The Holocaust remains one of the most horrific events of the 20th century, resulting in the systematic extermination of six million Jews across Nazi-occupied Europe. Among the nations devastated by this genocide was Hungary, which experienced one of the most concentrated and rapid deportation efforts in the history of the Holocaust. Despite being an Axis ally of Nazi Germany for most of the war, Hungary's Jewish population initially avoided the full brunt of Nazi atrocities. However, this changed dramatically in 1944 with the German occupation of Hungary. What followed was a short but devastating campaign that led to the deaths of over half a million Hungarian Jews.
Beginning in the Middle Ages, the Jews in Hungary were often oppressed, suffering through discrimination, repression, and pogroms. In the 1800’s Jews were assimilated into mainstream society, especially in the capital city of Budapest on the Danube River; the percentage of Jews in business, finance, government, and legal professions far exceeded the percentage of Jews in the overall population. By the early 1900’s, the Jewish community had grown to constitute 5% of Hungary’s total population and 23% of Budapest’s population.
Thus, prior to World War II, Hungary was home to one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe. Estimates place the number at around 825,000, including Jews from territories annexed by Hungary after the World War I and subsequent occupation of parts of Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Hungarian Jews were highly assimilated into urban life and made significant contributions to culture, commerce, science, and politics. Hungarian or Magyar nationalism threatened Jewish civil rights, especially after the dismemberment of the Hapsburg empire at the end of World War I. Hungary passed its first modern antisemitic laws by enacting the so-called Numerus Clausus Act of 1920, which restricted the number of Jews who could be admitted to higher education and effectively ended legal equality for Jews in Hungary. Then, Hungary adopted over 300 anti-Jewish laws starting in 1938 modeled after Germany’s Nuremberg Laws. These laws restricted Jewish participation in the economy, education, and public life. Subsequent laws further marginalized Jews, including the infamous Third Jewish Law of 1941, which defined Jews racially and criminalized intermarriage. Hungary then joined the Axis powers, and although Jew men were excluded from military service, they were forced instead to perform brutal labor services. Many perished.
In July–August 1941, around 20,000 Jews, most of them refugees without Hungarian citizenship, were deported to German-occupied Ukraine. These individuals were murdered in Kamenets-Podolsky by Einsatzgruppen units — one of the first large-scale mass killings of Jews during the Holocaust. In 1942, Hungarian military and police killed more than 1,200 Jews and Serbs in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (then under Hungarian occupation). These massacres foreshadowed the extreme violence (that would later unfold.). Nonetheless, until 1944, most of Hungary’s Jews had largely escaped mass deportation and murder.
Hungary remained an uneasy ally of Nazi Germany throughout the war. By 1944, with German defeats mounting on the Eastern Front and Hungary attempting to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies, Hitler ordered Operation Margarethe—the military occupation of Hungary—on March 19, 1944. The occupation marked a turning point in the fate of Hungarian Jews. A pro-German government was installed under Döme Sztójay, and Adolf Eichmann arrived in Budapest to oversee the "Final Solution." Eichmann and his SS units coordinated with Hungarian authorities to carry out what would become one of the fastest and most brutal deportation operations of the Holocaust.
From mid-May to early July 1944, approximately 437,000 Jews were deported, most of them to Auschwitz-Birkenau. This operation, completed in just eight weeks, was made possible through the enthusiastic cooperation of Hungarian police, gendarmes, and administrative official
Jewish communities across Hungary were forcibly removed from their homes, herded into over 200 temporary ghettos and transit camps, and then transported via cattle cars under horrendous conditions. Entire families were often packed into freight cars with no food, water, or sanitation. Most of the deportees were sent directly to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Upon arrival, about 80% were murdered in the gas chambers almost immediately—primarily women, children, and the elderly.
The process was methodical and ruthlessly efficient. Eichmann’s deportation plan divided Hungary into six zones, and the deportations moved westward in phases. Only Budapest's large Jewish population (over 200,000 at the time) was spared from immediate deportation, largely due to international pressure. While Hungary’s government was largely complicit in the genocide, some individuals undertook heroic efforts to save Jews. The most famous of these was Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who issued thousands of protective passports and sheltered Jews in designated “safe houses” under Swedish diplomatic protection. Carl Lutz (Swiss diplomat), and Giorgio Perlasca (an Italian, posing as a Spanish diplomat) issued similar documents, saving tens of thousands. These efforts contributed to the survival of an estimated 100,000 Jews in Budapest by the time Soviet forces liberated the city in January 1945.
Nevertheless, even in Budapest, Jews faced severe persecution under the Arrow Cross Party a fascist and violently anti-Semitic group under Ferenc Szálasi, that took power in October 1944. Arrow Cross militiamen unleashed a reign of terror in Budapest: they executed thousands of Jews were along the banks of the Danube River.
The Soviet Army liberated Budapest on January 18, 1945, and by April, all of Hungary was free from Nazi control. At least 565,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, including those in territories annexed by Hungary during the war. Survivors faced significant trauma and difficulty rebuilding their lives in post-war Hungary, especially under Soviet control. Some Nazi collaborators and Arrow Cross members were tried and executed, but many perpetrators escaped justice. During the Communist era, open discussion of the Holocaust was often suppressed in favor of broader anti-fascist narratives. Since the collapse of communism, Hungary has gradually acknowledged its role in the Holocaust, though debates continue over historical responsibility.
Among those deported during the summer of 1944 was Elie Wiesel, an adolescent teenager from the town of Sighet in Northern Transylvania (then part of Hungary). His memoir, Night, offers a powerful, firsthand account of the deportations, life in Auschwitz, and the moral and psychological scars of survival. Wiesel’s family was among the hundreds of thousands deported; his mother and younger sister were murdered at Auschwitz, while he and his father were sent to labor camps and later to Buchenwald, where his father died shortly before liberation. Wiesel’s Night is more than a personal narrative—it is a universal testimony to the horrors of the Holocaust. It also underscores the complicity of Hungarian authorities in the genocide. Through his writing and his later work as a human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Wiesel helped ensure that the world would not forget what happened to Hungarian Jews in 1944.
