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5 THE FINAL SOLUTION: PHASE I The first phase of the Final Solution in Hungary included the adoption of a series of measures that were designed to prepare the ground for the effective elimination of the Jews from the country. These involved the initiation of mass arrests, the intimidation and pauperization of the community, and the isolation and expropriation of the Jews. Arrests and Intimidations The SS and Gestapo units that entered Hungary with the Wehrmacht forces in the early morning hours of March 19, 1944, began their operations concurrently with the occupation. One of their first major concerns was to arrest the prominent Hungarian anti-Nazi figures, together with their Jewish “friends,” on the basis of lists provided by the Budapest branch of the Nazi political security and counterespionage office, headed by Wilhelm Höttl. The lists of persons slated for imprisonment identified Hungary’s leading political and economic figures, including the aristocratic-conservative elite on which Hungarian Jewry largely depended for its safety, and the Jewish or Jewish-Christian leaders of business and finance. The lists also included a number of leading artists, journalists, and governmental officials—including some of the most prominent members of the police, diplomatic, and counterintelligence services—who were deemed actual or potential enemies of the Third Reich. The order of the arrests reflected the interests of the Reich as determined by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).1 These arrests took place without any protest on the part of the government or the regent and without any resistance on the part of those affected.2 Only one member of the Lower House, József Közi-Horváth of Győr, dared to raise the issue of the arrests and of the violation of the constitutional system when the Hungarian Parliament met on March 22. However, he was ruled out of order and shouted down by his colleagues. Concurrent with the arrests carried out on the basis of the lists the Nazis brought with them, the SS and their Hungarian accomplices also arrested a large number of Jews who happened to be in or around the railway stations and boat terminals, especially in Budapest. In addition, following an inquiry by Heinrich Himmler, Otto Winkelmann ordered the arrest of 99 100 Chapter 5 two hundred physicians and lawyers; these professionals were picked out at random from the telephone book on the basis of their Jewish-sounding names. The campaign against individual Jews, the so-called individual actions, continued unabated until the beginning of the mass ghettoization of the Jews. By March 31, the number of Jews arrested had reached 3,364, and by April 2, 3,451. By April 16, when the systematic concentration of the Jews began in Carpatho-Ruthenia, the number of Jews arrested in individual actions had risen to 7,289.3 Most of the Jews arrested in Budapest were temporarily interned in the facilities of the National Rabbinical Institute. Formally transformed into an “auxiliary house of detention,” the institute in fact served as a Gestapo prison under the overall command of Dieter Wisliceny and his Hungarian counterpart, Pál Ubrizsi. From this and other similar detention sites, the Jews usually were taken to the internment camps at Kistarcsa, Topolya, or Csepel, where they were among the first to be deported to Auschwitz in late April. The arrests during the first few weeks after the occupation served many purposes. The Germans wished to eliminate the actual and potential leaders of the anti-German Hungarian opposition, including the political and aristocratic-gentry friends of the Jews; to demonstrate their own power in Hungary;tointimidatetheJews;andtocapturehostagesinordertoblackmail the Jewish community or acquire control over various industries. Demands and Requisitions Simultaneously with the mass arrests carried out against the Jews and other opponents of the Third Reich, the SS began the expropriation of the Jewish community. Almost immediately after the occupation began, the various German units began to set up quarters for themselves in Budapest and the other large cities. The first German demand addressed to the Jewish leadership of Budapest (on March 21) was for the delivery of three hundred mattresses , six hundred blankets, cleaning utensils, and thirty printing presses. (The presses were needed for the operation of the printing shop of the Social Democratic Party, which was transformed into a Nazi propaganda center.) That same day the Germans took over the headquarters of the Orthodox Jewish community at 31 Dob Street, along with the adjacent synagogue and school...

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