History of Jews in Hungary

The exact time of the appearance of the Jews in Hungary is unknown. According to legend, King Decebalus , who ruled in Dacia in 87-106, allowed the Jews who fought on his side in the war against Rome to inhabit his territory. Dacia covered part of modern Hungary, Romania and Moldova and part of the territory of Bulgaria, Ukraine and Serbia.

In Hungarian, the word Jew zsidó comes from one of the Slavic languages.

The first historical document mentioning Jews in Hungary was a letter written around 960 A.D. e. King of the Khazars Joseph to Hasdai ibn Shaprut (Hasdai ibn Shaprut), a Jewish leader from Cordoba . Around the same time, Ibrahim ibn Yakub wrote that Jews traveled from Hungary to Prague for business purposes.

The first contacts of the Hungarians with the Jews took place after the Magyar tribes entered the Khazar Kaganate. At that time, the paths of Jewish trade caravans from Khazaria and Rus to the southwest to Spain conquered by the Arabs crossed the Middle Danube. The arrival of Hungarians at the end of the 9th century for several decades changed the traditional direction of movement of merchant caravans. The defeat of the Hungarian troops at the Battle of Augsburg (955) influenced the appearance of the Jewish population on the territory of the Hungarian kingdom. Slave became the main source of slaves in European markets. The Prague slave market arose and, accordingly, Jewish merchants appeared.

The area of ​​relations between the Christian population of Hungary at that time with the Jews was not too wide. Their interests clashed mainly in the fields of trade and finance. Jewish merchants to the XII century. accumulated significant capital in trading operations and lending money.

Harassment of the Jews appeared during the reign of St. Vladislav (1077-1095). Then the Jews could not marry the girls of the Christian faith or keep Christian slaves .

During the reign of King Kalman I the Scribe (1095–1116), prohibitions were imposed on the life of Jews in Hungary.

Hungarian Jews also suffered under the rule of foreign kings occupying the throne of Hungary. During the plague pandemic (1349), they were expelled from the country. Although some Jews returned, they were again persecuted and again expelled in 1360. King Louis was tolerant of the Jews in the early years of his reign. After the conquests of Bosnia, he tried to force the local population - heretics to adopt Catholicism, the same measures were aimed at Hungarian Jews. ^[4] Alexander I Dobry and Wallachia Dano were the last rulers who granted Jews trade privileges.

Hungarian Jews were defended by the German emperor Maximilian . On the occasion of the marriage of Louis II and Archduke Mary (1512), the emperor, with the consent of Vladislav, took Jacob Mendel Bud under his protection, along with his family and other Hungarian Jews. Under Vladislav, the successor of Louis II (1516-1526), ​​the persecution of Jews was common, the reason for this was that the deputy treasurer, Jew Szerencsés, wasted public funds.

On August 29, 1526, the Turks defeated the Hungarians in the battle of Mohach . In this battle, Louis II was also killed. When the news of his death reached the capital of Buda , nobles, including the city prefect, fled the city along with several wealthy Jews.

The great vizier , Ibrahim Pasha arrived with his army in the city of Buda before Sultan Suleiman I. The Jews who remained in the city appeared before him dressed in mourning. Begging for mercy, they, in obedience, handed the vizier the keys of an abandoned and unprotected castle. The sultan himself entered Buda on September 11, 1521, and on September 22 he issued a decree according to which all Jews captured in Buda, Esztergom and elsewhere were to be resettled in different cities of the Ottoman Empire. Some of them were sent to Constantinople , Plevna and Sofia , where they kept their communities for several decades. In the second half of the 16th century, there were four Jewish communities in Sofia : the Roman (Romaniote), Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Ungarus (Ungarus).

Despite the fact that the Ottoman army returned after the battle to its homeland, in 1541 it again invaded Hungary to repulse the Austrian attempt to take the city of Buda. By the time the Ottoman army arrived at the site of the battle, the Austrians were already defeated, but the Turkish troops still captured Buda.

The following table shows the number of Jewish families in Buda in different years:

At the end of the Ottoman rule, about a thousand Jews living in Buda attended three city synagogues: Syrian, Ashkenazi, and Sephardic.

On November 26, 1572, King Maximilian II (1563-1576) intended to expel the Jews from Pressburg ( Bratislava ), saying that his decree would be canceled only if the Jews converted to Christianity . Jews, however, remained in the city, although they did not abandon their religion. On June 1, 1582, the municipal council ruled that no one should do business with Jews.

