| During World War II,
the Hungarian authorities and local Nazi collaborators played
a major role in the destruction of Hungarian Jewry, both by
direct participation in the murder of Jews in Hungary, the
Ukraine, and Serbia, as well as by the involvement of the Hungarian
gendarmerie in the mass deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz
in the spring of 1944. In late 1944, the regime established
by the fascist Arrow Cross under Ferenc Szalasi ordered the
ghettoization of the Jews of Budapest and independently carried
out the murder of thousands of Jews. In total, 564,500 Hungarian
Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.
Following the conclusion of the war, thousands of those
responsible for the crimes of the Holocaust were brought
to trial, but numerous others escaped justice, many of whom
fled overseas. Since Hungary became a democracy, however,
the authorities have failed to initiate a single investigation,
let alone a prosecution, of Holocaust crimes.
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