Budapest —The Occupation Begins
The 19th of March 1944 was a beautiful early spring Sunday. Without a single shot being fired, a surprised Hungary woke up to a total occupation of the country by Germany’s Nazi Wehrmacht.
This last large community of European Jews was their target.
Sunday, 19 March 1944
A view of the Astoria Hotel from one of our windows.
Our home, at 17 Kossuth Lajos Street, was across narrow little Magyar Street from the luxurious Astoria Hotel.
From the windows of our apartment we could see into the hotel. We could even see into some of the rooms.
On this Sunday, the Astoria became a residence for German officers.
Their threatening presence invaded our home.
What we didn’t know:
Ferenc Wilde’s reports:
After lunch Ilonka [1] came over and announced, horrified: Germans occupied Budapest. Then she told us that in front of her apartment, on Kossuth Lajos Street, whole German regiments had marched in. We went down to look around: in front of the Astoria and the Savoy [hotels] we saw a large number of German military automobiles. Theater and cinema performances were banned in the evening.
The occupiers came prepared with lists of people to be arrested and immediately deported. Maybe to Dachau, the first concentration camp established in March 1933 by the Nazi government. Probably to Auschwitz, where preparations had been made for Hungarian Jews.
The same day, Adolf Eichmann arrived in Budapest to personally direct the deportation of Hungarian Jewry. About 120 members of the SS, dedicated to the “final solution of the Jewish Question” accompanied him.
We were panicking. My mother, ever the practical one, promptly closed all the windows and drew all the curtains. I imagine urgent calls to and from family in Budapest, in Alsóság, in Sárvár, in Szombathely. There were no answers to the many questions we had.
Should we try and move?
How could we leave the building without coming face-to-face with Germans?
How could my father, Tibor, go to work at the Weiss-Manfréd Works in Csepel? We needed his income, but how safe would he be?
We knew that aunt Lily’s dressmaking business would likely die: the mainly Jewish clientele would not be interested in new clothes.
There were no news: nothing on the radio, and no newspapers.
The Remainder of March 1944
The day after the occupation, on Monday, March 20, most of us with bank accounts and safe deposit boxes rushed to our bank to remove our deposits and valuables. We discovered that bank withdrawals were now limited to 1,000 Pengõs per day per person, and all safe deposit boxes were sealed.
On Wednesday, the 22nd, the new Sztójay government was announced. On Thursday the 23rd, the newly created Central Jewish Council published a Nazi-censored issue of the community’s newspaper (A Magyar Zsidók Lapja) encouraging calm and cooperation. New laws were announced almost daily.
A Jew may not leave the territory of Budapest without permission.
It is forbidden to change residence without permission.
Applications for travel and change of address must be submitted through the Central Jewish Council.
A Jew may not come to Budapest from the countryside.
A Jew who has recently arrived to Budapest from the countryside must register immediately.
On Wednesday the 29th, the Budapesti Közlöny: Hivatalos Lap [The Gazette of Budapest: Official Journal] began an avalanche of 107 anti-Jewish decrees [2]. These include:
Requiring data from Jewish telephone subscribers.
Terminating Jews' membership in the press, theatre, film, and legal chambers.
Banning Jews from holding public office.
Banning Jews from employing non-Jews in Jewish households.
Requiring the registration of Jewish-owned motor vehicles (including bicycles)
Requiring Jews over 6 years old to wear the prescribed Yellow Star from April 5, 1944.
The last day of March was snowy and cold. We still had our radio, and most of the foreign news is about the Russians closing in on our borders. We worried about friends who have been arrested.
What we didn’t know:
3,364 Jews have been arrested in the thirteen days since the Occupation [3].
At the end of March 1944, Interior Ministry Secretary of State, László Endre and Eichmann have agreed to the forced ghettoization and deportation of every Jew in Hungary [4].
April, 1944
On April 1, the first Sunday of the month, at 11 am, air raid sirens alerted us. My mother grabbed her satchel and we rushed to the cellar and stayed until 1 pm. This is the first bombing of Budapest by the Americans [5].