At the end of the 16th century, when the imperial troops headed for the liberation of Buda from the Turkish troops, the Jews had to pay a special military tax. The city of Buda was badly damaged during this siege, but the imperial troops nevertheless took this city in September 1601; many of his defenders were either killed or captured and sold into slavery. On April 24, 1671, Leopold I (emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) (1657-1705) again expelled the Jews from the city. However, he canceled his decision a few months later (August 20).

Further Persecution and Expulsion (1686-1740)

Imperial forces liberated the city of Buda on September 2, 1686, most Jewish residents were killed, some were captured, but were subsequently released for ransom. In subsequent years, Hungary came under the rule of the most powerful monarch of the dynasty of Europe - the House of the Habsburgs . To settle the country, Bishop Count Leopold Karl von Kolonich , later Archbishop of Esztergom and Primas of Hungary, advised the king to give preference to German Catholics, so that in future the country would become German and Catholic. He also ruled that all Jews should not be destroyed immediately, but as “worn out coins, they should be gradually withdrawn from circulation.” A decree passed by the Presburg Parliament (1687–1688) approved double taxation for Jews. Jews were not allowed to farm , own real estate, and keep Christian servants.

Soon, this policy bore fruit. In August 1690, the Vienna government decided to expel the Jews who immigrated to them from the Austrian provinces.

The uprising of the Kuruts , under the command of Ferenc II Rakoczi caused much suffering to the Hungarian Jews. Eisenstadt Jews took refuge in Vienna, Wiener Neustadt and Forchtenstein ; Jews from Golic , Sasvar and Shashtin-Sentinel scattered along Hodonin ; while others who could not leave their business during this difficult time sent their families to safe places, and they remained, despite the danger.

After the restoration of peace, Jews were expelled from Hungarian cities on the grounds that the city in which St. Stephen was born should not be desecrated by them.

The fate of the Jews did not improve during the reign of Leopold, son of Charles III (1711-1740). In 1726, the king announced that in the Austrian provinces from the date of the decree, only one man in every Jewish family was allowed to marry. This decree limited the natural growth of Jews in the affected Jewish communities of Hungary. All Jews in the Austrian province, who could not marry, traveled to Hungary to create families there; thus, an influx of Austrian Jews occurred in Hungary. These immigrants settled mainly in the northwestern counties, in the cities of Nitra , Pressburg ( Bratislava ) and Trencin .

Maria Theresa (1740-1780)

In 1735, after the next census of the Jews of the country, measures were taken to reduce them. At that time, 11 621 Jews lived in Hungary, of which 2 474 were men. The largest Jewish community in Pressburg ( Bratislava ) numbered 770 people. Most Jews were employed in trade or industry , mainly merchants , merchants, or shopkeepers; only a few were engaged in agriculture.

During the reign of the Archduke of Austria, Queen of Hungary Maria Theresa (1740-1780), daughter of Charles III, the Jews were expelled from Buda (1746), a tax on “religious tolerance” was introduced for them. On September 1, 1749, Hungarian Jews were informed that they would be expelled from the country if they did not pay this tax. The frightened Jews immediately agreed; a special commission required them to pay an annual tax of 50,000 guilders . This amount was excessive and after the protests of the Jews, the amount fell to 30,000 guilders, and later to 20,000 guilders per year for eight years. This amount was distributed between districts, districts and communities, between their members. Taxes were so high, some Jews living on estates were forced to give their wives and children as taxes. Nevertheless, in 1760 the tax was increased to 20,000 guilders, in 1772 - up to 50,000 guilders; in 1813 - up to 160,000 guilders.

Joseph II (1780-1790)

Joseph II (1780-1790), the son and heir of Maria Theresa, immediately after ascending the throne, intended to ease the condition of the Jews in the country. As a result, the Hungarian government issued a decree on March 31, 1783, which abolished the oppression of the Jews. Jews were allowed to settle throughout the country. Everything that could offend their religious feelings was eliminated.

Jews were allowed to trade in gunpowder and saltpeter . On the other hand, Jews had to abandon their distinctive signs prescribed by religion and shave their beards. Emperor Joseph considered this decree so important that he was not allowed to violate it.

