Gendarmes,
Policemen, Functionaries and the Jews
New Findings on the Behavior of Hungarian Authorities
During the Holocaust
by
Judit Molnár
University of
Szeged
The subject of this
paper is the Holocaust and the events of 1944 in Hungary,
but
before I discuss
these subjects, let me say a few words about the rise of
political anti-Semitism
in Hungary between
the two world wars.
1
The appearance of
political anti-Semitism in Hungary can be dated to the
1870s and
1880s. Yet, at that
time, the liberal government was still very much in favor
of the assimilation
of the Jews, who
were playing a significant role in the modernization of
the country.
The
counter-revolutionary regime, which followed the
revolutions of 1918-1919,
created an
antidemocratic, conservative form of government that
raised anti-Semitism to the
level of official
policy. The two revolutions and the traumatic loss of two
thirds of the territory
of Hungary at the
end of World War I, were closely connected in the
consciousness of society.
Exploiting this,
counter-revolutionary propaganda made the revolutions
responsible for the
disastrous peace
treaty signed at Trianon in 1920. From there, it was but
a small step to
connect liberalism,
the democratic civil movements, and the Communist Soviet
Republic to the
Jews. According to
this theory, the Jews "had made" the revolutions and were
therefore
responsible for
Trianon and for all the social and economic troubles of
the mutilated country.
Despite this
anti-Semitic propaganda, many Jews were not to be
persuaded, until World War
II, that whereas
before 1918 it had been "good" to be Jewish in the
Monarchy, after 1918 it
was "bad" to be a
Jew in Hungary, as Ezra Mendelsohn has said.
The impoverished
country, squeezed within the borders defined at Trianon,
had nearly
as many
professionals and civil servants looking for jobs as in
the earlier, larger country. In
addition to those
fleeing to the truncated territory from other parts of
Hungary with a
university degree,
a considerable proportion of the children of middle-class
families, fugitive
from the lost
territories, entered the universities. One attempt at
solving this "overproduction"
of professionals
was Law XXV. of 1920, the first anti-Semitic piece of
legislation in Europe,
which limited the
proportion of young people allowed to enter the
universities according to
the proportion of
various "races or nationalities" within the nation as a
whole.
2
For the
first
time, "The
Israelites /were/ regarded as a separate nationality".
The nearly half a million Jews
made up 6 % of the
total population of Hungary, which was below 10
million.
Between 1920 and
1938 no more discriminatory acts were passed in the
Hungarian
Parliament. This
may be explained by the selective anti-Semitism of Regent
Miklós Horthy and
the leading
politicians of the period, who distinguished between
assimilated (Magyarized) Jews
and immigrants
especially from "Galicia".
After the Anschluss
of Austria in 1938, however, in a speech made at
Gyõr on March
5, 1938, Prime
Minister Miklós Darányi, besides
proclaiming a program of rearmament,
declared that there
was a Jewish question in Hungary, and that it was to be
settled in a lawful
way. In Hungary,
the first step toward a "racial" discrimination among
Hungarian citizans was
the so-called first
Jewish Law of 1938.
3
It stipulated that
the proportion of Jews in the
chamber of the
press, in the chamber of the theater and film, in the
chambers of lawyers,
engineers and
medical doctors as well as in the professional jobs of
certain companies should
not go beyond
twenty percent. In the following year, two other laws,
relevant to our subject,
were passed by the
Hungarian legislation. The National Defense Law of Two
1939 gave the
government special
powers "in times of war or in times of the danger of war
threatening the•2
country".
4
After March 19,
1944, when the Germans occupied Hungary, the new
pro-Nazi
government of
Döme Sztójay referred to various articles of
this latter law when issuing its
decrees.
Béla
Imrédy, who, after the resignation of
Darányi, had, as Prime Minister, pushed
the
first Jewish Law
through Parliament submitted, to the house of
representatives on Christmas
Eve 1938, a bill on
"limiting the social and economic expansion of
Jews".
5
According to
this
second Jewish Law,
passed in 1939, "a person is to be regarded as Jewish, if
he or she, or at
least one of the
parents, or at least two of the grandparents were members
of the Israelite
denomination before
the coming into force of the present Law". The relatively
high ratio
garnted to Jews in
the professions, listed in the first Jewish Law, was now
lowered to six
percent.
The primary aim of
the government with these two Jewish Laws was probably
to
mollify the
anti-Semitic passions of the "Christian nationalist"
middle- and lower-middle
classes in Hungary.
There was no pressure from Nazi Germany in that respect.
Let us add that
the Hungarian
Nazis, the so-called Arrow Cross, Ferenc Szálasi
and his followers, were
demanding a
"numerus nullus", that is, a Hungary without
Jews.
