Formation in 1930 Nazi Germany invaded the Kingdom of Hungary on 19 March 1944. This was a great shock for the Jewish leadership, most of them (even the Zionists) believed that the war would soon be over, and that Hungarian Jewry would have a high chance of avoiding the fate that the Germans intended for the Jewish communities of the territories they occupied. The arriving Germans, known together as the under the leadership of
Adolf Eichmann,
Hermann Krumey and
Dieter Wisliceny, sought to avoid panic in the ranks of the Jewish leadership. Hours after the occupation,
Schutzstaffel (SS) officers arrived at Síp utca 12, demanding the Neolog and Orthodox religious community leaders convene next day. The Hungarian authorities ordered the Jewish leadership to obey the German order. On the morning of 20 March, they appeared at the headquarters of the PIH, fearing arrest or massacre. There,
SS-Obersturmbannführer Hermann Krumey claimed that there would be "restrictions", but there was no need to fear deportation, if a centralized Jewish leadership would cooperate. Upon their demands, the Jews presented a list of eight members of a Jewish council () to be set up. The PIH was represented by president Samu Stern,
Ernő Boda,
Ernő Pető (vice-chairs) and
Károly Wilhelm (principal), while BIH also delegated its president
Samu Csobádi to the council. Samu Kahan-Frankl and Fülöp Freudiger represented the Orthodox community, while
Niszon Kahan became the only Zionist member of the body. Due to their negligible numbers, the Status Quo were not represented in the composition of the council. According to Stern and Freudiger, the Jewish council was appointed by the Germans, but according to
Ernő Munkácsi, the secretary-general of the PIH, the entire list was compiled by Stern. Pető and Kahan recalled that the
Gestapo insisted on the Zionists' involvement in the administrative body, thus the latter became the eighth member of the council during its formation (since Komoly, the President of the Hungarian Zionist Association, refused to join). The Nazis insisted on the participation of actual community leaders from all denominations, but Stern was granted a free hand to name the specific people who would become council members. Samu Stern and his two colleagues from the PIH, Pető and Wilhelm, formed an inner circle within the council. In the absence of formal meetings, they made most immediate, emergency decisions. They all belonged to the right-wing upper middle class of those wealthy assimilated and acculturated Jews, who had dominated Neolog communities in Budapest during the interwar period. As scholar
Randolph L. Braham noted the establishment of the Judenrat by the Nazi authorities, as elsewhere in Europe, was "the first step in the
Final Solution", as decided by
Reinhard Heydrich. Samu Stern wrote in his memoirs in 1946 that "I considered it a cowardly, unmanly and irresponsible behavior, a selfish escape and running away, if I let my fellow believers down now, right now, when leadership is needed the most, when the sacrificial work of experienced and politically connected men could perhaps help them". Stern trusted his personal connections, especially
Regent Miklós Horthy, whom he had known for two decades. Munkácsi argued the Jewish leadership "lulled themselves into the unfounded optimism that we would be the exceptions, the tiny island in the sea of the destruction of European Jews". Stern and his colleagues were convinced that they could hold together the network of religious communities and aid organizations, and if they did not lead the council, then some far less competent and influential council would worsen the Jews' chances of survival. In his memoirs written in 1947, Ernő Munkácsi divided the activity of the Jewish Council of Budapest into four parts; the first lasting from its formation on 20 March until the establishment of the Association of Hungarian Jews Provisional Executive Committee on 1 May. The second lasted until 7 July, when the deportation of the Jews of Budapest was proposed for the first time. The third part of the council's activity lasted until the Nazi-puppet Arrow Cross Party's takeover on 15 October. The fourth part covered the period of the existence of the Budapest Ghetto and the siege of the capital, approximately from 15 October 1944 to 17 January 1945, when the Jewish council was abolished. Several historians (e.g. Judit Molnár and László Bernát Veszprémy) follow this division, Molnár referred to first, second, third and fourth councils. Israeli historian
Dan Michman, in contrast, argued that there is no need for distinction because of the council's political coherence in its activity throughout its existence. Historians Gábor Kádár and Zoltán Vági maintained the periodization, arguing that the operation of the "second council" was legalized by the Hungarian authorities, while the Arrow Cross Party coup and the subsequent ghetto and siege created a new situation for its activity.
