“..The Holocaust in Hungary represented a unique chapter in ..singular history of ..Final Solution of ..The Jewish question in Europe.” Randolph L. Braham.
I cannot take you the reader, all the way back 5,000 years to where Jewish persistence proved stronger than the eliminating demands placed upon them by all too many others. These others’, those whose wish to destroy the essence of a People, has since been built upon until its expression finally became demonstrable and deadly. From this, The Greatest Hatred, what has emerged has been known and recognised as antisemitism for far too long and by the so called enlightened in civilisation. Since Hungary joined Hitler’s Worldview, on November 20th. 1940, we cannot know how many of its Jewish community were Killed, Murdered or died in the Labour Battalions. All of this is some 3 years prior to the arrival of the killing operation for Hungarian Jewry arrived in amongst 900,000 Hungarian Jews. So I gained my own perspective of this hatred and from here, when my first Book was Published some 22 years ago, and it is an accusatory historical image of what the World allowed to happen, there is much more to learn. But this Book was written, it was edited time and again and was rehearsed way before the appreciation of the Jewish loss was gained. As a Student of World War II, I had previously touched upon the very graphic detail of an Einsatz kommanders aktionen who fully sought to present his defining moments to his masters.
“..Baltic countries ..would render harmless ..enemies left behind after ..retreat of ..Red Army. ..duty of ..Security Police to set in motion ..self-cleansing movements ..direct them ..to accomplish ..cleansing operations as quickly as possible. ..important ..to establish ..unshakeable ..provable fact ..liberated populations ..took ..most severe measures against Bolshevist ..Jewish enemy ..so that ..direction by German authorities could not be found out. In Lithuania this was achieved ..in Kowno. ..not easy ..set in motion ..extensive pogrom against Jews. ..no German order or ..instigation ..noticed from ..outside. ..pogrom ..June 25 to 26 ..Lithuanian partisans did away with more than 1,500 Jews ..set fire to several Synagogues or destroyed them by other means ..burned down a Jewish dwelling district consisting of about 60 houses. During ..following nights about 2,300 Jews ..made harmless in a similar way.” SS Brigadefuhrer Franz Stahlecker.
We are now in the midst of the gravest calamity for Baltic Jewry and this is where I altered all my emphasis, study and research. Typically it is with this graphic, illuminating the Stahlecker Report, that I garnered an insight into what levels of committal to the Jewish slaughter was aligned to and is running parallel the conquest of the World. The graphic itself, which emphasised the amassed Jewish Executions that were carried out by Stahlecker’s Einsatzgruppen A, has both troubled and captured me. The imagery of the coffins alone, listing the massacres of the Jewish People has stunned my inner workings and concentrated my further search for understanding ever since. With the sheer and callous disregard for human life, all emotion has been essential for me to focus such a statistical analysis into a personal emphasis. This has prompted me into suggesting that the necessary approach which humanity must demand has been lacking in terms of what we must be recognised. Along with my own disgust for what was this Genocidal undertaking, I was drawn into the necessary study that I would now engage with, and not as a Jew but on behalf of the Jewish People.
“..There was no way we could have foreseen Hitler’s Final Solution ..but my parents did sense ..situation would likely worsen, and they tried to get us out of Hungary.” Andrew Salamon.
It is from here that I will take you from where Hitler used his own rhetoric of hatred that was fully directed toward eliminating the Jewish People. We move relentlessly on, all the way toward the near total elimination of the Jewish presence within Europe, and finally culminating in an enactment which delivered its most gravest terms. Once Hitler sought to destroy the strength of World Jewry, he found the largest Jewish population of Europe was present on his doorstep, in Poland. Here Hitler became convinced that Poland’s historic Pogroms would create the exacting terms by which his route toward The Final Solution would be resolved. The germination of an eventual solution that was to resolve Hitler’s Jewish problem, might be more fully solved with such close collaboration as Poland, The Baltic States, Romania and Hungary might present.
“..June 22 1941 ..last night German warplanes ..carried out bombing raids on Alytus ..Kedainiai ..Siauliai ..Kovno ..Riga.” Avraham Tory.
Along with the camouflaging shield of World War II, Hitler brought European Jewry to the brink of extinction. The Collective loss suffered by both Polish and Hungarian Jewry is well amplified by now, recognising that both are an immense construct within the very narrative of The Holocaust term itself. With just Poland and Hungary presenting the loss account with close on 75% of all Jews Slaughtered within The Holocaust, both these countries represent a significant step in Hitler’s wishful demand for the solution to be resolved. Taken at differing stages of the emerging catastrophe, the common denominator in both would be Adolf Hitler and his demands for the complete annihilation of all Jewish presence within Europe, wherever they could be found. Of course 1939 and 1944 were poles apart in relation to how Hitler’s conduct of the War was proceeding and how desperate would be his required legacy be in destroying every Jew within his view. While earlier on Hitler saw within Poland a position he was assured would be both compliant and cooperative, Hungary drew a differing intervention, a strategy which converted the willing axis companion into a vassal state and a husk of human concern.
