Operation Margarethe

On 19 March 1944, Germany launched Operation Margarethe, the occupation of Hungary. This prevented Regent Miklós Horthy and Prime Minister Miklós Kállay from negotiating a separate peace with the Allies. The German occupation paved the way for the rapid implementation of the “Final Solution”: the Jewish Council was established, decrees were issued requiring Jews to wear the yellow star, Jewish property was confiscated, and six zones of ghettos were created. Within a few weeks, mass deportations began; between May and July 1944, nearly 440,000 Jews – mostly from rural areas – were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the majority were murdered upon arrival. The German occupation resulted in the rapid and catastrophic destruction of Hungarian Jewry.