THE JEWISH WORLD
Getting past the Black
Holes of Memory
The most prominent force
in the founding of Budapest were the Jews who lived in that city. They
were prominent in the intellectual force, the economic background
and the cultural energy behind what was once one of the most vibrant
cities of Europe. This of course did not prevent Hungarian collaboration
with the Nazis in carting off the Jewish population to the death camps -
even as the Red Army stood at the doors of Budapest. A
Jewish story.
Jews arrived in Buda as early as the eleventh century. By the end of the
fourteenth century, they had become the largest Jewish community in
Hungary. When the Turkish army entered the city, most of the Jewish
population fled westward into Austrian-controlled territory. But, as the
years went by, the community renewed itself under Turkish rule. The Jews
paid high taxes, as was customary in the Ottoman Empire, but they were
not persecuted and their numbers grew: by 1580, Buda had some 800 Jews.
They worked in commerce, the production of textiles, and embroidering
uniforms.
The
Austrians returned to Buda in 1686. The Jewish quarter was set on fire
and the Jews expelled from the city. They were allowed to return in
1703, but restrictions and prohibitions were imposed on them.
 n 1840,
the prohibitions and restrictions imposed on the Jews of the city were
cancelled and the Hungarian population agreed to accept the community.
The Jews became social and political leaders, taking part in the
intellectual and cultural life and in the construction and development
of independent Hungary.
The
nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century were the
golden age of both Budapest and the city’s Jews. Their numbers increased
greatly and they continued to be a prominent part of economic and
intellectual life.
When
the Germans entered Budapest in March 1944, they came with an orderly
work plan to deal with the Jews, a plan that was implemented under the
personal management of Adolf Eichmann. At first the Jews were assembled
in 2,000 pre-designated houses. Eichmann's decision to expel the Jews of
Budapest in July and August were postponed while he negotiated with the
Jewish Agency for the lives of the Jews of Budapest. Eichmann demanded
10,000 trucks for the German army in exchange for the Jews.
The
Jewish Agency leadership, headed by Ben Gurion debated the issue in a
secret meeting held in Jerusalem. Moshe Sharett was sent to Turkey to
continue the negotiations, while Swiss diplomat Charles Lutz and Swedish
diplomat Raoul Wallenberg worked in Budapest to save as many Jews as
possible.
At the end of August, Eichmann had to leave the city. The deportation of
the Jews was delayed again. However, on August 15th, the members of
Arrow Cross, the Hungarian Nazi Party, took over the government and
immediately began an anti-Jewish terror campaign. Eichmann returned to
the city in October and transferred the Jews from the houses in which
they had been concentrated to two main ghettos: the central ghetto, in
which about 70,000 Jews with Hungarian citizenship were concentrated,
and the international ghetto, housing about 100,000 Jews who had
received the protection of a neutral country, with the aid of real or
forged documents.
On
November 15th, thousands of Jews from the central ghetto were sent to
the front to dig trenches. Those who survived, 7,000 people, were
marched to the Mauthausen death camp. Many were murdered on the way.
At the
beginning of January 1945, the advance of the Red Army forced the
Germans to abandon the city. In the next ten days, until the Russians
entered the city, the Arrow Cross launched a murderous hunt to track
down the remaining Jews. Thousands were shot to death the bodies thrown
into the Danube.
Of the
Hungarian Jewish community only half survived the Holocaust. Most of the
survivors scattered after after the war, immigrating to Israel and the
West. Some remained in Budapest, a sad reminder of what was once a
unique and proud community. Jewish tourism has recently promoted a
Hungarian Jewish Museum in Budapest, but the real museum is in a little
building in Safed where the Lustig family began to collect artefacts of
Jewish life in Hungary in the 1980s. Housed in a little stone building
beside the old Turkish governors palace in Safed, the museum is
overflowing with artefacts and materials. For lack of space only a small
portion of the collection is on display.
The
Memorial Museum of Hungarian Speaking Jewry in Safed is on Kikar
Ha’azma’ut adjacent to the Saraya building.
Email:
museum@hjm.org.il Tel/Fax: +972-4-692-3880/5881 Open: Sun-Fri:
9:00 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The full article on Budapest's Jewry
appears in
ERETZ Magazine
101.
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