Budapest, Hungary -

 

Budapest is Hungary's capital, with the Danube River going through it, where 200,000 Jews lived before World War II.

Budapest was the center of Hungarian Jewish cultural life.

Hungary was allied with Nazi Germany, when German occupied Hungary in March of 1944.

Apartments occupied by Jews were confiscated. Hundreds of Jews were sent to the Kistarcsa transit camp (originally established by Hungarian authorities). Between April and July 1944, the Germans and Hungarians deported Jews from the Hungarian provinces by the end of July, the Jews in Budapest were virtually the only Jews remaining in Hungary, not immediately ghettoized. Instead in June 1944, the Jews were sent to over 2,000 designated buildings scattered throughout the city. About 25,000 Jews from the suburbs of Budapest were transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.  Hungarian authorities suspended the deportations in July 1944, sparing the remaining Jews of Budapest, but on November 8, 1944, more than 70, 000 Jews were forced to march on foot to camps in Austria. The Arrow Cross ordered the remaining Jews in Budapest into a closed ghetto, taking as many as 20,000 Jews and shot them along the banks of the Danube river. 100, 000 Jews remained in the city at liberation.