History of the Jews in Hungary

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The History of the Jews in Hungary (or on the territory of the former Kingdom of Hungary ) starts according to Jewish historical traditions in the early Middle Ages , although archaeological evidence of a Jewish presence already in Roman times available. After centuries of eventful history, with the devastation of the Holocaust as a low point, the capital Budapest is still a lively center of Jewish culture.

Interior view of the Great Synagogue in Budapest

history

Roman antiquity

Archaeological excavations testify to the presence of Jews who settled in the provinces of Pannonia and Dacia in the wake of the Roman troops . Jews came to the middle Danube in particular through the auxiliary troops raised in the eastern provinces. The first parishes and synagogues came into being. Today, the inscribed stone monuments commissioned by Jews are primarily to be mentioned as primary evidence of this time. With the fall of the Roman Danube provinces during the Great Migration, Pannonia most likely fell to the Huns after long power struggles in AD 433 , with cities such as Sirmium - today near Sremska Mitrovica - successfully defending themselves against the new rule for at least ten years first had to be conquered.

During the Principate's time in Pannonia, troops were stationed mainly along the Danube border. Traces of these early Jews have been preserved in the camp villages belonging to the forts, which very often also developed into trading centers. For example, in 1890 on the ancient burial ground in the Bánom corridor near Esztergom - the location of the Solva fort in Roman times - a rectangular inscription plaque that belonged to a grave building. The stone made for a iudatus and a cassia in the 3rd century AD received a simple incised drawing of the seven-armed candlestick and above it the following Latin-Greek inscription:

Μεμορια Iudati patiri
et μεμορια Κασσιε
εὐλ (ογία)

The population of the camp village of Fort Intercisa - today Dunaújváros - came in the 2nd and 3rd centuries to a not insignificant part from oriental-influenced inhabitants, including Jews. These were the soldiers stationed here temporarily in the Syrian Homs excavated Cohors I milliaria Hemesenorum Aurelia Antoniniana Sagittaria equitata civium Romanorum by (1 teilberittene bow shooting double cohort of Hemesaer Roman citizenship "Aurelia Antoniniana") Intercisa come. The influx of the civilian population from Syria happened in several waves. According to the inscriptions and names on the stone monuments, the oriental population seems to have made up the majority of the population in Intercisa in the first half of the 3rd century . A dedicatory inscription from there that is controversially discussed in science dates from the period between 222 and 235. The inscription is framed by a tabula ansata and dedicated to Deus Aeternus - the eternal God - and the well-being of the then reigning emperor Severus Alexander (222-235) and the imperial mother Julia Mamaea . The Dedicant , a certain Cosmius, was a civil servant, head of the local customs or road station (Praepositus stationis) and possibly head of the Synagogue of Intercisa (Synagoga Iudeorum) , as attested by the inscription . As the inscription reveals, he made a vow with the stone. The inscription is a testimony to the intertwining of monotheistic faith and imperial cult. The synagogue of Intercisa has not yet been proven archaeologically . The foundations of a small apse building from the 4th century, which are located near the ancient west cemetery and are now protected as a cultural monument, were interpreted as a church.

In the Kingdom of Hungary (until 1540)

Post-Roman Jewish written sources have only been handed down from the second half of the 11th century when Jews from Germany, Bohemia and Moravia settled on Hungarian territory. In 1092, in the council of Szabolcs , the church forbade marriages between Jews and Christians, work on Christian holidays, and the purchase of slaves . King Koloman was protecting the Jews residing in his territory at the end of the 11th century when they were attacked by some crusaders . Significant Jewish communities developed in towns under episcopal rule: Buda , Pressburg (today's Bratislava, where a Jewish presence is first attested in 1251), Tyrnau and Gran . After the Hungarian Jews had achieved important positions in economic life in the course of the 12th century, King Andrew II had a provision inserted in the Golden Bull of 1222, according to which Jews were excluded from certain offices and from being granted nobility titles. King Béla IV established the status of the Jews in a privilege of 1251, which was based on the model of similar documents in the surrounding countries. As a result of the Buda Church Council in 1279, Jews were not allowed to lease land and were forced to wear the Jewish ring . However, because of the king's objection, these provisions were not applied consistently.