The Jews in their letter of April 22, 1783 expressed gratitude to the emperor and asked permission to wear beards, which was never allowed to them. Using the liberties granted, the Jews began to open their schools in Pressburg ( Bratislava ), Obuda , and Navigrad ( Oradea ). On July 23, 1787, a decree of the emperor was issued, according to which every Jew should choose a German surname; and the decree of 1789 forced the Jews to bear military duty . After the death of Joseph II, many liberties were canceled.

In March 1848, Jews began to be employed in the national guard of the country. A separate unit was formed from the Pest Jewish National Guard. When the national guard of the city of Papa was mobilized against the Croats , Leopold, Rabbi of the Pope, joined her, inspiring his comrades. Jews also joined the volunteer corps and made up a third of the Volunteer Division, which opposed the Croats.

Hungarian Jews served their country not only with a sword, but also helped with finances. Jewish communities and individuals supplied the army with silver and gold, weapons and provisions, dressed and fed soldiers.

The struggle for the equality of the Jews continued in 1859-1867. During these years, Jewish schools were opened in Shatoraliaujhei , Timisoara , Pec , Pest . In 1859, a teaching seminary was opened, the leaders of which were Abraham Lederer, Heinrich Deutsch and Joseph Banotsi.

On October 4, 1877, the Jewish Theological Seminary opened in Budapest. Since its inception, it has been the only Jewish institution in all of Central and Eastern Europe .

Most Jews did not bear surnames until 1783. Some of the surnames previously found in Jewish families were:

• 1050: Jasonti (Jászkonti)
• 1263: Farkas
• 1350: Hosszú
• 16th century: Czech, Jakab, Gazdag, Fekete, Nagy, Kernesh, Kish
• 1780: Lamb, Chonka, Horpács, Jonap, Kohányi, Koshut, Kosztolányi, Lendel, Lőrincz, Lukacs, Sarvas, Szabo, Varga.

Emperor Joseph II believed that Germanization could help centralize the empire. In 1783, he ordered the Jews to choose German surnames for themselves or to be provided under them.

With the growth of Hungarian nationalism, the first wave of Magyarization of surnames passed from 1840 to 1849. After the Hungarian revolution, this process was suspended until 1867. Later, many Jews changed their surnames from German to Hungarian.

In 1942, during World War II, when Hungary became an ally of Germany, the Hungarian Ministry of Defense was tasked with "testing the race." A list of names that Jews could wear was released. This list included 58 names. ^[5]

Almost a quarter (22.35%) of Hungarian Jews lived in Budapest in 1910. The following synagogues have been preserved in Budapest:

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  Interior of the Dohany Street Synagogue

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  Utsa Synagogue

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  Rumbach Synagogue

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  Synagogue Vasvari

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  Orthodox synagogue on Kazintsi street

According to the 1910 census, the number of Jews was 911,227 people, or 4.99% of the 18,264,533 people living in Hungary (in addition, there were 21,231 Jews from Autonomous Croatia-Slavonia). This was a 28.7% increase in absolute terms since the 1890 census and 0.3% growth (from 4.7%) in the total population of Hungary. At that time, Jewish natural growth was higher than Christian growth (although the difference was narrowing) due to emigration, mainly to the United States. (The total emigration from Austria-Hungary to the United States in the years 1881-1912 was 3,688,000 people, including 324,000 Jews (8.78%). In the years 1880-1913, a total of 2,019,000 people emigrated from Hungary to the United States. Thus, approximately 177,000 Jews emigrated from Hungary to the United States during this entire period.)

The population of the capital of Hungary, Budapest, was 23% Jewish. Many religious and educational institutions have been created here. Thanks to the prosperity and the large Jewish community of the city, Budapest is often called the "Jewish Mecca" ^[6] . At this time, Karl Luger , mayor of Vienna , called the Hungarian capital Judapest , alluding to the high percentage of Jews in the city.

Jews in Hungary were deprived of the right to own land for a long time, as a result of which many went to work in business. In 1910, 60.96% of merchants were Jews ^[7] , 41.75% of hotel owners, 24.42% of bakers, 24.07% of butchers, 21.04% of tailors and 8.9% of Hungarian shoemakers ^[8] . 48.5% of doctors in the country (2701 of 5565) were Jews. ^[9] In the years 1893-1913, Jews accounted for approximately 20% of secondary school students.

In absolute figures, Budapest accounted for the largest number of Jews (203 thousand), followed by Oradea with 15 thousand, Uipest and Miskolc about 10 thousand each. In Sighetu-Marmatiei , Mukachevo , Pozhon ( Bratislava ), Debrecen lived 8 thousand Jews. In Cluj-Napoca , Satu Mare , Timisoara , Kosice - about 7 thousand Jews.

