Transports from Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau
On 29 and 30 April 1944, the first two transports of 3,800 Hungarian Jews were dispatched from the SS-run Kistarcsa transit camp – administered by the Hungarian police – and another from the town of Bačka Topola in Vojvodina. Within just two and a half months, the number of deportees reached 440,000, the majority of whom were murdered in the gas chambers.
In June 1944, Hungarian authorities ordered the Jews in Budapest into more than 2,000 designated “Yellow-Star Houses” – buildings marked with the Star of David. About 25,000 Jews from the suburbs were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In July 1944, the Hungarian authorities suspended deportations, temporaily sparing the remaining Jews of Budapest. Persecutions continued after the Arrow Cross seized power on 15 October 1944. Tens of thousands more Jews lost their lives in the Budapest ghetto, labour camps, on death marches to Germany, and in mass shootings along the banks of the Danube.
“We were sitting next to each other on our luggage, we couldn’t stand up, we could barely get anything to eat. Once a day they opened the door of the wagon to let us breathe. All our needs had to be done there in buckets. From home we could only take what we could carry in a backpack. The rucksack could have a change of clothes and maybe a pair of shoes.”
Recollection of a Hungarian survivor
Jeszenszki Kornélia (2023). A holokauszt a magyar nők emlékezetében – visszaemlékezések a gettósítás és deportálás időszakára. Erudittio-Educatio, 18(4): 36-50, p. 43
Further Reading / Sources
A magyar holokauszt személyes történetének digitális gyűjteményei
Kovács Éva Judit, Szász Anna Lujza, Lénárt András (2012). Buksz-Budapesti Könyvszemle, 23 (4): 336-351
A holokauszt a magyar nők emlékezetében – visszaemlékezések a gettósítás és deportálás időszakára
Jeszenszki Kornélia (2023). Eruditio-Educatio, 18(4): 36-50
Holokauszt
Karsai László (2001). Budapest: Pannonica