History of the Jews in Hungary
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The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary and it is even assumed that several sections of the heterogeneous Hungarian tribes practiced Judaism. Jewish officials served the king during the early 13th century reign of Andrew II. From the second part of the 13th century, the general religious tolerance decreased and Hungary's policies became similar to the treatment of the Jewish population in Western Europe.
The Ashkenazi of Hungary were fairly well integrated into Hungarian society by the time of the
Anti-Jewish policies grew more repressive in the interwar period as Hungary's leaders, who remained committed to regaining the territories lost at the peace agreement (
The 2011 Hungary census data had 10,965 people (0.11%) who self-identified as
Early history
Before 1095
It is not definitely known when Jews first settled in Hungary. According to tradition, King Decebalus (ruled Dacia 87–106 CE) permitted the Jews who aided him in his war against Rome to settle in his territory.[13] Dacia included part of modern-day Hungary as well as Romania and Moldova and smaller areas of Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Serbia. Prisoners of the Jewish-Roman Wars may have been brought back by the victorious Roman legions normally stationed in Provincia Pannonia (Western Hungary). Marcus Aurelius ordered the transfer of some of his rebellious troops from Syria to Pannonia in 175 CE. These troops had been recruited partly in Antioch and Hemesa (now Homs), which still had a sizable Jewish population at that time. The Antiochian troops were transferred to Ulcisia Castra (today Szentendre), while the Hemesian troops settled in Intercisa (Dunaújváros).[14]
According to
The first historical document relating to the Jews of Hungary is the letter written about 960 CE to King
In 1061, King
The Jews of Hungary at first formed small settlements, and had no learned
1095–1349
The cruelties inflicted upon the Jews of Bohemia induced many of them to seek refuge in Hungary. It was probably the immigration of the rich Bohemian Jews that induced Coloman soon afterward to regulate commercial and banking transactions between Jews and Christians. He decreed, among other regulations, that if a Christian borrowed from a Jew, or a Jew from a Christian, both Christian and Jewish witnesses must be present at the transaction.[13]
During the reign of King
The year 1240 was the closing one of the fifth millennium of the Jewish era. At that time the Jews were expecting the advent of their
At the
Expulsion, readmition and persecution (1349–1526)
Under the rule of the foreign kings who occupied the throne of Hungary on the extinction of the house of Arpad, the Hungarian Jews were subjected to many persecutions. During the time of the
Some years later, when Hungary was in financial distress, the Jews were readmitted. They learned that during their absence, the king had introduced the custom of Tödtbriefe, i.e., cancelling by a stroke of his pen, on the request of a subject or a city, the notes and
The successors of Sigismund:
For protection, the Hungarian Jews applied to the German Emperor
War against the Ottomans (1526–1686)
The
Although the Ottoman Army[20] turned back after the battle, in 1541 it again invaded Hungary to help repel an Austrian attempt to take Buda. By the time the Ottoman Army arrived, the Austrians were defeated, but the Ottomans seized Buda by ruse.
While some of the Jews of Hungary were deported to
On that same day the
As the lord of Bösing (Pezinok) was in debt to the Jews, a blood accusation was brought against these inconvenient creditors in 1529. Although Mendel, the prefect, and the Jews throughout Hungary protested, the accused were burned at the stake. For centuries afterward Jews were forbidden to live at Bösing. The Jews of Nagyszombat (Trnava) soon shared a similar fate, being first punished for alleged ritual murder and then expelled from the city (19 February 1539).[18]
The Jews living in the parts of Hungary occupied by the Ottoman Empire were treated far better than those living under the
The following table shows the number of Jewish jizya-tax paying heads of household in Buda during Ottoman rule:
1546 | 1559 | 1562 | 1590 | 1627 | 1633 | 1660 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
50 | 44 | 49 | 109 | 11 | 20 | 80 |
At the end of the Ottoman era, the approximately one thousand Jews living in Buda worshipped in three synagogues: an Ashkenazi, a Sephardi and a Syrian one.
While the Ottomans held sway in Hungary, the Jews of Transylvania (at that time an independent principality) also fared well. At the instance of Abraham Sassa, a Jewish physician of Constantinople, Prince Gabriel Bethlen of Transylvania granted a letter of privileges (18 June 1623) to the Spanish Jews from Anatolia.[21] But the community of Judaizing Szekler Sabbatarians, which had existed in Transylvania since 1588, was persecuted and driven underground in 1638.[22]
On 26 November 1572, King Maximilian II (1563–1576) intended to expel the Jews of Pressburg (Bratislava), stating that his edict would be recalled only in case they accepted Christianity. The Jews, however, remained in the city, without abandoning their religion. They were in constant conflict with the citizens. On 1 June 1582 the municipal council decreed that no one should harbor Jews, or even transact business with them. The feeling against the Jews in that part of the country not under Turkish rule is shown by the decree of the Diet of 1578, to the effect that Jews were to be taxed double the amount which was imposed upon other citizens.[21]
By article XV of the law promulgated by the Diet of 1630, Jews were forbidden to take charge of the customs; and this decree was confirmed by the Diet of 1646 on the ground that the Jews were excluded from the privileges of the country, that they were unbelievers, and had no conscience (veluti jurium regni incapaces, infideles, et nulla conscientia praediti).[21] The Jews had to pay a special war-tax when the imperial troops set out toward the end of the 16th century to recapture Buda from the Ottomans. The Buda community suffered much during this siege, as did also that of Székesfehérvár when the imperial troops took that city in September 1601; many of its members were either slain or taken prisoner and sold into slavery, their redemption being subsequently effected by the German, Italian, and Ottoman Jews. After the conclusion of peace, which the Jews helped to bring about, the communities were in part reconstructed; but further development in the territory of the Habsburgs was arrested when Leopold I (1657–1705) expelled the Jews (24 April 1671). He, however, revoked his decree a few months later (August 20). During the siege of Vienna, in 1683, the Jews that had returned to that city were again maltreated. The Ottomans plundered some communities in western Hungary, and deported the members as slaves.[21]
Habsburg rule
Further persecution and expulsions (1686–1740)
The imperial troops recaptured Buda on 2 September 1686, most Jewish residents were massacred, some captured and later released for ransom. In the following years the whole of Hungary now came under the rule of the House of Habsburg. As the devastated country had to be repopulated, Bishop Count Leopold Karl von Kollonitsch, subsequently Archbishop of Esztergom and Primate of Hungary, advised the king to give the preference to the German Catholics so that the country might in time become German and Catholic. He held that the Jews could not be exterminated at once, but they must be weeded out by degrees, as bad coin is gradually withdrawn from circulation. The decree passed by the Diet of Pressburg (1687–1688), imposing double taxation upon the Jews. Jews were not permitted to engage in agriculture, nor to own any real estate, nor to keep Christian servants.[21]
This advice soon bore fruit and was in part acted upon. In August 1690, the government at
The revolt of the
After the restoration of peace the Jews were expelled from many cities that feared their competition; thus
The lot of the Jews was not improved under the reign of Leopold's son,
The
The government could not, however, check the large immigration; for although strict laws were drafted in 1727, they could not be enforced owing to the good-will of the magnates toward the Jews. The counties either did not answer at all, or sent reports bespeaking mercy rather than persecution.[24]
