Budapest Ghetto
부다페스트 게토
The fenced ghetto created in the old Jewish quarter of Budapest by a decree of the Arrow Cross government on 29 November 1944. Some 70,000 Jews were confined there until Soviet troops liberated it on 17–18 January 1945.
In depth
The ghetto occupied several blocks of the old Jewish quarter, including the Dohány Street and Kazinczy Street synagogues, and was surrounded by a high fence that cut it off from the outside world. No food was allowed in, rubbish was not collected, the dead lay in the streets and typhoid spread. Its inner life was run by the Central Jewish Council. Jews holding protective papers of neutral powers lived separately in the “international ghetto”.
According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, some 3,000 people died in the ghetto. A plan to destroy it in January 1945 was stopped at the last minute; accounts crediting Wallenberg conflict with Perlasca’s.