Using the data of the 1910 census, 51.7% of Hungarian Jews lived in the territories that remained inside the "small" Hungary after 1921, 25.5% (232,000) lived in the territories that later became part of Czechoslovakia, 19.5% ( 178,000) became part of Romania, 2.6% (23,000) became part of Yugoslavia, 0.5% (5,000) became part of Austria, and finally 0.2% (2,000) lived in Fiume, which became part of Italy after 1924 of the year. ^[10] According to the census of 1930-1931, 238,460 / 192,833 / about 22,000 Jews lived in areas of Czechoslovakia / Romania / SFRY previously owned by Hungary, which means that the total number of people declaring themselves Jews remained unchanged in the Carpathian basin between 1910 and 1930.

According to the census in December 1920 in the “small” Hungary, the percentage of Jews has increased over the past decade in Sátoraljaujheje (up to 30.4%), Budapest (23.2%), Uipest (20.0%), Nyíregyházaj (11.7%), Debrecen (9.9 %), Peche (9.0%), Sopron (7.5%), Mako (6.4%).

In 1920, 46.3% of doctors, 41.2% of veterinarians, 21.4% of Hungarian pharmacists were Jews, as well as 34.3% of journalists, 24.5% of music performers, 22.7% of theater actors, 16.8% artists and sculptors. ^[11] Among land owners, more than 570 hectares, or 19.6%, were Jewish. ^[12] Among 2739 factories in Hungary, 40.5% were owned by Jews. ^[11]

The following table shows the number of people who declared themselves Jews (Jews) according to censuses in Hungary.

Hungarian Jews were fairly well integrated into Hungarian society during the First World War . In 1926, 50,761 Jewish families lived in Budapest. 65% of them lived in 1-2-bedroom apartments, 30% had three or four rooms, while 5% lived in apartments with more than 4 rooms.

^[13]

Education. The following charts illustrate the percentage of Jewish students at two Budapest universities.

Those who could afford, studied in other European countries, such as Austria, Germany, Italy and Czechoslovakia. In 1930, all men aged six and over ^[14]

Seven of the thirteen Nobel Prize winners born in Hungary were Jews. In sports, 55.6% of those awarded the gold medal at the Summer Olympics from 1896 to 1912 were Jewish. This indicator fell to 17.6% in the interwar period of 1924-1936.

Losses of Hungary in the First World War amounted to: killed 661,000 people., Wounded 743,000 people., 734,000 people were captured. ^[15] Among them, about 10,000 Jews died in the war.

After the defeat and collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hungary signed the Trianon Treaty , according to which it lost two-thirds of its territory and two-thirds of its population. ^[one]

In 1918, a revolution took place in Hungary. A civilian democratic government was formed under the leadership of Mihai Karoyi, who proclaimed the Republic of Hungary. However, the government of Count Mihai Karoyi was not able to revive the Hungarian state and organize social and economic life on its territory. After six months in power, realizing the unwillingness of the Entente countries to take into account the interests of Hungary, Karoyi transferred the power to the coalition of Social Democrats and Communists.

Hungary was proclaimed a socialist Soviet republic . To ensure the protection of the republic, the formation of the Red Guard began , led by Matthias Rakosi . A new communist government was created. However, the popularity of the Hungarian Soviet government was not so high, which was partly due to the fact that almost all of its members ( B. Kuhn , D. Lukacs , T. Samueli , M. Rakosi, E. Hero , V. Böhm , E. Varga , etc. .) were Jews, while in the population of Hungary Jews made up a small percentage (by 1920 in Hungary there were 473,000 Jews, about 6% of the total population). The Hungarian Soviet Republic lasted 133 days. After the defeat of the revolution, many of its leaders took refuge in the Soviet Union, where they took part in the work of the Comintern. Some of them, including B. Kun, died during the Stalinist repressions of 1936-1938. ^[one]

In 1919, reactionary forces defeated Hungary under the command of Admiral Miklos Horthy . ^[16] A series of pogroms swept across the country against Jews, Communists, peasants and other segments of the population, known in history as the White Terror. The role of Horthy in these repressions is still the subject of discussion (in his memoirs, he refused to disavow the pogroms, saying that "only an iron broom" can cleanse the country). ^[17] Counting the number of victims in the terrorist campaigns of this time is a matter of political debate. ^{[1] [18] [19] [20]}