Finally, in 1941,
the legislation passed the third Jewish Law, which is
known in
Hungarian history
as the racist ("race-protecting") law.
6
One could go on
listing the laws (and decrees) issued against citizens of
Hungary
described as Jews.
Yet, for all their discriminatory quality, these acts did
not mean cramming
people into
cattle-cars and deporting them. According to the
documents so far discovered, the
German-type
"settlement" of the Jewish question in Hungary was raised
between the Third
Reich and Hungary
for the first time in 1942.
7
It is true,
however, recent researches indicate
that Nazi Germany
put considerable pressure on Hungary as early as during
the summer and
fall of 1940, to
adopt some race-protection laws, in return for
territorial expansion. The
government of
Miklós Kállay (1942-1944) as well as Horthy
himself flatly refused the German
demands.
Until the spring of
1944 the position of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian
Jews can
be described as
relatively safe - this despite the fact that the Jewish
Laws made their lives
difficult. Jewish
men were forced to serve as laborers in the armed forces.
Tens of thousends
of these men died
on the Russian front along with Hungarian soldiers; and
more than 18.000
Jews, qualified as
aliens were deported to Kamenets-Podolsky in the Ukraine,
in the summer
of 1941, where they
were massacred by the German SS, Hungarian soldiers, and
Ukrainian
militia. During the
War, approximately 15-20.000 Jews from abroad found
refuge in Hungary.
During 1942 and
1943, these Jews - as we know from the depositions of a
number of Polish
and Slovak refugees
- were amazed by the nearly undisturbed life of the Jews
in Hungary.
They were
particularly impressed by the fact that the traffic near
the synagogues on Yom
Kippur was directed
by white gloved policemen in dress uniform.
In March 1944,
Hungary had the largest Jewish community, around 800
thousand
people including
converts. This was the largest grouping of Jews anywhere
in German-controlled
Europe. Still,
hardly ten days after the German occupation, Edmund
Veesenmayer,
the plenipotentiary
representative of the Reich, summed up favorably the
results of the
harmonious
cooperation between the German and the Hungarian
authorities. He reported
home that,
"considering the conditions here, this development /i.e.
promulgation of the first
anti-Jewish
decrees/ can be said to be very fast".
8
"March 19th. Very
exciting day. ... our German brothers are allegedly
coming. ...
There was something
in the air. People were sent home from the movies, but
the soccer game
was
held".
9
These are the words
Lieutenant General Kálmán Shvoy wrote into
his diary (in
Szeged). In many
places, the population believed that the Germans were
just marching•3
through the country
and at one place, in Kaposvár, Jewish housewives
offered cake to the
German
soldiers.
10
Directly after the
German occupation, a number of gendarmerie posts sent the
higher
authorities reports
to the effect that German soldiers were breaking into,
and plundering,
houses of Israelite
families.
11
Although there was
no open investigation in these cases, the
German military
headquarters were notified. They replied saying: "The
case will not go
unpunished; strict
orders have been issued to German soldiers to refrain
from taking any
material objects,
and anyone not returning these objects to where they have
been taken from,
will be severaly
punished". More than one persecuted person returning to
Hungary from
deportation after
the war recalled that the German military had behaved
decently toward the
Jewish population,
whereas the Gestapo had been very cruel.
Simultaneously with
the armed troops of the Wehrmacht, two representatives of
the
RSHA
(Reichssicherheitshauptamt - the SS Security Main
Office), namely Hermann Alois
Krumey and Dieter
von Wisliceny came to Budapest. A few days later the
chief of Department
IV. B/4,
Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann arrived also to
have the Endlösung, the final
solution put into
effect in Hungary. Indeed, during the first days of the
occupation, the chief of
RSHA, Ernst
Kaltenbrunner visited Budapest in person, and talked with
former ambassador to
Berlin and
presumptive Prime Minister Döme Sztójay
regarding the details of the radical
solution of the
Jewish question.
12
Eichmann's
detachment of two or three hundred persons needed all the
help and
support of the
Hungarian administrative, police and gendarmerie
orgenizations, as well as
active
participation, in order to be able to execute the
operation of "dejudeization". Eichmann
was satisfied with
Horthy's appointing retired Gendarmerie Major,
Arrow-Cross Member of
Parliament and
confidential agent of the Germans, László
Baky Under-Secretary of the
Interior.
13
Baky was put in
charge of the police and the gendarmerie. It was with
even greater
satisfaction that
Eichmann received the appointment, as Under-Secretary of
the Interior, of
László
Endre, sub-prefect of County Pest, who was a notorious
anti-Semite. Endre was made
responsible for the
departments of administration and the so-called
department of housing. In
addition, on May
13th, the Minister of the Interior put Endre in charge of
"cases in connection
with the resettling
of the Jews, not covered by the control of other
departments". Thus, the
units
(approximately 20.000 men) of the ten gendarmerie
districts and the officials of 44
counties as well as
the police force of the towns of Hungary were all placed
at the operation's
disposal. The local
administration executed the Jewish decrees down to the
last dot.
