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How did the German occupation of Hungary affect Hungarian Jews in 1944?
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Auschwitz
The entrance gates to the Auschwitz concentration camp, near Kraków, Poland; the sign reads “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Liberates”).
The German occupation of Hungary, which began on March 19, 1944, resulted in a sudden and catastrophic escalation of the persecution of Hungarian Jews. While Hungary had previously resisted deportations, the new collaborationist government under Dőme Sztójay facilitated Nazi policies, leading to the rapid implementation of the Final Solution within just 16 weeks.12
The impact on the Jewish population was immediate and systematic:
- Disenfranchisement and Confinement: Jews were forced to wear yellow stars, stripped of their property, and incarcerated in ghettos.23
- Mass Deportations: Beginning on May 15, 1944, more than 437,000 Jews were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp over the course of 55 days.1
- Systematic Murder: The majority of these deportees were sent to gas chambers upon arrival. In total, approximately 550,000 of Hungary’s 800,000 Jews perished during the war.213
Despite these horrors, approximately 250,000 Hungarian Jews survived, aided by the courageous efforts of sympathetic citizens and neutral diplomats, such as Raoul Wallenberg, who worked to prevent further deportations.21