The satchel looks like a doctor’s bag with two woven leather handles and contains all our documents. My mother always has it by her side, the first thing to be grabbed whenever we rush to the cellar. My grandmother becames its guardian when my mother has to leave.
The next day we were back in the cellar from 10 pm until 2 am while English aircraft dropped their deadly loads. The targets were the railyards of Pest (railroad stations), the armament works at Csepel (where Tibor, my father, worked). The St. László hospital was hit, killing 120: doctors, nurses and children.
After these air raids, the “authorities” required 500 Jewish apartments for the Christian victims of the bombing. Soon after that, another 1,000 apartments were required. This is supposed to be compensation for the Christian air raid victims [6].
What we didn’t know:
On April 4th the details of the “Final Solution” program were worked out among German and Hungarian officials. The ten official gendarmerie districts of Hungary and the newly regained territories are redistricted to form a ghettoization and deportation master plan. The zones indicate the order in which the plan was to be implemented.
Zone I: Gendarmerie district VIII - Kassa
Zone II: Gendarmerie districts IX and X - Kolozsvár, Marosvásárhely
Zone III: Gendarmerie districts II and VII - Székesfehérvár, Miskolc
Zone IV: Gendarmerie districts V and VI - Szeged, Debrecen
Zone V: Gendarmerie districts III and IV - Szombathely, Pécs
Zone VI: Gendarmerie district I - Budapest
Unquestionably, the civil service played a crucial role in assisting the police and the gendarmerie in implementing the Final Solution[7].
As of April 5, all Jews over the age of six had to wear a Yellow Star of David. We were now easily identifiable targets. With German officers and soldiers in the streets next to our building, it was almost impossible to sneak out without being seen. Shopping for food became a hazardous undertaking. There was increasing food scarcity in Budapest, and prices were going up. We bought what we could and kept perishables on the window sill while the weather was cold enough. We increasingly relied on the kindness and generosity of non-Jewish neighbors and of the superintendent.
My grandmother Regina, with her snow-white hair, arrogant bearing, and fluent German, could have passed for a non-Jew. But what about the star? She might have been the least identifiable, but would my mother or my aunt have allowed her to take such a risk? Did my blond, blue-eyed, fluent German-speaking father take on some shopping duties? Almost a month after the occupation, did he still work at the Weiss-Manfréd Works in Csepel, despite Csepel being a frequently bombed target?
Lots of questions, no answers.
What we didn’t know:
Christian leaders protested that Christians of Jewish origin would also have to wear the star..As a result, converted Jews who lived in a non-Jewish household were awarded an exemption [8].
Swedish newspapers reported that Hungarian authorities have started removing telephones from Jewish homes [9].
On the eve of the large-scale ghettoization, the authorities used data collected at their request to supplement the lists that were previously prepared [10].
On Sunday, April 16, 1944, the last day of Passover, the roundup and ghettoization of Jews began in zones I and II, centering on Kassa. Deportation took place between May 15 and June 7. The trains destined for Auschwitz carried about 189,357 people [11].
We were prohibited from traveling on trains, ships, and buses, unless we had “written consent from the authorities.”
Planes flew over the city almost daily, and air raid sirens sounded even if Budapest was not the target. We kept running up and down the rear staircase to the cellar, and stayed there for an unpredictable length of time. My mother kept checking her precious satchel to ensure that all our documents were always within reach.
The bombings also affected our potential access to food: farmers were discouraged from coming to Budapest to sell their goods at the train stations despite the ever-increasing black-market prices.
On April 21, the Budapesti Közlöny announced another decree: all stock and equipment in Jewish-owned stores were requisitioned. This edict further limited our source of supplies: some of these store owners knew my grandmother and would have put aside a little something for her.
On April 23, a new decree in the Budapesti Közlöny announced our reduced food rations:
Our sugar ration was reduced to 30 grams (1 oz) per month per person.
We were allowed 300 grams (10 oz) of vegetable oil per month, and not allowed to buy solid fats.
We were allowed 100 grams of beef or horsemeat per week, and not allowed pork or veal.
We were allowed only 2 hrs each day for shopping and necessities, the actual time to be determined by local authorities.
Between the general shortages, the elimination of Jewish-owned stores, the frequent bombing, and the limited time we had to find food, this reduction in rations didn’t mean much when there was already next to nothing to be had.
Tuesday, 25 April, 1944 to Sunday, 30 April, 1944
There were new decrees in the Budapesti Közlöny:
The hiring and employing of Jews in white-collar positions was terminated.
Persons considered as Jews, from the point of view of food supplies, were required to submit personal data by May 1st.
We were restricted on the purchase and ownership of firearms, ammunition, and explosive material.
May, 1944
What we didn’t know:
The Neue Zuricher Zeitung, a Swiss newspaper, reported on 7 May, 1944, that while Jews have been deported from Budapest, the number of Jews in the city was constantly growing since thousands were fleeing from frontier districts to Budapest. At present, Jews constituted probably more than fifty percent of the entire population of Budapest since non-Jews were leaving the city because of the Allied air raids [14].
Friedrich Born, the temporary delegate of the International Red Cross (IRC) and leader of its Budapest office, arrived on 9 May 1944.
The 57 Jews of Alsoság [my grandmother’s family home] were rounded up and taken first to the ghetto of Jánosháza on May 10, 1944, and then to the concentration and entrainment center of Sárvár, before their deportation in early July [15].
On May 17th, the ownership of the Weiss-Manfréd Works in Csepel [where my father, Tibor worked] and all related factories were signed over to the SS. In exchange, the Weiss family and their relatives were smuggled out of Hungary. Nine members of the group were retained in Vienna, as hostages, to ensure the “good behavior” of the others in the free world. [16]
The identification and registration of Jewish-inhabited apartments and buildings was completed in late May or early June on the basis of data supplied by the National Statistical Office. Using the accumulated data, the Jews of Budapest were relocated into Yellow-Star buildings (sárga-csillagos házak) [17].
June 1944
What we didn’t know:
Zone III ghettoization occurred between June 5 - 10, and deportations between June 11 - 16. The trains carried 50,805 people.
Hungarian intellectual life was protected from the literary works of Jewish authors. The pulping of books started on June 15, and almost half a million volumes were destroyed. On June 24, a supplementary list was issued [13].
Rumors were circulating about our possible relocation. Finally, a decree was published on June 17th. For each of Budapest’s 14 districts, Yellow-Star buildings have been identified by street and number. The Jewish population of Budapest, about 200,000 people, was required to move into these buildings.
Everyone tried to move in with family or friends. Our home, at number 17 Kossuth Lajos Street, was not identified as a Yellow-Star building. However, the adjacent building at number 15 Kossuth Lajos Street was on the list [for our move, see Yellow-Star Buildings].
Although we were allowed to take most of our belongings, the five of us would share one room. How much could we pack into one room? We took all our food, some bedding, and some clothes. This was summer time and we did not expect to need winter clothes.
Following regulations, we stacked everything else into a single room of our apartment before we left. This room was supposed to be locked and sealed. [14]
The deadline for our relocation was Saturday, June 24. The regulations of the next day [June 25] further limited our movements:
We could leave the building only between 2 pm and 5 pm for medical treatment, cleaning, and shopping.
We could not have guests nor speak to others “across the street and through windows.”
In air-raid shelters [the cellars of the buildings], a specific section was assigned to non-Jewish residents; these residents had priority on shelter space.
We could only travel in the last car of streetcars.
We could not go to parks or promenades.
Superintendents had new authority and responsibilities: they became our de facto wardens. Depending on their personal view of Jews, they could either help or harm [15].
A few day later, a new decree allowed us to leave our buildings between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. This was of some help in shopping, but by 11 a.m., most of the available food has been bought at ever-increasing prices.
What we didn’t know:
Zone IV ghettoization occurred between June 16 - 20, and deportations between June 25 and 28. The trains carried 41,499 people.