The administrative
system in Hungary after March 19, 1944, was the same as
the one
restored in August
1919 on the basis of the laws on administration adopted
in 1887. Although
there were several
attempts at reforming the administration, especially
following the
revolutions in
1918-1919, no real reorganization took place. Act Thirty
of 1929 "On the
organization of
public administration", although reflecting the effort of
the government to
centralize and to
professionalize the system, did not basically reduce the
jurisdiction of local
autonomies.
14
Counties and towns
with full municipal rights
(törvényhatósági jogú
városok)
were formally
headed by Lord Lieutenants (fõispán),
nominated by the Minister of the Interior
and appointed by
the Regent, whose powers of supervision and control
covered all local
administrative
organs. The law reduced the proportion of the biggest tax
payers, the so-called
virilists from 50%
to 40% in the municipal assemblies. The proportion of
eligible members was
also reduced to
forty percent. The rest, 20 percent, was now to be made
up of permanent
members,
representatives of special interests, religions,
professions (i.e. the chief of police, the
director of
finances, the president of the university, etc.), as well
as of civil servants.
According to the
Act, the government had the right to dissolve the
municipal assembly in the
case of behavior
jeopardizing the interests of the state, of permanent
disablement, and of a•4
critical economic
situation. However, real control in the everyday life of
the counties was in
the hands of the
sub-prefects (alispán) elected by the municipal
assemblies. In the subordinate
districts
(járás) control was in the hands of chief
constables (fõszolgabí ró), who
were
subordinate to the
sub-prefect. In the county towns and the cities with full
municipal rights,
control was in the
hands of the mayor. The latter was elected by the
municipal assemblies. The
gradual restriction
of local jurisdictions became complete with Law
Twenty-two of 1942,
which gave the
Minister of Interior the right to appoint the office
holders previously filled by
elections.
15
Indeed, Article 8
of the same law stated, that, although these offices "are
usually to
be filled by
national competition," "the advertisement of the vacancy
can be waived if the
authority entitled
to fill the office deems it unnecessary in the interest
of public service.
Competition can
also be omitted if the interest of public service demands
the speedy filling of
the administrative
position". After March 19, 1944, massive dismissals
and/or transfers of
public servants
were legitimized with reference to that law. The heads of
local administrations
relied on the
police force in towns, and on the gendarmerie in rural
areas. The organization of
the gendarmerie did
not follow the country boundaries, but followed the lines
of the military
structure. In other
words, it was modeled after the military
districts.
Unlike the police,
which was controlled by the Ministry of the Interior,
the
gendarmerie was
under the dual control of the Ministry of the Interior
and the Ministry of
Defense. The
gendarmerie functioned as an organized military body of
law and order. The men
and their officers
received very harsh military tarining, which included
emphasis on
unconditional
loyalty to the Regent. As an organization of public
safety, the gendarmerie was
subordinated to the
Minister of the Interior. At the same time, its highest
military commander
was the
superintendent of the gendarmerie, responsible for
controlling training as well as
military order and
discipline.
After the German
occupation on March 19, 1944, it took
German-plenipotentiary
Edmund Veesenmayer,
Regent Horthy, and the leaders of the right-wing parties
three days to
agree on the
composition of the new government. The government of
Döme Sztójay,
included, in
addition to pro-German ministers, some members of the
Party of Hungarian
Renewal (Magyar
Megújulás Pártja). On March 22, the
Prime Minister, referring to his talks
with Ernst
Kaltenbrunner, Chief of RSHA, informed the first session
of the council of
ministers on the
problems to be solved in connection with the Jewish
question. The second
session of the
council of ministers (March 29, 1944) was already
discussing the "Jewish
decrees" by the
dozen.
16
Although the
Minister of Justice observed that government
decrees
needed the approval
of Regent Horthy, Prime Minister Sztójay put him
at ease saying, "His
Excellency the
Regent had given the government free hand with regard to
all the Jewish
decrees, and did
not wish to influence the (ministers) in that
respect".
The decrees
discussed by the council of ministers deprived Hungarian
citizens,
described as Jews,
of their possessions, of their most elementary rights,
and of the conditions
of existence. The
decrees tried to establish a semblance of legitimacy by
referring to Law Two
on National Defense
of 1939. The decrees of the government were accepted as
lawful by most
local organs of
administration and public safety. Indeed, specialists of
the local authorities
executed without
hitch even such decrees that were marked confidential;
were never
published, and
lacked reference to a law. These decrees referred to such
things as the census
of Jews and the
collection camps for Jews in Kárpátalja
(Northeast Hungary),
Észak-Erdély
(Northern
Transylvania) and the Délvidék (Southern
Hungary).
