Rescue of the Budapest Jews

Everyone knows about the efforts of diplomats like Carl Lutz and Raoul Wallenberg in saving the Jews of Budapest after the Germans occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944. Almost no one, however, knows that their undertaking would have been entirely impossible if the Jews had not first been saved from deportations by the Hungarian Regent Miklos Horthy. Deprived of real power by the occupation, the 77 year old Horthy found a loyal armored unit, took back partial power and forbade further deportations, thus preserving about a quarter of a million of Budapest’s Jews to be cared for by the diplomats after he was overthrown.