Before our own occupation, we were aware of what happened in other occupied countries: identification, concentration, ghettoization, followed by deportation.
The yellow-star on our coats was the identification phase.
Moving into the Yellow-Star buildings was the concentration phase.
Our deportation from Budapest was to begin on July 10th, a little over two weeks after our move.
What could we do?
Our anxiety grew to unbearable levels as we awaited our fate. The number of suicides increased.
We still endured continuous, almost daily air raids and bombings. During each bombing raid, we listened to the sound of the bombs falling. We listened because we knew that if we heard an explosion, we were probably not hit.
We were ready to move to 17 Kossuth Lajos Street on Saturday, June 24.
NAZI OCCUPATION BEGINS - 19 March 1944 - you are here
YELLOW-STAR BUILDINGS - 24 June 1944
Notes and References
Please see the Bibliography for full details
[1] “Ilonka” refers to Kiliánné Szõke Ilona. She was a teacher who taught Latin at Veres Pálné Gymnázium until 1944. She was Lily Ebenspanger’s (aunt Lily’s) classroom teacher throughout her studies at Veres Pálné.
[2] The major anti-Jewish Decrees between March 29, 1944 and December 6, 1944, are detailed in Braham 2016, v2, pp. 1661 - 1674.
[3] Braham, 2013, v1, pli
[4] https://www.yellowstarhouses.org/
[5] Following the German occupation of Hungary and the installation of a pro-German government, the Allies removed restrictions on bombing targets in Hungary. On 3 April, 1944, the Fifteenth bombed the main Budapest marshaling yards and a components plant … The psychological component of these raids, which reminded the Hungarians that the Western Allies could punish them even before the Red Army arrived, may have outweighed the actual damage inflicted.
Source: Davis, 2019, Kindle edition
[6] Braham, 2016, v2, p. 584
[7] Braham, 2016, v1, p. 494
[8] Starting on April 5, 1944, every Jewish person over six years of age must wear a 10 x 10 cm(3.8 x 3.8") canary yellow six-pointed star made of cloth, silk, or velvet firmly sewn on the left chest side of the outer garment.
Source: Braham, 2016, v1, p591
It is estimated that about 3 million stars would be required. The wearing of the yellow star, an obvious identifier of Jews, started the hunt for Jews. Many Jews were arrested and interned on the excuse that the color of the star was not the right canary yellow, or it was not of the prescribed size or was not sewn on the garment property.
[11] In terms of the Allies’ bomber offensive, Hungary was now considered as part of the Balkans. In April, 1944, the No. 205 Group began its most significant task in the war—the aerial mining of the Danube River. [The No. 205 (Heavy Bomber) Group was a long-range, heavy bomber group of the Royal Air Force (RAF). During WWII, the Danube served as a vital link in the German southeastern transportation system, allowing them to transport an estimated 8,000,000 tons of goods into Germany from 1942 to 1944. The mining began on the night of 8 April, 1944, in the Yugoslavian Danube and it continued until the night of 10 September, 1944, by which time the group’s Wellingtons and Liberators had dropped a total of 1,315 mines in Hungarian, Yugoslav, and Rumanian waters.
Source: Davis, 2019, Kindle edition
The RAF No. 205 bombers pursued missions with 53 bombers on 12 April and 64 bombers on the night of 16 April on the Budapest rail yards. (p321). The American planes returned on the 13th, 10 days after their first bombing of Budapest, attacking airfields and fighter component plants in Budapest with 336 bombers.
Source: Davis, 2019, Kindle edition
[12] Braham, 2016, vol 1 p775 table 19.1
[13] Braham, 2016, vol 1 p 627
[14] I remember that before we left Hungary in December 1948, this apartment was nicely furnished. Was the locked room respected? If not, from where did our furniture (including a piano) come?
[15] Excellent paper by Máté Rigó, accessed 31-3-2025; source: https://www.academia.edu/4478111/Ordinary_Women_and_Men_Superintendents_and_Jews_in_the_Budapest_Yellow_star_Houses_in_1944_1945