17
The semblance of
legal continuity prevailed for the local administrations
because
Regent Horthy had
remained in his place. Indeed, the dismissals and
appointments of ministers
and
under-secretaries carried his signature. Nor had the
Parliament been officially dissolved.
Thus Horthy was
playing an active role in setting up the new government
at a time when the•5
Gestapo was
arresting and deporting to German concentration camps,
members of the
Hungarian
parliament, including Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer, the
long-time former Minister of
the Interior. And
yet, on April 14, Veesenmayer emphatically demanded that
Sztójay dismiss
all the lord
lieutenants and the sub-prefects.
18
Within less than a
month, all but two of the lord
lieutenants were
removed by Horthy at the recommendation of Minister of
the Interior Andor
Jaross.
19
Most of these
offices were filled with members of Béla
Imrédy's far-right Party of
Hungarian Renewal
of which Minister of the Interior Andor Jaross was also a
leading member.
Political
reliability was the most important criterion. The case of
the Lord Lieutenant of
Szeged is
characteristic. Sándor Tukats had, until his
removal, executed all decrees concerning
Jews without the
slightest hesitation. As early as April 29, Saturday,
that is on the day
following the
promulgation of the ghetto-decree, Tukats called upon the
Mayor of Szeged
demanding that he
take the necessary steps.
20
Still, Tukats was
considered unreliable because
he was a member of
the less radically rightist Party of Hungarian Life
(Magyar Élet Pártja).
His place was taken
by Aladár Magyary-Kossa, who was not from Szeged,
but whom Minister
of the Interior
Jaross trusted Magyary-Kossa was also member of the Party
of Hungarian
Renewal.
(Incidentally, no doubt as a result of some power play,
Tukats became the Lord
Lieutenant of
Szeged again in September.)
On May 10,
Veesenmayer was able to report to Foreign Minister
Ribbentrop that "the
cleansing of the
Hungarian administration in the countryside is proceeding
in a satisfactory
manner".
21
According to the
documents, "cleansing" included the chief constables at
the head
of the districts as
well as the lord lieutenants, but the sub-prefects, who
actually controlled the
counties, and the
mayors in the towns were hardly touched until the end of
June, following the
completion of the
Jewish deportations. There were very few such
administrators as József
Pálfy, mayor
of Szeged, who voluntarily resigned from his office, or
more precisely, retired
from public life
until his official retirement on May 31.
22
His place was taken
by Deputy-Mayor
Béla
Tóth on March 22, after Pálfy had tendered
his resignation. Tóth strictly executed
all the decrees
concerning the Jews. Indeed, sometimes he put into
practice measures that
went beyond the
governmental decrees. For example, on June 10, on the day
the two under-secretaries
of the Ministry of
the Interior paid a visit to Szeged, and possibly because
of that
visit, Deputy-Mayor
Tóth gave instructions by telephone to the
managers of the Szeged
Central Gas and
Electric Co. ordering that they immediately cut off
electricity and gas.
23
The
cuts included
street lightings within the main Jewish
ghetto.
The reason that
sub-prefects and mayors were not removed was probably
that most of
the local leaders,
including the more humanely inclined, proved during the
first weeks that they
reconized as
legitimate the new government and its decrees restricting
the rights of the Jewish
citizens.
The chief
constables, at the head of districts, played at least as
important a role in this
affair as did the
mayors in the towns. Indeed, their relationship with the
local population in
small villages of a
few thousand inhabitants was probably more direct and
intimate than that of
the mayors who
administered towns with tens of thousands of people.
Jaross and his
colleagues needed
reliable chief constables for the smooth and quick
"dejudeization" of the
country. At the
same time, according to laws concerning administrative
matters, these offices
had to be held by
persons with adequate training and qualifications. The
Minister if the Interior
satisfied both
criteria, one must admit, in a rather shrewd manner. When
leafing through the
pages of the spring
and early summer 1944 numbers of the official Monitor
(Hivatalos
Közlöny),
it becomes clear that Interior Minister Jaross appointed
the new chief constables
always "in the
interest of public service", that is, with refernce to
Law Twenty-two of 1942.
However, these
appointments were not promotions for district
administrators (szolgabí ró) or
deputy clerks
(aljegyzõ), but simply transfers. The principle
behind it was probably that the•6
specialists should
come from as far as possible, so that previously
established local, friendly
connections should
not survive, and that nothing should cause the officials
to try to delay the
execution of the
discriminatory decrees. The administrators should be
unable to help their
friends. This
assumption is supported by the fact that the same
principle can be seen to have
been operating on
lower levels, in the appointments of district
administrators, deputy clerks,
and engineers.
