Holocaust in Hungary

After the German occupation Horthy distanced himself from the anti-Jewish legislation of his newly elected government. His daughter-in-law recalled the 21^st March, as “I had lunch with Miklóspapa. […] and after lunch we had a long conversation. Miklóspapa told me among other things that “he wouldn’t sign any law or decree against the Jews, even if they were endorsed by the ministries, they would not be signed by him.” ^[1] According the laws describing the rights and duties of the regent, he had the right to send back an article to the parliament two times for further discussion, but afterwards could not refuse to sign it. However as he was not a king, the lack of his signature did not did not necessarily obstruct the passing of a law. The above mentioned quote shows that he decided in advance not to use his right of sending back the furthe laws against the Jewish population, but - unprecedently in his career - completely withdrew himself from the legislational process regarding the Jewish laws.

Because of this, in the cabinet meeting on 29^th March 1944, Prime Minister Döme Sztójay could inform his government, that “The Regent gave the government a free hand regarding all the Jewish laws, he doesn’t want to influence us.” ^[2]

The same government meeting enacted the first series of anti-Jewish regulations: Jewish owned estates, properties and shares were frozen; Jewish owned vehicles, motorcycles and even bicycles were confiscated; Jewish citizens were banned from being employed in the theatre and film industry, and in the public sector and from gaining permission to work as lawyers.^[3] At the same meeting the government decided that ‘because of the demands of the situation^[4] a new Secretary of State must be appointed. The Minister of the Interior proposed the appointment of Dr Vitéz Lászlo Endre Alispán^[5] of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun and asked for the agreement of the Cabinet in suggesting this to ‘the highest place’^[6]

The infamous anti-Semite, Lászlo Endre was known personally to the Regent and because of his extreme right-wing stance, Horthy didn’t like him, however, he didn’t oppose his appointment. On the 31^st March 1944, Endre together with State Secretary Lászlo Bakay, became Commissioners of the Jewish question and agreed with Adolf Eichmann, head of the Transport Kommandatur about ‘ghettoisation of the whole Jewish community of Hungary’^[7] and, in an additional confidential note, Lászlo Endre informed the employees of the Ministry of the Interior that ‘the Hungarian government will quickly clear the country of Jews.’^[8] During his trial at the Hungarian People’s Tribunal, he stated that ‘the Regent summoned him on the 17^th April 1944’ and during that audience he was told by Horthy that ‘German demands must be fulfilled and they must be supported in the execution of the deportations because this is how Hitler would be convinced to cease the occupation of the country.’ Considering this statement was made when Endre was facing the death penalty and trying to push responsibility away from himself, its veracity is questionable. Horthy’s dislike of Lászlo Endre and his efforts to distance himself from the Jewish question, would suggest that their relationship was far from intimate and that this sentence was never spoken, at least not in the form quoted by the former secretary of state.’^[9]