In the 1930s – 1940s, many Hungarian Jews emigrated to the USSR ( Ufa , Moscow ) and worked in the underground communist movement in Hungary. Some of them suffered for participating in underground communist activities. Among the emigrant communists who returned to Hungary after World War II, there were many Jews; since 1947 they have occupied key posts in the party and state apparatus. The closest assistants to the leader of the Hungarian communists Rakosi were the Jews E. Hero, Secretary General of the Central Committee of the All-Union Military Technical Council, M. Farkas , responsible for the army and state security, and J. Revai (1898-1959), Minister of Education of Hungary. Of the twenty-four members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, formed in May 1945, nine were Jews. The Hungarian Ministry of State Security was headed by a Jew G. Peter .

In the first decades of the 20th century, the number of Jews in Hungary amounted to about 5 percent of the population. This minority managed to achieve great commercial success and the Jews were disproportionately represented in different professions.

In 1921, in Budapest, 88% of the participants in the stock exchange and 91% of currency brokers were Jews. In interwar Hungary, more than half, or possibly 90 percent, of the Hungarian industry was owned or managed by Jewish banking families.

Jews represented one fourth of all students and 43% percent at Budapest University of Technology . In 1920, 60 percent of Hungarian doctors, 51% of lawyers, 39% of all engineers and chemists, 34% of editors and journalists, 29% of musicians called themselves Jews. ^[21]

Many did not like the success of the Jews. Admiral Horthy stated that he was an “anti-Semite,” and remarked in a letter to one of his prime ministers: “I consider it unacceptable that everything here in Hungary, every factory, bank, business, theater, press, trade, etc. are in Jewish hands .. ". ^[22]

Anti-Jewish policies in Hungary intensified during the interwar period.

In 1938, Hungary, under the leadership of Miklos Horthy, adopted a series of anti-Jewish measures. The law, adopted on May 29, 1938, prescribed a decrease in the number of Jews by 20 percent in every commercial enterprise, in the press, among doctors, engineers, and lawyers. The second anti-Jewish law (May 5, 1939) dealt with the definition of Jews racially: a person with 2, 3, or 4 Jewish tribes was declared Jewish. Their employment in the government at any level was prohibited, they could not be editors in newspapers, their number was limited to six percent among theater and film actors, doctors, lawyers and engineers. More than 12% of Jews were forbidden to work in private companies. 250,000 Hungarian Jews lost their income. Most of them lost their voting rights. Only 38 privileged Jews could vote. ^[23]

During the war, Jews were called up to serve as "labor service." They were used for repairing railways, building airports, mine clearing. About 42,000 Jewish forced laborers were killed on the Soviet front in 1942-1943. ^[24] 4,000 forced laborers perished in copper mines in Bor, Serbia . However, Miklos Kallai , the Prime Minister of Hungary from March 9, 1942 and Regent Horthy, resisted German pressure and refused to deport Hungarian Jews to German death camps in occupied Poland. This situation continued until March 19, 1944, when German troops occupied Hungary.

Occupation and Deportation

Nazis come to power in Hungary

On March 18, 1944, Hitler summoned Horthy to his conference in Austria, where he demanded more pliability from the Hungarian state. Horthy resisted, but his efforts were in vain - when he attended the conference, German tanks had already entered Budapest.

After Horthy’s unsuccessful attempt to pull Hungary out of the war, the head of the Crossed Arrows party, Salashi, came to power and immediately introduced an unprecedented anti-Jewish terror. Preparations for the deportation of Jews from Budapest, which had calmed down due to the above reasons, resumed. On November 2, 1944, the Soviet army approached Budapest, and approximately 25,000 Budapest Jews were sent by the Hungarian government on foot to the Austrian border. Another 60 thousand Jews were later sent along the same route. Too many participants in this "death march" died along the way. From the seizure of power by Crossed Arrows to the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest (January 18, 1945), about 98,000 Budapest Jews died.

Deportation to Auschwitz

Obersturmbanführer SS Adolf Eichmann , ^[25] who was responsible for overseeing the extermination of Jews, organized raids on Jews outside of Budapest and its suburbs. Every day, 45 wagons or 4 trains a day with 12,000 Jews arrived from the countryside to Auschwitz.

