The Story of Hungary 1944; and The Trouble with Drawing Parallels Between the Exodus and the Holocaust

Held by

Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)

Creator

Bolgar, Marianne

Dates

April 02, 1994 (indexed as 1994)

Level

item

Extent

Manuscript : paper : Typewritten : ink : Black, white ; Ht: 27,5 cm x W: 19 cm

Scope & content

Manuscript of a speech given on 2 April 1994 by Marianne Bolgar. Discussion of appropriate ways for the Jewish community to reflect on the Holocaust, the trouble with drawing parallels between the Exodus and Holocaust, and opinion about proposed national dates for memorial.

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DocumentGovernmentJewish CommunityLetterMilitaryPoliticsTypewrittenWarTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.

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BOLGARI, 77.April 2/94 speechSTORY 194 - 1THE STORY OF HUNGARY 1944BOLGAR, 77As 1994 is the 50th anniversary of the deportation and murder of600,000 Hungarian Jews, allow me to begin my presentation bytelling you what happened there and then.Since early childhood I was aware of the Nazi danger, partly due tomy father's wanting to leave Europe as early as in 1932 and partlydue to what happened to my relatives in Slovakia and Yugoslavia.Slovakia became a Nazi state in 1939 and deported its Jews. I wasten years old and knew that something terrible had happened to myfather's brothers and sisters. In 1941 and 1942, the Germans whohad occupied Serbia, killed my mother's family who lived there. Iwas twelve and knew that I would never see them again.The Jews of Hungary escaped the fate of my relatives for anothertwo years. Hungary, an ally of Nazi Germany, was the last countryto be occupied by the Germans. This happened in 1944 and then theJews of Hungary were trapped. There was no escape when the Germansmarched into Hungary on March 19,1944 and concentrated all theirefforts on killing Hungarian Jewry.When the Germans occupied Hungary, close to a million Jews livedthere. Most lived in Budapest and its suburbs, the rest in theprovinces. They lived among their antisemitic Hungarian neighborswho still blamed them for having crucified Jesus. As for theHungarian government, it had since 1920 passed anti-Jewish lawsthat, like the Nuremberg laws, were based on race. These anti-Jewish laws prevented Jews from attending university, from holdinghigher than clerical jobs, from owning even the smallestbusinesses, from serving in the Hungarian army. Jewish men ofmilitary age worked and died in the battalions of the infamousLabor Service that was attached to the Hungarian army.In March 1944, as soon as they had arrived in Budapest, SS-manVeesenmayer, the most powerful German in Hungary, and Eichmann, theNazi expert in transporting Jews to their death, set upheadquarters in the Buda mountains. There, they began planning thedeportation of Hungarian Jewry.On April 16, 1944, Jews were herded into the first ghetto ever inHungary, in the country's eastern province where the boy Elie Wiesellived with his family. This was accomplished with the help ofthe Hungarian police and gendarmerie, and under the approving eyesAuschwitz where 85 % died in the gas chambers.By June 10, 1944, all the Jews from the provinces and the suburbsRead automatically; may contain mistakes.

Language

English

Harvested

2026-10-19T03:21:16Z · source datestamp n/a · andornot

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