First period On 21 March 1944, the Germans accepted Stern's list, establishing the Central Council of Hungarian Jews (), to which jurisdiction over the whole country (i.e. national Jewish affairs) had been assigned. Stern was selected as president of the new body. Upon the demands of Krumey and Wisliceny, another meeting was convened on 28 March, which was also attended by twenty-seven rabbis and leaders from the congregation districts in countryside, mostly Neolog, but also some Orthodox, after they were granted domestic travel permits by the German administration. Krumey adopted the statutes of the council on 1 April, which were accepted by Wisliceny on 4 April. In principle, a National Grand Council would have been established to consult between the metropolitan and rural councils, but this was never done due to the immediate start of rural deportations. On 31 March, Adolf Eichmann informed Stern and his deputies that he would also include converted Jews under the jurisdiction of the Central Council of Hungarian Jews, recognizing it as the only representative body of the Jewish population in Hungary, regardless their religion. At the time of the foundation the Jewish council of Budapest consisted of nine departments and six sub-departments within the presidential department (according to a draft from 1 April, see table). The Department of Foreign Affairs maintained contact with the international Zionist movement and looked for the possibility of emigration to Palestine for those who were interested. The Department of Converts was responsible for
representation of the converts, who were placed under the Jewish Council of Budapest, which deepened antagonism between the two groups. Later, however, additional departments were created; Ernő Munkácsi's circular letter on 1 September was signed by 29 department heads, and another document from August lists 76 departments. The Jewish council took over the employees of the religious communities one by one. Samu Stern estimated the number of employees at 1,800. A real bureaucratic machine was created in the first months, but the departments were often not aware of their own jurisdictions and worked parallel to each other on the same case at the same time. A memorandum complained about the lack of hierarchy and the
ex lex status. A conflict of jurisdiction and subsequent reconciliation negotiations took place between the rural and social affairs departments. in the end, they agreed that collecting donations is the responsibility of the social department, while the rural department collects information about internments, deportees, and the delivery of donations (e.g. medicines) to rural areas. Many employees, who volunteered, were probably looking for protection and advantages (e.g. exemption certificates from deportations) under the auspices of the council. The council financed its activity from the budget of the PIH, without any formal legal basis. The Social Department, which was transformed from the MIPI, was initially led by
István Földes, later a member of the Jewish council. Subsequently, the MIPI was re-organized (led by György Polgár, then József Pásztor), but the separation of authority between the two organizations was not clear. The Housing and Travel Department, the most active and controversial section of the council, was headed by former bank director Rezső Müller; this department employed the most staff within the council. Almost two-thirds (63%) of the 6,214 cases filed dealt with housing and related matters during the existence of the Central Council. The Education and Culture Department attempted to support Jewish actors, and it secured the
Torahs and other religious objects of their communities in the rock cellar of the Adria Insurance Company in
Kőbánya. Within the council, the Zionists were responsible for information and liaison with community affairs in the countryside, which received significant manpower and financial resources from Samu Stern. After its establishment, the Central Council informed the rural Jewish councils about its jurisdiction and authority in a circular letter on 6 April 1944. Simultaneously, the establishment of the council was also announced in the Neolog newspaper ''''. The gazette called upon the Jewish population to keep calm, misleadingly claiming that the council was appointed by the Hungarian authorities. However, the legal status of the council was still confusing in the beginning. It was not clear whether the council replaced the religious community, or whether the two function in parallel, similar to previous Jewish organizations. The (renamed on 27 April to ) was published under the censorship of Gestapo and acted as the official gazette of the Central Jewish Council. It was edited by Rezső Roóz. The paper published calm, emotionless, controlled news and articles (as the main message, "if the Jews follow the rules, there will be no problem"), which was seen by some as proof of the council's collaboration after the war. The other newspapers, the and ceased to function during the German occupation. In addition to the accusations, Veszprémy emphasized the importance of the '''': the warnings (e.g. no smoking, regular wearing a
yellow badge) were often about protecting lives, since even minor transgressions led to internment and ultimately deportation to
Auschwitz. Due to censorship, news of the deaths of rural rabbis and religious community leaders were only published in a refined manner, omitting details. The new German-installed government led by