Jewish Rescue Efforts

Very few parishioners and clergy of the Catholic or Protestant church raised their voices against sending Jews to death.

At the end of June, the Pope, King of Sweden Gustav VI Adolf and, in strong terms, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for an end to the deportations. Then Admiral Horthy ordered the suspension of all deportations from July 6. However, another 45,000 Jews were deported from the Trans-Danube Region and the outskirts of Budapest to Auschwitz. After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler, the Germans retreated from large-scale deportations. At the end of August, Horthy refused to comply with Eichmann’s request for deportation. Himmler ordered Eichmann to leave Budapest ^[26]

According to Winston Churchill, “there is no doubt that the persecution of Jews in Hungary and their expulsion is the greatest and most terrible crime ever committed in the entire history of the world ....” ^[27]

Approximately 119,000 Jews were released in Budapest and 20,000 forced laborers in rural areas. Almost all of the surviving deportees returned from May to December 1945. ^[23]

At the end of the war, the loss of Hungarian Jewry significantly exceeds the US military losses suffered in all theaters of war.) ^[28]

Roman Kastner

Rudolf Israel Kastner ^[29] (1906-1957), a Jewish-Hungarian journalist and lawyer, became famous during the Holocaust in Hungary. He was one of the leaders of the Rescue Committee, a small Jewish group in Budapest that helped Jewish refugees flee Nazi-occupied Hungary during World War II and helped them escape before the German invasion on March 19, 1944. Between May and July 1944, Hungarian Jews were deported to gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau in the amount of 12,000 people. Kastner negotiated with Adolf Eichmann and Kurt Becher, both senior SS officers, to allow 1,685 of them to remain in Switzerland. In exchange for money and jewelry, he organized the export of Jews. ^[30]

He later emigrated to Israel . He was killed in Tel Aviv in 1957.

Joel Brand

Joel Marka (April 25, 1906 - July 13, 1964) is a Hungarian Jew who was known for trying to save the Hungarian-Jewish communities from being deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust . According to historian Yehud Bauer , a brave adventurer who felt at home underground, Brand teamed up with other Zionists in Budapest to rescue committee - a group that helped Jewish refugees in Nazi-occupied Europe flee to relatively safe Hungary before the Germans captured this country in March 1944. ^[31] The brand arrived in Palestine to try to negotiate with the British to save the Hungarian Jews, but was arrested and imprisoned in obscure circumstances.

Hungarian Golden Train

The Hungarian Golden Train is a Nazi train from the Second World War that transported stolen valuables, mainly Hungarian Jews from Hungary to Berlin in 1945. After the US military captured the train, almost none of the valuables were returned to Hungary to their rightful owners or surviving members of their families. ^{[32] [33]}

Raoul Wallenberg

At that time, Raoul Wallenberg was one of the most courageous figures in the Holocaust. With the help of his staff, Jews were issued protection passports from the Swedish diplomatic mission. Wallenberg saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews, prevented the killing of 70,000 residents of the ghetto.

In 2003, Wallenberg was elected an honorary citizen of Budapest. His name is Memorial Park, dedicated to the memory of those who saved many Jews from deportation to the death camps and the building where the Swedish Embassy was located in 1945.

At the end of World War II, 140,000 Jews lived in Hungary, against 750,000 in 1941. The difficult economic situation, coupled with the protracted anti-Semitic sentiment among the population, caused a wave of migration. From 1945 to 1949, between 40,000 and 50,000 Jews left Hungary, leaving for Israel (30,000-35,000) and Western countries (15,000-20,000). ^[34]

On August 20, 1949, the Hungarian People's Republic was established in the country, which lasted from August 20, 1949 to October 23, 1989. Jews together with the Hungarians took part in the construction of socialism in the country. The leaders of the country, Matthias Rakosi , Ernё Ger Гер and Peter Gabor , like many Jewish communists rejected Judaism, followed the theory of Marxism-Leninism. In 1948-1988, Zionism was outlawed, Judaism was rejected. The Communist Party of Hungary had a large number of Jews, as they played a large role in the early stages of the Hungarian labor movement and also in the cultural and social life in Hungary.