During the reign of Louis the Great (1342–1382), the hostile influence of the Church in Jewish affairs again became predominant. As a result of the outbreak of the Black Death , Jews were expelled from Hungary for the first time in 1349. General expulsion was ordered in 1360, but around 1364 some Jews were allowed under restrictive conditions, e.g. B. when practicing a profession, return. In 1365 King Ludwig set up the office of “Judge of the Jews”, who was chosen from among the magnates . Its duties included Jewish possessions, the collection and collection of taxes, representing Jews in the authorities and protecting the rights of the Jewish population. King Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490) arranged for an improvement in the status of the Hungarian Jews and at the same time granted protection to the cities, whose inhabitants, mainly merchants and bankers of German descent, saw the Jews as dangerous competitors.

In 1494, 16 Jews were burned at the stake in a ritual murder trial in Trnava . At the beginning of the 16th century, anti-Jewish measures continued in Pressburg , Buda and other cities. The economic situation of the Jews also deteriorated: King Ladislaus II canceled all debts that were outstanding with Jewish creditors. 1,515 Jews were under the direct protection of the emperor and Hungarian Pretenders I. Maximilian asked. During this time, a dishonorable form of the Jewish oath was introduced, which had to be taken in court and was valid until the middle of the 19th century.

In the middle of the 14th century, the most important Hungarian Jewish community was in Székesfehérvár (German: Stuhlweissenburg), whose community chairman ("Parnasim") administered the other communities throughout Hungary. During the 15th century, the Buda community gained importance when Jewish refugees from other countries settled there. Little is known about the intellectual life of the Hungarian Jews in the Middle Ages; however, it is believed to be insignificant compared to neighboring countries because of the dispersed location of the parishes and the small number of members. The first rabbi whose reputation extended beyond Hungary was Isaak Tyrnau . He worked at the beginning of the 15th century and describes in the introduction to his Sefer ha- Minhagim ("Book of Uses") the low level of Torah study in Hungary.

Under Ottoman rule (1541–1686)

After the first temporary conquest of Buda in 1526, many Jewish residents there joined the Turks on their retreat. As a result, communities of Hungarian Jews formed throughout the Balkans . After central Hungary was annexed to the Ottoman Empire in 1541 , the status of the local Jewish population improved. The community in Buda grew, and Sephardim , who had previously lived in Asia Minor and the Balkans, also settled here.

In the Habsburg- ruled areas of Hungary, anti-Jewish riots intensified during this period. In 1529, 30 Jews were burned at the stake after a ritual murder trial in Bazin . The rest were expelled from the city , as in Pressburg, Sopron and Trnava. However, the magnates in western Hungary granted protection to the displaced.

In the Habsburg Monarchy (1686–1918)

External developments

Prince Paul I Esterházy took the Jews, who had been expelled from Vienna by Leopold I in 1670 , into Burgenland , where the newly founded seven communities were granted a privilege in 1690. In Transylvania , the status of the Jews was determined in 1623 by the Protestant ruler Gábor Bethlen .

Maria Theresa , who ruled from 1740 to 1780, was unfavorable to the Jews. In 1744, an annual “tolerance tax” of 20,000 guilders was levied for the first time, which rose continuously and reached 160,000 guilders at the beginning of the 19th century. Under the reign of Maria Theresa's son Joseph II , the situation improved somewhat when, in 1783, Jewish subjects were permitted to stay in royal cities in a tolerance patent . The formation of modern Hungarian Judaism began at the beginning of the 18th century when numerous Jews immigrated to Hungary.

While in the census of 1735 11,612 Jews were counted, the majority of whom came from Moravia and a further part from Poland , in 1787 there were around 81,000 Jews in Hungary.

The discussion about the granting of basic rights to the Jewish population began in Hungary in the 1830s. After numerous Jews participated in the failed revolution of 1848 , the Austro-Hungarian government imposed a collective fine of 2.3 million guilders, which was later reduced to a million and returned in 1856 in the form of a fund for schools and charities. Most of the restrictions - the obligation to obey Jews, the need for a marriage permit, a ban on land ownership, and others - were lifted in 1859-60 and Jews were granted freedom of trade and freedom of movement .

Shortly after the Compromise of 1867, the law on the emancipation of the Jews was passed in parliament on December 20, 1867 without significant opposition. During this period there was a significant increase in the Jewish population in Hungary, which was based on both a surplus of births and immigration from neighboring regions, especially from Galicia .

After 340,000 Jews were counted in 1850, their number rose to 542,000 by 1869 and to 910,000 by 1910.