“..destruction of Hungarian Jewry constitutes ..last phase in ..Nazis’ War against ..Jews.” Randolph L. Braham.
This then is where we arrive at the steady progression of The Holocaust toward what remained of the last existing reservoir of Jewish greatness, and this was Hungary. It is clear too, and up till this point in time, that all anti-Jewish sentiment, by which antisemitism has been largely systemic, gravitates us toward it’s deadliest and most lethal consequences. Within the overall culture of Europe, Poland has been infected by interhuman relationships, and for over 2,000 years, by a Jewish presence which has guided it through its cultivating lessons of Education and Industriousness. All the while, this hatred of the Jewish People has been spreading further, wider than borders so as to infect all of civilised humanity. Such has been its infestation, all ethical morality, linked with such antisemitism joined forces here upon a European stage to deliver what we recognise is, The Holocaust of the Jews of Europe.
“..Through ..gaps in ..door ..I saw Arrow Cross members leading people to ..Danube bank to be shot to death. I also witnessed that those who could no longer walk were shot dead then and there ..on ..street.” Artur Koo.
As Hitler’s lust for power expanded, the presence of the Jewish People was assailed and along with State, and the Church’s design of its own models of response and non-response, this hatred for the Jewish People has been cradled in a systematic way. It is an evidently endemic expression as it shares its likeness with severe outbursts and deadly Pogroms. While the hatred also had a solid grounding in The Baltic States, Byelorussia and Ukraine, and it was maintained as a more than populist undertaking in Hungary, it was the Jews who would succumb to its reach. There is of course the aim to ensure other than the Jews were attacked and killed and this cannot and must never be doubted, suppressed nor denied. But, and in what Hitler demands in The Jewish Question, must be recognised in The Holocaust as The Final Solution. All of this was clearly assessed, and in what Hitler rightly witnessed, it all reflected his own view of what he could gain in cooperation and collaboration with all too many. In the progress of this, we recognise what Hitler’s much touted; ‘die Endlosung der Judenfrage’ demonstrates. It is with such expression that we are a witness to what was inevitably converted from mere bluster into an outrageous demonstration of exponential, brutal and deadly atrocities.
“..It dawned on me that this was my vocation ..to tell as many people as I could about Auschwitz. It’s ..least I can do. ” Eva Fahidi.
The fact of what must be learned, of what was certainly observed, and not just from within Poland, is at least recognised in what Hitler felt he could achieve against those he sought to remove from homes, lands, and life itself. As this murderous view of the Jewish People spread further, ever wider and more brutally adapted, and adopted, even more of what was presented as Jewish persistence was further diminished. Here, and against the largest population of Jews in Europe, their own 3,650,000 Polish Jews, their near total evisceration was realised. With their expected assistance, Poland set the seal upon their own perceived and deeply wounding hatred for all Jews. So what emerged from within Poland, with Polish Jewry in situ, to be Slaughtered in 6 Death Camps placed specifically within Poland to do so, Hungary Jews would survive a seeming reprieve from the now growing awareness of what Hitler’s final resolve would be for all Jews.
When, on January 22nd. 1942 Heydrich convened The Wannsee Conference, Eichmann had recognised the fact that some 742,800 Jews were present within Greater Hungary for presentation toward The Final Solution. We are conscious here that Eichmann had to hand the detail of what had been presented to the Jews within The Baltic States and to those Jews of Lodz resettled within Chelmno. Then, on April 17th. 1943, when the Regent of Hungary, Admiral Horthy visited Hitler at Klessheim Castle, he too was appraised of what was being formulated and conducted then in Belzec, Birkenau, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka also. The deadly consequences for 6,000,000 Jewish People, and from all over Europe was then fully recognised. Within Hungary, that clear genocidal intention was to be eventually recognised within the borders of Hungary, and this would be conducted right up until the War was ending.
“..On that evening ..fate of ..Jews of Hungary was sealed.” Adolf Eichmann.
Hitler’s major efficiency administrator Eichmann is now in a race to ensure Hitler’s fuller demand, as he arrives in Hungary. On March 10th. 1944 Eichmann, who had gathered his top RSHA Section IV B4 resettlement officials together in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, is grounding all his lieutenants in what was to be expected of them. Here, the deadly groundwork for the forthcoming operation within Hungary was laid and formalised. Along with such larceny of intent, Hitler’s regime was clearly engaged with, and against the Jews of all of Europe, Hungary would prove lucrative to European monetary gains. This expectation grew proportionately greater, and with a more lucrative pursuance that was to the benefit of a Jewish detriment and deadly exercise.
“..On March 15th. 1944 ..Hitler also objected to ..fact that Hungary has not yet introduced ..steps necessary to settle ..Jewish Question. We are accused ..therefore ..of ..crime of not having carried out Hitler’s wishes ..and I as charged with not having permitted ..Jews to be massacred.” Miklos Horthy.
