Hungary is perhaps the only nonbelligerent, non-totalitarian country in the world today where there is a shortage rather than a surplus of doctors, chemists, architects, engineers, and other professional workers.
The Budapest evening papers, of April 10,for example, announce that the services of no fewer than 132 medical assistants are urgently required by the Orszagos Tarsadalombiztosito Intezet, the Government-controlled General Health and Accident Insurance Institute.
The explanation for this shortage of doctors and professionals is neither a national emergency nor an epidemic, nor even a boom; it is simply the result of Hungary’s anti-Jewish legislation.
From 3,000 to 5,000 Jewish professionals, technicians and clerks have been removed from their Jobs in the last year, but only 1,000 to 2,000 Gentiles have been found to take their places. Logically, of course, the problem could be solved by permitting the re-employment of some of the Jews already dismissed. But racism is not a logical philosophy, and the Hungarian public authorities refuse to allow Jews to retain their jobs or to return to work, even where there are no Gentiles available to replace them.
Only in isolated cases, where it is vital that Jews continue to be employed, have the authorities relaxed their zeal. One example of such non-enforcement is the Municipal Hospital of Ujpest, a suburb of the capital, where every staff physician is a Jew. None has yet been required to leave, however, because of the difficulty in finding Gentile physicians to replace them. The latter, profiting from the artificial scarcity, are now receiving higher fees and salaries than they were ever able to obtain before, and naturally are reluctant to work at the Ujpest Hospital for less than they are able to get elsewhere.
The “six per cent” law of May, 1939, which superseded former Premier Bela Imredy’s “20 per cent” law of the year before, provides that the number of Jews engaged in professional and technical work be reduced by January 1, 1943, to six per cent — the proportion of Jews to the population of Hungary. The same law also requires that the proportion of Jews engaged in independent commerce and industry be reduced, by the same date, to 12 per cent or, in special cases, 15 per cent, where the surplus is made up of Jewish veterans of the World War.
Though the law specifically allows three and a half years for the carrying out of its provisions, the public authorities in actual practice have been so anxious to deprive Jews of their livelihoods that the six per cent provision has already been reached or exceeded in all but one professional classification. That one exception is the Royal Hungarian Opera, where it was found that not enough “Aryans” were available to carry out the season’s program without the help of an illegally high percentage of Jews. In all other professions, however, the percentage of Jews has been brought down to six per cent or under.
Journalism, one of the professions in which Jews were formerly predominant in Budapest, has perhaps been the hardest hit of all. Today, less than a year after the passage of the “six per cent” law, more than half of Budapest’s 22 newspapers employ no Jews at all. Eight employ only one Jew each. Only the Pester Lloyd, semi-official German-language newspaper, and the liberal Esti Kurir continue employing any number of Jews, and even they may not employ as many Jews as before.
Az Est, a popular, Jewish-owned “boulevard” newspaper of a year ago, was forced to fire all 40 of its reporters and editors and to replace its Jewish executives with Gentiles. Later it was forced to suspend publication, and only recently has reappeared under the name of Pest without a single Jew on its payroll.
Law, another profession in which Jews were formerly predominant, has not yet been completely “Aryanized.” But though well over six per cent of Budapest’s lawyers are still Jewish, the Jews have been forced to limit their activities more or less to those of solicitors. Budapest citizens, whatever their race or opinions, no longer find it convenient to retain Jewish attorneys, even though it is still legally permitted. For it has become axiomatic in the past year that if your lawyer is a Jew you lose your case, regardless of its merits.
Even in commercial enterprises, where a 12 to 15 per cent limit is allowed by law, Jews are being ruthlessly replaced without regard for either the percentage provision or the clause which gives employment until January 1, 1943, to bring the proportion of Jews in their employ down to the legal limit.
So great has been the pressure against the continued employment of Jews that many of Hungary’s largest financial organizations have eliminated their Jewish employees altogether. Concerns which no longer employ a single Jew include: Pesti Hazai Elso Takarekpenztar-Egyesulet, a leading savings bank; Foldhitelinkelintezet, Hungary’s largest farm loan bank; Futura, the leading Hungarian grain trading and grain-exporting trust; Hangya, a leading producer’s cooperative; and Kozponti, a credit cooperative.
Anti-Semitism has also been applied to the Army, although the law of May, 1939, makes no mention of military service. A recent decree of the War Ministry, however, prohibits Jews from attaining even non-commissioned officer’s status and excludes them from any branch of the service but the infantry.
But Jews are still required to perform two years’ military service, just as they were before the anti-Jewish laws went into effect.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