Döme Sztójay passed a number of decrees restricting Jews in the following days. After 5 April persons declared to be Jews were obliged to wear the yellow badge. They were not allowed to travel after 7 April unless if they had received a travel permit from the Hungarian and German authorities (the employees of the Jewish council were entitled to this exemption for the purpose of carrying out their duties). On the same day, the confidential decree of the Minister of the Interior
Andor Jaross first referred to the existence of the "Central Jewish Council with headquarters in Budapest". According to the decree, all Jews, regardless of gender and age had to be transported to designated internment camps. Jaross instructed the council to establish temporary hospitals at
Nyíregyháza,
Ungvár (today Uzhhorod,
Ukraine),
Munkács (today Mukachevo, Ukraine), and
Máramarossziget (today Sighetu Marmației,
Romania) with physicians and equipment. All of this served as preparation for the internment camps that would be created. The Jewish Council of Budapest attempted to get news about the gathering of the Jews and the situation of food and medicine supplies in the various camps. Some documents indicate that the council was informed from the very first days that internment (collection) camps were being set up in the Gendarmerie District of
Kassa (today Košice, Slovakia) in mid-April 1944. They were also informed about ghettoization in
Carpathian Ruthenia almost immediately. On 19 April 1944, Samu Stern and his colleagues wrote a memorandum to Sztójay, in which they requested an extraordinary investigation and applied for personal audience with the prime minister. Interestingly, the council members signed the paper on behalf of their former affiliations (e.g. Stern as president of the MIOI and Kahan-Frankl as president of OIKI). Due to restrictions on travel permits, the flow of information between Budapest and the countryside became difficult for Jews. After the war, Pető claimed that "it was not possible to communicate with the Jews in the countryside". Stern stated information came only from those who secretly fled to Budapest. Ernő Munkácsi argued that "there were hourly reports of threatening events from across the country". According to Ödön Szabó, the Central Council definitely was informed about the collection of Jews in Békéscsaba at the local tobacco factory before their deportation in June 1944. Overall, however, the Jewish councils had to function in complete isolation from each other from the very beginning, because the Jews were deprived of all means of communication (e.g. termination of telephone lines, mail censorship and travel ban) soon after the invasion of Hungary.
Second period A ministerial decree by Andor Jaross on 22 April 1944 re-organized the Central Jewish Council as the nine-member Association of Hungarian Jews Provisional Executive Committee () in effect on 8 May 1944 (but this council itself
de facto came to exist by 1 May). The council members were not informed about this change in advance, and, as Munkácsi claimed, the Hungarian administration bypassed Eichmann and his staff with this decision too. Munkácsi and two council members, Pető and Kahan negotiated with ministry department head, Lajos Argalás, the next day, who declared that the Jewish council would once again come under Hungarian authority, therefore, its operating framework was "legalized" retroactively. The new regulation also involved personnel changes:
Béla Berend, the chief rabbi of
Szigetvár, became a member on the recommendation of
Zoltán Bosnyák, the director of the anti-Semitic Jewish Question Institute. From the beginning, this created general distrust between him and Stern's circle. Some confidential documents were destroyed on Stern's orders because it was known that "Berend had entered the Jewish Council as a traitor". The Ministry of the Interior insisted on appointing a member to represent the Converts. Thus, journalist
Sándor Török was appointed to the body. PIH spokesperson and attorney
János Gábor became a member under pressure from the Germans, and acted as the liaison with the because of his excellent German language skills. The fourth new member was
József Nagy, chief physician of the PIH Jewish Hospital at Szabolcs utca. Simultaneously, Ernő Boda, Samu Csobádi and Niszon Kahan left the council. Kahan, instead, became the recorder of the council. Because of Stern's illness, Samu Kahan-Frankl presided the inaugural meeting of the "second council" on 15 May 1944. They prepared the organization's statutes on May 22, but they were never approved by the Ministry of the Interior. The council of Budapest repeatedly sent financial aid to the Jewish residents of rural ghettos (for instance, in
Szombathely, Nyíregyháza and
Baja). The council addressed a series of submissions regarding the ghettos and atrocities (i.e. deportations) in countryside to the Ministry of the Interior and other departments (including police and gendarmerie), because the council was not received in person. These documents were usually formulated by László Bakonyi, the secretary-general of the MIOI. These initiatives were pointless, since the council asked those bodies to investigate these atrocities, who were the initiators and executors of them. A memorandum with the date 25 May to the Regent's Cabinet Office clearly proves that the council was aware that the purpose of the deportations was to exterminate the Jews. The council was constantly preparing for the Hungarian and German authorities to order the ghettoization of Budapest's Jews, as had happened in the countryside. Music historian and OMIKE colleague Zsigmond László prepared a plan for the organization of the expected ghetto life as early as 3 May 1944. He asked this question in his paper, "Can the unbearable be made bearable? It is not possible, but it must be!" The Zionist-dominated Rural Department was headed by Lajos Gottesman (a right-wing Zionist) and Mózes Rosenberg (member of the left-wing
