This picture shows a part of the Hungarian Nazi Party.In 1944 the Germans would invade Hungary and they set up a more Nazi like goverment who answered to Berlin's orders. Prior to 1944 the Hungarian Goverment had resisted Berlin on implementing a plan for deportation of the Jews.Hungary had made some Anti-Jewish laws and they had forced Jewish men into forced labor.At first the Jews in forced labor had worn regular Army outfits.Many were attached to Army Groups at this time and were sent into Russia to assist in the Axis War Effort.In 1941 there was a deportation to the Ukraine.This was the massacre at Kamenets- Podolsk and occured shortly after the Axis invasion of Russia.What happened then was the German mobile killing squads called Einsatzkommandos had set up their infernal shop in Kamenets and made a small ghetto there.When they had around 15,000 Jews there they went and shot them all in ditches. Some Hungarian Nazi Officials managed to pass a law that would deport all landless Jews.In other words all who could not prove Citizenship.My father and family were wraned and managed to escape this roundup.Unfortunately a few members of the Kratz family were rounded up and deported there to Kamenets where they were shot in ditches. Here is a picture then of some of the Hungarian Nazi Officials responsible for the persecution of Jews.
A Breathing Spell (The Kalai Government: March 10, 1942 - March 19, 1944)During the holocaust years, starting in 1941, hundreds of Jews from greater Hungary were stationed in Marmaros in work-units of the Hungarian army. Near the towns of Bistina and Slatfina, many hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Jews conscripted into work-units took part in building military air-fields. Near the village of Bogdan, the countryside is breathtaking in its beauty. However, in terms of the back-breaking labor – building fortifications – that was assigned to hundreds of Hungarian Jews in the area, it proved to be a very difficult terrain. Through these work units, the conscripted Jews of greater Hungary came into close contact with the local Jews of Marmaros. Many of the Hungarian Jews were quite assimilated, were ignorant of their Judaism, and had no knowledge of Yiddish. The contact between the Jews of Hungary and the Jews of Marmaros proved interesting and mutually valuable. There was a reciprocal influence that took place, between two seemingly diametrically opposed cultures. On the surface, the two groups did not seem to have much in common. To many Hungarian Jews the traditional Chassidic culture of the Jews of Marmaros was quite foreign, especially to those Jews who came from Budapest and the surrounding area. The degree of awareness of such assimilated Hungarian Jews of concepts of Jewish life and their awareness of traditional Judaism was quite meager, unclear and certainly different than those of the Jews of Marmaros. Despite this, these Jewish conscripts received warm and hearty Jewish hospitality from the local Jewish inhabitants of Marmaros. Every Jewish home was open to them, at all times. They found warm food, a clean, comfortable bed - and above all, a warm Jewish heart. Despite the polarity in views and in their different lifestyles, the Jews of Marmaros received these Hungarian Jews with open arms and with great measures of brotherly love, doing all in their power to ease the burdens of the back-breaking labor and the feelings of loneliness that threatened to overwhelm them. These Hungarian Jews found in Marmaros a style of living, a vibrant Judaism, which they had never imagined had even existed. They discovered generous Jews who welcomed them at all times with a pleasant smile, and whom shared provisions with them, even beyond their meager means. The women and young girls of Marmaros cooked and baked for the Jews of the work units. Each week, several wives of the members of the work-units arrived in Bistina, Slatfina or Bogdan, to visit their husbands on their day off. The Marmaros Jews made their nicest rooms available to them. All of this was with a pleasant demeanor and a willing spirit. For the fate of the Jew was the same, whether they were Chassidic or not. Even the most extreme assimilationist could not flee his fate. Although this meeting of cultures was under sad circumstances, moments of joy and spiritual elevation were not lacking. The fate of the Jews is what bridged the distances and brought closer those who under ordinary circumstances would have lived worlds apart. Many of the local Jews, especially the young girls, learned Hungarian from the draftees, while the latter began to become familiar with the wonderful, rich Yiddish of the Jews of Marmaros, as well as with their folk-songs. The distant became close. In the two years that Miklosh Kalai ruled as Prime Minister of the Hungarian government (10 March 1942 - 19 March 1944), the Jews of the land - including the Jews of Marmaros - breathed more easily. These were years of a relative lull, though even during this so-called relaxed period troubles were not lacking. Tens of thousands of young men, among them thousands of Marmaros Jews, were still being drafted into work units, and very many of these suffered and died on the eastern front, in the Ukrainian Steppes. The conscription of new age-groups to these work units did not cease during this period. In March 1943, 22 more units were sent to the eastern front (to the Ukraine). For most of those involved, this amounted to a death sentence through back-breaking labor and terrible suffering including starvation, extreme cold, beatings, mistreatment, mine-clearing and direct executions. During the Kalai regime, a law was enacted whereby land owned by Jews was confiscated. Despite this, researchers of the holocaust generally feel that this was merely a tactical concession to the Germans, in order to achieve a more basic goal - preserving the lives of the close to one million Hungarian Jews. Hungary, during this period, could be compared to a solitary island surrounded by a roaring, turbulent sea. Thousands of refugees from Poland and Slovakia arrived and were being absorbed by the local Jewish populace. During this entire period, Germany never ceased demanding the deportation of the Jews of Hungary to carry out the “final solution”. Beginning in the fall of 1942, Kalai was faced with mounting German pressure. He refused to yield to their firm, endless demands, with the excuse that this step would undermine the country's wartime economy. As the war progressed and Germany's losses mounted, the Kalai government took steps towards having secret negotiations with the Allies. German Intelligence soon discovered those steps. On March 19 1944 Germany invaded Hungary, and Kalai was arrested and deported to a concentration camp.
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