The Last Days Of Budapest: The Destruction Of Europe's Most Cosmopolitan City In World War II, Lebor - B+

            The end of the Great War saw the collapse of the empire, and a brief communist interregnum, followed by strongman Admiral Horthy assuming control in 1919.  Horthy's rule was nationalistic, conservative, but quasi-democratic, and totally focused, as was the entire country, on reversing the Treaty of Trianon, which had taken away two-thirds of the country's land mass and half of its population.  Almost every decision the Horthy government made was to recover its lost lands. In the late 1930's, Hungary implemented a Nazi-like series of proscriptions against its Jews. The country remained neutral when war broke out in 1939. Hungary cooperated with, and in late 1940 joined, the Axis Tripartite Pact, although it did not enter the war. Hungary did, however, assist the Germans in their invasion of Yugoslavia. And when requested to join Barbarossa, Hungary declared war on the USSR.

             The war did not go well for Hungary. Losses on the eastern front were heavy, and within a year, the Soviets were bombing Budapest. Hungary was a fully-subjugated junior partner to the Germans, but independent enough to resist Berlin's call for yellow stars and deportation, and its Jews still lived and worshipped in freedom.  Hungarians believed that the Allies would win, life would return to normal, and in the meantime, the Jews would continue to live as they had. Hungary began to explore the possibility of switching sides, but there was little appetite for the Allies to engage in Hungary.

           On March 19, 1944, Germany invaded Hungary. Liquidating the largest intact Jewish community in Europe was a very high priority, and Adolf Eichmann's finely tuned machine went into action. "Aided by his Hungarian henchmen, Eichmann knew exactly what to do and how to do it. The Jewish Council's role was to help maintain order and calm amongst its fearful co-religionists - which it did with a tragic degree of success." On April 5, the yellow stars were mandated. The deportations began in the countryside. The Nazis were soon sending 10,000 to 20,000 per day to Auschwitz. In July, Horthy removed Budapest's gendarmes from the city and crippled Eichmann's ability to continue the deportations. The Soviets were getting closer at summer's end and hope for the city's Jews to survive was high as Rosh Hoshanah was celebrated in the Great Synagogue. Knowing full well Horthy's desire to switch sides, the Germans took over the city with the help of the perfidious, right-wing Arrow Cross militia.  Admiral Horthy, Regent of Hungary, resigned on Oct. 15 and was sent to Bavaria.  He survived the war and lived out his years in Portugal. Eichmann returned and the terror resumed, this time led by the Arrow Cross. They became famous for murdering Jews on the banks of the Danube and letting their bodies fall into the river. Thousands were sent on a death march to Austria. Trains heading to concentration camps were running throughout the fall right up to year's end, notwithstanding the efforts of Spanish, Swiss and Swedish diplomats to stop them. On Dec. 26, the Soviets surrounded the city. Hitler declared it a fortress city to be defended to the last man. On Jan. 17, the Soviets liberated Pest. Buda fell a month later. The city was almost completely destroyed.

        Every year on April 16, the country honors the Jews who died in the Holocaust.  It has never come to terms with the indifference or avid particiption in those horrors by its Christian majority. Horthy is both condemned for allying with Germany, but commended for halting the deportations in the summer of 1944. Approximately 550,000 or 65% of Hungary's Jews were murdered.