There are examples of individuals being transferred form
the northwestern parts
of the country to
southern Hungary and vica versa. I repeat: these were
transfers and not
promotions. At the
same time, it is surprising to see that while in some
counties nearly all the
chief constables
were replaced, in other places there were no transfers at
all. To sum it up, the
leaders of the
local administrations under the Ministry of the Interior
came up to the
expectations of
their superiors.
In July, 1944, one
of the mayors (Bertalan Bécsy from Makó)
proudly declared in the
editorial of the
local paper that "we who are now standing at the head of
public life in this
county (i.e.
Counties Csanád-Arad-Torontál) and this
town, have been faithful servants for
decades of the
nationalistically oriented right-wing idea, of the
originally pure counter-revolutionary
Szeged
ideology".
24
Thus it was not a
coincidence that "everyone here has
remained at his
post despite the political changes".
None of the top
leaders of the ten gendarmerie districts was removed. Yet
not all the
commanders of the
gendarmerie districts executed the anti-Jewish orders
with the same zeal.
The commander of
Gendarmerie District Ten was, one could say, lucky enough
not being
forced to execute
"ghettoization".
25
This was because
Ukrainian refugees were wandering
across his
territory at that time. Therefore, the comander of
Gendarmerie District Nine was
put in charge of
controlling the collection of Jews from all over Northern
Transylvania.
26
Although having
been heard to criticize the Germans, and having shown
"sympathy for the
fate of the
persecuted Jews", - as was said at a people's court trial
after the war by a number of
witnesses, the
commander of Gendarmerie District Five remained at his
post.
27
On the
other
hand, the commander
of District Four personally proposed to the Minsiter of
the Interior that
"the zone along the
southern border be dejudeized with special
dispatch".
28
The same
commander
recommended the relief and/or tarnsfer of three
gendarmerie officers "because
they cannot be
expected to execute the measures against the Jews with
the dedication and
zealous initiative
now required of officers of the gendarmerie". Dozens of
survivors recalled
after the war
instances of the brutality of the gendarmes. An extreme
example of this was that,
in the days before
the deportation, Jewish women were stripped and submitted
to bodily
search (per
inspectionem vaginae) in search of hidden valuables by
midwives and doctors,
often in the
presence of men who were not medical
personnel.
29
Indeed, in some
instances, the
gendarmes
themselves performed such a search. The testimonies about
gendarmes smuggling
food into the
ghettos, or about gendarmerie officers undertaking
anything against all the
savagerie are few
and far between.
30
The police
headquarters regularly conducted so-called
"yellow-star"-raids. It was not
at all exceptional
when a mother of four was arrested by the police and
fined 1.000 Pengõs, a
huge sum at that
time, for not wearing the star in the required
manner.
31
She was
actually
wearing a shawl on
her head because of the rain, and the end of the shawl
covered the star.
The director of a
hospital ruled that Jewish doctors did not have to wear
the star on
their white gowns,
but the sub-prefect overruled him and ordered that the
yellow stars be
worn even in the
operating rooms.
32
The so-called
ghetto decree was issued on Friday, April 28,
1944.
33
In the regions
that
I have researched
all the local officials took the first steps between
April 29 and May 5 to
designate the
places for the Jews to live. Although the decree used a
moderating clause, saying
that "the first
magistrate of the municipality may so order," nobody had
the slightest doubt that•7
the text was to be
meant in the imperative. The ghettos in smaller towns
were installed without
any problems.
Indeed, in some places the orders of the sub-prefect were
carried out five days
before the official
deadline. In towns with full municipal rights it was more
difficult to organize
the separation of
Jews from non-Jews. In nearly every town a number of
officials were
appointed by the
mayors to run Jewish affairs. The mayer of
Kecskemét collected several
ghetto orders in
preparation for his own proclamation on the
subject.
34
In Szeged both
the
new and the old
lord lieutenants called meetings to discuss which part of
the town would be
the most suitable
for setting up a ghetto. In both towns it was decided
that "considerations of
convenience" should
be ignored. The ghetto order of Kecskemét allowed
approximately
eighteen square
feet (two square meters) per person;
35
the one in Szeged
originally decided it
to be 55 square
feet (six square meters) for a person
36
only to reduce it
later to twenty square
feet (two point two
square meters).
37
Unlike in Szeged,
where a single ghetto was built,
Kecskemét
had four places assigned as living quarters for
Jews.
38
In that city most
of the Jews
were to be housed
in the barracks along the two sides of the cemetery in
the outskirts of the
town. When this
plan fell through, the municipal leaders found the
storerooms of the Copper-sulfate
factory suitable.
