Antisemitism in Post World War II Hungary - violence, riots; Communist Party policy

In spite of the antisemitic laws that were introduced in inter-war Hungary, the extraordinary role ofJews in economic and intellectual lives did not altogether vanish. Very few Jews became manual workers, and there were practically noJewish peasants. TheJews who were deported by the Nazis to death camps in 1944 were a relatively prosperous group, in spite of the previous Hungarian government's attempts to reduce their roles in the economy, and impoverish them. Most of them had been merchants, clerks, and professional people. There was much to be taken away from them when they were deported and there was much to be claimed on their return, which, as we shall see, came to be a major source of conflict.

The demagogic accusation thatJews were exploiters and at the same time subversives, have been used by antisemites often and in many societies. It was obviously a part of Nazi propaganda and appeal. In Hungary, however, this charge was especially powerful for the simple reason that in fact Jews were both the captains of industry and at the same time the leaders of the Communist Party. This duality had much to do with the character of post-war antisemitism and also with the behavior of theJews at this time.

Since Hungary was an ally (or a satellite) of Germany in the war and was occupied by the Nazis only on March 19, 1944, the destruction of its Jewry began only on that date (there had been some exceptions: from the CarpathoUkraine thousands ofJews had been sent to their deaths earlier). The fact that Hungary was an ally, rather than an occupied land had another consequence: military age Jewish males were not drafted into the army, but were organized into labor battalions. This particular institution existed nowhere else in Nazi dominated Europe. In the labor battalions the chances of survival depended on the decency of the Hungarian officers, but by and large survival rates were much better than in concentration camps. When these men returned after the war, and could not find their murdered families, they were likely to join the Communists. Many of them felt an understandable bitterness toward their Hungarian compatriots, which influenced their actions and behavior.

Calculating the losses of Hungarian Jewry during the Holocaust is a difficult task. First of all, there is a difference between who was Jewish according to the census data, and according to the Nazis. In the territory of wartime Hungary, according to census figures there were 725,000 Jews, after Poland and the Soviet Union, the largest Jewry in Europe. These figures do not include converted Jews, whose number, especially in Budapest, was sizable. So, if we look at the number from the point of view of those who were victimized by the Nazis, we must add another 100,000. [3]

This was not a homogeneous Jewry. About half of the Jews lived in territories that Hungary acquired just before the war, as rewards for its alliance with Nazi Germany. These newly occupied territories contained a very large number ofJews, whose social and economic situation was quite different from the "original" Hungarian Jewry, especially from theJewry in Budapest. When we look at the post-war situation, it is more relevant to look at the number of victims and survivors, only from the territory of so called "Trianon" Hungary. (The Hungarian peace treaty at the end of World War I was signed at Trianon.) According to the Nazi definition, approximately 490,000 Jews lived in Trianon Hungary at the outbreak of the war. At the end of 1945-that is, by the time those who had survived had returned from camps and from labor battalions-there were fewer than 100,000 Jews in Budapest and fewer than 50,000 in the rest of the country. Hungary lost more than two thirds of its Jewry and in absolute numbers only Poland and the Soviet Union lost more Jewish citizens to the Nazi slaughter.