Knowledge of the Final Solution in Nazi Satellite States: 1) Hungary

This series of articles updates information that was presented in the Critique here regarding attempts by the Nazis, from the Wannsee Conference onwards, to extend the Final Solution across all territory in which the Nazis had administrations or allies. This first piece, on Hungary, begins before Wannsee due to the fact that Jews deported from Hungary were murdered at Kamenets Podolsk in August 1941. These early murders colored much of what followed, because there could be no doubt that the Nazis harbored genocidal designs on at least some categories of Jews. The events that unfolded in 1942-44 were therefore guided by the willingness of otherwise of Hungary's leaders to collude in extermination, and this in turn depended on whether the Hungarians felt it was in their economic and strategic interests to block the deportations to death camps.