Prime Minister’s Office, Bureau of Exemptions, 1944

Collection description

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

Scope and content:: This collection contains name lists of people, including prominent figures of Hungarian social and cultural life, who gained exemption status in September-October 1944 (no.1.), as well as documents of individuals applying for this status, numbered 2 to 245. These applications contain personal files of the applicants, letters of recommendations and correspondence, many of them written by dramatis personae of the era, such as Cardinal Jusztinián Serédi. Besides, the material contains notes on exemption cases turned down by the Council of Ministers, indexes, summaries, and personal files of the employees of the bureau.

Archival history:: The Hungarian National Archives acquired the collection in 1948.

Administrative/biographical history:: The Bureau of Exemptions was established by Regent Miklós Horthy following the German occupation of Hungary, in the late summer of 1944, in order to exempt prominent Jews from particular measures such as wearing the yellow star, ghettoisation, and deportation. The bureau was dissolved during the Arrow Cross rule at the end of the same year.

Finding aids:: A Hungarian-language inventory is available for the collection.