Meanwhile, the king endeavored to free the mining-towns from the Jews – a work which Leopold I had already begun in 1693. The Jews, however, continued to settle near these towns; they displayed their wares at the fairs; and, with the permission of the court, they even erected a foundry at Ság (Sasinkovo). When King Charles ordered them to leave (March 1727), the royal mandate was in some places ignored; in others the Jews obeyed so slowly that he had to repeat his edict three months later.[24]
Maria Theresa (1740–1780)
In 1735, another census of the Jews of the country was taken with the view of reducing their numbers. There were at that time 11,621 Jews living in Hungary, of which 2,474 were male heads of families, and fifty-seven were female heads. Of these heads of families 35.31 per cent declared themselves to be Hungarians; the rest had immigrated. Of the immigrants 38.35 per cent came from Moravia, 11.05 per cent from Poland, and 3.07 per cent from
During the reign of Queen
The queen confirmed this agreement of the commission, except the eight-year clause, changing the period to three years, which she subsequently made five. The agreement, thus ratified by the queen, was brought on November 26 before the courts, which were powerless to relieve the Jews from the payment of this Malkegeld ("queen's money" in Yiddish), as they called it.[25]
The Jews, thus burdened by new taxes, thought the time ripe for taking steps to remove their oppressive
The Jews also had to pay heavier bridge-and ferry-tolls than the Christians; at Nagyszombat (
The commission laid these complaints before the Queen, indicating the manner in which they could be relieved; and their suggestions were subsequently willed by the queen and made into law. The queen relieved the Jews from the tax of toleration in Upper Hungary only. In regard to the other complaints she ordered that the Jews should specify them in detail, and that the government should remedy them insofar as they came under its jurisdiction.[26]
The toleration-tax had hardly been instituted when Michael Hirsch petitioned the government to be appointed primate of the Hungarian Jews to be able to settle difficulties that might arise among them, and to collect the tax. The government did not recommend Hirsch, but decided that in case the Jews should refuse to pay, it might be advisable to appoint a primate to adjust the matter.[26]
Before the end of the period of five years the delegates of the Jews again met the commission at Pressburg (Bratislava) and offered to increase the amount of their tax to 25,000 florins a year if the queen would promise that it should remain at that sum for the next ten years. The queen had other plans, however; not only did she dismiss the renewed gravamina of the Jews, but rather imposed stiffer regulations upon them. Their tax of ƒ20,000 was increased to ƒ30,000 in 1760; to ƒ50,000 in 1772; to ƒ80,000 in 1778; and to ƒ160,000 in 1813.[26]
Joseph II (1780–1790)
Documents written in Hebrew or in Yiddish were not legal; Hebrew books were to be used at worship only; the Jews were to organize elementary schools; the commands of the emperor, issued in the interests of the Jews, were to be announced in the synagogues; and the rabbis were to explain to the people the salutary effects of these decrees. The subjects to be taught in the Jewish schools were to be the same as those taught in the national schools; the same text-books were to be used in all the elementary schools; and everything that might offend the religious sentiment of non-conformists was to be omitted.[26]
During the early years Christian teachers were to be employed in the Jewish schools, but they were to have nothing to do with the religious affairs of such institutions. After the lapse of ten years a Jew might establish a business, or engage in trade, only if he could prove that he had attended a school. The usual school-inspectors were to supervise the Jewish schools and to report to the government. The Jews were to create a fund for organizing and maintaining their schools. Jewish youth might enter the academies, and might study any subject at the universities except theology. Jews might rent farms only if they could cultivate the same without the aid of Christians.[26]
Jews were allowed to
The Jews, in a petition dated April 22, 1783, expressed their gratitude to the emperor for his favors, and, reminding him of his principle that religion should not be interfered with, asked permission to wear beards. The emperor granted the prayer of the petitioners, but reaffirmed the other parts of the decree (April 24, 1783). The Jews organized schools in various places, at Pressburg (Bratislava), Óbuda, Vágújhely (Nové Mesto nad Váhom), and Nagyvárad (Oradea). A decree was issued by the emperor (July 23, 1787) to the effect that every Jew should choose a German surname; and a further edict (1789) ordered, to the consternation of the Jews, that they should henceforth perform military service.[27]
After the death of Joseph II the royal free cities showed a very hostile attitude toward the Jews. The citizens of Pest petitioned the municipal council that after May 1, 1790, the Jews should no longer be allowed to live in the city. The government interfered; and the Jews were merely forbidden to engage in peddling in the city. Seven days previously a decree of expulsion had been issued at Nagyszombat (Trnava), May 1 being fixed as the date of the Jews' departure. The Jews appealed to the government; and in the following December the city authorities of Nagyszombat were informed that the Diet had confirmed the former rights of the Jews, and that the latter could not be expelled.[28]
Toleration and oppression (1790–1847)
The Jews of Hungary handed a petition, in which they boldly presented their claims to equality with other citizens, to King Leopold II (1790–1792) at Vienna on November 29, 1790. He sent it the following day to the chancelleries of Hungary and Moravia for their opinions. The question was brought before the estates of the country on December 2, and the Diet drafted a bill showing that it intended to protect the Jews. This decision created consternation among the enemies of the latter. Nagyszombat (Trnava) addressed a further memorandum to the estates (December 4) in which it demanded that the Diet should protect the city's privileges. The Diet decided in favor of the Jews, and its decision was laid before the king.[28]
The Jews, confidently anticipating the king's decision in their favor, organized a splendid celebration on November 15, 1790, the day of his coronation; on January 10, 1791, the king approved the bill of the Diet; and the following law, drafted in conformity with the royal decision, was read by Judge Stephen Atzel in the session of February 5:
"In order that the condition of the Jews may be regulated pending such time as may elapse until their affairs and the privileges of various royal free towns relating to them shall have been determined by a commission to report to the next ensuing Diet, when his Majesty and the estates will decide on the condition of the Jews, the estates have determined, with the approval of his Majesty, that the Jews within the boundaries of Hungary and the countries belonging to it shall, in all the royal free cities and in other localities (except the royal mining-towns), remain under the same conditions in which they were on Jan. 1, 1790; and in case they have been expelled anywhere, they shall be recalled."[28]
Thus came into force the famous law entitled De Judaeis, which forms the thirty-eighth article of the laws of the Diet of 1790–1791. The De Judaeis law was gratefully received by the Jews; for it not only afforded them protection, but also gave them the assurance that their affairs would soon be regulated. Still, although the Diet appointed on February 7, 1791, a commission to study the question, the amelioration of the condition of the Hungarian Jews was not effected till half a century later, under Ferdinand V (r. 1835–1848), during the session of the Diet of 1839–1840.[28] It is estimated that the Jewish population in Hungary grew by about 80% between 1815 and 1840,[29] bolstered by immigration due to the perception of royal tolerance.
