To the Editor:
While Romania did murder many Jews in and outside the country, Hungary had more blood on its hands. Hungary actually holds the record for participating in the fastest mass murder of Jews: During 57 days in the spring and summer of 1944, most of the individuals involved in sending Jewish Hungarians to their death were their fellow non-Jewish Hungarian citizens; relatively few Germans were involved in actual deportations.
The local Hungarian Nazi Party tried to finish the job after the the Russians reached Auschwitz-Birkenau shortly after a failed coup in Hungary "stopped" the deportations. Nevertheless, more than 90 percent of Jews in rural and small cities were mass murdered with the active complicity of their fellow Hungarian citizens.
I know; I am a Hungarian Jew.
Michael Kaplan
Portland, Ore.
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