On the 23rd April 1944 Adolf Eichmann and the Hungarian government signed a detailed plan for the deportation of the Hungarian Jews scheduled to start on the 15th May with the Kárpátalja ^[10] Jews. Eichmann demanded one transport of 3,000 people per day and the Hungarian government planned for twice this number, however Rudolph Höss, Commander of Auschwitz-Birkenau, protested that they had capacity for just one transport every three days. An agreement was finally signed for four trains a day. The ghettoisation started in the ten Csendőr districts of the country. This was administered by Hungarian bureaucrats with the support of the police and from the 15th May inhabitants of the ghettos were transported. Between the 15th May and the 8th July, less than two months, 435,000 people were deported from the country. ^[11] On the 25th May a memorandum was sent from an unknown source to the Cabinet Office of the Regent, summarising the anti-Jewish laws since the 29th March and providing details of the ghettoisation and the deportations. ‘There are usually approximately 70-80 of them in one carriage with only one bucket of water and another for other necessities, the coaches are hermetically sealed with lead leaving just the gap where the doors meet and it is reported that many of the deportees die en route’ ^[12] probably as a result of this document, at the beginning of June Horthy compiled an edict ‘when two months ago the well known events restricting Hungarian sovereignty occurred, I planned to resign, however after due consideration, I decided against this plan because I felt that it was my duty to stay with my nation at my post. I was aware however that this government ^[13] would be obliged to carry out actions with which I could not agree and for which I could not take responsibility. One of them was dealing with the Jewish question in a way that is at odds with the Hungarian way of thinking, the circumstances in Hungary and Hungarian interests. However, I obviously didn’t have the option of obstructing any action or government instruction based on German demands. So I was forced into inaction, as a result of which I was neither informed in advance of these actions nor do I have precise ^[14] information about them. But I was informed recently that a lot more happened in this line in our country than in Germany and in such a brutal and inhuman way, unprecedented even in Germany’. ^[15] The first part of the quotation answers why the government had such a free hand in the Jewish question, the last sentence is as relevant as the first, were they aware of the gas chambers or the crematoria nobody with any sense would have considered the actions of the Hungarian Csendőr – who were indeed very often brutal and inhuman– more cruel than the Germans. ’It is my wish that the Royal Hungarian Interior Ministry would remove Dr Vitéz Lászlo Endre from the post of Commissioner of the Jewish Question and appoint, with my consent, a suitable, trustworthy person and my wish that State Secretary László Bakay, responsible for transferring the government’s instructions for police forces, also be expelled and the document confirming it be sent to me as soon as is possible.’ ^[16] This document was found in draft form in the Regent’s safe, we don’t know if Horthy sent it to Sztójay and in what form, the only thing we know is that Lászlo Endre was not removed from his position and the deportations continued without any change in their intensity or brutality. In the final days of June Curdell Hull, American Foreign Secretary, sent an oral message to the Hungarian government via the Swiss Ambassador in Budapest, ’we will resort to the use of firepower if Hungary does not stop persecuting its Jewish community.’ ^[17]

Pope Pius XII and the Swedish monarch Gustaf Adolf V also turned to Horthy to intervene and stop the deportations, the latter writing ‘Having received word of the extraordinarily harsh methods your government has used against the Jewish population of Hungary, I turn to Your Royal Highness personally, to beg in the name of humanity, that you take measures to save those who can still be saved. This plea comes from my long-standing feelings of friendship for your country and my sincere concern for Hungary’s good name and reputation in the community of nations.’ ^[18] On the 26th June Horthy chaired a meeting of the Crown Council, we know the minutes compiled by the chair of his Cabinet office, Count Gyula Ambrozy, contained the following points on the Jewish question [1] going through the national and international protests against the persecution of the Jews, [2] the necessity of stopping the deportations and that if the Germans insist on them that they arrange it themselves without the involvement of the Csendőr, [3] that labourers essential to Hungary should stay, and with their families, [4] Jews who have already gained immunity would not be taken to the ghettos and deported, [5] that Endre would be removed from all dealings with the Jewish question and, together with Baky, from the post of State Secretary. According to Foreign Minister Mihály Jungerth-Arnóthy, Horthy was very upset and closed the meeting with the words ‘I can’t stand it anymore, I can’t allow the deportations to discredit our nation, the government must take action to remove Endre and Baky and the deportation of the Jews of Budapest must be stopped. The government must take the necessary steps towards this.’ ^[19] The Government met the next day to negotiate the details of the Regent’s requests, however even the agenda says only ‘overview of the international communiqués in support of the Jews handled by the Swedish and Swiss ambassadors’. ^[20] And, indeed, nothing else came up. The cabinet ministers shared the opinion of the Minister of the Economy saying ‘it’s obvious that we cannot make concessions without the permission of the Germans, however it’s important that in our answer to the Swedish and Swiss ambassadors we should seem to be a sovereign country’. ^[21] So the deportations did not stop and the State Secretaries remained in post. On the 1st July the Regent responded to the Swedish monarch saying ‘I have received the telegraphic appeal, sent by Your Majesty. With the deepest understanding I ask your Majesty to be persuaded that I am doing everything in my power in the present situation.’ ^[22] According to the diary of Ilona Gyulai-Edelsheim it was the day that Sándor Török, Chairman of the Christian Jewish Council, first visited the Royal Palace, it must have happened at this time, or two days later, ^[23] that he delivered the so-called Auschwitz reports to the Regent’s daughter-in-law, documentation about the concentration camps written by two escaped prisoners, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wretzler, giving a detailed account of the gas chambers as well.  ^[24]