In consequence of the petition of the Jews of Pest, the mover of which was
At the sessions of the Diet subsequent to that of 1839–1840, as well as in various cities, a decided antipathy—at times active and at times merely passive—toward the Jews became manifest. In sharp contrast to this attitude was that of Baron
Although the session of the Diet convened on November 7, 1847, was unfavorable to the Jews, the latter not only continued to cultivate the Hungarian language, but were also willing to sacrifice their lives and property in the hour of danger. During the
At this time the expulsion of the Jews from
Revolution and emancipation (1848–1849)
Jews and the Hungarian Revolution
Jews entered the national guard as early as March 1848; although they were excluded from certain cities, they reentered as soon as the danger to the country seemed greater than the hatred of the citizens. At
Many Jews throughout the country joined the army to fight for their fatherland; among them, Adolf Hübsch, subsequently rabbi at New York City; Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy, afterward lecturer at the University of Cambridge; and Ignatz Einhorn, who, under the name of "Eduard Horn," subsequently became state secretary of the Hungarian Ministry of Commerce. The rebellious Serbians slew the Jews at Zenta who sympathized with Hungary; among them, Rabbi Israel Ullmann and Jacob Münz, son of Moses Münz of Óbuda The conduct of the Jewish soldiers in the Hungarian army was highly commended by Generals Klapka and Görgey. Einhorn estimated the number of Jewish soldiers who took part in the Hungarian Revolution to be 20,000; but this is most likely exaggerated, as Béla Bernstein enumerates only 755 combatants by name in his work, Az 1848-49-iki Magyar Szabadságharcz és a Zsidók (Budapest, 1898).[31]
The Hungarian Jews served their country not only with the sword, but also with funds. Communities and individuals,
Brief emancipation and aftermath, 1849
Many Jews thought to pave the way for emancipation by a radical reform of their religious life. They thought this might ease their way, as legislators in the Diets and articles printed in the press suggested that the Jews should not receive equal civic rights until they reformed their religious practices. This reform had been first demanded in the session of 1839–1840. From this session onward, the press and general assemblies pushed for religious reform. Several counties instructed their representatives not to vote for the emancipation of the Jews until they desisted from practising the externals of their religion.[32]
For the purpose of urging Jewish emancipation, all the Jews of Hungary sent delegates to a conference at Pest on July 5, 1848. It chose a commission of ten members to lobby with the Diet for emancipation. The commission delegates were instructed not to make any concessions related to practicing the Jewish faith. The commission soon after addressed a petition to the Parliament for emancipation, but it proved ineffective.[32]
The national assembly at
The Jews' civic liberty lasted for just two weeks. After the Hungarian army's surrender at Világos to Russian troops, which had come to aid the Austrians in suppressing the Hungarian struggle for liberty, the Jews were severely punished by new authorities for having taken part in the uprising. Field Marshal Julius Jacob von Haynau, the new governor of Hungary, imposed heavy war-taxes upon them, especially upon the communities of Pest and Óbuda, which had already been heavily taxed by Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz, commander-in-chief of the Austrian army, on his triumphant entry into the Hungarian capital at the beginning of 1849. Haynau punished the communities of Kecskemét, Nagykőrös, Cegléd, Albertirsa, Szeged, and Szabadka (now Subotica, Serbia) with equal severity. Numerous Jews were imprisoned and executed; others sought refuge in emigration.[33]
Several communities petitioned to be relieved of the war taxes. The ministry of war, however, increased the burden, requiring that the communities of Pest, Óbuda, Kecskemét, Czegléd, Nagykőrös, and Irsa should pay this tax not in kind, but in currency to the amount of
Struggles for a second emancipation (1859–1867)
While the House of Habsburg controlled Hungary, emancipation of Jews was postponed. When the Austrian troops were defeated in Italy in 1859, activists pressed for liberty. In that year the cabinet, with Emperor Franz Joseph in the chair, decreed that the status of the Jews should be regulated in agreement with the times, but with due regard for the conditions obtaining in the several localities and provinces. When the emperor convened the Diet on April 2, 1861, Jews pushed for emancipation but the early dissolution of that body prevented it from taking action in the matter.[35]
The decade of absolutism in Hungary (1849–1859) resulted in Jews establishing schools, most of which were in charge of trained teachers. Based on the Jewish school fund, the government organized model schools at
When the Parliament dissolved in 1861, the emancipation of the Jews was deferred to the coronation of Franz Joseph. On December 22, 1867, the question came before the lower house, and on the favorable report of Kálmán Tisza and Zsigmond Bernáth, a bill in favor of emancipation was adopted; it was passed by the upper house on the following day.[35] Although the Antisemitic Party was represented in the Parliament, it was not taken seriously by the political elite of the country. Its agitation against Jews was not successful (see Tiszaeszlár affair).
On October 4, 1877, the Budapest University of Jewish Studies opened in Budapest. The university is still operating, celebrating its 130th anniversary on October 4, 2007. Since its opening, it has been the only Jewish institute in all of Central and Eastern Europe.
In the 1890 Hungarian census, 64.0% of the Jewish population were counted as ethnic Hungarian by mother tongue, 33.1% as German[36] 1.9% as Slovak, 0.8% as Romanian, and 0.2% as Ruthenian.
Austria-Hungary (1867–1918)
Family names
Most Jews did not have family names before 1783. Some family names were recorded for Jewish families:
- 1050: Jászkonti
- 1263: Farkas
- 1350: Hosszú
- 16th century: Cseh, Jakab, Gazdag, Fekete, Nagy, Kis
- 1780: Bárány, Csonka, Horpács, Jónap, Kohányi, Kossuth, Kosztolányi, Lengyel, Lőrincz, Lukács, Szarvas, Szabó, Varga.
Emperor Joseph II believed that Germanization could facilitate the centralization of his empire. Beginning in 1783, he ordered Jews to either choose or be given German family names by local committees. The actions were dependent on local conditions.
With the rise of Hungarian nationalism, the first wave of Magyarization of family names occurred between 1840 and 1849. After the Hungarian revolution, this process was stopped until 1867. After the
In 1942 during World War II, when Hungary became allied with Germany, the Hungarian Defense Ministry was tasked with "race validation." Its officials complained that no Hungarian or German names were "safe," as Jews might have any name. They deemed Slavic names to be "safer", but the decree listed 58 Slavic-sounding names regularly held by Jews.[37]
Population statistics
1890 / 1900 / 1910 census summaries
1890 | 1900 | 1910 | |
---|---|---|---|
Total population of Hungary, without Croatia | 15,162,988 | 16,838,255 | 18,264,533 |
Emigration to the US in the previous decade, '00–'09 | 164,119 | 261,444 | 1,162,271 |
Jewish population, again without Croatia | 707,961 | 831,162 | 911,227 |
Increase of the total population in the previous decade | 10.28% | 11.05% | 8.47% |
(Emigration to the US in the previous decade, '00–'09) / population at previous census | 1.19% | 1.72% | 6.90% |
Increase of the Jewish population in the previous decade | 13.31% | 17.40% | 9.62% |
Jewish/Total | 4.67% | 4.94% | 4.99% |
Almost a quarter (22.35%) of the Jews of Hungary lived in Budapest in 1910. Some of the surviving large synagogues in Budapest include the following:
-
Interior of Dohány Street Synagogue
-
Hegedus Gyula Utca Synagogue
-
Vasvari Pal Street Synagogue
1910 census
According to the 1910 census, the number of Jews was 911,227, or 4.99% of the 18,264,533 people living in Hungary (In addition, there were 21,231 Jews in autonomous Croatia-Slavonia). This was a 28.7% increase in absolute terms since the 1890 census, and a 0.3% increase (from 4.7%) in the overall population of Hungary. At the time, the Jewish natural growth rate was higher than the Christian (although the difference had been narrowing), but so was the emigration rate, mainly to the United States. (The total emigration from Austria-Hungary to the U.S. in 1881–1912 was 3,688,000 people, including 324,000 Jews (8.78%). In the 1880–1913 period, a total of 2,019,000 people emigrated from Hungary to the US. Thus, an estimated 177,000 Jews emigrated from Hungary to the US during this total period.)[citation needed]
The
The net loss for Judaism due to conversions was relatively low before the end of the Great War: 240 people/year between 1896 and 1900, 404 between 1901 and 1910, and 435 people/year between 1911 and 1917. According to records, 10,530 people left Judaism, and 2,244 converted to Judaism between 1896 and 1917.[38]
