Auschwitz, "The Largest Hungarian Mass Grave"
"I must not forget.""In my subconscious, I can never get over the possibility that a six-pointed star could be placed on my gate again at any moment.""It is always in my mind.""[Hungarian society] refuses to face its part; [collaboration with the Nazis remains within the country's consciousness].""It's just a matter of time before we get to a moment where people think the time has come to hate someone again."Tamas Lederer, Budapest artist"We carry in our genes what our grandparents' or our parents' generation went through.""I think that in order for us to happily observe Jewish holidays or to have Jewishness in our homes, what they experienced must remain a fresh memory and that memory has to be part of our lives.""[For Jews, preserving the memory of the Holocaust is a way to] commit ourselves to showing the world that learning from the events of the past, we will not allow anything similar to happen to anyone else."Tamas Vero, Budapest rabbi
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| People commemorate the International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest, Hungary on Jan. 27, 2025. |
In Auschwitz-Birkenau -- both a slave labour and a death camp complex -- close to a half-million Hungarian Jews were systematically murdered. And Tamas Lederer, born in Budapest in 1938, is haunted by the inner conviction that the horrors of the 20th century committed by Nazi Germany may yet be repeated; he feels that the world has failed to respond to that signal lesson in genocidal intent. His experience is one of survival; he evaded deportation to German camps hidden in Budapest basements after his parents tore the Jew-mandatory symbol from his clothing, of a yellow star.
After Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Red Army 80 years ago, on January 27, 1945, the 87-year-old's thoughts turn to the risks inherent in growing hate-full violence against Jews, completely unsettling him. Close to ten percent of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis were Hungarian Jews. Of the 1.1 million people who died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, over 90 percent of whom were Jews, roughly 435,000 of them were of Hungarian origin, a toll of Hungarian Jews that exceeded those of any other nationality.
Although Hungary made common cause with Germany, becoming part of the German Axis, and Hungary was also the first country in Europe to pass anti-Jewish laws in 1920, the government under its then-leader, Regent Miklos Horthy, while cooperating with Adolf Hitler throughout the war, also resisted German demands to deport the large Jewish population of Hungary. Hitler ordered the invasion of Hungary in March 1944, fearing that Horthy might defect from the Axis to join the Allies.
With the invasion, mass deportations swiftly took place. Between March and May of 1944, in less than two months, 435,000 Hungarian Jews, mostly rounded up from countryside cities and villages, were deported to Poland where they were incarcerated at Auschwitz. On arrival, most of the Hungarian Jews were ordered directly to the gas chambers. As war's end approached, thousands of other Jews still in Hungary were murdered by the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross Party death squads, shot en masse in Budapest, into the Danube River.
Rabbi Vero on Monday and others gathered in Budapest at the Holocaust Memorial Centre for International Holocaust Remembrance Day for prayers, where a handful among the attendees were Holocaust survivors. Dr. Andras Zima, director of the centre, spoke of Auschwitz as "the largest Hungarian mass grave".
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| A man lays a candle in commemoration of Holocaust victims at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest, Hungary on Jan. 27, 2025. Hungarian Minister of Regional Development Tibor Navracsics described the Holocaust as the "indefensible, inexplicable low point of European civilization" during a commemoration in Budapest on Monday. The event at the Holocaust Memorial Center marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation. (Xinhua/Attila Volgyi) |
Labels: 80th Anniversary of the Soviet Army Liberation of Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Death Camp, Hungarian Jews, Second World War, Slave Labour Camp
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, January 29, 2025
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