Hungary Key Places - '45 Aid Society

Members of the Boys were born in Hungary.

The Boys were teenage and child-Holocaust survivors, who were brought to the UK after the war for rest and rehabilitation.

Members of the Boys were held in Nazi labour and concentration camps and used as slave labourers. They had also survived World War II in hiding or as lone children.

Hungary Key Facts

Capital: Budapest

Population 1939: Approximately 9,220,000

Jewish Population in 1939: 450,000 to 500,000.

Present-day Population: 9,489,000 to 9,585,818

Present-day Jewish Population: 80,000 to 100,000

Map of modern-day Hungary. — ^{Modern-day Hungary.}

Good to Know

In March 1939, after the German invasion of Bohemia and Moravia sparked the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Hungary occupied Transcarpathia (then in Czechoslovakia but now part of Ukraine) and parts of southern Slovakia that Hungary had lost in the Treaty of Trianon.

After World War II had broken out in August 1940, Transylvania was occupied by Hungary. Lost in the Treaty if Trianon, it was home to 160,000 Jews.

In 1941, Hungary then took part in the invasion of Yugoslavia, annexing sections of Baraja, Bačka, Medimurje and Prekmurje.

When Germany invaded Hungary in 1944, Jews in Hungarian territory were rounded up into ghettos and many deported. Most were taken to their deaths in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

To find out more about ghettos in Hungary click here.

The members of the Boys born in pre-war Hungary lived in: