archives, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

8. Leaders of the National Council of the Arrow Cross celebrate after the Szálasi takeover of October 1944. Left to right: unidentified, Jenö Szöllösi, Béla Imrédy, József Gera, Ferenc Kassai-Schallmajer. (Hungarian National History Museum, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

9. A Jew wearing a yellow badge is forced to clear rubble from a Budapest street after a 1944 bombing raid. (Jewish Museum of the Dohány Synagogue, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

10. In this captured German photo, Hungarian Arrow Cross execute Jews along the banks of the Danube, Budapest, 1944. (U.S. National Archives, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

11. Hungarian Jewish men and women, separated, await selection on the ramp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. This ramp was built in January 1944, in anticipation of the deportation of the Jews of Hungary. (Yad Vashem Photo Archives, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

1. Rose Hill

2. Royal Castle

3. Swedish Legation

4. The Swedish Houses. One of the streets in the vicinity now bears Raoul Wallenberg’s name.

5. Harmincad Street No. 6, Wallenberg’s last known residence in Budapest.

6. Ullöi Avenue No. 2. Wallenberg’s headquarters.

Budapest 1944

Hungary 1944

Randolph L. Braham

THE HOLOCAUST IN HUNGARY: A RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS

ANTECEDENTS

The Holocaust in Hungary was in many respects distinct from the tragedies that befell other Jewish communities in Nazi-dominated Europe. This distinction is reflected in the disastrous set of historical circumstances that combined to doom Hungarian Jewry in 1944.

The destruction of Hungarian Jewry during that year constitutes one of the most perplexing chapters in the history of the Holocaust. It is a tragedy that should never have happened. By the beginning of 1944—on the eve of Allied victory—the leaders of the world, including the national and Jewish leaders of Hungary, were already privy to the secrets of Auschwitz. Moreover, except for a few die-hards who still believed in Hitler’s last-minute wonder-weapons, even the perpetrators realized that the Axis had lost the war.

The last major phase in the Nazis’ war against the Jews, the Holocaust in Hungary is replete with paradoxes. The roots of one of the most startling of these can be found in the Golden Era of Hungarian Jewry (1867–1918). During this period a cordial, almost symbiotic relationship developed between the aristocratic-conservative and Jewish elites. This very close relationship, however, distorted the Jewish leaders’ perceptions of domestic and world politics during the pre-Holocaust era. While the Jewish elites shared the aristocratic-conservative leaders’ abhorrence of Nazism and Bolshevism, they failed to recognize that the fundamental interests of the Hungarians were not always identical with those of Jewry. Their myopic views proved counterproductive during the interwar period, and disastrous when the Germans occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944.

After its emancipation in 1867, the Jewish community of Hungary enjoyed an unparalleled level of multilateral development, taking full advantage of the opportunities afforded by the so-called liberal regime ruling the country during the pre-World War I era. The Hungarian ruling classes—the gentry and the conservative-aristocratic leaders—adopted a tolerant position toward the Jews. They were motivated not only by economic considerations, but also by the desire to perpetuate their dominant political role in a multinational empire in which Hungarians constituted a minority. Because of Hungary’s feudal tradition, the ruling classes encouraged the Jews to engage in business and industry, so that over time a friendly, cooperative, and mutually advantageous relationship developed between the conservative-aristocratic leaders and the Jewish industrialists, bankers, and financiers—a relationship that was to prove fatal during the Holocaust. The Jews also took full advantage of their new educational opportunities and within a short time came to play an influential, if not dominant, role in the professions, literature, and the arts.

As a consequence of the Hungarian policy of tolerance, the Jews considered themselves an integral part of the Hungarian nation. They eagerly embraced the process of magyarization, opting not only to change their names but also to serve as economic modernizers and cultural magyarizers in the areas inhabited by other nationalities in the polyglot Hungarian Kingdom. The Hungarian Jews, who had no territorial ambitions and naturally supported the group offering them the greatest protection—as did Jews of the Diaspora during their long and arduous history—were soon looked upon as agents for the preservation of the status quo by the oppressed nationalities clamoring for self-determination and independence. The Jews were fully aware of the protection the regime provided against the threat of antisemitism. The prompt and forceful intervention of the government in dealing with anti-Jewish manifestations, sporadic and local, further enhanced the fidelity of the Jews to the Magyar state.

In the course of time the Jews, especially the more acculturated and assimilated, became ever more assertively pro-Magyar. In many cases this allegiance was not only because of expediency or gratitude for the opportunities and safety afforded by the aristocratic-gentry regime, but also because of fervent patriotism. As Oscar Jászi, a noted sociologist and social-democratic statesman, correctly observed, there is no doubt that a large mass of these assimilated elements adopted their new ideology quite spontaneously and enthusiastically out of a sincere love of the new fatherland. Jászi concluded, however, that the intolerant Magyar nationalism and chauvinism of the Jews had done a great deal to poison relations between the Hungarians and the other nationalities of the prewar era. Paul Ignotus, a noted publicist, echoed these sentiments, arguing that the Jews had become more fervently Magyar than the Magyars themselves. A similar conclusion was reached by the noted British historian Robert Seton-Watson, whose sympathies clearly lay with the oppressed nationalities. He claimed in 1908 that the Catholic Church and the Jews form today the two chief bulwarks of Magyar chauvinism.

To some extent the political and economic symbiosis between the conservative-aristocratic and Jewish leaderships during the so-called Golden Era shaped the views and attitudes of both groups toward both the Third Reich and the Soviet Union during the interwar and wartime periods. While the Hungarian leaders looked upon the Third Reich as a possible vehicle for fulfilling their revisionist ambitions, they shared with the Jewish leaders a fear of both German and Russian expansionism and, above all, a mortal dread of Bolshevism. Such attitudes and perceptions guided both leadership groups during the fateful year of 1944 with almost equally disastrous results.

Signs that the commonality of interests (Interessengemeinschaft) between the two groups was, in fact, limited, fragile, and based primarily on expediency were clearly visible even before the end of World War I. Despite the eagerness with which the Hungarian Jews embraced the Magyar cause and the enthusiasm with which they embraced acculturation, they failed, with relatively few exceptions, to fully integrate themselves into Hungarian society. Their ultimate assimilationist expectations were frustrated, for they were accepted socially neither by the aristocratic gentry nor by the disenfranchised and impoverished peasantry. While the gentry exploited Jews politically and economically for the perpetuation of their feudal privileges, the peasants, like a large proportion of the industrial workers, often viewed