Several thousand Jews, after being rounded up by the pro-Nazi Hungarian police in a Budapest moving picture house were there slaughtered, it was reported here today. Their bodies were subsequently cast into the Danube, the report adds.
The measure is stated to have been taken as reprisal for bitter battles which occured between government troops and armed Jewish groups in various provincial towns of Hungary. As reply to the mass-killing of the Jews in the Budapest theater, Jews in the Hungarian capital organized themselves into resistance units and, erecting barricades in the streets, engaged in battle with the Hungarian troops. The pro-Szalasy troops, supported by tanks and heavy artillery, succeeded in demolishing many buildings, but could not move the Jewish fighting units from their positions.
The Jewish units, however, suffered severe losses and many important Jewish leaders were killed, says the report. “The rapid advance of the Russian Army toward Budapest compelled pro-Nazi Premier Szalasy to relax his rigorous anti-Jewish measures. Only then did the Jewish units cease their resistance,” the report concludes.
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.
