Metadata: Records of the Hungarian Consulate General in Paris, 1941-1945
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 648
- Title:
- Records of the Hungarian Consulate General in Paris, 1941-1945
- Title (official language):
- Párizsi főkonzulátus iratai, 1941-1945
- Creator/accumulator:
- Hungarian Consulate General in Paris
- Date(s):
- 1941/1945
- Extent:
- 125 fascicles, 12. volumes, 18.5 linear metres
- Scope and content:
-
The records of the Hungarian Consulate General in Paris comprise one of the largest and most important collections in the archives of the Foreign Ministry. Material concerning Hungarian Jews can be found in the entire material from the years 1941 to 1945. The collection mostly contain personal files, among them a large number of citizenship cases, visa-related documents (a number of them with photos), housing and personal estate cases of Hungarian Jews residing in the German-occupied zone of France including Paris. After the German occupation in May 1940, Jews were subjected to various anti-Jewish measures, which at first affected foreign citizens, including Hungarian Jews. The group of documents records the growing hardships of Hungarian Jews, including records about liquidation and “Aryanisation” of businesses, criminal, custody and internment cases, repatriation, expatriation, naturalisation and denaturalisation, conversion, withdrawal of citizenship and expulsion cases of the Hungarian Jews from 1942 onwards. The collection also documents the efforts of Hungarian authorities to secure the assets of the Hungarian Jews in Hitler’s Europe.
The collection also holds birth, death, marriage and divorce certificates, travel permits, registries about Hungarian citizens residing in France, lists of interned persons in France and documents about the activity of the committee handling Hungarian Jewish property. Furthermore, the collection holds several requests of Hungarian Jews for the release of family members from the Drancy transit camp and inquiries after Hungarian citizens, and other evidence of the fate of Hungarian Jews deported from Drancy to the Auschwitz killing centre.
- Archival history:
- The fragments of the surviving records of the Hungarian embassies and other diplomatic corps were handed over to the Hungarian National Archives in 1950. The material was rearranged at the end of the 1950s as well as in the 1960s and 1970s. The first finding aids were published in 1959 and 1964, followed by a revised second edition in 2003.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Hungarian Embassy in France was closed down after the German occupation of Paris in June 1940. It was replaced by the Consulate General, established in 1941. The jurisdiction of this new diplomatic body covered the entire territory of German-occupied France. The collection contains several files pertaining to cases of the Hungarian Embassy before 1940 and after 1945 as well.
- Finding aids:
-
The collection includes extensive contemporaneous indexes and registries.
Ferenc Nagy, ed. Külügyminisztérium levéltára. Vols 2. Budapest: MOL, 2003.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives
