Warsaw and Budapest, 1939–1945
Warsaw and Budapest, 1939–1945
Two Ghettos, Two Policies, Two Outcomes
This chapter provides a comparison of the histories of the Warsaw and Budapest ghettos. Prior to the Second World War, a significant number of Jews lived in both cities. However, their fates were very different: of the 380,000 Jews living in Warsaw before the war only an estimated 11,500 survived, whereas out of the 200,000 Jews of Budapest more than 130,000 lived to see the liberation of Hungary. In Warsaw, as in many other areas they occupied (Serbia, the Baltic states, and Ukraine), the Nazis did not have to discuss their Jewish policy with the local authorities. In those places, however, where they had to take into consideration the wishes of their allies and collaborators, Jews often had a better chance of survival: Vichy France, Mussolini's Italy, and Hungary. Another reason why the Jews of Budapest survived the Holocaust was because the Germans occupied Hungary only in the spring of 1944, and Adolf Eichmann arrived with an express order from Himmler to start the deportations in the countryside, in eastern Hungary. In Warsaw, the Germans had several years to plan how to 'cleanse' the city of its Jews.
Keywords: Warsaw ghettos, Budapest ghettos, Second World War, Jews, Warsaw, Budapest, Nazis, Jewish policy, Holocaust
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