Hashomer Hatzair movement). They sent their emissaries and spies everywhere, reaching half of the approximately 200 ghettos in Hungary. Scattered rescue operations took place, but the passivity among the Jews in countryside was significant even then. The people of the Zionist movement had an advantage in rescues, all the more so because they could be recruited for further rescue operations. According to recollections, these agents often came face-to-face with the exempted Jewish veterans of the HB, whom many considered to be "executioners" of the Hungarian authorities. However, other HB leaders used their exceptional situation to serve their community. Council members Csobádi and Komoly were also WW1 veterans, while there were decorated veterans among sub-managers as well, for instance, Miksa Domonkos, Albert Geyer or Rezső Müller. Since the veterans did not have to wear a yellow badge, the central council often sent them to the ghettos as messengers, as Béla Fábián wrote in his memoir. Their cooperation guaranteed the limited contact that still existed between Budapest and the rural ghettos. Later, exceptionalism and veteran status no longer mattered, and many veterans were murdered or deported, especially after the Arrow Cross Party coup. The Central Jewish Council maintained relationship with the various Zionist organizations, including the Palestine Office, the
HeHalutz and the
Aid and Rescue Committee led by Komoly, who met members of the council on a daily basis. To save the Jews, these organizations quickly took the initiative from the Central Jewish Council beginning in early summer 1944. in
Budapest in 1944 Since the German occupation of Hungary, the Jewish Council of Budapest operated eight hospitals (the most prominent was in Szabolcs utca), but with a decreasing number of beds only the most urgent cases could be treated. The lack of equipment and doctors was a general problem and the lack of freedom of movement for doctors was also hectic. Catastrophic conditions prevailed in many old people's homes and children's homes operating under the council. The rabbis tried to distance themselves from the activities of the council even before the end of the war, as well as distance themselves from responsibility from assisting the deportations. Zsigmond Groszmann, chief rabbi of the Rabbinate of the PIH, claimed that "the Jewish Council has never asked the opinion of our Rabbinate, even in religious matters; all its activities, procedures, and measures were taken without the knowledge of our Rabbinate, as if Jewry were not a religious community." The activity of the Housing and Travel Department was the most controversial among the functions of the central Jewish council in 1944. It was headed by a former banker and war veteran Rezső Müller, who was considered by many to be a main collaborator with the Nazis due to this office. Because of the series of
Allied bombing of Budapest after 3–4 April, the mayor's office instructed the Jewish council to give 1,500 one-room, furnished, Jewish-occupied apartments to Christians who had lost their homes. The Housing and Travel Department divided the territory of Budapest to 23 main districts and 216 subdivisions to fulfill the provision. The department, which had 1,000 staff members, mapped the Jewish apartments and directed the evacuation of the properties and the relocating of the Jews. According to the post-war accusations, Müller and his department met the demands of the Germans without delay, and even exceeded the expected level. Müller pointed out that he was forced under the pressure of death threats by Gestapo. In addition to the apartments, the Germans often had quite extreme requests (e.g. pianos, luxury goods, alcohol), which the Jewish council had to fulfill. On 16 June 1944 mayor
Ákos Farkas ordered the Jews to move into specially designated
yellow-star houses, a network of 1,944 designated compulsory places of residence for around 220,000 Budapest Jews until the establishment of the Budapest Ghetto on 29 November. The Housing and Travel Department was given a mandate with eight-day deadline to carry out the selection of houses and the organization of the relocation of the Jews. According to the decree, a Jewish family could have only one room, so several families were crammed together in cramped apartments. Simultaneously, the Christians moved into the vacated Jewish apartments. During the process, the Housing and Travel Department positively discriminated for its own employees. The demand far exceeded the supply, and those who could not get an apartment were accommodated in the synagogues. The department established conciliation committees to deal with conflicts within apartments. The housing requisition resulted the isolation and impoverishment of the Jews, destroying the large, contiguous Jewish community in Budapest.
