Zwi Steiger - March 27, 1982
Life Under Hungarian Occupation
The Hungarian government was already uh, in alliance or a fascist government with uh, Germany?
It was, it was allied with German because on, on their um, pressure, Czechoslovakia yielded the southern part of Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia to Hungary in '38 in October when they uh, when they yielded--when Czechoslovakia yielded the Sudetenland. In addition, Hungary was a, was a fascist government--was considered a fascist government from 1930--from 1919 when the so called um, Communist Republic of Hungary fell apart. After the First World War there was a Hun...uh, there was a communist uh, take over for uh, for some hundred odd days. And afterwards the regent of Hungary--Horthy--he ruled Hungary 'til the end of the Second World War. But uh, between the two world wars, for uh, for those years, Hungary was preoccupied with controlling the Jews. The--I think, if I remember correctly, there were about six hundred thousand Jews in Hungary. And for years their preoccupation was the Jews--what to do with the Jews and how to control them and how to, to uh, block their participation in public life, to control their admittance to universities and so forth.
So there were already Nuremberg type laws in Hungary?
Yes, similar. There wasn't--you couldn't get into a university--or with extreme difficulties. And uh, you couldn't uh, and Jews were still serving, I think, in the, in the army, but in '39 and '40 they established the so called uh, labor camps for uh, for uh, Jews who, who were uh, under military age or in military age.
So in, in '40 or '41...
That the...
...the titular head from, uh...
Yeah, from...
...from the bank...
From, from Hungary itself, he came--he was uh, he was a Hungarian uh, considered nobility. And for some reason I remember his name???, and for a time he was uh, for some assignation he was a member of the Hungarian parliament and then he was also a mayor of a small town on the border--on the Hungarian side and so called in Sárospatak, which was in um, a town with a famous school in it--secondary school. I don't know if you heard the name of Komenský who was one of the leading uh, pedagogues in the--I think in the--I don't know exactly. In the seventeenth or eighteenth century, he taught there. So this guy was there and uh, and uh, bank as a manager.
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