Jews played an important role in the development of Hungary's capitalist economy in the second half of the 19th century. Before World War I , they made up 55–60% of the nation's total number of merchants, 45% of entrepreneurs, 42% of journalists, 45% of lawyers and 49% of medical professionals. On the other hand, few Jews were employed in public administration. The identification of the Hungarian Jews with the Magyar element of the Hungarian kingdom had political consequences: In 1895 Judaism received official recognition and enjoyed the same rights as Catholicism and Protestantism. This law was passed despite considerable opposition from the Catholic Church and the allied magnates, who had previously postponed ratification three times.

Under the leadership of MP Gyözö Istóczy , political anti-Semitism developed into an ideological trend since the mid-1870s. This development reached a climax with the Tiszaeszlár affair in 1882, in which medieval ritual murder accusations were repeated. Although all of the accused were acquitted, the situation did not calm down. At the turn of the century, the Catholic People's Party became the main carrier of anti-Semitism. As her main task she saw the fight against alleged anti-Christian and corrupting ideas, especially liberalism and socialism . Anti-Semitism was also widespread among the national minorities , especially the Slovaks . This was mainly due to the fact that the Hungarian Jews identified themselves to a large extent with the nationalist Magyarization policy .

In the First World War, about 10,000 Jews were soldiers. At the same time, after the lost war, the anti-Jewish mood increased due to the presence of numerous refugees from Russia- occupied Galicia and the active participation of Jews in the war economy .

Internal developments

Budapest Rabbinical Seminary
"In a synagogue in Hungary", watercolor drawing by Ernst Oppler

At the beginning of the 19th century, Hungarian Jews were divided into three parts in terms of their linguistic and cultural origins: In the so-called "Oberland" - today's Burgenland and Slovakia west of the Tatra Mountains - they spoke German or West Yiddish , in the "Unterland" - Slovakia east of the Tatra Mountains , Transcarpathian Oblast and Northern Transylvania - they spoke East Yiddish , and the vast majority of Jews in central Hungary spoke Hungarian . When classifying the inhabitants by nationality , the majority of Hungarian Jews identified themselves as Hungarians. Since, in contrast to other Central and Eastern European countries (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union) no Jewish nationality was intended, the Jews were drawn into the power struggle between the ruling Hungarian nation and the national minorities .

An important element in the internal development of the 19th century was the conflict between the Orthodox and the reform movements. Under the leadership of Rabbi Moses Sofer , Pressburg became a spiritual center of Orthodoxy at the beginning of the 19th century, and the yeshiva there became the most important of its kind in Central Europe. Other important yeshivot were in Galanta , Eisenstadt , Pápa , Huszt and Szatmárnémeti , where the Hasidic Satmar movement arose. The Hasidism found numerous followers in Northeast Hungary and came across no significant resistance on the part of the rabbis. Hasidic centers were also located in Satoraljaujhely , Máramarossziget and Munkács in Carpathian Ukraine . The tzaddikim from Belz and Zans (successors to Chaim Halberstam ) also found numerous followers in Hungary.

On the liberal side, the Haskala movement developed from the 1830s . The first leading representatives of reforms here were Aaron Chorin and Leopold Löw . The reform movement, which has been known as neology in Hungary since the 19th century , did not find any extreme supporters here, but the desire to introduce moderate innovations in education and religious life bore fruit and met with fierce opposition in Orthodox circles. The polemics between Orthodox and reformers were a central part of the General Jewish Congress, which was convened by the government in 1868. As a result of the congress, there was a threefold division into orthodox communities, neology communities and so-called status quo communities, which neither side joined.

Political Zionism was decisively shaped by Theodor Herzl , who was born and raised in Budapest . The national ideals of the Zionist movement, however, found favor with only a few academics and Orthodox, while both Orthodox and neologists, who sought assimilation , opposed a majority and unequivocal opposition.

The boom in the 19th century led to brisk construction activity , especially in the capital Budapest . In 1859 the Great Synagogue in Dohany Street was inaugurated; to the present day it is the largest synagogue in Europe. Many important rabbis emerged from the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary , which opened in 1877 .

Immanuel Löw (1854–1944), rabbi in Szeged and Hungarian member of parliament

Between the World Wars (1919-1940)

In the period between the two world wars, Hungarian Judaism underwent significant changes. As a result of the Peace of Trianon, Hungary had lost 63 percent of its territory to the surrounding states. The number of Hungarian Jews was reduced by half: in 1920 there were 470,000 Jews in Hungary. In the twenties and thirties there was a further decline and an aging population. Since the large Orthodox centers from before the First World War no longer belonged to Hungary, over half of the Hungarian Jews lived in the greater Budapest area.