The majority (75.7%) of the Jewish population reported Hungarian as their primary language, so they were counted as ethnically Hungarian in the census. The Yiddish speakers were counted as ethnically German. According to this classification, 6.94% of the ethnic Hungarians and 11.63% of the Germans of Hungary were Jewish. In total, Hungarian speakers made up a 54.45% majority in Hungary; German speakers (including those who spoke Yiddish), made up 10.42% of the population.[citation needed]
Population of the capital, Budapest, was 23% Jewish (about the same ratio as in New York City)[
Before the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Jews in Hungary were prevented from owning land, which resulted in many going into business. In 1910, 60.96% of merchants,[40] 58.11% of the book printers, 41.75% of the innkeepers, 24.42% of the bakers, 24.07% of the butchers, 21.04% of the tailors, and 8.90% of the shoemakers of Hungary were Jewish.[41] 48.5% of the physicians in the country (2701 out of 5565) were Jewish.[42] In the 1893–1913 period, Jews made up roughly 20% of the students of the gimnázium high school (where classical subjects were emphasized) students and 37% of reál high school (where practical subjects were emphasized).[citation needed]
The strong class divisions of Hungary were represented in the Jewish population. About 3.1% of the Jews belonged to the "large employer" and "agricultural landowner of more than 100 hold, i.e. 57 hectares" class, 3.2% to the "small (<100 hold) landholder" class, 34.4% to the "working", i.e. wage-earning employee class, while 59.3% belonged to the self-employed or salary-earning middle class.[43]
Stephen Roth writes, "Hungarian Jews were opposed to Zionism because they hoped that somehow they could achieve equality with other Hungarian citizens, not just in law but in fact, and that they could be integrated into the country as Hungarian Israelites. The word 'Israelite' (Hungarian: Izraelita) denoted only religious affiliation and was free from the ethnic or national connotations usually attached to the term 'Jew'. Hungarian Jews attained remarkable achievements in business, culture and less frequently even in politics. By 1910 about 900,000 religious Jews made up approximately 5% of the population of Hungary and about 23% of Budapest's citizenry. Jews accounted for 54% of commercial business owners, 85% of financial institution directors and owners in banking, and 62% of all employees in commerce,[44] 20% of all general grammar school students, and 37% of all commercial scientific grammar school students, 31.9% of all engineering students, and 34.1% of all students in human faculties of the universities. Religious Jews were accounted for 48.5% of all physicians,[citation needed] and 49.4% of all lawyers/jurists in Hungary.[citation needed] During the cabinet of pm. István Tisza three Jewish men were appointed as ministers. The first was Samu Hazai (Minister of War), János Harkányi (Minister of Trade) and János Teleszky (Minister of Finance). By 1910 22% of the Members of Parliament were Jews[45] (45% in the governing National Party of Work).
While the Jewish population of the lands of the Dual Monarchy was about five percent, Jews made up nearly eighteen percent of the reserve officer corps.[46] Thanks to the modernity of the constitution and to the benevolence of emperor Franz Joseph, the Austrian Jews came to regard the era of Austria-Hungary as a golden era of their history.[47]
In absolute numbers, Budapest had by far the largest number of Jews (203,000), followed by Nagyvárad (
Interwar period (1918–1939)
Population
Using data from the 1910 census, 51.7% of the Hungarian Jews lived in territories that stayed inside the "small" Hungary after 1921, 25.5% (232,000) lived in territories that later became part of Czechoslovakia, 19.5% (178,000) became part of Romania, 2.6% (23,000) became part of Yugoslavia, 0.5% (5,000) became part of Austria and finally 0.2% (2,000) lived in Fiume, which became part of Italy after 1924.[48] According to the censuses of 1930–1931, 238,460/192,833/about 22,000 Jews lived in parts of Czechoslovakia/Romania/Yugoslavia formerly belonging to Hungary, which means that the overall number of people declaring themselves Jewish remained unchanged in the Carpathian basin between 1910 and 1930 [a decrease of 26,000 in the post-WWI Hungary, a 6,000 increase in Czechoslovakia and a 15,000 increase in Romania].[citation needed
According to the census of December 1920 in the "small" Hungary, the percentage of Jews increased in the preceding decade in Sátoraljaújhely (to 30.4%), Budapest (23.2%), Újpest (20.0%), Nyíregyháza (11.7%), Debrecen (9.9%), Pécs (9.0%), Sopron (7.5%), Makó (6.4%), Rákospalota (6.1%), Kispest (5.6%) and Békéscsaba (to 5.6%), while decreased in the other 27 towns with more than 20 thousand inhabitants.[49] Overall, 31.1% of the Jewish population lived in villages and towns with less than 20 thousand inhabitants.[citation needed]
In 1920, 46.3% of the medical doctors, 41.2% of the veterinarians, 21.4% of the pharmacists of Hungary were Jewish, as well as 34.3% of the journalists, 24.5% of performers of music, 22.7% of the theater actors, 16.8% of the painters and sculptors.[50] Among the owners of land of more than 1000 hold, i.e. 570 hectares, 19.6% were Jewish.[51] Among the 2739 factories in Hungary, 40.5% had a Jewish owner.[50]
The following table shows the number of people who declared to be Israelite (Jewish) at the censuses inside the post-WWI territory of Hungary. Between 1920 and 1945, it was illegal for Hungarians to fail to declare their religion A person's religion was written on their birth certificate, marriage license (except in 1919, during the short-lived Commune, see Hungarian Soviet Republic), and even on a child's school grade reports.[citation needed]
Census | December 31, 1910 (inside 1937 borders) | December 31, 1920 | December 31, 1930 | January 31, 1941 (inside 1937 borders) | 1949 | 2001 | 2011 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
"izraelita" | 471,355 | 473,310 | 444,567 | 400,981 | 133,861 | 12,871 | 10,965 |
% of total | 6.19% | 5.93% | 5.12% | 4.30% | 1.45% | 0.13% | 0.11% |
The net loss for Judaism due to official conversions was 26,652 people between 1919 and 1938, while 4,288 people converted into the faith, 30,940 left it. The endpoints of this period, 1919–1920 (white terror) and 1938 (anti-Jewish law) contributed to more than half of this loss; between 1921 and 1930, the net loss rested around pre-war levels (260 people/year).:[38]
1896–1900 (pre-WWI borders) | 1901–1910 (pre-WWI borders) | 1911–1917 (pre-WWI borders) | 1919–1920 | 1921–1930 | 1931–1937 | 1938 alone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total years | 5 | 10 | 7 | 2 | 10 | 7 | 1 |
Converted from Judaism | 1,681 | 5,033 | 3,816 | 9,103 | 5,315 | 7,936 | 8,586 |
Converted to Judaism | 481 | 994 | 769 | 316 | 2,718 | 1,156 | 98 |
Population of Budapest | 1851[52] | 1869 | 1880 | 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1920 | 1930 | 1941 | 1949 | 2001 (Greater) | 2011 (Greater) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | 178,062 | 270,476 | 355,682 | 486,671 | 703,448 | 880,371 | 928,996 | 1,006,184 | 1,164,963 | 1,057,912 | 1,777,921 | 1,729,040 |
Jewish | 26,887 (15.1%) | 44,890 (16.6%) | 70,227 (19.7%) | 102,377 (21.0%) | 166,198 (23.6%)o | 203,687 (23.1%) | 215,512 (23.2%) | 204,371 (20.3%) | 184,453 (15.8%) | 96,537 (9.1%) | 9,468 (0.5%)[53] | 7,925 (0.5%)[54] |
In 1926, the districts I, II, III of Buda were Jewish 8%,11%,10% respectively. The 19,000 Jews of Buda constituted about 9.3% of both the total population of Buda and the entire Jewish population of Budapest. On the left (Pest) side of the Danube, downtown Pest (Belváros, district IV then) was 18% Jewish. Districts V (31%), VI (28%), VII (36%), VIII (22%), IX (13%) had large Jewish populations, while district X had 6%. The four Neolog communities of Budapest (I-II, III, IV-IX, X) had a total of 66,300 members paying their dues, while the Orthodox community had about 7,000 members paying religious taxes.[citation needed]
In the countryside of the post-WWI Hungary, the Orthodox had a slight edge (about 49%) over the Neolog (46%). Budapest and countryside combined, 65.72% of the 444,567 Jews belonged to Neolog communities, 5.03% to status quo ante, while 29.25% were Orthodox in 1930. The Jewish communities suffered a 5.6% decline in the 1910–1930 period, on the territory of the "small" Hungary, due to emigration and conversion.[citation needed]
The Jews of Hungary were fairly well integrated into Hungarian society by the time of the
# of households | max 1 room | 2 rooms | 3 rooms | 4 rooms | 5 rooms | min 6 rooms |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jewish= 50,761 | 25.4% | 39.6% | 21.2% | 9.2% | 3.1% | 1.5% |
Christian = 159,113 | 63.3% | 22.1% | 8.4% | 3.8% | 1.4% | 1.0% |
Education. The following chart illustrates the effect of the 1920 "numerus clausus" Law on the percentage of Jewish university students at two Budapest Universities.