The president of the Kecskemét Jewish Council
wrote to the mayor in
desperation
39
that "the
quartering of masses in the storehouses of the
Copper-sulfate factory is
disastrous... one
of the rooms is a big empty hall with a small door and
with windows that
cannot be opened.
The dirt floor is covered with sand and is full of mouse
and rat holes. There
is no possibility
for washing."
On the other hand,
in the town of Baja, Mayor Bernhart assigned houses for
the local
Jews but did not
set up a closed ghetto.
40
Nor were the
Christian inhabitants of the area forced
to move out. In
Hódmezõvásárhely,
Deputy-Mayor Beretzk called the first ghetto
meeting
only on May 31, at
which no decision was made regarding
ghettoization.
41
All along,
the
Hódmezõvásárhely
officials claimed to be waiting for advisers from the
capital, and therefore
did not do anything
in terms of setting up a ghetto. As Beretzk said at the
meeting on May 31,
"we do not think of
using force against anyone". Within his own jurisdiction,
Beretzk played
for time. On June
15, however, a detachment of fifty gendarmes was ordered
to
Hódmezõvásárhely
in order to round up the Jews, to bring them to the
collection camp (or in
other words
concentration center) in Szeged, and then to deport
them.
42
Jews from the
area
were deported at
the end of June mostly to Auschwitz and a minority to
forced labor in
Austria.
On May 2, a few
days after the publication of the ghetto decree, the
Interior Minister's
order excluding
Jews from public baths came into force.
43
Sub-prefects and
mayors were
receiving this and
dozens of other orders concerning the Jews, and most of
them did their best
to carry them out
to the letter and as soos as possible even if the demands
were unrealistic. By
early May there was
no Jew left to be banished from the public
baths.
On May 5 the
sub-prefect of Csongrád County issued his order,
to the district chief
constables and the
mayors of the county towns on the exclusion of Jews from
the public
baths.
44
One of the chief
constables replied to sub-prefect that although there
were no public
baths within his
jurisdiction, in the summer the Jews be also forbidden to
use the public
beaches along the
Tisza River.
45
The operators of
the sports swimming pool in Szentes (also in
Csongrád
County) requested, on May 13, the complete exclusion of
Jews.
46
The
leaseholder
of the local hot
baths and swimming pool was willing to let Jews have "a
hot shower". The
mayor made his
final decision on June 14 and allowed the Jews to use the
steam baths on
Wednesdays
according to the above conditions. When he made this
decision he already knew
that two days later
the nearly four hundred inmates of the Szentes ghetto
would be taken to
the collection camp
in Szeged, to be deported from there.•8
The management of
the Szeged Turkish baths, in anticipation of the decree
of the
Minister of the
Interior, made it known through the local press that Jews
were not to be
admitted in the
steam baths.
47
After the decree
was published, the manager declared that the
Jews were banned
from the baths.
48
He also asked the
municipal authorities that, although "the
decree made it
possible for the owner of the baths to appoint a suitable
day and time when the
excluded Jews could
use the facilities,... this should not be allowed because
the Jews might
infest the premises
with parasites and thus could spread
diseases".
While collection
camps were being organized, and then freight trains
crowded with
humans were being
sent off to Auschwitz, the humane Deputy Foreign
Minister, Mihály
Jungerth-Arnóthy
more than once addressed the meetings of the council of
ministers,
informing the
members of the government on the mistreatment of the
Jews.
49
In addition to
the
fact that "the
deportation of the Hungarian Jews was often carried out
within forms that were
cruel and
objectionable with respect to humanitarian
considerations", Jungerth-Arnóthy
argued, foreign
newspapers carried news about "Jews being gassed and
burnt in Poland". To
Jungerth-Arnóthy's
complaints Under-secretary of the Interior
László Endre replied, among
other things, that
"the atmosphere and order of the ghettos was usually calm
and satisfactory.
There were hardly
any suicides, and those occurred mostly in the
pre-deportation camps".
50
Interior Minister
Jaross also held unambiguous views on the Jewish
question: "We are not
really interested
in where the Jews are going. The welfare of the country
demands that the
Jews be removed
fast".
51
And indeed, in the
spirit of this comment, orders, instructions
and
decrees kept
arriving to the heads of local and municipal
administration.
Between May 14 and
July 9, 1944, that is during less than two months,
434.351
persons were
deported from Hungary on 147 trains.
52
The reaction of the
population was rather mixed. Some were sympathetic, and
tried to
help the Jews. On
the other hand, the decree on the utilization of
synagogues, as well as the
great number of
private requests for apartments, business premises and
other movable
property formerly
belonging to Jews would seem to suggest that very few
expected the
deportees to
return.
Regent Horthy had
the deportations stopped on July 6, 1944 only,
53
as a result
of
foreign pressure in
particular by King Gustav of Sweden, President Roosevelt,
and Pope Pius
XII.