On March 19th. 1944, Hitler delivered an ultimatum to Admiral Horthy, so as to ensure all of Hungary’s Jews would be resettled. With German troops set to occupy all of Hungary, recognising too that these German forces were mere relics of the-all conquering and former state of the Wehrmacht, as a blitzkrieg fighting force, the pressure upon Jewish existence grew more deadly. This now also represented the changing and detrimental fortunes, and destructive fate for Hungarian Jewry. The terror changing event would now set the Jews of Hungary upon the same road to their specific realm in the overall disaster of The Holocaust. There was a combined force of 600 Einsatz and Auxiliary forces accompanying the annihilating move into Hungary. This particular Einsatz role was to be the elimination of as many of the 900,000 Hungarian Jews as would be possible. Amongst these Einsatz forces were 200 of the ablest killers from Eichmann’s Sondereinsatzkommando. This assembled grouping, of those exacting experts on The Jewish Question, who were already briefed on what was to come, Mauthausen progressed the move on to Hungary. These technicians upon the destructive Jewish processes would enact this particular, Entjudung for the Jewish People in Hungary at a more rapid and aggressive form.
It is these murderous master’s over Jewish existence and death, Franz Abromeit, Arthur Burger, Theodor Dannecker, Otto Hunsche, Hermann Krumey, Franz Novak, Siegfried Seidl, and Dieter Wisliceny, who would deliver to infamy the place of Hungary to be defined within The Holocaust. Hitler’s murder forces now occupy all of Hungary, and if there are still some 800,000 to 900,000 of Hungarian Jewry facing Hitler’s immediate and Final Solution, that immediacy is more certain. On April 29th. 1944 with a transport of 1,800 Jews from Budapest, Hungary, these Jews are deported toward Birkenau for resettlement there. The deportation of the Hungarian Jews now begins in earnest and we find ourselves further down that same road Hitler had set the catastrophe for the Jewish People upon. We have to recognise too that Hungarian Jews were being delivered to many holding centres and are shot without consideration. Local collaborators, Arrow Cross personnel were taking a lead from Hitler through their own anti-Jewish hatreds, and Hungarian leaders who cowed down to those like Eichmann and Veesenmeyer, Winklemann and Wisliceny, who were on hand to lend their expertise in removing Hungarian Jewry permanently, we more than grateful for the advice.
On March 20th. 1944 Eichmann wasted no time in mobilising his own particular intention for the coming transports. He settled well into the Astoria Hotel, regarding himself as an emperor in SS clothing, holding sway over those of his assembled legions and 900,000 Hungarian Jews. He would move his administrative empire from Pest to the Majestic Hotel in Buda, which appeared more suited to his grandiose newer and lording position. Ahead of Eichmann’s arrival though, Krumey met with the Budapest Jewish community leadership and both Wisliceny and Krumey appointed Samuel Stern, who formerly headed the Jewish Community of Pest, to lead the newly formed, and compliant, Budapest Jewish Council. These Jewish leaders, and it must always be stressed, they led in name only, as here in all of Hungary, Eichmann ruled over the Jews. The entire Jewish population was informed by Eichmann and his lieutenants that there would be:
I German control over all Jewish affairs,
II SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Alfred Trenker would take charge of the Budapest Jewish Community,
III The Jewish Council must be formed by 12:00 the following day,
IV These leaders would be certified exempt from All Jewish measures,
V Travel restrictions would be placed upon all Jews, and
VI Reassurances must be issued to calm all Jewish concerns.
The mitigating conditions for Hungarian Jewish ‘resettlement East’ was being surreptitiously installed and by underhand means, the euphemism for total destruction was conducted again. On March 21st. 1944, a further meeting, attended by some 200 Jewish Community Leaders was assured, life as normal would continue. Here too, the German approval for the composition of the Jewish Council was finally sanctioned.
On March 22nd. 1944, with Dome Sztojay as the Hungarian Premier, the Ghetto becomes the mainstay of Jewish concentration in the larger Towns. But these would be nothing like the Jewish Ghetto of Poland which was in situ for many years. The deadline for the wholesale destruction of the entire Community of Hungarian Jewry was being set by Russian advances upon previous Hitlerite gains in the East. Since Hitler’s failure to capture Staningrad, September 1943, the once mighty Wehrmacht was being rolled up, like a carpet and is being delivered toward Germany. This however, secured for all Jewish existence in Europe, particularly now, and here in Hungary, and explosive effort to annihilate ever more Jews ahead of an obvious and crushing defeat, militarily. Also, the Jewish Star is to become the identifier of Hungarian Jewry and this would become compulsory on April 5th. On March 23rd. 1944 Eichmann, Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, Veesenmayer and Winklemann met in Budapest to finalise the planned removal of Hungarian Jewry towards Birkenau. Meanwhile, and on March 24th. 1944, Samu Stern issued a plea to the Jewish Community:
“..Germans placed great emphasis on .. country’s Jewish population to calmly .. continue ..it’s private life ..religious ..social ..and cultural activities.” Samuel ‘Samu’ Stern.