Third period Overall, the Jewish Council of Budapest was powerless in any attempt to influence events of the Holocaust in Hungary. Apart from sending memoranda, they didn't have many tools, which resulted in many Jewish intellectuals committing suicide. Fülöp Freudiger testified at the
Eichmann trial that once, the Jewish Council sent a secret message to the Allies in
Istanbul to bomb the railway lines in Hungary, in order to preventing the deportations. Sándor Török requested
Cardinal Jusztinián Serédi to
excommunicate those railway workers and gendarmes who assist in deportations. A council memorandum dated 8 June to the Sztójay Cabinet urged the suspension of deportations and recommended the Jews' active participation in physical work and labour service. The council was clearly playing to gain time, since the approach of the Soviet army was increasingly expected. Some Zionists encouraged resistance in leaflets, but found no supporters among the Jews. Samu Stern and his fellow council-members initially supported the idea, but in the end they backed off because they were afraid of collective retort. An armed resistance was a stillborn idea: most of the young and healthy Jews were forced into labor service units and no significant non-Jewish armed resistance took place in Hungary during that period. Instead, the council tried to make embassies aware of the content of the smuggled
Auschwitz Protocols. Sándor Török, the Converted member of the council successfully delivered the collection of eyewitness accounts to Regent Miklós Horthy via Horthy's daughter-in-law
Ilona Edelsheim-Gyulai on 3 July 1944. This process contributed to Horthy suspending and preventing the deportation of Budapest's Jews on 7 July 1944. Historian László Bernát Veszprémy highlighted that the Central Jewish Council played a major role in the implementation of the so-called Koszorús campaign, when armor-colonel
Ferenc Koszorús and the First Armour Division, under Horthy's orders, resisted the gendarmerie units and prevented the deportation of the Jews of Budapest. Koszorús blocked the roads with his army and instructed Secretary of State for the Interior
László Baky to drive the gendarmes out of Budapest, who were allegedly preparing for a coup d'état against Horthy. According to Ernő Pető's recollections from 1946, Stern, Wilhelm and him held negotiations with
László Ferenczy more times to implement the plan. Stern and Wilhelm confirmed this at Ferenczy's trial in the same year, although the dates were often confused. Through Zoltán Bosnyák, Béla Berend liaised Ferenczy with members of the Jewish council prior to that, as Berend recalled. Captain Leó László Lulay, Ferenczy's interpreter confirmed that these meetings had taken place. According to him, the members of the Jewish council handed over such documents to Ferenczy that caused Horthy to take "an unshakable stand against further deportations". Ferenczy testified the so-called "Baky coup" was a mere fabrication invented by Horthy's staff and the Jewish council together to prevent the deportations in Budapest. The plan was drafted in the apartment of Samu Stern. Other historians doubt the veracity of the Koszorús campaign. During the third period of the council, there were a few changes in the composition of the board. Sándor Török left the council, because of the establishment of a separate organization for the Converted Christians. Samu Kahan-Frankl decided to go into hiding in mid-July. Former member Niszon Kahan left Hungary aboard the
Kastner train by that time. Ernő Boda returned to the Jewish council on 22 July. A lace manufacturer,
Lajos Stöckler was also appointed to the body on 27 July. He previously had no role in Jewish community life. In a matter of weeks, Stöckler gained such influence that he challenged the secret triumvirate formed by Stern, Pető and Wilhelm. According to
Randolph L. Braham, he became an advocate of the poorer and "little unprotected" Jewish strata within the central council. Unlike other council members, he wore the yellow badge. In the upcoming weeks, Miklós Horthy kept promising
