Postcard from Lajos Farkas, Member of 177th Jewish Labor Company, to Mezotur in East Hungary

Green postcard with black writing on front wrapping up sides. Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Two lined boxed cachet ”ZSIDO M SZD H. 177” mentioning Jews ”ZSIDO” and handwritten censor reference “Ellenorizve” (Checked). Hungarian Regent Miklos Horthy had targeted Jews with restrictions on employment, producing a pool of unemployed laborers. The Hungarian government established a forced labor system for the Jews to be utilized in military and government established a forced labor system for the Jews to be utilized in military and government projects both in Hungary as well as in other countries. The Jews of Mezotur had been assembled at a brickyard which served as a concentration camp. In June 1944, they were transported to Szolnok, where the majority of Jews of the area were concentrated. They were here for two weeks before half of them were sent to Auschwitz, part of more than 450,000 Hungarian Jews concentrated in ghettos who were likewise deported. Lajos Farkas’ fate is unknown. The slaughter of Hungarian Jews would continue with the removal of Horthy and the installation of Fascist Ferenc Szalasi - leader of the Arrow Cross Party - as Prime Minister. The sculptural bronze shoes lining the banks of the Danube in Budapest today are a sad testament to the Massacre of Jews by the Arrow Cross Nyilas on these banks. Here, forced to remove their shoes, often tied together in pods so that one victim being shot would drag the others along as the Danube would engulf them and carry them down river. 3500 Jews were murdered at the end of December 1944 to January 1945.https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/2725/thumbnail.jp