What we can never truly know is how taken in the Jewish leadership within Hungary was, and how unwittingly it received such news. While it is true that many of these, at the head of the entire community of Jews, were aware of both the rumours, the subterfuge of atrocity stories, the detail was detained to avoid alarming further the Jewish People. On March 26th. 1944 Kaltenbrunner left Hungary and has left the Jewish Question with Laszlo Baky, Laszlo Endre, Laszlo Ferencsy and Dome Sztojay, who are taking instructions from Eichmann’s team. By the time Himmler got back to Berchtesgaden, and he met with Hitler, on March 29th. 1944, he had already informed Goering that measures were in place to secure the final victory. While Himmler and Hitler had already discussed the final details related to the coming solution to the Jewish Question in Hungary. Himmler had fully appraised Hitler of what was now facing 900,000 Hungarian Jews, and who the executioners in charge would be, his SS. On March 31st. 1944, Eichmann confers his demands upon the Budapest Jewish Council, from his headquarters at the Majestic Hotel.
“..Jews were ordered to hand over all items of value ..jewels ..coins ..foreign currency. ..Jewish presence in any business or professional activity was forbidden. ..Jews were only allowed to be outside during certain hours of ..day. We were banned from all public places ..except stores. We couldn’t use streetcars or taxis ..we weren’t allowed to attend any public performances ..movies ..theatres ..concerts ..and we were forbidden to eat in restaurants. By April 3rd. every Jew was required to wear a yellow star. Jews had to leave their homes to go to ..ghetto or into designated ..yellow star buildings.” Andrew Salamon.
Of course, the cross fertilization of antisemitism, within different and then competing states, forged a recognisable malignancy that was identifiable across every nation. This had already formed a pathway, that was so discernible throughout Europe, it tarnished human World civilisation. In places like Poland, where the Pogrom was a feature of anti-Jewish hatred for centuries, inhumanity was escalated to newer levels of bitter conflict. In all that I aim to state, I would always demand that even one Murdered Jew was far too many, even within The Holocaust. But, and I state this without any reservation whatsoever, the World needs to come to terms with what it allowed to happen to the Jews of Europe. It is an unacceptable murderous account which is indeed, the unaccountable and incomprehensible recognition that 6,000,000 is the settled for accounting of the Slaughtered Jews of Europe.
“..one thing that has puzzled me and has puzzled ..World ..Germans dedicated manpower and trains and trucks and energy towards ..destruction of ..Jews to ..last day. Had they stopped six months before ..end of ..war and dedicated that energy towards strengthening themselves ..they may have carried on ..war a little longer ..but it was more important to them to kill ..Jews than even winning ..war.” Bill Basch.
Here too, as Hitler had clearly set a precedent, which established beyond All reasonable doubt, die Endlosung der Judenfrage, no other consideration was prioritised. The targeting of the Jews for destruction was fixed ahead of even Hitler’s supposed respect for the German People. It is certain then, that no other perspective, within his vocalised Weltanschauung, and as it was his own personal worldview, there was nothing that would distract him from it. Here, The Final Solution of The Jewish Question would maintain Hitler’s fullest attention as it had kept the transportation of Jews to the Death Camps in Poland was complimented by der Einsatzgruppe killing operations. Now, and for the vast majority of those Jews of Hungary, who had survived right up until the end of the War approached, all seemed certain for them to live. The only remaining Jewish Community of substance to still be standing became the target of every attention Hitler could now focus upon. As it became essential for any Jew of Hungary, who would survive, there were few from their own Community, even from their own Family who could remain to inform us.
“..I have ..figures only for ..months of May ..June ..July ..1944. Dr. Pasche ..a French doctor of ..Sonderkommando ..in ..crematory ..was in a position to gather statistics on rate of exterminations.. provided me with these
May ..1944 360,000
June ..1944 512,000
1st. to 26th. ..July 1944 442,000
1,314,000
In less than quarter of a year ..Germans had liquidated more than 1,300,000 .. Auschwitz-Birkenau.” Olga Lengyel.
In what those like Olga Lengyel seek to bring to the fore, those testimonies which open the portal to such savagery as History has Never known, they illuminate the darkness presented. I am in no position to refute any such broad an assessment as these within the History of the time have been able to leave to us. But, and while all too many wish to reduce the whole effect upon the entirety of European Jewry, we must deplore the attempt to diminish this Jewish presence and restore the balance of truth. It is inherently essential that we explore every such distorted reasoning for the callous limiting of the Jewish presence and the calculating efforts to limit their loss to 6,000,000. However, I do not question those experts who were present during the ravages they managed to survive and for those Jewish Historians who survived to present the integrity we seek, they have given us the rising and exponential consensus that we are prone to revisit and reassess.
“.. Germany’s system of ruling in conquered Europe varied ..as did ..persecution of Jews. ..toil of Jewish lives .. determined by ..nature and extent of German control ..by .. Fuhrer’s postwar global aims ..and ..attitude of local population.” Livia Rothkirchen.