54
His decision was
also motivated by the success of Operation Overlord in
Normandy and
the successful
summer offensive of the Red Army. Besides, he may have
been afraid that if the
Jews were to be
deported from Budapest as well, the Allies would
carpet-bomb Budapest. In
spite of this, the
collection camps in the country were all emptied by the
German and
Hungarian
authorities by July 9, 1944.
It would seem that
the documents unearthed so far confirm the result of Raul
Hilberg's
analysis,
55
namely that not
unlike the administrative personnel in Germany or the
Netherlends,
the majority of the
officials in Hungary went about solving the "Jewish
question" with
initiative,
flexibility, and often even with enthusiasm. Some
officials waited for orders from
above, others acted
on their own initiative. In addition to decrees
officially issued, oral
instructions
received over the telephone or at meetings, wanting even
the semblance of
legality, were
immediately executed. As Deputy Mayor of Szeged,
Béla Tóth said on May 13,
1944: "In the case
of the Jews, rather than worrying about the letter of the
decrees, we are
considering their
spirit and their aim, and we adjust the method of
execution to this spirit and
these
aims".
56
There were very few
administrative heads like Deputy Mayor Pál Beretzk
of
Hódmezõvásárhely,
who dared to alleviate the condition of the Jews within
the possibilities
offered by the
national decrees. His actions are proof that it was
possible to make•9
compassionate
gestures, and to slow down, within very narrow limits,
the speed of the Final
Solution.
______________________
1 For a
detailed analyis of the period with special regard to the
Holocaust, see Randolph L. Braham, The
Politics
of Genocide. The Holocaust in Hungary. I-II. (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1994), and The
Holocaust
in Hungary Fifty Years Later. Eds. by R. L. Braham and A.
Pók, (New York: Columbia University
Press,
1997).
2 For the
text of Law XXV/1920, see Magyar
Törvénytár, 1920 (Budapest: Franklin
Társulat, 1921), pp.145-
146.
3 For the
text of Law XV/1938 (the first Jewish Law), see Magyar
Törvénytár, 1938 (Budapest:
Franklin
Társulat,
1939) pp. 132-144.
4 For the
text of Law II/1939, see Magyar
Törvénytár, 1939 (Budapest: Franklin
Társulat, 1940), pp. 6-128.
5 For the
text of Law IV/1939 (the second Jewish Law), see Magyar
Törvénytár, 1939 (Budapest:
Franklin
Társulat,
1940), pp. 129-148.
6 For the
text of Law XV/1941 (the third Jewish Law), see Magyar
Törvénytár, 1941 (Budapest:
Franklin
Társulat,
1942), pp. 56-66.
7 For
Hungarian-German diplomatic relations, see R. L. Braham,
The Destruction of Hungarian Jewry. A
Documentary
Account Vols. I-II (New York: World Federation of
Hungarian Jews, 1963), A Wilhelmstrasse
és
Magyarország.
Német diplomáciai iratok
Magyarországról 1933-1944
[Wilhelmstrasse and Hungary. German
diplomatic
papers from Hungary 1933-1944] (henceforth:
Wilhelmstrasse). Edited by György Ránki,
Ervin
Pamlényi,
Loránt Tilkovszky, Gyula Juhász (Budapest:
Kossuth K., 1968), Hitler hatvannyolc
tárgyalása,
1939-1944.
Hitler Adolf tárgyalásai
kelet-európai államférfiakkal
[Hitler's sixty-eight talks, 1939-1944
Adolf
Hitler's
talks with East European statesmen]. Edited by
György Ránki, Vols. I-II (Budapest:
Magvetõ K. 1983).
8
Wilhelmstrasse, p. 807.
9 Shvoy
Kálmán titkos naplója és
emlékirata, 1918-1945 [Kálmán
Shvoy's secret diary and memoires, 1918-
1945].
Edited by Mihály Perneki (Budapest: Kossuth K.,
1983), pp. 275-276.
10 Magyar
Zsidó Múzeum és
Levéltár (MZSML) [Hungarian Jewish
Museum and Archives], Deportáltakat
Gondozó
Országos Bizottság (DEGOB) [National
Committee for Looking after Deportees], protocol
3543.
11
Bács-Kiskun Megyei Levéltár (BKML)
[Bács-Kiskun County Archives], papers of
the Chief Constable of the
District
of Kalocsa, 2029/1944, 2140/1944.
12 For
Kaltenbrunner's visit in Hungary, see e. g. Az
Endre-Baky-Jaross per (henceforth:EBJ) [The
Endre-Baky-
Jaross
Trial], edited and notes by László
Karsai and Judit Molnár. (Budapest:
Cserépfalvi K., 1994), pp.