Edmund Veesenmayer, the Reich plenipotentiary in Hungary, and the collaborationist Ministry of the Interior that the deportations would continue, but he always pushed back the deadlines. According to Veszprémy, a mock plan was drawn up, with the cooperation of the Jewish council, that the Jews of Budapest would be gathered in internment camps beyond the city limits. Beside Stern and his colleagues, Ottó Komoly also took part in the negotiations throughout in August 1944. This plan served to bide time until the Red Army crossed the country's border. This dangerous plan caused serious controversy within the council. Ernő Boda, an old-new member of the council, strongly opposed the activity of Stern, Pető and Wilhelm in this case. Stern personally negotiated with Horthy in early September. Both Stern and Berend recalled that Ferenczy actively participated in the process, which served to deceive the Germans. Stern later dissuaded the regent from this plan, because concentrating the Jews in one place would have made it easier for the Gestapo to deport or annihilate them, as Pető and Stern remembered. Wilhelm argued, however, that Horthy abandoned the plan under the pressure of
Franklin D. Roosevelt. By late August, Ottó Komoly and
Rudolf Kastner also opposed the plan. According to Béla Berend, general distrust between the council and Horthy's staff (mainly the gendarmes Ferenczy and Lulay) ended this project. in 1944 Adolf Eichmann and his staff, exceptionally during the history of the Holocaust in Hungary, carried out the deportations in Kistarcsa as the sole executors, without the cooperation of the Hungarian authorities. The Social Department of the Jewish Council was permitted by the Ministry of the Interior to feed and supply the internment camps around Budapest (for instance, in Kistarcsa and
Csepel). The employees of the council managed to place some children from Kistarcsa under the protection of the
International Committee of the Red Cross. The Jewish council communicated with these internment camps via liaison officials, such as
István Hahn, who often smuggled medicines, documents and equipment into the camps. Council member József Nagy and his medical team were mandated to visit the camps and care for the sick. István Vasdényey, the commander of the Kistarcsa camp informed the Jewish council on 12 July that, despite the opposition of the Hungarian authorities, the Germans put more than 1,000 prisoners of the camp on a train and were preparing to deport them. Ernő Pető sent a complaint to
Miklós Horthy Jr., who informed his father. Upon the order of Regent Miklós Horthy, Captain Leó Lulay and his unit caught up with the train at
Hatvan and brought it back to Kistarcsa. However, on 19 July,
SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Novak and his men returned to the camp and managed to deport 1,220 prisoners, while the Nazi authorities summoned all members of the Jewish council. Fülöp Freudiger met with Adolf Eichmann, expressing his protest. Eichmann laughed at him and later decided to kill him because of the events in Kistarcsa and the resistance of the Jewish council. Freudiger was informed of this. Using a fake Romanian passport, Freudiger, his family and escorts (altogether 80 people) escaped to Palestine via Romania on 10 August 1944 in coordination with high-ranking SS officer Dieter Wisliceny. Following his escape, another council member János Gábor was arrested and deported. He died in the
Freiberg subcamp in April 1945. With Freudiger's departure, there were no Orthodox members left on the council. According to Kádár and Vági, the Orthodox members did not share the "legalist" attitude of the Neolog members and "were quicker to adapt to the new circumstances and to choose illegality". In the second half of September 1944, now under the premiership of
Géza Lakatos in a more optimistic situation, the Central Jewish Council attempted to contact the Hungarian Front, an illegal anti-fascist resistance network of banned parties and organizations. Stern claimed that they even provided financial aid to the organization.
Fourth period In October 1944, Horthy negotiated a cease-fire with the Soviets and ordered Hungarian troops to lay down their arms. In response, Nazi Germany launched the covert
Operation Panzerfaust which took Horthy into "protective custody" in Germany and forced him to abdicate on 15 October 1944.