Jewish students | 1913 | 1925 Spring |
---|---|---|
Budapest University of Sciences
|
34.1% | 7.7% |
Budapest University of Technology and Economics | 31.9% | 8.8% |
Those who could afford went to study to other European countries like Austria, Germany, Italy and Czechoslovakia. In 1930, of all males aged six and older,[61]
Schooling | >= 8 years | >= 12 years | university degree |
---|---|---|---|
General population | 10.8% | 5.8% | 2.1% |
Jews in the countryside | 36.6% | 17.0% | 5.0% |
Jews in Budapest | 56.5% | 31.7% | 8.1% |
Seven of the thirteen Nobel prize winners born in Hungary are Jewish. In sports, 55.6% of the individual gold medal winners of Hungary at the Summer Olympic Games between 1896 and 1912 were Jewish. This number dropped to 17.6% in the interwar period of 1924–1936.[citation needed]
Period | 1896–1912 | 1924–1936 | 1948–1956 | 1960–1972 | 1976–1992 (1984 excluded) | 1996–2008 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
# of Olympics | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
Total Golds | 442 | 482 | 440 | 684 | 903 | 1172 |
Hungarian Golds | 11 | 22 | 35 | 32 | 33 | 26 |
Hungarian/total World | 2.49% | 4.56% | 7.95% | 4.68% | 3.65% | 2.22% |
Hungarian Individual Gold | 9 | 17 | 26 | 22 | 27 | 16 |
Hungarian Jewish Individual | 5 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
Jewish/total individual Hungarian | 55.56% | 17.65% | 23.08% | 18.18% | 0% | 0% |
Jews in Gold Teams | 57.14% = 8/14 | 28.21%= 11/39 | ||||
Jews in population | 4.99% (1910) | 5.12% (1930) | 1.45% (1949) | 0.13% (2001) |
Revolution
More than 10,000 Jews died and thousands were wounded and disabled fighting for Hungary in World War I. But these sacrifices by patriotic Hungarian Jews may have been outweighed by the chaotic events following the war's end.[62]
With the defeat and dissolution of the
The first post-war government was led by Mihály Károlyi, and was the first modern effort at liberal democratic government in Hungary. But it was cut short in a spasm of communist revolution, which would have serious implications for the manner in which Hungarian Jews were viewed by their fellow-countrymen.[citation needed]
In March 1919, Communist and Social Democrat members of a coalition government ousted Karolyi; soon after (March 21), the Communists were to take power as their Social Democrat colleagues were willing neither to accept nor to refuse the Vix Note to cede a significant part of the Great Plains to Romania and the communists took control of Hungary's governing institutions. While popular at first among Budapest's progressive elite and proletariat, the so-called Hungarian Soviet Republic fared poorly in almost all of its aims, particularly its efforts to regain territories occupied by Slovakia (although achieving some transitional success here) and Romania. All the less palatable excesses of Communist uprisings were in evidence during these months, particularly the formation of squads of brutal young men practicing what they called "revolutionary terror" to intimidate and suppress dissident views. All but the one Sándor Garbai, the revolution's leaders, including Béla Kun, Tibor Szamuely, and Jenő Landler – were of Jewish ancestry. As in other countries where Communism was viewed as an immediate threat, the presence of ethnic Jews in positions of revolutionary leadership helped foster the notion of a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy.[8]
Kun's regime was crushed after four and a half months when the Romanian army entered Budapest; it was quickly followed by the reactionary forces under the command of the former Austro-Hungarian admiral, Miklós Horthy.[citation needed] The sufferings endured during the brief revolution, and their exploitation by ultra-nationalist movements, helped generate stronger suspicions among non-Jewish Hungarians, and undergirded pre-existing antisemitic views.[citation needed]
Beginning in July 1919, officers of Horthy's National Army engaged in a brutal string of counter-reprisals against Hungarian communists and their allies, real or imagined.[63] This series of pogroms directed at Jews, progressives, peasants and others is known as the White Terror. Horthy's personal role in these reprisals is still subject of debate (in his memoirs he refused to disavow the violence, saying that "only an iron broom" could have swept the country clean).[64] Tallying the numbers of victims of the different terror campaigns in this period is still a matter of some political dispute[65] but the White Terror is generally considered to have claimed more lives than the repressions of the Kun regime by an order of magnitude, thousands vs hundreds.[8][66][67]
Interwar years
Jews represented one-fourth of all university students and 43% percent at Budapest Technological University. In 1920, 60 percent of Hungarian doctors, 51 percent of lawyers, 39 percent of all privately employed engineers and chemists, 34 percent of editors and journalists, and 29 percent of musicians identified themselves as Jews by religion.[68]
Resentment of this Jewish trend of success was widespread: Admiral Horthy himself declared that he was "an anti-Semite", and remarked in a letter to one of his prime ministers, "I have considered it intolerable that here in Hungary everything, every factory, bank, large fortune, business, theater, press, commerce, etc. should be in Jewish hands, and that the Jew should be the image reflected of Hungary, especially abroad."[69]
Unfortunately for Jews they had also become, by a quirk of history, the most visible minority remaining in Hungary (besides ethnic Germans and Gypsies); the other large "non-Hungarian" populations (including Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, and Romanians, among others) had been abruptly excised from the Hungarian population by the territorial losses at Trianon. That and the highly visible role of Jews in the economy, the media and the professions, as well as in the leadership of the 1919 Communist dictatorship left Hungary's Jews as an ethnically separate group which could serve as a scapegoat for the nation's ills.[8]
The scapegoating began quickly. In 1920, Horthy's government passed a "numerus clausus" law that placed limits on the number of minority students in proportion of their size of the population, thus restricting the Jewish enrollment at universities to five percent or less.[citation needed]
Anti-Jewish policies grew more repressive in the interwar period as Hungary's leaders, who remained committed to regaining territories lost in WWI, chose to align themselves (albeit warily) with the fascist governments of Germany and Italy – the international actors most likely to stand behind Hungary's claims.[8] The inter-war years also saw the emergence of flourishing fascist groups, such as the Hungarian National Socialist Party and the Arrow Cross Party.