But I would question any resolve from some whose seeming wish is to salve, and somehow soothe a less portioned blame for states or nations of their choosing who acted against their Jewish Citizens. Such is a cowardly approach to history, by those who would see their own nations capacity to act against their own Jewish population, as either nullified or forcefully rejected, is against all principles by which History is best assured. The factual truth and through it, its veracity, is the only device open to those of us who seek to present the science of history. Precisely dealing with the Slaughter of these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, all evidences must be positively assured.
“..A person who dies continues to live in ..memory of his or her relatives ..friends .. acquaintances. But when .. victims of The Holocaust died ..people nearest and dearest to them died with them ..their entire social world .. destroyed.” Bernhard Press.
These assessments, with Lengyel’s at Birkenau, with Press reminding us why too much from memory is so permanently lost and indeed the overall tragedy, and as such are not fully accounted. Indeed, they are not even as a maximum of the overall capacity Hitler envisaged or fully managed to secure for posterity what we recognise is The Holocaust. Such capacity itself, within establishments designed to eliminate even the minutiae of Jewish existence, exposes the reality of the very fabric of humanity which has been torn to shreds. So here, and while this all ties in accurately with the assessment of what we make of the deportation of 502,491 Hungarian Jews to Birkenau, we must deliver more of the fuller evidence’s that have either, so far evaded us or are being thwarted in order to distort the fuller truth. In this, we must not ignore what the transports from Hungary, which were even arriving at Birkenau prior to these dates, deliver further to the overall tragedy for Hungarian Jewry. I can certainly assert, that while each of the 6 Death Camps within Poland was fully capable of delivering above and beyond the capacity assessment assigned to them, Birkenau was without argument fully capable of destroying 6,000,000 Jewish lives within a timeframe it was suited to.
“..Although ..ultimate fate of ..Jews under Nazi rule ..was everywhere identical ..there were some local differences in ..process and tempo of persecution and extermination.” Isaiah Trunk.
We know full well that within The Final Solution, the Jews were met with extinction wherever they were confronted by Hitler’s legions. This is true wherever the Germans set foot and while we begin our assessment of the slaughter in 1932 and 1933, it is with the Hungarian travesty in mid-May 1944 that we are focused upon. As we know, there are 3,800 Hungarian Jews to arrive upon the ramparts of Birkenau, prior to this date of mid-May 1944. Amongst these are 2,698 arriving Jews from both Budapest and Topoly who are to be immediately gassed after the selection process. This is on May 2nd. 1944 and then on May 4th. 1944, at a conference which details the removal of some 310,000 Hungarian Jews from the Carpathia and the Siebenburgen areas, Eichmann is moving swiftly to ensure these Jews are set to commence their resettlement journey around the middle of May 1944. It is proposed too that some 110 individual transports should be arranged to accommodate these vast numbers. Also, and this criteria for removal would conceivably deliver more than 550,000 Hungarian Jews within that given timeframe. This would ensure for 5,500 Hungarian Jews on each and every transport, we are faced with, on average in the region of 5,000 to 5,500 Gassed Jews taken from these trains.
“..testimonies of survivors of ..mass liquidation operations. ..history of ..Jewish people in The Holocaust cannot rely only on .. documentation left behind by ..Murderers and their accomplices.” Jean Ancel.
We know too that testimony has emerged from those Jews who have survived to add to the documentation that somehow survived intact. While this amassed deportation will proceed at the rate of 4 Transports daily, we know Birkenau is geared up to receive them. Within each of these resettlement transports, there are to be some 3,000 to 5,500 Hungarian Jews. A total of in excess of 12,000 and 22,000 Jews from Hungary deported on a daily basis. This atrocity is to be on such a murderous scale, and as has never been evidenced in any of the other Death Camps in Poland, at such a rate, we are made certain that Hungary holds a particularly brutal space in The Holocaust of terms for all of European Jewry. The formative operations, the precursor to all that Hitler demands for the initial phase of the removal of Hungary’s Jews, will persist on each and every day until the more than 310,000 Jews of Hungary have been obliterated. The conclusion to this single detail of the Hungarian transports should be completed within 4 weeks and set the seal on what was still awaiting as many as 590,000 more Jews still living in Hungary.
“..Birkenau ..Greatest City of death. Selections ..set up to receive and enslave.” David Rousset.
Following on from this commencement date will be the concluding act ranged against the still remaining 590,000 Jews of Hungary as the great City of Death awaited them. When, on May 8th. 1944, Hoess is again placed back in command of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Hoess is well placed to oversee the destructive capacity within Birkenau. To this end, he is charging Josef Kramer with authority over Birkenau, as the Reich’s remaining Extermination Centre. Hoess now speeds up the processes by which Hungarian Jewry will be handled, and resettled, and thus Destroyed. The Birkenau ramp is extended, and Krematoria V is back in operation and then, with the addition of 5 outside pits for corpse incineration, 900,000 Hungarian Jews are set for evisceration. We bear in mind also, and that Hoess himself admits to the capacity of the capability of destruction within Birkenau, which could be as many as 18,000 of these Hungarian Jews Slaughtered upon a daily basis, and that such deeds were indeed achieved. That the fate of 6 Transports every 4 hours is in the hands of a well-defined mass Murder system, and that the Jews assigned here are to be processed and their presence totally obliterated, from start to finish, this is a page in History we must Never fail to mention.
