Nazi Deportation of Hungarian
Jews at the Expense of Losing
the War
Lisa Armstrong
St. Thomas Aquinas High School
Overland Park, KS
The Holocaust
• The Holocaust refers to a specific
genocidal event in twentiethcentury history: the statesponsored, systematic persecution
and annihilation of European Jewry
by Nazi Germany and its
collaborators between 1933 and
1945.
Nazis Transform Germany into a
“Racial State”
• Nuremberg Laws passed in Germany to
revoke Jewish citizenship and rights
beginning in 1933
• Nazis begin the war against Jews
Expanding the Racial Campaigns
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March 1938: Germany occupies Austria
March 1939: Germany occupies Czechoslovakia
September 1939: Germany invades Poland
Jews of Poland put into ghettos
June 1941: Germany invades Russia
Einsatzgruppen: Mobile Killing Squads
Feb. 1942: Auschwitz opens
Hungary before WWII
• Modern Hungary est. 1918
• One of Germany’s most loyal allies
• Antisemitic government
Antisemitism in Hungary
• Prewar: Pogroms, restrictions from
attending universities, eliminations from
public service
• 1938: Anti-Jewish laws passed
• 1941: Exiled 17,000 “stateless Jews”—
those who were not used as slave laborers
were executed by Nazi Einsatzgruppen
Hungary during WWII
• 1938: Ally of Germany in taking over
Czechoslovakia
• 1941: Aided Germany in the invasion of
Russia
• 1943: Hitler upset with Hungary’s seeming
“neutrality” in the war, and for not doing
more to “eliminate” their Jews
(Dawidowicz 379).
German Occupation of Hungary
• March, 1944: Hitler declares occupation
• SS and Reich leader Edmund Veesenmeyer
rules Hungarian government
Arrow Cross Party
• Antisemitic Hungarian
• Intimidated and harrassed Jews
• 1944 ordered remaining Jews of Budapest
into ghetto
Intimidation by Nazi forces
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Gestapo moved into Hungarian towns
Listed all wealthy individuals
Took leaders into custody
Threatened to shoot leaders if the wealthy
wouldn’t pay (Gilbert 662).
A synagogue used as a warehouse for the belongings of deported Jews. Szeged ghetto, Hungary,
1944.
Deportations
• Adolf Eichmann
• 10 March 1944:
meeting at
Mauthausen
concentration camp to
plan the deportation of
750,000 Jews of
Hungary
Railroads
• Principal means for transporting troops,
munitions, supplies & raw materials
(Hilberg)
• Daily usage for military and industrial
purposes
• YET, freight trains also used for
deportations of Jews
First Deportations
• March 19, 1944: Nazis
occupy Hungary
• 200 Jewish doctors and
lawyers from Budapest
deported to Mauthausen
• Nazis sent 12,000
Hungarian Jews a day to
Auschwitz
Deportations
• By June 7, 290,000 Jews
from Carpathia &
Transylvania (where Elie
Wiesel is from) had been
deported
• By July 7, over 437,000
Hungarian Jews had been
deported to Auschwitz.
(Dawidowicz)
Slave Labor
• Thousands were also sent to the border
with Austria to be deployed at digging
fortification trenches.
• 100,000 Hungarian Jews were brought
to German Labor Camps because “Hitler
allowed Himmler and Speer to bring
some Jews into Germany to add to the
labor force needed for military
production” (Bergman 212).
THE ECONOMIC BALANCE
SHEET
Deportations
• By the end of July
1944, the only
Jewish
community left in
Hungary was that
of Budapest, the
capital.
The Last Days
• Academy Award
winning documentary
• Personal accounts of
five Hungarian Jews
who survived
Night by Elie Wiesel
• Nonfiction
• Sighet, in the region of
Transylvania, Hungary
World Response
•Listening to London news--1942,
1943--progress of Allies
•Russian army making progress-1944
Persecution
•Gradual reduction of rights
•Einsatzgruppen--Moshe’s reports
•Ghetto experience
•“liquidation” of the ghetto
•train ride to Birkenau
Antisemitism/Racism
•Dehumanization in the camps
•Bystanders watching them leave the
ghetto
•Bystanders watching them on the
death march
The Final Solution
•Death camp--Birkenau
•concentration camps--Auschwitz,
Buna, Gleiwitz, Buchenwald
Raoul Wallenberg
Better Late than Never
• Arrived in Budapest in July of 1944
• Agent of American War Refugee Board
• Swedish Government
Swedish Passports
• 250,000 Jews
remained in Hungary
• Holders under the
protection of Swedish
legation until
emigration to Sweden
Swedish Housing
• Nazis wouldn’t allow
Jews to cross
Germany into Sweden
• Wallenberg purchased
or rented 32 buildings
in Budapest
• Housed at least 20,000
Jews awaiting
“emigration” to
Sweden
Protection of “Sealed Ghetto”
• Wallenberg saved
70,000 Jews by
demanding that
German commander
prevent eminent
murders
• Convinced
commander that he
would be hung when
the Russians came
Wallenberg the Hero
• He gave us the sense that we were still human
beings. My mother and I were among thousands
taken one night to stay at a brick factory outside
Budapest. There was no food, no water, no
sanitation facilities, no light. Then Wallenberg
appeared and said he would try to return with
passports, or “safety passes,” as we called them and
would also try to get medical attention and sanitation
facilities. Soon afterward, some doctors and nurses
came from the Jewish Hospital. The point about
Wallenberg is that he came himself. He talked to us
and showed us that one human being cared about
what was happening to us (Facing History 409).
Elie Wiesel on Wallenberg:
• “Sadly, tragically, Raoul Wallenberg belonged to a
small minority. And his mission started late, much
too late, at a time when, except for those in the
Hungarian capital, there were no more Jews left to
be saved. Why had he not been sent earlier? Why
had other diplomats not been dispatched to other
cities on similar rescue operations? What would
have happened if, in 1943, neutral nations had
offered protection to the Jews of Warsaw, if great
powers had offered citizenship to the Jews of Paris
and Amsterdam?”
How would you answer Wiesel’s
questions?
Would such an effort have stopped
fate or even reversed it?
IT IS NOT ENOUGH
TO BE
COMPASSIONATE;
YOU MUST ACT
Resources
• Bergen, Doris. War and Genocide.
• Chamberlain, Scott. The Last Days: A Study Guide. Shoah
Foundation. Los Angeles 1999-2000.
• Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The War Against the Jews 1933-1945. Bantam
Books. New York 1975.
• Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior.
Brookline, Mass. 1994.
• Gilbert, Martin. The Macmillan Atlas of the Holocaust. Da Capo
Press. New York 1982.
• Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe
During the Second World War. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. New York
1985.
• Hilberg, Raul. Destruction of the European Jews.
• Wiesel, Elie. Night. Bantam Books. New York 1960.
• Wiesel, Elie. Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea. Shocken Books.
New York, 1995.