‘The roof is fitted with three traps which can be hermetically closed from outside. A track leads from the gas chamber to the incinerator. The gassing process is as follows: the unfortunate victims are brought into a hall, where they are told to undress. To support the illusion that they are going to bathe, each person receives a towel and a small piece of soap issued by two men wearing white coats. SS men with gas masks climb to the roof, open the traps, and shake down a preparation in powder from out of tin cans labelled ‘CYCLONE For use against vermin”, which is manufactured by a Hamburg concern. It is presumed that this is a ‘CYANIDE’ mixture of some sort which becomes a gas at a certain temperature. After three minutes everyone in the chamber is dead. No one is known to have survived this ordeal, although it was not uncommon to discover signs of life in the Birch Wood after the primitive measures employed.’^[25]

In the first days of June the English and American ambassadors in Berlin sent encoded telegrams to their governments, these documents were intercepted and decoded by the Hungarian intelligence service. According to Edmund Veesenmayer, the German Reich’s authorised representative in Hungary - who was informed about the documents by the Hungarian Prime Minister – these messages gave ‘a detailed account of what had happened to the Hungarian Jews in the German Reich. It was stated in them that 1.5 million Jews had already been exterminated and that would be the fate of those who had recently been deported.’ ^[26] 

On the 5^th July the government met again because, among other things, of the ‘Foreign reactions to the deportations in Hungary’. The intercepted and decoded telegrams were the main focus of the meeting. In his speech, Prime Minister Sztójay declared: ‘The truth is, that they [the Hungarian Jews] are being taken as labourers to the German territories.’ And added: ‘it is necessary to disseminate accurate information abroad, and challenge all the rumours about the gassing, and extermination of the Jews.’^[27]

Cabinet ministers decided that the Propaganda Department of the Hungarian Foreign Office should be ordered to supply accurate information to the foreign press about the process and aims of the Hungarian deportations. ^[28] However, a day later, an unexpected telegram was received at the German Foreign Ministry, written by Veesenmayer, Germany’s authorised representative in Budapest. He informed his superiors that ‘The Regent – clearly with the agreement of the government – has stopped conducting the process in the Jewish question.’ ^[29]

Despite the Regent’s order, deportations – supervised by State Minister Endre and Baky continued for the next two days, during which transportations from the Hungarian countryside were completed, and those from the outskirts of the capital [Monor and Békásmegyer] began. Veesenmayer was very pleased to inform his government about this late on the 7^th July. ^[30] 

Meanwhile, during the night of 5-6^th July, Csendőr units were concentrated around the capital. Baky and Endre prepared for the deportations from Budapest. There were rumours that they would attempt a coup as well. ^[31] Their appearance made the Regent interpose without any delay. He ordered Gábor Faragho, Chief Commander of the Hungarian Csendőr, together with the leaders of the Csendőr battalions from Galántha and Nagyvárad to the Royal Palace, and ordered them to leave the capital and return to their cities. They obeyed. This obedience suggests that they had no intention of carrying out a coup, and that their concentration in the capital was aimed only at the deportations of the Jews in Budapest.

When they left the Royal Palace, the 1^st Tank Division of Eszertergom was ordered to the capital, under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Ferenc Koszorús with his unit to supervise the withdrawal of the Csendőr

The question of the deportations remained part of German-Hungarian correspondence during the following six weeks and Horthy promised Veesenmayer that the process would be restarted. But this never happened.