Lower House of Parliament and National Assembly, 1861-1944: Presidential and General Records, 1861-1945

Collection description

Collection

Country:: Hungary

Holding institution:: National Archives of Hungary, National Archives

Holding institution (official language):: Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára

Postal address:: Budapest, Bécsi Kapu tér 2-4., 1014

Phone number:: +36 1 225 2843

Web address:: http://mnl.gov.hu/

Email:: info@mnl.gov.hu

Reference number:: K 2

Title:: Lower House of Parliament and National Assembly, 1861-1944: Presidential and General Records, 1861-1945

Title (official language):: Képviselőház és nemzetgyűlés. Elnöki és általános iratok, 1861-1945

Creator/accumulator:: Houses of Parliament

Date(s):: 1861/1945

Extent:: 716 fascicles, 1 box, 437 volumes, 125.1 linear metres

Scope and content:: The Hungarian Parliament held primary responsibility for antisemitic legislation that gradually withdrew Jewish emancipation in Hungary. The records primarily concern the election of MPs, launches of meetings of parliament, speeches, proposals for laws and amendments, interpellations, establishment of committees, reports of ministers, committees and the Supreme Audit Office, appointments of ministers, organisation of the Library of the Parliament, as well as the technical, personnel and economic affairs of the Lower House of the Parliament.

Archival history:: A large part of the records of the Houses of the Hungarian Parliament were destroyed or lost in the siege of Budapest and during the evacuation of the offices to Western Hungary in November 1944. The remaining part was transferred to the National Archives between 1950 and 1960.

Administrative/biographical history:: The first discriminatory act, the numerus clausus that restricted the number of Jews admitted to higher education was enacted as early as 1920 (Act XXV of 1920). Between 1938 and 1942, the Hungarian Parliament passed 22 openly or implicitly antisemitic laws that gravely restricted the opportunities of Jewish citizens and increasingly excluded them from Hungarian society and the economic life of the country. These included the first “Jewish Law” in 1938 (Act XV of 1938), the second “Jewish Law” of 1939 (Act IV. of 1939), the racial law banning marriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews, also known as the third “Jewish Law” (Act XV of 1941), the law on the status of Judaism withdrawing the full state recognition and support it had enjoyed since the late 19th century (Act VIII of 1942) and the fourth “Jewish Law” that aimed to exclude Jews from the agricultural sphere (Act XV of 1942). Besides, the Parliament was also the scene of even more radical proposals during the implementation of the Holocaust just outside the borders of the country in 1942-43, including that the Jewish population of Hungary should be ghettoised and deported and their assets seized. All these laws were debated in Parliament with significant differences between representatives of various parties and at first supportive and later critical stance of the major Christian churches of Hungary. (However, the latter was articulated particularly in the Upper House). The plethora of antisemitic laws and decrees adopted in the late 1930s and early 1940s were to pave the way for the major events of the Holocaust in Hungary in 1944. The Lower House of the Hungarian Parliament was a centrally important stage for debates about the political and legal status and socio-economic position of Jews from the year of emancipation in 1867 until the end of WWII. The Houses of the Parliament were evacuated to Western Hungary in November 1944 and operated in Sopron and Kőszeg until the end of the war.

Subject terms:: Antisemitism; Antisemitism--Antisemitic legislation; Legal matters

Finding aids:: The collection includes extensive contemporaneous indexes and registries. Additionally, an archival unit-level description in Hungarian is available for the collection. There is a separate list on the documents concerning laws and bills (törvényjavaslat) between 1867 and 1944.

Yerusha Network member:: Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives

fullscreen: Lower House of Parliament and National Assembly, 1861-1944: Presidential and General Records, 1861-1945

Collection

Downloads

Full record

Image fragment

Formats and links

Formats