In the short-lived Soviet republic under Béla Kun , numerous Jews were represented in leading government offices. After the suppression of the communist revolution, numerous acts of anti-Jewish violence were recorded. The " white terror " claimed an estimated 3,000 lives in Hungary.

After the political situation stabilized, the violence subsided, but the government continued to pursue anti-Semitic policies. In 1920 a numerus clausus was established, according to which the number of Jews at universities could not exceed five percent. The situation improved from 1921, when István Bethlen became Prime Minister and held that office until 1931. In 1928 the numerus clausus provisions were weakened, and in the same year the reform rabbi Immanuel Löw and the orthodox rabbi Koppel Reich were appointed as representatives in the upper house of parliament.

In the late 1930s, anti-Jewish politics intensified under the growing influence of right-wing circles and German National Socialists. In 1938 and 1939 “Jewish laws” were enacted which reduced the number of Jews in the liberal professions, in administration as well as in trade and industry to 20 percent and later to five percent; their political rights were also restricted.

Second World War under Hungarian rule (1940-1944)

See also: Hungary in World War II

As a result of the two Viennese arbitration awards by the Foreign Ministers of Hitler and Mussolini , the Czechoslovak regions of southern Slovakia ( Felvidék ) and Ruthenia ( Carpathian Ukraine ) and in 1940 part of Romanian Transylvania were added to Hungary, where a total of around 300,000 Jews lived. Another 20,000 Jews were added by the joint German-Hungarian occupation of the Yugoslav Batschka in April 1941.

The first mass murder of European Jews in the course of the Holocaust took place at the end of August 1941. About 23,600 Jews, most of whom came from the former Czechoslovakian territories conquered by Hungary and whose citizenship was disputed, were expelled to German-occupied Galicia and in the Kamenets massacre. Podolsk shot by SS troops and German law enforcement officers under the command of Friedrich Jeckeln . In January 1942 around 1,000 Jews were shot by police and soldiers in the Batschka, mainly in Novi Sad .

After Prime Minister László Bárdossy declared war on the USSR in June 1941 and Hungary joined the German war against the Soviet Union , up to 50,000 Jews who were excluded from military service in Hungary were sent to the Eastern Front as forced laborers. After the great breakthrough of the Soviet Army near Rostov-on-Don in January 1943, the 2nd Hungarian Army disbanded and fled in panic. It is estimated that at least 40,000 Jews died in this withdrawal.

The situation of the slave laborers who remained in Hungary improved after Prime Minister Miklós Kállay took office on March 10, 1942. In April 1942, Kállay called for the “resettlement” of 800,000 Jews as a “final solution to the Jewish question”, but emphasized that this would only take place after End of war could be carried out. In agreement with Miklós Horthy , Kállay avoided drastic steps and withstood pressure from the German government. She was dissatisfied with Kally's half-hearted measures and increased the pressure on Hungary from October 1942 to achieve the complete removal of the Jewish population from economic and cultural life, the wearing of the Jewish star and finally deportation to the extermination camps through legislative measures .

In April 1943, in a meeting with Horthy, Hitler condemned the Hungarian treatment of the “ Jewish question ” as indecisive and ineffective. That year, the government under Kállay resolved to eliminate Jews from public and cultural life, while the number of Jews in economic life was limited to six percent by a numerus clausus. At the same time, the Kállay government conducted secret negotiations with the Western allies in the course of 1943 and early 1944 in order to keep Hungary out of the war. In December 1943, the perpetrators of the anti-Jewish and anti-Serb riots in the Batschka of January 1942 were brought before a military court . This was seen by the German side as an attempt to strengthen the Hungarian position with Jews and Allies, which significantly increased tensions between Berlin and Budapest.

Under German occupation (1944–1945)

See also: The murder of the Hungarian Jews

Preparation for the Holocaust

At the beginning of March 1944, the occupation of Hungary (" Margarethe case ") was decided in Berlin . The German government used the alleged sabotage of the “ final solution to the Jewish question ” by the Hungarian government as an argument for this step . When the German occupation of Hungary began on March 19, 1944, around 63,000 Jews had already fallen victim to the persecution.