“..Hoess acknowledged ..he had been responsible for ..Slaughter of 2,500,000 ..plus another 500,000 to starvation and disease.” Otto Friedrich.
Here too, when we then look to those overall and precise dates for the coming assault upon all of Hungary’s Jews, and this is to be accomplished largely, between May 15th. 1944 and July 9th. 1944, the capacity to slaughter them is achievable for Hoess. Here, and over a period of 55 days, the presumed total annihilation of all the Jews within Hungary has to be realised or at least imagined. With these first arrivals already processed we are moved to May 16th. 1944, and we examine arrivals in Birkenau which are totalling of 3 full transports, and sometimes 4 such transports, and on a daily basis. We recognise too that each of these trains, pulling along with 40 to 50 cattle cars, are containing of some 4,000 to 5,500 Hungarian Jews upon each of them. That is consisting of on average some 70, 80 and even 150 Jewish People to each wagon. With certainty too we, are made aware that the system of annihilation is such an accomplished machinery of total destruction, no Jew can expect to live past what Hoess decrees is the necessary life span for their usefulness.
“..After we were tossed out of ..train to Auschwitz ..we tried to grab our luggage ..we were told not to bring anything ..that they would bring everything to us.” Klara Andorne-Molnar.
This destructive capacity will set the seal upon such an annihilation process of its People, that the Jewish World is still reeling from its very enactment. For each day, we can recognise or identify with 12,000 or as many as 15,500 of Hungarian Jewry who are specially treated, annihilated, and all of this is throughout this first day. We must never under estimate the very capacity for this machinery of mechanised destruction to deliver upon what ever it sought so as to ensure, in this particular component part of The Final Solution, all Jews were destroyed at Hitler’s convenience. It is true too that over capacity was made available as and when it was required and outdoor pits provided the additional capacity to not only eviscerate the remains of the Jewish People, but to murder many of them thrown alive headlong into the flames.
“..May 25th. 1944 ..number of Hungarian Jews killed already amounts to over 100,000 people.” Danuta Czech.
If we are to register with this particular kill rate assessment, detailed by Danuta Czech, we clearly realise the sonderbehandlung of in excess of 9,000 of these Hungarian Jews occurs upon a daily basis. At the same time, we have to recognise there is also arriving, and on the same daily basis, Jews from across the length and breadth of Europe, particularly Belgium, France, Greece, Holland, Italy and Yugoslavia. These Jews too are tabled for that same end result and that this final handling runs alongside their Hungarian Cousins. We must add to these dimensions the ability of Hitler’s forces and their auxiliaries to act with extreme malice and murder at will before, during and after these transports have delivered their human cargo for destruction.
“..June 13th. 1944 .. deportation ..Jews ..Carpathia ..Siebenburgen ..completed June 7th. A total of 289,357 Jews ..deported ..in 92 trains ..each of ..45 cars.” SS Brigadefuhrer Edmund Veesenmayer.
On average there were 70 of these Hungarian Jews, and in many instances, 100 or even 150 Jews assigned to each cattle car. What is also clear, is that the train timetable, is as deliberate as it has been calculated by those Eichmann has been charged with delivering to this annihilation centre at Birkenau. In a wish to avoid discussing in terms of statistical terms, we all too easily lose sight of the very human dimensions of the massacre. The Hungarian Jewish People are being consigned to the pages of history that are without the necessary concern for progressing their presence to us. We have great difficulty to this day attempting to extract the individual status of those Jews who now appear upon a spread sheet. The analysis of loss, which seeks to remove even the humanity of these Jewish People from us, has to be based upon what we know is ethical and certainly a moral way to treat People. Our ability to see beyond the details to be extracted from such calculations, as would render such Jewish lives to a balance sheet upon a ledger of annihilation which must be guarded against is an imperative.
“..procession started and we saw the line separate into two different directions. It later became clear that those who were on ..right were taken to ..gas chamber ..those who survived were taken to ..other side.” Klara Andorne-Molnar.
All the while Eichmann and his cohort are assigning Hungarian Jewry toward their eventual decimation within Birkenau. There are the trains, and the company’s which managed them, each of which are as accommodating of the very capacity to destroy these Hungarian Jews. Of course, the very detail of the arrival of these Jews within Birkenau, which Hoess has clearly outlined, and for which he has prepared for as programmed in Eichmann’s demand for the end result, is a machinery of industrial destruction never ever envisaged in all of history awaiting them. Nothing of this does anything to recognise the responsibility of Hitler in all of this and not to underscore the role Hitler plays in this very murderous detail, would be irresponsible. We assess the role of these administrators of Hitler’s annihilation, and both Eichmann and Hoess at the coal face of this murderous operation, took their orders from Heinrich Himmler. Himmler we recognise, who in turn would not have crossed the road unless he had been given permission to do so by Hitler himself adds Hitler’s signature to the edicts emanating the length and breadth of this final resolve to destroy what remained of European Jews from within Hungary.
