Whatever period of time you choose, it is beneficial — on the long run — to find or prepare a chronology that acts as a skeleton for the body of your research.

There are numerous chronologies for the period of the Holocaust in Hungary. For factual chronologies, I suggest:

Braham (2016)in The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary volume 2, starts his chronology in 1867, and ends on July 19-20, 2014. The entry for March 19, 1944 begins the period of Nazi Germany’s occupation which ends on January 17-18 with the “complete liberation of Pest,” on February 13 when “Buda is liberated, and on April 4 when “Hungary is freed of all Nazi-Nyilas troops.”

On the Yellow-Stars buildings’ website, the Chronology is placed under “Historical Background” and begins in 1918, continuing until January 17, 1945.

For a personal point of view, I recommend diaries, letters, travelogues, etc.

The chronology I selected is a diary and letters that have been extremely useful in understanding the day-to-day conditions and developments. My source is the Parallel Diaries of Margit Wilde and Ferenc Wilde from 1944 / Epistolary diaries by the Wilde siblings back in Hungary, reporting on the German occupation of Budapest, 1944. It was initially translated by Csilla Markója from German to Hungarian.[1]

This source provides a reliable account of what was happening in Budapest by two people who are not Jews but have Jewish friends whom they try to help. Ferenc counts the number of air raid sirens, describes air battles, bombings, fires, shortages, and casualties. From their home in Buda, they see these fires in and around Pest and Csepel Island. They also recount some of the events of the larger war as reported on their radio, providing a context for developments in Budapest.

I translated the selected sections from Hungarian. Click here to read the selected translations.

[1] Full text in Hungarian downloaded from Academia.edu