A few days before the occupation, on March 12, 1944, Adolf Eichmann , head of the “ Judenreferat ” at the RSHA , began preparations in Mauthausen to set up the special task force to exterminate the Hungarian Jews. Most of the members of the Sonderkommando, including Hermann Krumey and Dieter Wisliceny , came to Budapest on the day of the occupation, while Eichmann arrived two days later. Edmund Veesenmayer , the newly appointed Minister and Reich Plenipotentiary, as well as SS and Police Leader Otto Winkelmann received special powers from the German side with regard to Jewish affairs.

On March 22nd, a new government was established with Döme Sztójay as prime minister. It consisted of extreme supporters of National Socialism, willing collaborators with Germany in carrying out the "Final Solution". Hundreds of Jews in Budapest and other cities were arrested on the first evening of the occupation and held in internment camps such as in Kistarcsa and Sárvár . By mid-April the number of prisoners rose to around 8,000 people.

The Jewish organizations were dissolved throughout the country, and on March 20, an eight-member Jewish Council (“Zsidó Tanács”) was set up in Budapest to enforce the German measures within the Jewish community. In addition, on May 6th, the Hungarian government appointed a “Provisional Executive Committee of the Jewish Federation of Hungary” to ensure full compliance with anti-Jewish measures. Since at that time the Jews outside Budapest were already concentrated in ghettos and the community life had ceased to exist, this committee was a mere fiction with the additional aim of giving the government measures a semblance of legality. Another task of these Jewish organizations was to ensure the complete transfer of Jewish assets. The new government passed over 100 laws to completely exclude Jews from economic and cultural life. Jewish-owned businesses were closed and items valued at over 3,000 pengő were confiscated.

On March 31, 1944, the wearing of the yellow Jewish star was prescribed. A Hungarian-German agreement signed in mid-April initially provided that 100,000 Jews fit for work would be sent to German factories over the course of the following two months. At the end of April this plan was changed by the German side, however, in that all criteria for work ability were abolished and the deportation of the entire Jewish population to concentration camps was required.

The Holocaust in the Province

About 95% of deportees from Hungary from May to July 1944 were Jews after Auschwitz sent

The planned mass murder of the Jews in Hungary was initially carried out in the provinces. On May 15, 1944, the deportations to Auschwitz began in northeastern Hungary , with daily transports of two to three thousand people. By July 9, 1944, according to Veesenmayer's reports, a total of 437,402 Jews had been deported from the five zones established for this purpose (Zone I: Transcarpathia , Zone II: Northern Transylvania , Zone III: Northwest Hungary, Zone IV: Southern Hungary, Zone V: Transdanubia and suburbs of Budapest). About 95% of the deportees were sent to Auschwitz, where extensive preparations for their mass murder (the so-called " Hungary Action ") had been made under the site commandant Rudolf Höß . Those able to work were distributed to 386 satellite camps in the German-occupied areas and in the German Reich for “ destruction through work ” .

Since the expulsion of the last Jewish inhabitants from the small town of Kőszeg on June 18, 1944, the Kőszeg synagogue has been left to decay.

The Holocaust in Budapest

Hungarian and German soldiers drive arrested Jews into the city theater in October 1944 (recording from the Federal Archives).
Arrested Jews on Wesselényi Street in Budapest, October 1944
Protection pass for Josefa Frankel, September 29, 1944

After the completion of the deportations from the Hungarian provinces, activities shifted to the deportation of Budapest Jews after their previous ghettoization : According to an ordinance of the Interior Ministry of June 15, 1944, around 2000 Budapest houses, which were marked with a yellow star , were supposed to be 220,000 Jews will be housed. On June 25, Jews in Budapest were also banned from going out.

Thanks to several foreign interventions from May 1944, numerous Budapest Jews were saved from extermination. In January 1943, a Zionist Aid and Rescue Committee for Jews in the surrounding countries was formed in Budapest . The committee was headed by Otto Komoly, Rezsö Kasztner was vice-president, and Joel Brand led underground operations to rescue Polish Jews. Brand was sent to Istanbul by Eichmann in May 1944 in order to negotiate between the Germans and the Allies to exchange Hungarian Jews for war material, mainly trucks. The plan, known as “Blood Against Goods”, was ultimately not carried out. Kasztner was able to conclude an agreement with Eichmann, according to which 1658 Hungarian Jews left Budapest on June 30, 1944 at a fixed head price of 1000 dollars on a train, which first arrived in Bergen-Belsen on July 9 . On August 18, 318 of them were able to enter Switzerland, and on December 6, a further 1,368 of them. In June 1944, the media (newspapers, magazines, radio) in Switzerland, other neutral and allied countries published details of the fate of the Hungarian Jews. As a result, numerous personalities, including the Swedish King ( Gustav V ), the Vatican and the International Committee of the Red Cross , Hungarian Protestant bishops and the Hungarian Primate Serédi at Horthy campaigned for the end of the deportations. These interventions led to the decision to end the deportations on July 8, which Heinrich Himmler also agreed to at the end of July. At the same time, László Endre and László Baky, the two state secretaries of the Ministry of the Interior responsible for “de-Judaism”, were dismissed.