Jews were on both sides of the 1956 uprising. ^[34] Several leaders of the armed uprising, such as the Jew Istvan Angel (who survived at Auschwitz and was executed on December 1, 1958), the Jewish writer Tibor Deri (who was in prison from 1957 to 1961), held the position of the reform movement. ^[34] After the Hungarian events of 1956 , about 20,000 Jews left the country. ^[35]

During the years of the country's rule by Janos Kadar (1957-1988), the Jewish intelligentsia played a large role in the Hungarian art and sciences (Hungarian philosopher and statesman György Lukács and others). In 1967, diplomatic relations with Israel were broken, which did not concern the life of Jews in Hungary.

The Soviet regime did not persecute Jews, did not restrict their professional activities and religious freedom. The only representative organ of the Jews was the Federation of Jewish Communities - a religious association with 60 collective members in the mid-1970s; its chairman was appointed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, as well as the chief rabbi of Budapest, who for many years was L. Shalgo, who died around 1985, who was also elected from one of the territorial districts of the city to the parliament of Hungary, where for a long time he was the only Jewish deputy .

There were 160 synagogues in the country, there was a yeshiva and a Jewish gymnasium, several Talmud Tor, a Jewish museum, a choir, a hospital, several nursing homes, an orphanage, 10 shops selling kosher meat and poultry, a restaurant where kosher, a bakery for pastries were observed matzo.

Jewish organizations were funded mainly by the Ministry of Religious Affairs with the support of the Joint. Most Jews were concentrated in Budapest (50–80 thousand people); Communities were in Debrecen, Miskolc, Szeged, Pec and Gyor.

In April 1997, the Hungarian Parliament passed a law on compensation for Jewish property, under which the property taken from the Jews during the Nazi and Communist erases is subject to return. ^[36]

Most estimates of the number of Jews in Hungary range from 50,000 to 150,000. Hungary has a number of synagogues, including the Dohany Street synagogue , which is the second largest synagogue in the world. Jewish education includes three Jewish high schools, the Budapest University of Judaica, and others.

After 1989, a certain spiritual revival of Judaism was observed in the country.

The following table shows the percentage of Jewish taxpayers and their weight in the tax base among those Hungarian taxpayers who voluntarily sent 1% of their personal income taxes to go to a religious denomination:

Jews born in or after 1945 began to retire in 2007, which causes a rapid decrease in the table, since people who are on social security do not pay income taxes in Hungary.

In Hungary (within its current borders), the Jewish population declined by almost half a million after the First World War and continued to decline from 1920 to 2010. A significant reduction took place from 1939 to 1945 ( World War II and the Holocaust ), then from 1951 to 1960 ( Hungarian events of 1956 ). Despite these massive reductions, Hungary currently has the largest Jewish population in Eastern Europe outside of Russia.

In 1931, a building was built on the site of the house where the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzel, was added to the synagogue in Erzhebetvaros (Pest Jewish quarter). During the war, the Germans arranged a dormitory for bonded laborers in this building. Currently, there is a museum of Jewish culture. Museum expositions tell about the religious and secular life of Jews, about the victims of the Holocaust.

• Crossed Arrow Parts
• Budapest Ghetto
• History of Hungary
• Hungary during the Second World War
• Shoes on the Danube Embankment

Holocaust

• Braham, Randolph L. (2001) The Holocaust in Hungary: a selected and annotated bibliography, 1984-2000. Boulder: Social Science Monographs; Distributed by Columbia University Press ISBN 0-88033-481-9
• Braham, Randolph L. (2001) The Politics of Genocide: the Holocaust in Hungary. (Rev. and enl.ed.) 2 vols. Boulder: Social Science Monographs; Distributed by Columbia University Press ISBN 0-88033-247-6 [Hungarian translation available.] (1st ed .: New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.)
• Hungary and the Holocaust, US Holocaust Memorial Museum This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Hungary". Jewish Encyclopedia. 1901-1906.

• Altman I.A. The Holocaust and Jewish Resistance in the Occupied Territory of the USSR / Ed. prof. A. G. Asmolova . - M .: The Holocaust Foundation , 2002. - 320 p. - ISBN 5-83636-007-7 .
• Braham, Randolph L. & Bock, Julia (2008), comp. & ed. The Holocaust in Hungary: a selected and annotated bibliography: 2000-2007. [New York]: Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, Graduate Center / City University of New York; Boulder: Social Science Monographs ISBN 0-88033-628-5
• Patai, Raphael, The Jews of Hungary: history, Culture, Psychology, Detroit, Michigan, Wayne State University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-8143-2561-0
• Patai, Raphael, Apprentice in Budapest: Memories of a World That Is No More Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7391-0210-9

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