179-180,
196-197.
13 For
the appointments of László Baky and
László Endre, see Magyarország
tiszti cím- és névtára,
1944.
[Catalogue
of the names and addresses of Hungarian officers,
1944]. (Budapest: Magyar Királyi
Állami
Nyomda,
1944), Supplement, p. 17.
14 For
the text of Law XXX/1929, see Magyar
Törványtár, 1929. (Budapest: Franklin
Társulat, 1930), pp. 333-
407.
15 For
the text of Law XXII/1942, see Magyar
Törvénytár, 1942 (Budapest: Franklin
Társulat, 1943), pp. 171-
177.
16 Magyar
Országos Levéltár (MOL)
[Hungarian National Archives], minutes of the
Council of Ministers,
March 29,
1944.
17 For
the text decrees, see EBJ, p. 608 and Vádirat a
nacizmus ellen. Dokumentumok a
magyarországi
zsidóüldözés
történetéhez, Vol. I (henceforth:
Vádirat I.) [Indictment of Nazism. Documents
of the history of
the
persecution of Jews in Hungary]. Edited by Ilona
Benoschofsky and Elek Karsai, (Budapest: MIOK,
1958),
pp.
124-127.
18
Wilhelmstrasse, p. 824.
19
Wilhelmstrasse, pp. 837, 845.
20
Csongrád Megyei Levéltár (CSML)
[Csongrád County Archives], papers of the
Lord Lieutenant of Szeged,
386/1944.
21
Wilhelmstrasse, p. 845.•10
22 CSML,
papers of the Mayor of Szeged, 22/1944
confidential
23 CSML,
papers of the Mayor of Szeged, 9090/1944.
24
Makói Újság, July 2, 1944, pp.
1-2.
25
Történeti Hivatal (TH) [Office of
History], V-140.906/2, V-142.803/1.
26 TH,
V-140.906/1.
27
Budapest Fõváros Levéltára
[Archives of Budapest], Nb. 725/1946.
28 TH,
V-146.147.
29
Esztergomi Prí mási Levéltár
[Archives of the Esztergom Primate] papers of
Serédy Jusztinián, S 12/a file
III.,
MZSML, DEGOB, protocol 3550.
30 MZSML,
DEGOB, protocol 3550.
31 BKML,
papers of the Chief Constables of the District of
Kalocsa, 2277/1944.
32 MZSML,
DEGOB, protocol 3551.
33 For
the text of the decree, see Vádirat I, pp.
244-250.
34 BKML,
Zsidók [Jews] 1944, papers kept
separately.
35
Ibid.
36 CSML,
papers of the Lord Lieutenant of Szeged,
847/1944.
37 CSML,
papers of the Mayor of Szeged, 7776/1944.
38 BKML,
Zsidók 1944, papers kept separately.
39
Ibid.
40 BKML,
papers of the Mayor of Baja, 53/1944
cofidential.
41
CSML-Hódmezõvásárhely, papers
of the Mayor of
Hódmezõvásárhely
8804/1944.
42
CSML-Hódmezõvásárhely, papers
of the Mayor of
Hódmezõvásárhely 11.856/1944,
12.690/1944.
43
Vádirat I, pp. 285-286.
44
CSML-Szentes, papers of the Chief Constables of the
District of Mindszent, 1160/1944.
45
Ibid.
46
CSML-Szentes, papers of the Mayor of Szentes,
1581/1944.
47
Szegedi Új Nemzedék, April 28, 1944, p.
5.
48 CSML,
papers of the Mayor of Szeged, 9240/1944.
49 MOL,
minutes of the Council of Ministers, June 21,
1944.
50 For
the complete text of Endre's report, see EBJ, pp.
492-496.
51 MOL,
minutes of the Council of Ministers, June 24,
1944.
52 Report
to the Ministry of the Interior of Gendarme Lt. Colonel
László Ferenczy, liaison officer of
the
Gendarmerie
with the German Security Police on July 9, 1944. For all
the reports of Ferenczy, see EBJ, pp.
497-522.
53
Wilhelmstrasse, p. 873.
54
Vádirat a nácizmus ellen. Dokumentumok a
magyarországi zsidóüldözés
történetéhez. [Indictment
of
Nazism.
Documents of the history of the persecution of Jews in
Hungary] vol. III. ed. by Elek Karsai
(Budapest,
MIOK, 1967), pp. 58-60, 70-74, 92-97.
55 Raul
Hilberg, "The Bureaucracy of Annihilation" in: Unanswered
Questions. Nazy Germany and the
Genocide
of the Jews ed. by François Furet (New York:
Schocen Books, 1989), pp. 119-133.
56
(Vásárhelyi) Népújság,
May 13, 1944. p. 5.
.
