DROP IN THE OCEAN / A Hungarian Policeman in the Holocaust / THE STORY OF DEZSŐ MAGYAR / LÁSZLÓ CSŐSZ / Hardcover 2020

ISBN-13: 9789631213225 / 978-9631213225

Printed in Hungary

Pages 68 

INTERPRESS Kulkereskedelmi Kft.

Hungarian law enforcement agencies earned a notorious reputation owing to their smooth and sometimes willing collaboration in the mass deportation of their Jewish compatriots in the summer of 1944. Only very few of these men defied the murderous spirit of time and attempted to help the persecuted. Moreover, these attempts happened overwhelmingly in Budapest, after the Arrow Cross takeover in October, when the Jews from the provinces had already been murdered. Rescuers and helpers were typically acquaintances of the victims, of ten motivated by personal or pragmatic interests, especially alibi-making for the post-war period. However, Police Sergeant Dezső Magyar's story is exceptional and unrepresentative in this context: his rescue and resistance efforts were mounted during the deportations from the provinces. Furthermore, he did not have any personal or business contact with the people he saved and he had never accepted any material compensation for his actions. We have only a handful of examples of such behavior in Hungary in 1944. One of the survivors he had helped aptly called Magyar's acts "extraordinary, selfless and unique".  

The destruction of the majority of the Hungarian Jews is a unique chapter in Holocaust history: never before had so many people (437,000 people) been deported in so little time (56 days) from a territory of such a size (170,000 square kilometers). In addition to the comprehensive and smooth collaboration of the Hungarian authorities another reason for the Nazis' "success" was the indifference of the Gentile population. In spite of the fact that in 1944-1945, altogether tens of thousands of Hungarian Gentiles saved and/or helped the persecuted, the majority in general watched indifferently as their Jewish compatriots were deprived of their rights, humiliated and dragged away. Moreover, hundreds of thousands turned a profit from the spoliation and deportation of the Jews that was organized by the state.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. László Csősz is historian and chief archivist at the Hungarian National Archives in Budapest, Hungary. He received a PhD in History from the University of Szeged in 2011. His main fields of research interest include the social history of the Jews in Hungary as well as the history of antisemitic social and economic policies and the Holocaust in Hungary. His latest publication (co-authored with Gábor Kádár and Zoltán Vági) is The Holocaust in Hungary. Evolution of a Genocide (Washington, DC: AltaMira Press-USHMM, 2013).