The Routledge History of the Holocaust (Routledge Histories) by

Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Humanities
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2010-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

The last stage: ghettoization and deportation, spring and summer of 1944

When, on 19 March 1944, the Wehrmacht occupied Hungary, about 800,000 Jews lived in the country.28 A secret decree (6136/1944. BM VII. res. [confidential]) that appeared on 4 April 1944 concerned all of them. By this decree, the Minister of the Interior ordered that within 4 days (by 8 April), in all localities (villages, towns, etc.), authorities had to draw up lists containing the names of Jewish residents. In theory, these lists would facilitate the ghettoization of the Jews. However, in the majority of instances, officials appear not to have prepared such lists as there are so few of them in the archives.

Another secret decree (6163/1944. BM VII. res. [confidential]) contained the results of a conference held in the Ministry of the Interior on 7 April, in which the two Under-Secretaries of State of the Ministry of the Interior, László Baky and László Endre, who were charged with the task of “settling the Jewish question,” and two members of the Sonderkommando headed by Eichmann, participated along with other functionaries. This conference was held in order to begin the ghettoization of the Jews, and its rulings were issued to local authorities on the same day. The secret decree signed by Baky (6163/ 1944. BM VII. res. [confidential]) contained the following:

Subject: Designation of the place of residence for Jews.

The Hung. Roy. Government will soon cleanse the country of Jews. I order the cleansing to be done according to territorial sections. Jews, without distinction as to their gender and age, had to be transported to designated camps. In towns and larger villages, a portion of the Jews will be placed in Jewish buildings or ghettos designated by the authorities…This decree is strictly confidential, and the authorities as well as the commanders of the headquarters are responsible so that no one should learn about all this before the commencement of the cleansing action.29

The decree divided Hungary into six zones. In the first zone, which consisted of Sub-Carpathia and North-East Hungary, ghettoization started on 16 April 1944, on a Sunday following the last day of Passover. In other words, the first phase of the physical elimination of the Jews started in Hungary well before the cabinet’s ghetto-decree ordering the “moving together” of the Jews, which was published on 28 April.30

On 22 April 1944, Decree No. 1520/1944. ME., concerning Jewish leadership, was published.31 The decree ordered the establishment of a new central Jewish council called “The Alliance of the Jews of Hungary [Magyarországi Zsidók Szövetsége],” a name Hungarian authorities preferred to “The Central Council of the Hungarian Jews [Magyar Zsidók Központi Tanácsa],” which had already been established in compliance with German orders. Simultaneously, Minister of the Interior Andor Jaross dissolved all Jewish organizations. Local Jewish councils were established on the basis of this decree whenever Hungarian authorities ordered the Jews to form them as branches of the Alliance of the Jews of Hungary. Typically, local Jewish councils organized the transfer of Jews into ghettos, as well as certain aspects of life in the ghettos.

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