“.. Hungarian mass transports. ..numerous ..gas chambers ..Krematoria V could not handle everyone. ..mostly shot. ..many cases ..living people into ..burning pits.” Henryk Tauber.
However, and whatever the assessment to be made, when it can be rounded down by consensus, Jewish losses can still be severely undermined, despite what Hitler clearly demanded. What is certain, and given the administrative model operated by Eichmann and Hoess within Hungary delivering Jews toward Birkenau, this had merely been an expanded, modernised and streamlined effort in destroying Jews as witnessed at Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka. While I would fully choose to counter those scurrilous claims, which have sought to lessen the impact of the Jewish loss, I am mindful of its distraction to the certain Catastrophe history can ill afford to ignore. Also, any such effort, which would only distract from the memory we aim to restore, must furnish truth ahead of the speculative distraction seeking to subtract from the 6,000,000 Jewish losses.
“..June 30th. 1944 ..A total of 340,162 Jews ..deported from Zones I ..II ..III with 41,499 from Zone IV.” SS. Brigadefuhrer Edmund Veesenmayer.
All of this effort, so as to diminish the Jewish presence from within The Holocaust, would only more further sully a past we recognise as heinous. In terms of what the Jewish Catastrophe must remain so as to be maintained, we have to choose our own integrity more wisely. To do so, despite the many contentions demanding we accept lesser accounting, we look deeper to ensure No Jew is detained from Memory. It became clear to me, from my book on Hitler’s Belzec that attempts were being made to lessen such impact as the devastation of Jewish losses must present to us. We know that all, like Eichmann, Hoess and Veesenmayer had vested interests in producing heightened assessments of the killings but did Mayors or Head Teachers of Belzec have such a wish. With that in mind, we have to accept that there was a capacity which Birkenau could and would live up to in treating all Jews who disembarked from transports along its ramps.
“..July 2nd. 1944 ..400,000 Jews ..deported from Hungary ..killed in ..gas chambers. ..same fate awaits remaining 350,000 Hungarian Jews.” BBC.
It is clear that widening of information of the slaughter is reaching a broader audience in the World and can no longer be wilfully hidden from view. Here then, do we accept that the evidence the BBC Broadcasts assessed the Hungarian Jewish losses are from the reservoir of only 750,000 Jews of Hungary. The contention might then be placed twofold, and either 550,000 Hungarian Jews have already been lost or there are still 500,000 of Hungarian Jewry still to follow the same fate of their fellow Jews consumed within Birkenau. We must see the disparity reached between 750,000 and 900,000 Hungarian Jews would deliver 150,000 of these Jews to a forgetfulness we cannot afford to accept. If but one Jew is omitted from the detail of The Holocaust then we have failed in our recompense for such crimes as have been delivered to posterity which tarnishes our human consciousness.
“..scholars ..at .. Auschwitz Museum .. established ..total at 4,000,000.” Otto Friedrich.
This numbering failing would further weaken, with the need to prevent distortions, the ability of both deniers and distorters to act out their own bitter hatred toward the fact of the Jewish People. Anything denying such truths, as we acknowledge them with their factual integrity intact, would undermine all-purpose in truth and would be superfluous to all of our History together. History is a science which cannot be summoned to account which does not include all that matters to the very integrity of its scientific approach. History does not deny what Hoess assessed within Birkenau as its capacity to annihilate and should not doubt that this was indeed managed, be it 1,000,000, 2,000,000 or even 4,000,000 Jewish lives lost here.
“..world has .. learnt to know to its horror ..names of concentration and extermination camps .. Birkenau ..Belzec ..Chelmno ..Treblinka ..Sobibor ..Belsen ..Dachau. ..Yet it is not sufficiently comprehended that each and every operation of ..Nazi machinery for ..destruction of Jewish communities throughout Europe Involved .. deliberate massacre of untold numbers of Jews.” Yad Vashem.
It is more and more clear to me, and given the newer consensus all adding to this confusion, we simply cannot afford the assessment made. The World seems content upon accepting it as both accurate, even with untold numbers, and the fuller detail is constrained by just 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews. It is as if these 6,000,000 Jews, who have been ritually removed from all existence, can ever lessen their impact upon all of humanity. How much more damning then of societal civilization would it be if that assessment recognised that 7,000,000 were the destroyed Jews. From there we can only be certain of the immense loss, for it can even be far more than we recognise, and then we can suggest even more Jews are lost we can never find, and because we cannot know how many Jews were presented to Hitler’s killing and lucrative apparatus.
“..It has ..been established ..some 4,000,000 died in .. Auschwitz alone ..3,000,000 ..perished at Majdanek ” David Rousset.