Ferenc Szálasi was made "Leader of the Nation" and prime minister of the Arrow Cross-dominated
Government of National Unity the same day. László Ferenczy was made plenipotentiary responsible for Jewish affairs. He prompted the Jewish Council of Budapest to re-organize. Following the Arrow Cross Party's coup, the council was largely inactive for the next ten days. The new council consisted of president Samu Stern, his deputy
Lajos Stöckler, and members Béla Berend, István Földes, Ottó Komoly, József Nagy,
Miklós Szegő (from
Székesfehérvár) and
Lajos Vas (rabbi of the
Páva Street Synagogue, although due to his serious illness, he was only a formal member). Ernő Pető and Károly Wilhelm went into hiding, therefore, their participation was omitted. Soon, Samu Stern followed them. They were informed that Ferenczy wanted to arrest and kill all three of them, because they knew compromising things about him in the eyes of the Germans. Therefore, after 28 October, Stöckler acted as
de facto chair of the body, but Stern remained the nominal head of the Jewish Council of Budapest. Beside that, Miksa Domonkos, head of the Economic and Technical Department also emerged as one of the most prominent and efficient Jewish leaders in the final stages of the Holocaust, although formally he was not a member of the Jewish council. Immediately after the Operation Panzerfaust, Eichmann's team agreed with Szálasi to deport 50,000 Jews for forced labor in Germany. This started on 20 October in collection camps all over Budapest (e.g. the KISOK sports field in
Zugló,
Tattersalls, the
Dózsa György Street Synagogue, a brick factory in
Óbuda, and the
Józsefváros railway station). The Jewish council, under the leadership of József Nagy, was only able to save some people from deportation by having doctors declare them incapable of work. The council tried to communicate with the Arrow Cross Party government in submissions and in person, without any success. (1944) The Szálasi government decided to establish the Budapest Ghetto. The area of the ghetto was determined by the decree of Interior Minister
Gábor Vajna on 29 November 1944. Consequently, approximately 60,000 Jews were moved into a 0,26 square km zone. Vajna entrusted police chief inspector János Solymosi to supervise the relocation of the Jews. Miksa Domonkos became the actual "mayor" of the Budapest Ghetto, who sought to assert some legal authority. He was in contact with the ailing Stern and Wilhelm and knew where they were hiding, in a cellar. He attempted to establish a hierarchy to organize life within the ghetto. Administrative work continued at Síp utca 12, but to a much more limited extent. Most records contain negotiations over requests, food purchases, complaints between Solymosi and members of the council, mostly Stöckler and Földes. Meanwhile, the strategic bombing by the Allies was taking place and the center of the Jewish council was hit by several bombs. The Jewish council was mandated to organize the administrative divisions of the Budapest Ghetto. They established 10 districts and appointed a prefect and two deputies to each of them. The prefects were responsible for food, cleaning, building shelters and fire protection. The Jewish council also organized an ambulance service led by heart surgeon Imre Littmann. A
Jewish ghetto police was also established, commanded by WW1 veteran Miklós Szirt to start and then from 28 December, Ernő Szalkai. It was subordinate to the
Hungarian Police and the number of personnel varied between 700–900 during the ghetto's one and a half-month existence. The ghetto police also had an investigative body, whose task was to prevent the spread of rumors and monitor the mood of the population. Council member Béla Berend exercised supervisory authority over the board, according to the surviving documents, he also gave instructions to Szirt and then to Szalkai. Through Berend and Lajos Gottesman, the Zionists were over-represented in the management of the police board. The main task of the ghetto police was to prevent German and Arrow Cross Party invaders, but for this they had only rudimentary equipment (white armbands, sticks, helmets) and against militias equipped with firearms, they could only rely on their goodwill. In January 1945, Domonkos warned the ghetto police that the wearing of the yellow badge and the curfew also applied to them. Members of the police received some privileges, e.g. there was an extra food ration, but the amount was not in line with the life-threatening nature of their activity. They also managed the digging of mass graves within the territory of the ghetto; the
Klauzál Square became the ghetto's central mass grave; funerals were often celebrated by Domonkos or Berend. By early January 1945, many members of the ghetto police sabotaged their work or took part in looting the ruins themselves. On 5 January, Szalkai made a proposal to replace the majority of the police force. Unlike in
Poland or the
Baltic states, the ghetto police in Budapest were not used in atrocities against Jews. memorial on the east bank of the