At the end of August the situation improved when the government under Sztójay von Horthy was dismissed and replaced by a less pro-German government under General Géza Lakatos . Lakatos was overthrown on October 15th by fascist Arrow Cross members ; Ferenc Szálasi installed a fascist government.

Eichmann, who had left Budapest on August 24th, returned on October 17th and resumed the deportation of the Budapest Jews. These were now divided into two groups: the majority were locked up in a central ghetto in Erzsébetváros , while a small part lived in houses and quarters that were under the protection of neutral states. The Swiss diplomat Friedrich Born , head of the ICRC delegation in Budapest from May 10, 1944 until the end of the war , saved over 10,000 Jews through his activities; likewise the Swiss diplomats Carl Lutz , Maximilian Jaeger and Harald Feller . Other helpers who later became known were Angel Sanz Briz and Giorgio Perlasca (Spanish Embassy), Angelo Rotta ( Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See ), the Swede Raoul Wallenberg and the German Legation Councilor Gerhart Feine .

As a preliminary measure in the run-up to the deportations, the male Jewish population between 16 and 60 years of age was used for forced labor on fortifications. The deportation plans provided that in November 1944 two transports of 50,000 people each should be sent to the German Reich . These plans were changed as a result of the military development on the Eastern Front . Soviet troops began to occupy northern Transylvania as early as the end of September (see Eastern Carpathian Operation ), and eastern, southern and northeastern Hungary were occupied soon after. On November 2, the Red Army reached the Budapest suburbs, whereupon the Battle of Budapest began, until Budapest was occupied by Soviet troops on January 18, 1945 and the ghetto inmates were liberated. Under these circumstances, the forced laborers were driven towards western Hungary. On November 8, 1944, around 25,000 Budapest Jews crossed the Austrian border at Hegyeshalom ; later up to 60,000 more followed. They were used to build the " Southeast Wall ". Thousands of them died from hunger, illness and exertion or were shot by guards (the Rechnitz massacre and the massacre of Deutsch Schützen ). Of the Jews who stayed in Budapest, around 98,000 died by the time the Soviet occupied the capital on January 18, 1945. About 3,000 of them were shot and thrown into the Danube (see Shoes on the Danube Bank ).

In the summer of 1944, an attempt by the Hagana to smuggle Jews of Hungarian descent from Palestine into Hungarian territory as parachutists failed . They were deployed by the British Army on Yugoslav territory and from there reached Hungary, but were captured. Two of them, Perez Goldstein and Hannah Szenes , were executed.

Some efforts by neutral states to save Budapest's Jews, however, proved to be successful. By the end of October 1944, the Salvadoran Consulate Secretary George Mandel-Mantello issued over 1,600 protection passes . Thousands of letters of protection were issued by the Swiss diplomats Carl Lutz , Harald Feller and Friedrich Born , the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg , the Spanish diplomat Ángel Sanz Briz (supported by the Italian businessman Giorgio Perlasca ) and the Apostolic Nuncio Angelo Rotta . These diplomats were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli institution Yad Vashem . By the end of 1944, 22,000 Budapest Jews were under diplomatic protection from neutral states or the ICRC .

Of the 825,000 people who lived within Hungary's borders from 1941 to 1945 and were considered Jews, about 565,000 (68.5%) died in the Holocaust; the remaining 260,000 survived.

In the People's Republic of Hungary (1946–1989)

The first post-war years were characterized by unsteady migration. Some death camp and labor camp survivors were able to return to their previous homes. Of the 473 communities that existed before the war, 266 were initially rebuilt. Around 200,000 Jews survived the Shoah in Hungary. In the following years, however, most of the provincial towns were abandoned, with the exception of a few larger towns such as Miskolc , Pécs , Debrecen and Szeged , where Jewish communities still exist today.