Anti-Jewish measures
Anti-Jewish Laws (1938–1942)
Starting in 1938, Hungary under Miklós Horthy passed a series of anti-Jewish measures in emulation of Germany's Nuremberg Laws.
- The "First Jewish Law" (May 29, 1938) restricted the number of Jews in each commercial enterprise, in the press, among physicians, engineers and lawyers to twenty percent.
- The "Second Jewish Law" (May 5, 1939), for the first time, defined Jews racially: individuals with two, three or four Jewish-born grandparents were declared Jewish.
- The "Third Jewish Law" (August 8, 1941) prohibited intermarriage and penalized sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews.
- The "Fourth Jewish Law" (September 6, 1942) banned Jews from owning or purchasing land.
Their employment in government at any level was forbidden, they could not be editors at newspapers, their numbers were restricted to six per cent among theater and movie actors, physicians, lawyers and engineers. Private companies were forbidden to employ more than 12% Jews. 250,000 Hungarian Jews lost their income. Most of them lost their right to vote as well: before the second Jewish law, about 31% of the Jewish population of Borsod county (Miskolc excluded), 2496 people had this right. At the next elections, less than a month after this new anti-Jewish legislation, only 38 privileged Jews could vote.[70]
In the elections of May 28–29, Nazi and Arrow Cross (Nyilas) parties received one quarter of the votes and 52 out of 262 seats. Their support was even larger, usually between 1/3 and 1/2 of the votes, where they were on the ballot at all, since they were not listed in large parts of the country
January 1941 census
According to Magyarország történelmi kronológiája,[73] the census of January 31, 1941, found that 6.2% of the population of 13,643,621, i.e. 846,000 people, were considered Jewish according to the racial laws of that time. In addition, in April 1941, Hungary annexed the Bácska (Bačka), the Muraköz (Međimurje County) and Muravidék (Prekmurje) regions from the occupied Yugoslavia, with 1,025,508 people including 15,000 Jews (data are from October 1941). This means that inside the May 1941 borders of Hungary, there were 861,000 people (or 5.87%) who were at least half Jewish, and therefore were considered Jewish. From this number, 725,000 (or 4.94%) were Jewish in accordance with Jewish religious law (4.30% in pre-1938 Hungary, 7.15% in the territories annexed from Czechoslovakia and Romania in 1938–1940 and 1.38% in the territories annexed from Yugoslavia in 1941).[citation needed]
year of annexation; from which country | Region | Jewish by religion in 1941 | Jewish by law but not by confessed religion | Jewish |
---|---|---|---|---|
pre-1938; Hungary | Budapest | 185,000 | 36,000–72,000 | 221,000–257,000 |
pre-1938; Hungary | countryside | 216,000 | 16,000–38,000 | 232,000–254,000 |
1938; Czechoslovakia | southern Slovakia | 39,000 | 1,000–10,000 | 40,000–49,000 |
1938; Czechoslovakia | lower Carpatho-Ruthenia (lower Ung and Bereg counties) | 39,000 | – | 39,000 |
1939; Czechoslovakia | upper Carpatho-Ruthenia (ex-Czech part only) | 81,000 | – | 81,000 |
1940; Romania | Northern Transylvania | 151,000 | 3,000–15,000 | 154,000–166,000 |
1941; Yugoslavia | Bácska and other territories | 14,000 | 1,000 | 15,000 |
Total | 725,000 | 57,000–136,000 | 782,000–861,000 |
The following is from another source, a statistical summary written in the beginning of 1944 and referring to the 1941 census data:[74]
Region by year of annexation | Yiddish+Hebrew by mother tongue in 1941 | Jewish by ethnicity in 1941 | Jewish by religion in 1941 | Jewish by religion in 1930 | Jewish by religion in 1910 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
pre-1938 | 1,357+222 | 9,764 (0.10%) | 400,980 (4.30%) | 444,567 (5.12%) | 471,378 (6.19%) |
1938 | 10,735+544 | 14,286 (1.35%) | 77,700 (7.32%) | 78,190 (7.56%) | 66,845 (7.69%) |
1939 | 68,643+1,987 | 64,191 (9.25%) | 80,960 (11.67%) | 71,782 (12.11%) | 63,324 (12.75%) |
1940 | 45,492+2,960 | 47,357 (1.84%) | 151,125 (5.86%) | 148,288 (6.20%) | 134,225 (6.14%) |
1941 | 338+47 | 3,857 (0.37%) | 14,242 (1.38%) | ? | 17,642 (1.87%) |
Total | 126,565+5,760 | 139,455 (0.95%) | 725,007 (4.94%) | 753,415 (6.22%)[75] |
The question about Jewish grandparents was added late to the questionnaires at the census of 1941, when some of the sheets had already been printed. In addition, a lot of Christians of Jewish ancestry did not answer this question truthfully. So while about 62,000 Christians admitted some Jewish ancestry (including 38,000 in Budapest), their actual number was estimated at least 100,000:[76]
Religion | 4 Jewish grandparents | 3 | 2 | 1 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Jewish in Budapest | 175,651 | 448 | 7,655 | 699 |
Christian in Budapest | 26,120 | 616 | 9,238 | 1,957 |
Jewish in the entire country | 708,419 | 1,639 | 15,011 | 1,938 |
Christian in the entire country | 38,574 | 888 | 18,015 | 4,071 |
First massacres
It is not clear whether the 10,000–20,000 Jewish refugees (from Poland and elsewhere) were counted in the January 1941 census. They and anyone who could not prove legal residency since 1850, about 20,000 people, were deported to southern Poland and either abandoned there or were handed over to the Germans between July 15 and August 12, 1941. In practice, the Hungarians deported many people whose families had lived in the area for generations. In some cases, applications for residency permits were allowed to pile up without action by Hungarian officials until after the deportations had been carried out. The vast majority of those deported were massacred in Kameniec-Podolsk (Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre) at the end of August.[77][c]
In the massacres of Újvidék (Novi Sad) and villages nearby, 2,550–2,850 Serbs, 700–1,250 Jews and 60–130 others were murdered by the Hungarian Army and "Csendőrség" (Gendarmerie) in January 1942. Those responsible, Ferenc Feketehalmy-Czeydner, Márton Zöldy, József Grassy, László Deák and others were later tried in Budapest during December 1943 and were sentenced, but some of them escaped to Germany.[citation needed]
During the war, Jews were called up to serve in unarmed "
The Holocaust
Germany invades Hungary
On March 18, 1944, Adolf Hitler summoned Horthy to a conference in Austria, where he demanded greater acquiescence from the Hungarian state. Horthy resisted, but his efforts were fruitless – German tanks rolled into Budapest while he attended the conference.[citation needed] On March 23, the government of Döme Sztójay was installed. Among his other first moves, Sztójay legalized the Arrow Cross Party, which quickly began organizing. During the four days interregnum following the German occupation, the Ministry of the Interior was put in the hands of László Endre and László Baky, right-wing politicians well known for their hostility to Jews. Their boss, Andor Jaross, was another committed antisemite.[citation needed]
A few days later, Ruthenia, Northern Transylvania, and the border region with Croatia and Serbia were placed under military command. On April 9, Prime Minister Döme Sztójay and the Germans obligated Hungary to place at the disposal of the Reich 300,000 Jewish laborers. Five days later, on April 14, Endre, Baky, and Adolf Eichmann, the SS officer in charge of organizing the deportation of Hungarian Jews to the German Reich, decided to deport all the Jews of Hungary.[citation needed]
Although in 1943, the BBC Polish Service broadcast about the exterminations, the BBC Hungarian Service did not discuss the Jews. A 1942 memo for the BBC Hungarian Service, written by
Deportation to Auschwitz
SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann,[83] whose duties included supervising the extermination of Jews, set up his staff in the Majestic Hotel and proceeded rapidly in rounding up Jews from the Hungarian provinces outside Budapest and its suburbs. The Yellow Star and Ghettoization laws, and deportation, were accomplished in less than 8 weeks, with the enthusiastic help of the Hungarian authorities, particularly the gendarmerie (csendőrség). The plan was to use 45 cattle cars per train, 4 trains a day, to deport 12,000 Jews to Auschwitz every day from the countryside, starting in mid-May; this was to be followed by the deportation of Jews of Budapest from about July 15.
