08—The central ghetto, the international ghetto and death marches.

Salasi wanted his government to be recognised as a legitimate state by Europe. So it was only after some reluctance, at the beginning of November 1944, that he gave in to the Nazis and his own party leaders and handed over the conscripts to the Germans. The authorities used so-called death marches to deport Jews from Budapest and the labour camps; hundreds of people died on the 240-kilometre journey, with almost no food or water. 

The forced laborers liberated by Raoul Wallenberg from the Józsefváros railway station march along József Boulevard towards the international ghetto. The march goes from Baross Street towards Rákóczi Street, in front of houses nos. 46 and 48 on József Boulevard. (Budapest, November 28 or 29, 1944) [Photo: Tamás Veres]

The marches were finally stopped on 21 November, mainly due to criticism from neutral countries and the Vatican but trains deporting labour-service companies and captured Budaestonians were still departing from Yózsefváros station in early December. At that time, Jews living in star-shaped houses were partially relocated to the central or large ghetto, which was established in late November 1944 in the old Jewish quarter of Pest (and which is nowadays known as the "party district"). Some 60-70 thousand people were crammed together in appalling conditions, with at least fourteen to a room. The ghetto was liberated by the Soviets on 18 January 1945. In addition, dozens of houses in the New Suburbs formed the international ghetto, which offered protection to its residents with protection permits until mid-November. Around 30-35 thousand people were housed here. 

Protected houses were usually made from former star houses, but were not considered neutral territory, just as the letters of protection had no legal validity. The holder of the passports did not become a foreign citizen, the documents were only valid as long as they were accepted by the Arrow Cross and the SS.

The enemy states no longer had a foreign representation in Hungary. They therefore communicated with the Hungarian authorities through neutral countries and were involved in the rescue operations through them, mainly with the help of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and Swiss Consul Carl Lutz, who provided many people with asylum letters and sheltered housing. However, after a while the Arrow Cross regime became disinterested in diplomatic matters and herded groups of 50-60 people to the banks of the Danube and murdered them in cold blood. The victims of the shootings in the river numbered at least 3-4,000 in a few months, and their memory is commemorated by the Holocaust memorial, the Shoes on the Danube, inaugurated on 16 April 2005.

Ghetto (Budapest, 1945) [Photo: Fortepan / Fortepan Album011]

In the ghettos - where mainly women, children and the elderly lived, as the men had all been sent to labour service - raids were constant. It was a very cold winter that year and people had hardly any clothes, food or medicine. The dead could not be taken out of the closed ghetto, so they were buried in Klauzál Square and in the garden of the Dohány Street synagogue. After the ghettos were liberated, the victims buried in Klauzál Square were reburied in the Jewish cemetery. However, the mass graves remain to this day in the area in front of the Dohány Street synagogue, where more than 2,200 victims are currently buried.

In the spring of 1944, it was already clear that Germany had lost the war, and a large Jewish community survived only in Hungary. The indifference of the Hungarian population and the enthusiastic cooperation of the Hungarian authorities in the deportation of Jews and other groups were therefore decisive. 

The Hungarian gendarmes were so proactive in gathering people that even the Germans were surprised. In his trial in Jerusalem, Adolf Eichmann, the leader of the deportations, told how shocked his own men were by the Hungarian gendarmes' unwavering hatred of Jews and their inhumanity to humanity. And the population stood idly by as their neighbours, colleagues and acquaintances were taken away in broad daylight.

Bodies found in the courtyard of the synagogue on Dohány Street. Photograph taken during a joint inspection by the commission investigating the crimes of Nazism with doctors, Soviet photographers, and photojournalists. (Budapest, 18.01.1945; amateur footage) [Photo: HDKE 2011.568.3]

March of women and children – The recording was made in front of the house at number 32 Rákóczi Street (Budapest VII., 1944) [Fortepan / Fortepan]

The central ghetto of Budapest was formed in the Inner Erzsébetváros district around the Great Synagogue on Dohány Street. During the siege of the city in the winter of 1944-45, many dead were buried in the synagogue courtyard. Some of them were later exhumed, but many graves still remain. (Budapest VII. The courtyard of the Dohány Street synagogue, 1945) [Fortepan / Fortepan Album011]

MIKLÓS RADNÓTI

Szentkirályszabadja, October 1944 31.

Razglednicák - excerpt, Szentkirályszabadja, October 1944 31. (Radnóti was from Budapest, but the procession in which he was finally shot dead was sent from Bor.)

I fell beside him, his body turned over
and he was tight as a string when it snapped.
And that's the way you'll end up.
I whispered to myself, - just lie still.
Patience blossoms in death now. -
Der springt noch auf, - it sounded above me.
Blood mixed with mud dried on my ears.

Graffiti: 100 Jews for 1 Christian [Photo: Fortepan / Tivadar Lissák]