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National Holocaust Memorial Day — A Tragic Opportunity to Recall the German Demands Regarding Hungarian Jews

The Germans had demanded the deportation of the Hungarian Jewry long before the German occupation. A note in October 1942, in which German Deputy Foreign Minister Martin Luther summarised his negotiations with Sztójay, the Hungarian ambassador in Berlin at the time, openly mentions the German demand and the fact that it had come directly from Adolf Hitler. According to the text, the ‘handling’ of Jews in Hungary is ‘urgent’.

Deputy House Speaker Anna Kéthly, standing next to Minister of Industry Antal Bán, leans out of the window of a railcarriage as she departs for a Social Democrat conference in Zurich in 1947.

Anna Kéthly, the Female Parliamentarian who Stood Up Against Totalitarianism

Iconic social democrat politician Anna Kéthly was the second woman to serve in the Hungarian National Assembly. Born into a working-class family, she dedicated her life to advocating for the rights of workers and women in particular. Forced into hiding during the German occupation of Hungary due to her brave anti-Nazi stance and imprisoned by the Communists in 1954, and freed in 1956, she epitomizes resistance to all forms of totalitarianism.

Kőszeg Jews being marched by gendarmes to the railway station on 18 June 1944. After their transfer to the Szombathely ghetto they were deported to Auschwitz on 4 July 1944. (Fortepan)

The Holocaust in Hungary and the Legal Tools of Oppression

‘Hungarian Jews were generally known for their assimilated and law-abiding nature. By and large, they saw themselves as loyal Hungarian citizens and followed the law of the land to the letter. This was part of a well-rehearsed strategy on the part of their leaders. Between the emancipation of Hungarian Jewry and its nearly complete annihilation, Hungarian Jewish leaders experienced various levels of antisemitism. For most of their history, they could and did turn to the state authorities to ease their suffering. This strategy, useful during the previous decades, turned self-destructive in 1944–45.’

Vice Regent, Air Force First Lieutenant István Horthy before takeoff (unknown author, before 1942)

The Tragic Death of István Horthy

István Horthy, the son of Miklós Horthy, lost his life in a plane crash on the Russian front barely six months after he was elected Vice Regent of Hungary.

Flowers laid on the triangular stone at the centre of a memorial pool of the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism at the Tiergarten in Berlin on 27 January 2023.

Roma Holocaust: ‘A Methodical Attack on Our Most Fundamental Values’  

In her address marking Roma Holocaust Memorial Day, Fidesz MEP Livia Járóka said: ‘Almost 80 years later, it is still clear that what happened at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp was genocide and a series of crimes against humanity in which innocent European citizens were exterminated on the basis of an exclusionary ideology whose only purpose was organised destruction.’

Historian Gyula Szekfű delivers a lecture on 30 July 1945.

Between a Dictatorship and a Hard Place: Gyula Szekfű’s Struggles in the Twentieth Century

‘Szekfű described “capitalism” as “having grown in size over time, becoming a more and more fearsome monster, creating factories and cramming hundreds of thousands and millions of people into the unhealthy, immoral air of smoky cities. And the longer the unrestricted freedom proclaimed by liberalism lasts, the more freely the capitalist big business devours the little ones, the more freely it exploits the economic weaklings, especially the workers.” Szekfű’s book Three Generations, in which he also called for extensive worker protection and the regulation of industrialists by law, bears a striking resemblance to the basic tenets of socialism.’

Bases for 20th-Century Hungarian History

The book’s greatest value can undoubtedly be found in its historiographical sections, which present the historical assessment of the Soviet Republic and the Horthy system. It is in these that the author utilises the largest literary material and provides the widest overview.

A man places a rose in front of Kunsthalle Budapest (Műcsarnok), commemorating the reburial of the late Prime Minister Imre Nagy and his fellow martyrs.

Imre Nagy, a Controversial Figure of Modern Hungarian History

Nagy was a highly controversial figure in Hungarian history, whose assessment is still a source of intense debates…He did stand up for the Hungarian Revolution in 1956—for debatable reasons—; but to portray him as a convinced democrat, or a hero of Hungarian popular representation and individual freedom would be a serious distortion. His legacy must be treated in its proper place: his merits must not be denied, but his sins must not be forgotten.

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