Hitler's last victims: The Jews of Hungary
By Alexander Zvielli

(May 1) - The year 1944 heralded hope for the free world, as it was believed that Hitler would soon be defeated. But for Hungarian Jewry, the year would bring annihilation. To Order...

Their slaughter was so fast that it still pleads for an inquiry. Between May 15 and July 8, 1944, no fewer than 437,000 Jews were deported from Hungary. The majority were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau or shot in front of hastily-dug cremation pits.

How was it possible that the Nazis could successfully organize the killing of so many victims at a time when Germany was clearly heading for defeat? Why wasn't there even the slightest resistance? Who perpetuated the Nazi-imposed secrecy? We know that the Nazi extermination machine was well oiled and experienced at that time, but to what extent was the tragedy of Hungarian Jewry affected by the actions and nonactions of the Jewish leaders themselves?

For decades now, Randolph Braham, distinguished professor emeritus of political science at City College (New York), has made a most significant contribution to the scientific historiography of the Holocaust in general and the tragedy of Hungarian Jewry in particular by publishing 24 books on the subject.

Approximately 63,000 of Hungary's 800,000 Jews lost their lives even prior the German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944, Braham's research shows. Of these, close to 42,000 were laborers deployed along the Ukrainian front. Twenty thousand "alien" Jews were deported in August 1941 and subsequently slaughtered.

Between May 15 and July 9, 1944 more than half a million Jews were deported from Hungary. In Hungary-ruled northern Transylvania, Hungarians and Germans jointly deported to Poland almost all of the 150,000 Jews living there. Only 15,000 returned after the war.

At least 250,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were killed during the Shoah. A minimum of 55,000 Jews were killed during the summer of 1941 in southern Moldavia, Bessarabia and Bukovina by Romanian and German units; and another 70,000 Romanian Jews were killed or died in the deportation to Transdnistria under Romanian administration.

Braham describes how the Hungarian and Romanian fascists willingly assisted the Nazis in robbery, torture, deprivation, and cold-blooded murder of tens of thousands of Jewish victims, many of whom perished from thirst and hunger under inhuman conditions.

Six decades after these tragic events, Braham says, the Hungarian, Romanian and Ukrainian governments and their people still prefer to blame the Germans rather than confront the truth. It is a pity because against such perversion there is only one remedy: an honest and truthful admission of guilt. It is never too late to remind mankind of the inherent dangers of genocide.

Braham's books include: The Days Of Woe And Destruction: The Tragedy Of Hungarian Jewry - Essays, Documents, Depositions, and the recently released The Nazis' Last Victims: The Holocaust in Hungary.

His books, most of which are available via the Internet, are published jointly by the Rosenthal Institute of Holocaust Studies and the Graduate School of the City University of New York. They are distributed by Columbia University Press.

The writer, a veteran staff member of The Jerusalem Post, is a frequent contributor.

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