Just before the deportations began, the
The first transports to
"There is no doubt that this is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world ..."
Winston Churchill, 11 July 1944[94]
By July 9, 1944, 437,402 Jews had been deported, according to Reich plenipotentiary in Hungary Edmund Veesenmayer's official German reports. [h] One hundred and forty-seven trains were sent to Auschwitz, where most of the deportees were murdered on arrival.[96] Because the crematoria could not cope with the corpses, special pits were dug near them, where bodies were burned. It has been estimated that one-third of the murdered victims at Auschwitz were Hungarian.[97] For most of this period, 12,000 Jews were delivered to Auschwitz in a typical day, among them the future writer and Nobel Prize-winner Elie Wiesel, at age 15. Photographs taken at Auschwitz were found after the war showing the arrival of Jews from Hungary at the camp.[98]
The devotion to the cause of the "final solution" of the Hungarian gendarmes surprised even Eichmann himself, who supervised the operation with only twenty officers and a staff of 100, which included drivers, cooks, etc.[99]
Efforts to rescue Jews
Very few Catholic or Protestant clergy members raised their voices against sending the Jews to their death[citation needed]. (Notable was Bishop Áron Márton's sermon in Kolozsvár on May 18). The Catholic Primate of Hungary, Serédi decided not to issue a pastoral letter condemning the deportation of the Jews.[citation needed]
On June 15, the
The Sztójay government rescheduled the date of deportation of the Jews of Budapest to Auschwitz to August 27.
Despite the change of government, Hungarian troops occupied parts of Southern Transylvania, Romania, and massacred hundreds of Jews in Kissármás (Sărmașu; Sărmașu massacre), Marosludas (Luduș; Luduș massacre) and other places starting September 4.
Arrow Cross rule
After the Nyilaskeresztes (Arrow Cross) coup d'état on October 15, tens of thousands of Jews of Budapest were sent on foot to the Austrian border in death marches, most forced laborers under Hungarian Army command so far were deported (for instance to
The names of some diplomats,
Number of survivors
An estimated 119,000 Jewish people were liberated in Budapest (25,000 in the small "international" ghetto, 69,000 in the big ghetto, and 25,000 hiding with false papers) and 20,000 forced laborers in the countryside. Almost all the surviving deportees returned between May and December 1945, at least to check out the fate of their families. Their number was 116,000.[107] It is estimated that from an original population of 861,000 people considered Jewish inside the borders of 1941–1944, about 255,000 survived. This gives a 29.6 percent survival rate. According to another calculation, Hungary's Jewish population at the time of the German invasion was 800,000, of which 365,000 survived.[108]
Communist rule
Year | Pop. | ±% |
---|---|---|
1920 | 473,400 | — |
1930 | 444,567 | −6.1% |
1939 | 400,000 | −10.0% |
1945 | 165,000 | −58.8% |
1951 | 130,000 | −21.2% |
1960 | 80,000 | −38.5% |
1970 | 70,000 | −12.5% |
1980 | 65,000 | −7.1% |
1990 | 57,000 | −12.3% |
2000 | 52,000 | −8.8% |
2010 | 48,600 | −6.5% |
Source: |
At the end of World War II, only 140,000 Jews remained in Hungary, down from 750,000 in 1941. The difficult economic situation coupled with the lingering antisemitic attitude of the population prompted a wave of migration. Between 1945 and 1949, 40,000–50,000 Jews left Hungary for Israel (30,000–35,000) and Western countries (15,000–20,000). Between 1948 and 1951 14,301 Hungarian Jews immigrated to Israel, and after 1951 exit visas became increasingly expensive and restrictive.[111] People of Jewish origin dominated the post-war Communist regime until 1952–53 when many were removed in a series of purges.[112] During its first years, the regime's top membership and secret police were almost entirely Jewish, albeit naturally anti-religious.[112] Leaders like Mátyás Rákosi, Ernő Gerő and Peter Gabor repudiated Judaism and were strict atheists per Communist doctrine. Indeed, under Communist rule from 1948 to 1988, Zionism was outlawed and Jewish observance was curtailed. Moreover, members of the upper class, Jews and Christians alike, were expelled from the cities to the provinces for 6–12 months in the early 1950s.
Jews were on both sides of the 1956 uprising.[112] Some armed rebel leaders like István Angyal, an Auschwitz survivor executed on December 1, 1958, were Jewish. Jewish writers and intellectuals such as Tibor Déry, imprisoned from 1957 to 1961, occupied the forefront of the reform movement.[112] After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, about 20,000 or so Jews fled the country. About 9,000 went to Israel while others settled in the United States, Canada, Australia, Western Europe, and Latin America. An estimated 20% of the Hungarian refugees entering Canada in 1957 were Jewish.[113][114][115] The Hungarian Jewish population declined both because of emigration and because of high levels of assimilation and intermarriage and low birth rates. The Jews with the strongest Jewish identities were typically the ones who emigrated.[116] By 1967, only about 80,000–90,000 Jews (including non-religious Jews) remained in the country, with the number dropping further before the country's Communist regime collapsed in 1989.
Under the milder communist regime of János Kádár (ruled 1957–1988) leftist Jewish intelligentsia remained an important and vocal part of Hungarian art and sciences. Diplomatic relations with Israel were severed in 1967 following the Six-Day War, but it was not followed by antisemitic campaigns as in Poland or the Soviet Union.
