Numerus Clausus in Hungary

The Numerus Clausus ("Limited Number") decree in Hungary in the twenties (almost a hundred years ago) is now a subject of academic research. The idea of the decree was to restore a middle class existence to the ethnic Hungarian lower middle class, that had lost their public service positions due to the contraction of the country after WWI (Hungary fought on the losing side and it was dismembered). This declassé people were forming fascist parties, threatening the stability of the liberal government, so they had to be catered to. Jews were thrown out of the universities (as teachers and students), from the civil service, from middle class professions (like law). Something new for me: the Numerus Clausus excluded Jews but also women: they had to make place for males.

May be this was the reason why in Hungary the fascists never seized power as they did in nearby Germany. Only under German occupation these right wing political movements finally formed a government, and then only to carry out German orders. There is an endless world of "what if...?" My Grandfather in Jaszbereny believed that the Bishop of Szolnok will protect them, the Jewish Organization urged to be quiet and become invisible, it is quite possible that their calculations were reasonable, that the Red Army was very near and one million Jews dispersed all over Hungary cannot be killed so fast. They may have estimated that the most probable outcome was that WWII would end with the mass of Hungarian Jews surviving. But one man, Adolf Eichmann, made the difference. With satanic organizational skill, with no manpower nor formal powers, he packed one million Jews into the ghettoes and transported them to Auschwitz. The war had been lost, he didnt have to do it. My entire life I dream of the warm family of uncles and many cousins that I never had.