While this disparity in numbers, it all reflects with certainty the exacting capacity within Birkenau to achieve a murder rate of over 15,000 Slaughtered Jews each and every day. Over this period of the Hungarian resettlement, it does not contradict the Kommandant Hoess’s overall assessment of the Catastrophe for the Jews that was played out here. We can so easily assess that as many as 825,000 Jews, many from across Europe amongst the Hungarian Jews were annihilated during just a 55 day period. It is also important that we side with those like Simon Wiesenthal in each and every assessment and that who would demand we look past the complacency in statistics to realise real People, real Jewish People have been catapulted into oblivion.
“..Amid ..confusion ..consensus ..seems to be 1,500,000. Thus more than 2,000,000 once mourned victims have mysteriously disappeared ..another illustration of ..general ignorance.” Otto Friedrich.
Contemporary consensus then would have us imagine, that we should restrict the confinement of Jewish losses to the 6,000,000. However, we must continually evaluate and ponder over why, if we cannot ever be certain, we are expected not to assess beyond the 6,000,000 figure. Also, and on all too many death totals, particularly as they relate to these Jewish losses, they are invariably wrong on more than a marginal scale. As Hitler’s Worldview is being condensed ever further, his gaze has not shifted from his major priority, The Jewish Question. We know for a fact that there were as many as 900,000 Hungarian Jews, who were still resident within Hungary’s borders by the end of 1943. We know too that many of these Jews would be shot during the intervening period right up until, and after Eichmann arrived to coordinate the Jewish removal. What we cannot then lose sight of is the total disappearance of at least 525,000 of them.
“..After ..war ..Jews would be free to do whatever they wanted. Everything ..on ..Jewish Question ..only for ..wartime ..with ..end of ..war ..Germans would again become good natured ..as in ..past.” Adolf Eichmann.
While many European Jews did not register as practicing Jews, and were not identified as such, there were all too many willing to point them out. This too is true for Polish Jewry, as it was for Hungarian Jews and for many Jews who were betrayed, and from many other European states. Where the Jewish People had sought to integrate, there were too many of those who were eagerly seeking to denounce them. I know too from the many evidence’s of testimony, that without such betrayal, many more Jews would have survived their neighbours treachery. Here too, and within Hungary, as we are now approaching the end of World War II, and it is less than a year after Hitler sought to resolve the issue of the Hungarian Jewish Question for himself, numbers vary as to how many Jews survived. While we fluctuate between what we know and what we surmise as to this survival rate, more Jewish People are being further lost to posterity. Though of these Hungarian Jewish People, such statistic as has been drawn, makes it doubly difficult to reach a reliable assessment which would, should and must bring them toward recollection. I take here from American sources which suggest, that of the approximately 825,000 Hungarian Jews who were identified in the census of 1941, there were barely 255,000 of Hungary’s Jews who survived. It is clear too that the birth rate might add a further 247,000 more Hungarian Jews for Eichmann to attend to. Then, if we align this to what we calculate are the losses to Hungarian Jewry, some 817,000 Jews from Hungary were destroyed, rising to 892,000 of these Jews if we accept the greater and growing assessment of the Jewish presence within Hungary.
The Final Solution is not final to The Jewish Question.
“..we were traveling criss-cross Poland looking for surviving Jews ..we found them. ..sometimes these meetings were so packed with emotion that ..I lack ..words to describe it. .idea that we are really survivors couldn’t sink in yet.” Leah Hammerstein-Silverstein
For me it is quite simple. The Jewish Survivor must speak up and out so that We know why the perpetrators should feel ashamed. For me also, I feel such shame that so many of these Survivors will be the first to be buried in a place their Family may eventually visit. This, while for all too many Survivors, there was nowhere for them to visit. That is certainly true for Jews from throughout Europe, and certainly not in Hungary and especially for those Hungarian Jews with no recognisable place to visit within Birkenau. Yes. The Jews have won. But at too high a cost to all of humanity. We recognise in these names below, the loss to Community which was Jewish from all of Hungary.
Abaujszanti, Albertirsa, Baja, Budapest, Debrecen, Dregelypalank, Eger, Ersekujvar, Gado-Tanya, Gyula, Hatvan, Hejocsaba, Heves, Kiskunhalas, Kisvarda, Kosice, Kunmadaras, Mad, Marmaros, Mezobereny, Mezocsat, Miskolc, Mosonmagyarovar, Munkacs, Nagykanizsa, Nagy-Kapos, Nagy Karoly, Nagy-Varad, Nyíregyhaza, Ozd, Pincehely, Sopron, Szegi, Szentes, Sziget, Szikszo, Tab, Tatabanya, Tiszafured, Trencin, Turkeve, Ujfeherto, and Ungvar.
“..It has become increasingly clear that Hungarian authorities are encouraging ..whitewashing of tragic and criminal episodes in Hungary’s past ..namely ..wartime Hungarian governments’ involvement in ..deportation and murder of hundreds of thousands of its Jewish citizens.” Elie Wiesel.