From the 1990s
Hungary's Jewish population (within its current borders) decreased from nearly half a million after
After the fall of communism, Hungary had two prime ministers of partial Jewish origin, József Antall (1990–1993) and Gyula Horn (1994–1998)[117]
In April 1997, the Hungarian parliament passed a Jewish compensation act that returns property stolen from Jewish victims during the Nazi and Communist eras. Under this law, property and monetary payment were given back to the Jewish public heritage foundation and to Jewish victims of the Holocaust.[118]
Critics have asserted that the sums represent nothing more than a symbolic gesture. According to Randolph L. Braham: "The overshadowing of the Holocaust by a politically guided preoccupation with the horrors of the Communist era has led, among other things, to giving priority to the compensation of the victims of Communism over those of Nazism. To add insult to injury, an indeterminate number of the Christian victims who were compensated for properties nationalized by the Communist regime had, in fact, 'legally' or fraudulently acquired them from Jews during the Nazi era. Compounding this virtual obscenity, the government of Viktor Orbán sought in late 1998 to ease the collective conscience of the nation by offering to compensate survivors by paying approximately $150 for each member of their particular immediate families, assuming that they can prove that their loved ones were in fact victims of the Holocaust."[119]
See also
- List of Hungarian Jews
- Antisemitism in contemporary Hungary
- Arrow Cross Party
- Budapest Ghetto
- History of Hungary
- History of the Jews in Bekes (Hungary)
- History of the Jews in Carpathian Ruthenia
- Hungary in World War II
- Category:Israeli people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
- Kiryat Mattersdorf
- Miskolc pogrom
- Neolog Judaism
- Oberlander Jews
- Religion in Hungary
- Freedom of religion in Hungary
- Shoes on the Danube Promenade
- Siebengemeinden
- Batei Ungarin
- Unsdorf
Notes
- ^ "Jews in Hungary were culturally Hungarian. They spoke Hungarian, even the Orthodox among them, and identified strongly with the cause of Hungarian nationalism, often to the point of chauvanism. [...] Jews living in the Hungarian territories that were given to the countries surrounding Hungary after the Treaty of Versailles (1919) maintained their Hungarian ethnic identity.[6]
- ^ "By 1941, over 17 percent of Budapest's Jews (as defined by law) belonged to Christian denominations. The number of converts was so great and the influence of some of them so weighty that the Catholic episcopate created an association for their legal and social protection --- the Holy Cross Society – in October 1938. It battled officials over enforcement of the racial laws, campaigned against further legislation, and, later, tried to help converts who were drafted into labor battalions."[7]
- ^ "A few thousand of the deportees were simply abandoned by their captors in the areas surrounding Kaminets-Podolsk. Most subsequently perished with other Jewish residents of the area as a result of transports or aktions in the many ghettos that were established but a handful survived, either by returning to the area of their homes, or otherwise. The number of people deported over the Carpathians was 19,426 according to a document found in 2012 ."[78]
- ^ "[T]he BBC broadcast every day, giving updates on the war, general news, and opinion pieces on Hungarian politics. But among all these broadcasts, there were crucial things that were not being said, things that might have warned thousands of Hungarian Jews of the horrors to come in the event of German occupation. A memo setting out policy for the BBC Hungarian Service in 1942 states: 'We shouldn't mention the Jews at all.'"[79]
- ^ "The Hungarian Jews in 1944 knew all about it. They had a lot of information because Jewish refugees were coming to Hungary, in 1942 and 1943, giving reports about what was happening in Poland, and what was the reaction from the Jews. This is Hungary. This might be happening in Galicia to Polish Jews, but this can't happen in our very cultivated Hungarian state. It is impossible that even early in 1944, the Jewish leadership there didn't have some information about what was happening. People were escaping from the extermination camps just 80 km from the Hungarian border and there were letters and reports and of course the BBC. I think part of the problem of the Holocaust was that potential victims couldn't believe the information. The idea that something so atrocious would come from Germany and the European civilized environment was so unimaginable that they didn't take it for real, even when they received overwhelming reports from the death camps."[80]
- ^ "Another major activity, which was financed chiefly by Palestinian funds but which also received some support from JDC, was the smuggling into Romania of Hungarian Jews when the deportations to Auschwitz began in that country in May 1944. It is not quite clear just how many Hungarian Jews managed to get across, but the number was in the neighborhood of 4,0(X). Most of them came by a route organized by the youth movements, though some paid individual smugglers on the border. In Istanbul, Alexander Cretianu, the Rumanian minister, agreed that these Jews should be let into his country. Filderman and Zissu obtained similar assurances in Bucharest, despite heavy German pressure."[81]
- ^ After the war, Horthy claimed that he did not know about the Final Solution until August and that he thought the Jews were being sent to concentration camps for labor.[89] Some historians accept this claim.[90]
- ^ Veesenmayer's telegram to Wilhelmstrasse (German Foreign Ministry) on July 11: "The concentration and transportation of the Jews from Zone V and the Budapest suburbs were concluded with 55,741 Jews on July 9, as planned. The total result from Zones I-V and the Budapest suburbs has been 437,402." p. 881, document No. 697 in "Wilhelmstrasse és Magyarország", Budapest, Kossuth, 1968.[95]
- ^ "In late July there was a lull in the deportations. After the failed attempt on Hitler's life, the Germans backed off from pressing Horthy's regime to continue further, large-scale deportations. Smaller groups continued to be deported by train. At least one German police message decoded by GC&CS revealed that one trainload of 1,296 Jews from the town of Sarvar in western Hungary Hungarian Jews being rounded up in Budapest (Courtesy: USHMM) had departed for Auschwitz on August 4.112 In late August, Horthy refused Eichmann's request to re-start the deportations. Himmler ordered Eichmann to leave Budapest."[101]
- ^ "Himmler did issue a definite order against it which reached Budapest on the night between August 24 and August 25, as Veesenmayer reported to Ribbentrop on the latter day. This order stood after Himmler received Becher's cable. It seems, therefore, that in return for nothing more than Mayer's promise to see whether the Germans’ demands would be met, Himmler was ready to desist from the deportation of Budapest Jewry."[103]
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Büchler, Alexander (1904). "Hungary". In Singer, Isidore (ed.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Volume 6. New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls Co., pp. 494–503.
- ^ "World Jewish Population, 2010" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 9, 2012. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
- ^ "Jewish Life Takes to the Streets at Hungary's Celebrated Judafest". Jewish Federation of North America. May 9, 2012. Archived from the original on October 16, 2013. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
- ^ Myles, Robert (February 9, 2013). "Hungary: A new synagogue for Budapest but anti-Semitism on rise". Digital Journal. Archived from the original on March 15, 2013. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
- ^ a b "Hungarian census 2011 / Országos adatok (National data) / 2.1.7 A népesség vallás, felekezet és fontosabb demográfiai ismérvek szerint (Population by religion, denomination combined by main demographical data) (Hungarian)". Archived from the original on May 9, 2015. Retrieved November 7, 2013.
- ^ "Immigration to Israel from the establishment of the state in 1948 until 2010" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 12, 2014. Retrieved August 9, 2014.
- ISBN 9789401565639.
- ISBN 9781400866380.
- ^ a b c d e f Mason, John W; "Hungary's Battle For Memory," History Today, Vol. 50, March 2000
- ISBN 978-0-19-280436-5.
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Further reading
- ISBN 0-88033-481-9
- Braham, Randolph L. (2001) The Politics of Genocide: the Holocaust in Hungary. (Rev. and enl. ed.) 2 vols. Boulder: Social Science Monographs; Distributed by Columbia University Press ISBN 0-88033-247-6[Hungarian translation available.] (1st ed.: New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.)
- Herczl, Moshe Y. Christianity and the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry (1993) online
- Hungary and the Holocaust, US Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Miron, Guy, "Center or Frontier: Hungary and Its Jews, Between East and West", Journal of Levantine Studies, vol. 1, Summer 2011, pp. 67–91
- Patai, Raphael, Apprentice in Budapest: Memories of a World That Is No More Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7391-0210-9
External links
- Jewish Virtual Library articles on Hungary
- Documents on the Holocaust in Hungary
- Magyar Zsidó Lexikon
- Wallenberg: More Twists to the Tale, Mária Ember, They Wanted to Blame Us
- Heroes of the Hungarian Holocaust
- Interview with István Domonkos, son of Miksa Domonkos, who died after the show trial preparations (Hungarian)
- Chabad-Lubavitch Centers in Hungary
- Hungarian Jewish Homepage Archived November 5, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- Jewish Budapest Map
- Jewish Heritage Walking Tours in Budapest