Memorial to the Jewish Martyrs

Zsidó mártírok emlékműve

Several memorial plaques and monuments in the south-Hungarian mining and university city of Pécs commemorate the city's murdered Jews. In the summer of 2010, a memorial was dedicated at the central railway station.

History

Pécs is one of the oldest cities in Hungary. It is located in the south-west, close to the Croatian border. Jews had lived here since the late 18th century; after 1840, their population increased rapidly. The city synagogue, built between 1865 and 1869, testified to the community's growing self-confidence. The Reform Jewish community of Pécs installed an organ in the synagogue, just like in the Great Synagogue in Budapest.
In 1941, there were 3,486 people of Jewish faith in Pécs, a further 534 were classified as Jews according to Hungarian law. Many Jewish men were drafted for labour service for the Hungarian army following the beginning of the war.
After the invasion of the German Wehrmacht on March 19, 1944, the Gestapo set up headquarters in Pécs and began introducing anti-Jewish measures in close coordination with the Hungarian authorities. A Judenrat was set up in March. In this early phase of German occupation, several wealthy Jews were deported by the SS to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. In May, a ghetto was established; the Jews of Pécs as well as about 2,200 Jews from surrounding areas were forced to live there. For several weeks they were cramped into the small area of the ghetto without knowing what awaited them. At the end of June, the ghetto was evacuated and its residents taken to army barracks, yet not before their valuables had been confiscated by Hungarian authorities. The conditions at the barracks were catastrophic; many died of diseases which quickly spread. On July 4 and 6, 1944, Hungarian constabulary brought the Jews to the central railway station, where they were loaded onto freight cars and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Pécs, undated, The synagogue before World War II, public domain

Pécs, 2010, Relief in memory of the murdered children on the house of the Jewis community, Mária Úz

Victims

The exact number of Jews deported from Pécs can no longer be determined. It is estimated that about 5,000 were deported, of which 2,700 came from Pécs and 2,300 from surrounding areas. Only few survived the deportations, mainly young women who were selected for forced labour in Auschwitz. A few hundred young men were not deported because they had been drafted for labour service before the German invasion of Hungary. In total, about 70 percent of the Jewish residents of Pécs were murdered.

Following defeat in the First World War and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hungary had to surrender two thirds of its territory and sixty percent of its population to its neighbours in 1920. The trauma caused by these losses led Hungary, under the leadership of Miklós Horthy (1868–1957), to gradually ally itself with Nazi Germany from 1937 onwards. Between 1938 and 1941 Hungary managed to almost double its territory in several stages of border revisions. Faced with the advance of the Red Army the country began to distanc itself from Nazi Germany and was therefore occupied by the Wehrmacht in March 1944. Miklós Horthy retained his position as head of state. Almost immediately after the invasion and with the assistance of Hungarian authorities, the SS began to deport Jews to the Auschwitz extermination camp, something that Hungary had refused to do up to then, despite having introduced anti-Jewish legislation. Of the 825,000 Jews from »Greater Hungary« the number murdered in Auschwitz stands at way over half a million. Up to 300,000 of these Jews came from the regions of what is today’s Hungary. In addition, around 140,000 soldiers along with some 170,000 non-Jewish civilians perished during the Second World War. After 1945 Hungary was in the Soviet sphere of influence. Up to 1989, official commemorations in Hungary did not remember the war but rather its end as the »liberation from fascism«. However, for the majority of the population 1945 was the start of a long period of repression. For many Hungarians, memory of the national uprising in 1956 that was crushed by the Soviets overshadows that of the Second World War. Following the uprising the war was viewed as the inglorious prelude to the suffering under communist rule. At the same time, there were many state monuments celebrating »Hungarian-Soviet friendship«. During the communist period there was no official remembrance of those who had died during the war on the front, at home and during the genocide, nor were there any Holocaust memorial sites outside of Jewish institutions. The only related site was the Jewish Museum in Budapest, founded in 1932 and reopened in 1947. In 1985 the Jewish community in Budapest opened a »Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park« alongside the large synagogue located on the edge of the former ghetto. A state monument to Raoul Wallenberg (*1912–?) was inaugurated in 1987 in connection with a visit by the communist head of state János Kádár (1912–1989) to Sweden. Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, saved thousands of Budapest Jews. He was deported by the Soviet occupation force in 1945 and since then has been missing, presumed dead. This monument marked a turnaround in the decades of silence regarding the Holocaust. Only since the new millennium have numerous Holocaust memorials and memorial sites emerged in Hungary. These include the »Shoes on the Danube Promenade« in Budapest, inaugurated on 16 April 2005, the date of the Hungarian Holocaust Remembrance Day introduced in 2000. This memorial remembers the murder of up to 20,000 Jews from the Budapest ghetto in January 1945 by the »Arrow Cross«, a right-wing extremist party that had assumed power in Hungary on 15 October 1944. A national Holocaust Museum was opened in the capital in 2004. However, there are still very few memorials to other victims. Symptomatic of the way in which post-communist Hungary has dealt with its 20th century past is the fiercely debated »House of Terror«, opened in the centre of Budapest in 2002, which deals with the history of »both totalitarian dictatorships«. The involvement of Hungarians in the deportation of their fellow Jewish citizens often recedes into the background.

Remembrance

The Jewish community of Pécs was formed anew directly after the war, comprising between 700 and 950 members. The synagogue remained intact and the community moved into offices nearby. However, the communist dictatorship hindered the Jews of Pécs in adhering to their traditions. Many Jews emigrated, others neglected or suppressed their Jewish roots.
Over the decades, several memorials to the city's murdered Jews were set up. There is a memorial wall on the Jewish cemetery. The inscription reads: »The remaining Jewry of Pécs cries for its 4,000 deported brothers and sisters«. In 1988, a memorial plaque was affixed on one of the central buildings of the former ghetto. A relief on the building of the Jewish community, set up in 1999, commemorates the murdered children. Finally, in 2010, when Pécs held the title of European Capital of Culture, a »Memorial to the Jewish Martyrs« was dedicated on the central railway station. Designed by Gábor Illa, the monument depicts carved out silhouettes of five figures, thereby also pointing to the void created by the Holocaust. The memorial was brought about by a citizens' initiative, the »Pécs Memorial Foundation« (Hungarian: Pécs Emlékezete Alapítvány), founded in 2009. By erecting the memorial, this Christian organisation wanted to pay homage to the victims of the Holocaust from Pécs. The monument was fully funded by donations.

Pécs, 2010, Memorial wall on the Jewish cemetery, Mária Úz

Pécs, 2010, The synagogue, Emmanuel Dyan

Open

The memorial is accessible at all times

Contact

Am Hauptbahnhof
7623 Pécs

Pécs, 2010, Memorial to the Jewish Martyrs on the central railway station, Mária Úz

Pécs, 2010, Memorial to the Jewish Martyrs, Mária Úz

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