Danube in Budapest The Jewish council spent heavy sums on food, clothes and fuel for the ghetto. The council was able to obtain cooking oil even when the entire population of Budapest was in need due to the siege. The extermination of rats and the cleaning of the premises continued, but the sanitary conditions were disastrous because of a lack of clean, flowing water. Within the council, Ottó Komoly was responsible for feeding and caring for children. He sought to place the children in various orphanages outside the ghettos. However, due to the siege, in several cases these children were left on their own, where they became victims of epidemics and starvation. The hospitals operated without electricity once the siege began. Due to overcrowding, the council designated apartments as "hospitals", but due to the lack of doctors, care was interrupted in many places. Infant mortality was very high. At Síp utca 12, the Goldmark hall functioned as a sick room too, where 300 people were lying in it at the same time in terrible conditions. Miklós Szegő intended to establish patient rooms per house, organized childcare and epidemic hospital, but there was no time or opportunity for that. Béla Berend visited shelters in Catholic guise to celebrate services. He even urged the leaders of the Arrow Cross Party to prevent robberies and murders and protect the ghetto area with disciplined party members. At the end of the letter, he promised that after the war all Jews will leave Hungary. During the siege of Budapest, the administration of the ghetto quickly became impossible, garbage collection ceased, the dead were not buried and lay in the streets, and diseases spread. Domonkos described the ghetto as "
Dante's Inferno". During their three-month rule in Budapest, the Arrow Cross Party death squads killed as many as 15,000 Jews. Most of the murders along the edge of the
Danube took place around December 1944 and January 1945, when the Arrow Cross militia abducted the Jews from the ghetto and executed them along the river bank. Their men also looted and broke into the apartments and hospitals, and numerous massacres took place within the walls of the ghetto. These atrocities also affected the Jewish leadership. On 1 January 1945, Ottó Komoly was abducted by militia members, his body was never recovered. Miklós Szegő was also murdered sometime around 4–6 January. Other prominent employees of the Jewish council killed include
Hugó Csergő and Artúr Weisz, the director of the
Glass House.
Pál Szalai, the Arrow Cross Party's police liaison, testified that Adolf Eichmann planned to massacre all of the Jews in the Budapest Ghetto and said he learned about it from Domonkos. The only one who could stop it was the man given the responsibility to carry the massacre out, the commander of the German troops in Hungary, Major General
Gerhard Schmidhuber. Through Szalai,
Raoul Wallenberg sent Schmidhuber a note promising that he would make sure the general was held personally responsible for the massacre and that he would be hanged as a war criminal when the war was over. The general knew that the war would be over soon and that the Germans were losing. As a result the planned massacre never took place. The first Red Army units reached the border of the ghetto on 17 January 1945, and they liberated it by breaking down the walls. The Jewish Council of Budapest ceased its operation the same day, although some cases continued to be filed in the following weeks.
Composition After World War II there were accusations that if the central council had had rural members events could have turned out differently. During its existence the council had 17 members. Of them, however, only eight were born in Budapest. On the other hand, the overrepresentation of
Transdanubians was more significant (including Stern and his two deputies, Ernő Boda and Ernő Pető). Neolog Jews were somewhat overrepresented in comparison to the Orthodox Jews (76–17 percent) regarding the national proportions, but less so with regard to the proportions of Budapest's Jews (73–27 percent). In addition, the separation between the communities was not so sharp: Niszon Kahan was a superior of the PIH, but functioned as
gabbai at the
Orthodox synagogue at Kazinczy utca. Although, Béla Berend graduated from Neolog rabbinic seminar, he came from a poor
"Galicianer" Orthodox family. In contrast to the accusations,
anti-Zionism (the ban on emigration) was also much less pronounced; apart from Niszon Kahan and Ottó Komoly, Miklós Szegő and Béla Berend were also involved in the Zionist movement to some extent. The wife of József Nagy was a well-known donor to the Zionist movement too. The occupations of the leaders reflected the structure of typical Jewish occupations (jurists, industrialists, merchants, rabbis), therefore, the lack of manual laborers cannot be blamed as suggested in Communist-era historiography. The members of the council covered all sides of the political sphere, and, despite late allegations of right-wing or far-right sympathies (e.g. in the case of Samu Stern and Béla Berend), the council had left-wing members too. During the
Hungarian Soviet Republic (1919), István Földes was a member of the Communist directorate in
Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County and thus he was expelled from the bar association and returned from emigration only in 1925. Samu Csobádi also served as an attorney of the Revolutionary Military Council during the short-lived Communist state. ==Jewish councils in the countryside==