Auschwitz

Each week The Economist magazine includes a one-page story headed Graphic detail. Accompanying the story is some innovative graphical presentation of a large volume of data. For example the current issue discusses how Ranked Choice Voting might play out if it were used in this year's Democratic primary. The featured graphic, based on results from a poll that asked voters to rank the candidates, shows how votes would flow from each eliminated candidate to next choices among the remaining candidates.

Last week the Graphic Detail subject was The Holocaust. The featured graphic in that issue is a map of Europe (extending to parts of the Mediterranean coasts of Africa and Asia) showing the number of Jews killed at Auschwitz by place of origin. Small hexagonal areas (I estimate the size of a hexagonal dot to be about 20-25 km diameter) are shaded to indicate the number from that small area. The darkest shading indicates a number exceeding 1,000. It's unsurprising that urban areas like Paris or Prague stand out as darker dots against a relatively light background. But what stands out even more is that certain rural areas are densely and extensively covered by dark dots.

What that has to do with genealogy is this. On the Auschwitz origins map a dense and extensive cluster of dark dots is centered on the area where my Hungarian grandparents left from in 1905. I was already aware that deportations to Auschwitz from that area took place rapidly in late Spring and early Summer of 1944. And we know from pre-1900 gazeteers that the population of that area had been about 10% Jewish, with the percentages not varying much from larger towns to smaller villages. But it is still striking to see the numbers presented graphically. My impression is that back around 1900 what was generally true for members of other denominations in that area was especially true for Jews in that area. They thought of themselves as Hungarians. Some of the Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz in 1944 could have rubbed shoulders with my Catholic grandparents pre-1905.

A few points about the graphics in The Economist story. In the online version of the story the map is followed by a bar chart, with the two graphics separated by a few paragraphs of text. In the printed version the bar chart is juxtaposed with the map. The numbers are different for the two graphics. The dark shadings in the bar chart are for all Jewish deaths during the Holocaust. The shaded dots on the map are for the subset of Jews killed at Auschwitz. There is an order of magnitude difference in the two numbers for Poland. For the country labels on the bar chart and for the country borders drawn on the map, the fine print explains that the countries are defined by their pre-1938 borders. The pre-1938 Poland extended much farther east than today's Poland. The pre-1938 Hungary was basically the same as today's Hungary. Lying between pre-1938 Poland and pre-1938 Hungary (borders for those two countries are highlighted on the Auschwitz origins map) is pre-1938 Czechoslovakia. The eastern extremity of pre-1938 Czechoslovakia took in the area that today is known as Transcarpathia, in Ukraine. In late 1938 Hitler awarded Hungary the southern part of Transcarpathia, and the following March Hungary annexed the rest of Transcarpathia. Bordering pre-1938 Hungary and pre-1938 Czechoslovakia on the map is pre-1938 Romania. In 1940 Hitler awarded northwest Romania (northern Transylvania) to Hungary. The cluster of dark dots in northeast pre-1938 Hungary extends into the neighboring pre-1938 countries of Czecholovakia and Romania, perfectly matching the borders of Hungary in 1944 (map on p. 362 of Paul Lendvai, The Hungarians, Hungary between the World Wars; Hungary's frontiers after the Treaty of Trianon, 1920; Territories regained, 1938-1941).

The argument made by Hungary to its ally, Hitler's Germany, for Hungary being awarded in 1938 and 1940 parts of neighboring countries was that living in those areas were significant numbers of Hungarians. which included a significant number of Hungarian Jews, who a few years later were deported to Auschwitz by Hungarian police.