Munkaszolgálatos gyűjtemény 1939-1945

Introduced in 1939, the Labour Service was a specific form of Hungarian military duty during WWII. The nationalistic Hungarian state considered certain minority groups politically unreliable and forced them to perform unarmed service in the army. The majority of the labour servicemen were Jewish, with conscription for other targeted groups only selectively implemented. Before Germany’s occupation of Hungary in March, 1944, at least 25,000 Jewish labor servicemen were killed on the eastern front, many by the Hungarian military. At the turn of 1944-1945, thousands were deported to Germany.

The labour service collection is based on the material of the Hungarian Auschwitz Foundation (HFA), an NGO established in 1990 by survivors to collect and preserve documentation pertaining to the Holocaust. HFA culled copies of archival material from the Archives of Military History as well as original private documents donated by other institutions, most of all the National Organization of Labour Servicemen (MUOSZ) and individuals. The collection was handed over to the newly established Holocaust Memorial Center in 2004. From that time on, hundreds of survivors of labour service and their family members donated their documents, photos and objects to the HMC.