The year 1946 was marked by numerous pogroms . In May there was a pogrom in the village of Kunmadaras, in July another in Miskolc, in which five people were killed. From 1946 to 1952, the American Joint Distribution Committee was heavily involved in rebuilding impoverished communities, spending $ 52 million on food, welfare, and education. Relations between Hungary and the United States deteriorated in the wake of the Cold War , and in 1953 the joint had to cease operations. After Hungary's transformation into a communist people 's republic , Zionist organizations were dissolved in March 1949 and their leaders were sentenced to prison terms. An estimated 20,000 Jews left Hungary during the Hungarian uprising of 1956.

Since the end of the Second World War , relations between Jews in Hungary and their fellow believers in other countries have changed dramatically. In the first post-war years, Hungary was initially represented in the World Jewish Congress and sent representatives to international Jewish conferences. These contacts were reduced after the communist seizure of power, but revived in the course of the 1960s during “ goulash communism ”. The Budapest Rabbinical Seminary, under the direction of Alexander Scheiber, was the only institution of its kind in all of Eastern Europe at that time. Diplomatic relations with Israel , which were established in 1948 and broken off in the 1967 Six Day War, following the example of the Soviet Union , were re-established in the course of the democratic reforms in the early 1990s.

As in the other communist states of Europe, there was officially neither nationalism nor anti-Semitism in Hungary. Hostility towards Jews continued to exist in most communist states under the guise of anti-capitalism. The religious restrictions also affected the Jewish Hungarians.

In today's Hungary (since 1989)

Shoes on the Danube Bank , Budapest

With the end of the communist era, the situation of the Jews changed fundamentally. Jewish associations emerged, reviving the cultural and religious heritage.

On April 15, 2004, 60 years after the start of the ghettoization and the deportations of Hungarian Jews, the Budapest Holocaust Documentation Center was opened. It is the fifth of its kind in the world and the first in Eastern Europe. In April 2005, a memorial by the artist Gyula Pauer was erected south of the parliament in Budapest. There are 60 pairs of metal shoes along the banks of the Danube, commemorating the shootings of Jews there in the last weeks of the war.

An estimated 80–90,000 Jews live in Hungary today. This makes it the fourth largest municipality in Europe. The vast majority of them, 60–70,000, live in the capital Budapest. There are around 20 synagogues here and numerous facilities for the promotion of religious life, welfare and education.

Demographics

year 1735 1787 1840 1869 1900 1914 1945 1965 1983 2001
Total population 17,000,000 10,146,000 10,713,000 10,100,000
Jews 11,621 81,000 200,000 542,000 850,000 1,000,000 200,000 80,000 65,000 80,000
proportion of 4% 6% 0.788% 0.607%

Sources: 1735 :; 1787 :; 1840 :; 1869 :; 1900 :; 1914 :; 1945: 1965: 1983: 2001:

Chief Rabbi

The list contains a list of the chief rabbis of Finland: → States in Europe under Hungary.

The list contains a list of the Chief Rabbis of Budapest: → Cities in Europe under Budapest and Sátoraljaújhely.

people

Persons of Hungarian-Jewish descent or Jewish persons with a connection to Hungary are among many others:

