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7 DEPORTATION The Master Plan Unlike what happened in Poland, the Jews in Hungary lingered in ghettos for only a relatively short time. The ghettos in the villages lasted for only a day or two, and even those in the major concentration and entrainment ghetto centers, which were usually located in the county seats, were short-lived: they lasted only a few days in Zones III, IV, and V; in Zones I and II and in Budapest the ghettos lasted a little longer, ranging from two to five weeks.1 While the technical details of the deportation program were not completed until May 8–9, 1944, agreement on the basic decision had been achieved a month earlier. It was reached in greatest secrecy by the Hungarian leaders involved in the anti-Jewish drive, including László Baky and László Endre, and by the representatives of the Eichmann-Sonderkommando in accordance with the directives of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). The master plan for the implementation of the deportation decision called for a two-pronged tactical approach: • The exploitation of the agreement involving Horthy and the Hungarian and German governments relating to the delivery of several hundred thousand Hungarian Jews “for war production purposes”;2 and • The “removal of the danger” represented by the large concentration of Jews in the northeastern parts of the country that were declared to have become military operational zones. Since Horthy had consented to the transfer of the “Jewish workers,” Edmund Veesenmayer had no difficulty in persuading the Sztójay government to take immediate action for the delivery, as a first installment, of one hundred thousand workers needed for the aircraft manufacturing project in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.3 Prime Minister Döme Sztójay promptly assured him that Hungary would place at the disposal of the Reich fifty thousand able-bodied Jews within two weeks, and an additional fifty thousand soon thereafter. With the Jews at his disposal, Veesenmayer began to discuss the problem of their transportation with Otto Winkelmann, the Higher SS- and Police Leader in Hungary, and asked Berlin for instructions as to where in Germany the transports should be directed. On April 19, 133 134 Chapter 7 Veesenmayer issued an urgent appeal for freight cars for the removal of the ten thousand Jews the Hungarian Ministry of Defense had already made available. The German Foreign Office informed him that the issue of Jewish resettlement fell within the jurisdiction of Eichmann, who would not take action before he received the final directive regarding the disposition of the Jews from Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the RSHA. A few days later, however, Veesenmayer changed his position after considering the imminent implementation of the last step in the Final Solution—the deportation of all of the Jews. On April 23, he recommended to the German Foreign Office that the original partial resettlement program involving the “Jewish workers” provided by the Hungarian Ministry of Defense be delayed so as not to jeopardize the planned massive anti-Jewish operation. In the meantime, however, the Hungarian authorities proceeded with the fulfillment of their own responsibilities under the original agreement . On April 26, the Council of Ministers approved not only the measure “legalizing” the ghettoization program that had already been in process since April 16 in Carpatho-Ruthenia and northeastern Hungary, but also the recommendation of the Ministry of Defense4 that Hungary immediately deliver the first installment of fifty thousand labor servicemen to Germany. The Council amended the recommendation by adding the stipulation that the labor servicemen had to be accompanied by “their families.”5 Three days later the first two transports, consisting of eighteen hundred Jews from Kistarcsa and about two thousand from Topolya—the two largest internment camps—were directed to Auschwitz. Both transports consisted exclusively of able-bodied Jews ranging in age from sixteen to fifty—these internment camps held primarily political internees and hostages at that time. After April 23, Veesenmayer’s diplomatic pursuit of the “legitimate objectives” inherent in the Hitler-Horthy agreement gradually became intertwined with the RSHA’s ideological goals relating to the Final Solution. There are two versions of the scenario relating to the “justification” of the mass deportations. According to one version, Veesenmayer approached Sztójay toward the end of April, transmitting the Wehrmacht’s request that the Jews concentrated in the military operational zones in the northeastern and southern parts of the country be removed to the interior for...

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