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At Home in Hungary
Although there have been
Jewish communities in Hungary since the time of the Roman Empire, the
most
important period of immigration was at the start of the 18th century,
following
the end of Turkish rule. From 1791 Jews were allowed to settle almost
anywhere
in the country and their emancipation became an important topic during
the
early 19th century before finally being embedded in legislation in
1867. By the
early years of the 20th century the Hungarian Jewish population
numbered almost
one million.
During the 1940s,
Hitler
was increasingly aggressive in his demand for Hungary to apply Nazi
principles
against the Jews. A new anti-Jewish law was introduced on a racial
basis, and
those who didn't have Hungarian citizenship were given over to the
Nazis. In early
1944, as Hungary tried to find a way out of the Nazi alliance, German
troops
occupied the country. They started to establish ghettos and organised
transportations to the death-camps. At that stage the gas chambers were
operating non-stop and the rural Jewish communities were destroyed at
an
alarming rate. However, due to the Soviet occupation of Hungary,
Eichmann
didn't have enough time to destroy those living in the Budapest ghetto.
As a
result, after the Holocaust, there were a significant number of
survivors in
the capital.
Survivors
About 600,000 Jewish
people from Hungary were killed during the Shoah and, after the war,
the
community numbered about 200,000. Of these, 50,000 made Aliyah
to Israel
before 1955. After that time, the Communist regime persecuted Zionist
organisations and blocked the community's contacts with Israel and
Jewish
groups in the West. Jewish people were involved in opposition movements
and
published a large quantity of illegal academic papers, periodicals and
studies.
As a result, many lost their jobs or were not able to find employment
after
spending time in prison.
The Communist regime declared assimilation
as the only
solution for the Jewish people. The Communists removed the Jewish
people's
right to express their national, ethnic or religious identities, so the
awful
pain of the Holocaust and the tensions that existed between Jews and
non-Jews
became taboo subjects. The number of Jewish people was still declining,
and
prejudices and ignorance stayed hidden, and were not addressed. Many
well-educated Jewish people became important personalities of the
revolution in
1956 and Jewish people were over-represented in Communist concentration
camps,
prisons and among Hungarian martyrs executed between 1957 and 1960. Of
100,000
Hungarians who left the country in 1956, around 20,000 were Jewish.
Changes came
unexpectedly as the new Soviet leadership and many young Hungarian
Communist
leaders realised that their political system needed to be radically
reformed.
At the end of the 1980s, opposition groups started to form.
Conservative
Christian-Democrat intellectuals (some of whom were Jewish!) frequently
held
strongly nationalistic views but many Jewish (and non-Jewish) leaders
of
previously illegal groups were committed to liberal ideals. Liberals
condemned
those on the Right for being nationalistic while the nationalists
started to
use anti-Semitic terminology against the liberals. After the first
elections,
during the rule of the conservative Antal government, many extreme
nationalists
were excluded from the right-wing parties and formed the Hungarian
Truth and
Life Party (MIEP). These political tensions still have a serious impact
on our
lives and help to explain many of the events that took place during
2006.
After 1990 new
opportunities opened up for Jewish people. They were able to live
openly as
Jews, diplomatic relationships with Israel were restored and Jewish
organisations were able to contact Jewish communities outside the
country.
Today there are about 100,000 Jewish people living in Hungary, 80% of
whom are
in Budapest where the old Jewish district is being reclaimed as a
centre of
Jewish activity.
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