art

politics

religion

Sports

Economy and finance

science

photos

  • Adam Fischer, 2008

  • Judit and Zsófia Polgár, Chess Olympiad 1988

  • George Soros, 2010

  • Ephraim Kishon

  • Lajos Tihanyi, self-portrait

See also

Communities

Synagogues

literature

in order of appearance

  • United Restitution Organization (Ed.): Persecution of Jews in Hungary. Frankfurt 1959.
  • Johann Weidlein : Hungarian anti-Semitism in documents . Self-published by the author, Schorndorf 1962.
  • Encyclopaedia Judaica , Vol. 8: He-Ir , 1971, pp. 1077-1110.
  • Rolf Fischer: Development stages of anti-Semitism in Hungary 1867-1939. The destruction of the Magyar-Jewish symbiosis. Oldenbourg, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-486-54731-3 .
  • Christian Gerlach , Götz Aly : The last chapter. Realpolitik, ideology and the murder of the Hungarian Jews. DVA, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-421-05505-X .
  • Brigitte Mihok: Hungary . Handbuch des Antisemitismus , Volume 1, 2008, pp. 388–394.
  • Julia Richers : Jewish Budapest. Cultural topographies of a municipality in the 19th century, (= life worlds of Eastern European Jews , vol. 12), Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20471-6 . ( Review )
  • Ladislaus Löb: Business with the devil. The tragedy of the rescuer Rezsö Kasztner. Report from a survivor. Böhlau, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-412-20389-4 .
  • Ferenc Laczó: Between Assimilation and Catastrophe. Hungarian Jewish Intellectual Discourses in the Shadow of Nazism [Between Assimilation and Catastrophe. Hungarian-Jewish intellectual discourses in the shadow of National Socialism]. Dissertation, Historical Institute of the Central European University , Budapest 2010.
  • Éva Somogyi: Compensation. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 1: A-Cl. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2011, ISBN 978-3-476-02501-2 , pp. 207-209.
  • Viktória Bányai: Hungarian. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 6: Ta-Z. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2015, ISBN 978-3-476-02506-7 , pp. 219-223.
as an autobiography
  • Eva Szepesi : A girl on the run alone. Hungary, Slovakia Poland. Metropol, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86331-005-9 (with a scientific introduction by Babette Quinkert on Hungary 1944).

Web links

Commons : Judaism in Hungary  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herwig Wolfram: Salzburg - Bavaria - Austria. The Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum and the sources of their time. Oldenbourg Verlag, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-7029-0404-2 , p. 104.
  2. ↑ CIL 3, 10599 ; Zoltán Kádár : The Asia Minor-Syrian cults during Roman times in Hungary. Brill, Leiden 1962. p. 42; Alexander Scheiber: Jewish inscriptions in Hungary, from the 3rd century to 1686. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest - Brill, Leiden 1983, ISBN 9630533049 / ISBN 9789630533041 , p. 42. The inscription is now in the Jewish Museum in Budapest .
  3. ^ Eszter B. Vágó; István Bóna: The burial grounds of Intercisa I. The late Roman southeast cemetery. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 1976. ISBN 963-05-1139-8 . P. 183.
  4. ↑ Zoltán Kádár: The Asia Minor-Syrian Cults in Roman Times in Hungary. EJ Brill, Leiden 1962. p. 19.
  5. ^ László Barkóczi: Pannonian glass finds in Hungary. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 1988, ISBN 963-05-4286-2 , p. 34.
  6. ↑ CIL 3, 3327
  7. ↑ Zoltán Kádár: The Asia Minor-Syrian Cults in Roman Times in Hungary. Brill Verlag, Leiden 1962, pp. 25-26.
  8. ^ Zsolt Visy: The Pannonian Limes in Hungary . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-8062-0488-8 , p. 104.
  9. ^ Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, Paul R. Magocsi, The Carpathian Diaspora: The Jews of Subcarpathian Rus' and Mukachevo, 1848–1948 . East European Monographs, 2007. p. 5.
  10. ↑ Rela Mintz Gefen: Judaism, Conservativ, Masorti, Neolog . In: Judith Reesa Baskin (Ed.): The Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-82597-9 , pp. 338 ff .
  11. ↑ See Israelitischer Landeskogress. In: Dan Diner, Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture: Volume 3: He – Lu . Springer-Verlag, 2016. pp. 150–155.
  12. ↑ In stock Balf 30,000 Jews were approx housed in Budapest.
  13. ↑ [1] www.jcrelations.net, accessed December 2, 2012.
  14. ↑ [2] www.hagalil.com, accessed on December 2, 2012.
  15. ↑ [3] www.hagalil.com, accessed on December 2, 2012.
  16. ↑ [4] www.jcrelations.net, accessed December 2, 2012.
  17. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. www.ldn-knigi.lib.ru, accessed on December 2, 2012.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ldn-knigi.lib.ru
  18. ↑ [5] www.jcrelations.net, accessed December 2, 2012.
  19. ↑ [6] www.hagalil.com, accessed on December 2, 2012.
  20. ↑ [7] (PDF; 97 kB) www.ajcarchives.org, English, accessed on January 18, 2013.
  21. ↑ [8] (PDF; 97 kB) www.ajcarchives.org, English, accessed on January 18, 2013.
  22. ↑ [9] (PDF; 97 kB) www.ajcarchives.org, English, accessed on January 18, 2013.
  23. ↑ % 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 20Result% 3A% 20no% 20post% 20sending% 20forms% 20are% 20found% 3B www.imre-kertesz-kolleg.uni-jena.de