A relatively recent addition to the Holocaust Story has been the claim that at least 80,000 Jews were shot to death on the banks of the Danube River in the Hungarian capital of Budapest at the end of 1944 and early 1945. The bodies were, so the allegation goes, then thrown into the river.
According to the Holocaust
Storytellers, these victims were Jews apparently selected from within the city at
random by members of the then ruling Arrow Cross Party.
This is how the official Israeli
holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, describes the events:
“Nearly 80,000 Jews were killed in Budapest itself, shot
on the banks of the Danube River and then thrown into the river.” (“Historical
Background: The Jews of Hungary During the Holocaust,” At the Last Moment: The Tragedy of Hungarian Jewry, Yad Vashem,
January 2014).
The “evidence” used to “prove”
this allegation is restricted to a handful of dubious “survivor” accounts, and one
or two photographs. These are reviewed below.
Before that, however, it is
worthwhile to understand that there are two major practical problems with the
entire “mass shooting along the riverside” allegation.
Problem 1: The Physical Issue of
80,000 Bodies in the Danube
Firstly, the sheer space which
80,000 bodies would occupy, would quite literally block the Danube River, which
flows through central Budapest.
The space which 80,000 bodies
would take up would be around 368,000 square feet. Now it is not, of course,
claimed that 80,000 bodies were dumped into the river all at once, but the
cumulative effect would be the same, even if the river current washed many bodies
downstream.
At some point, somewhere, a
huge mass of corpses would have shown up which would make up an unquestioned body
of evidence, and would be on record. There is no such evidence at all.
Secondly, the amount of
ammunition needed to shoot 80,000 people would be immense. The Arrow Cross
executioners would have had to use at least 80,000 rounds (if they were all
clean “one shot” executions), and probably more. This would amount to well over
2,240 pounds (1,016 kilograms) of lead being dumped into the river. This would
also leave an impossible-to-hide trace.
Problem 2: The Length of Time
the Arrow Cross Controlled Budapest
The second major physical
problem with the “mass shooting” in Budapest story is the reality that the
Arrow Cross Party only had physical control of the city from 15 October to 26
December 1944—a total of 72 days.
This is because the Arrow Cross
was appointed as the ruling party on October 15, following the deposing of Hungary’s
long-time leader Admiral Horthy (who wanted to surrender and join the Soviets
against Germany). The advancing Soviet Army surrounded and laid siege to the
city on December 26, and the resultant battle was one of the bloodiest sieges
of the entire war. The city surrendered on February 13, 1945, after the last Hungarian
and German army units had been squeezed into a small pocket on the Castle Hill side
of the river, away from the city center.
Fighting conditions, including
bombardment by land artillery and constant Red Air Force air attacks would have
made it impossible for “massacres” to have been carried out during the siege.
This means that if the claim of
80,000 shot dead and thrown into the Danube is true, then the Arrow Cross men would
have needed to shoot dead 1,112 Jews per day, every day, or 46 per hour, 24
hours a day—if they worked full time at doing nothing else. This is highly unlikely,
and such a round-the-clock massacre would leave thousands of witnesses and a
huge body of evidence—all of which is absent.
“Eye-Witness” Accounts—The “River
was Red with Blood”
One of the most widely quoted
“eye-witnesses” to this mass shooting of 80,000 Jews is Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, who
was ten years old at the time. According to Ozsváth’s account:
“Two Arrow Cross men were standing on the embankment of the river, aiming at and shooting a group of men, women and children into the Danube—one after the other, on their coats the Yellow Star. I looked at the Danube. It was neither blue nor gray but red. With a throbbing heart, I ran back to the room in the middle of the apartment and sat on the floor, gasping for air.” (“From Country to Country: My Search for Home” in Alvin Rosenfeld, ed., The Writer Uprooted: Contemporary Jewish Exile Literature, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008, p. 185–186).
This account is far-fetched, to
put it mildly. To claim that the Danube had “turned red” with blood is clearly
a fantasy.
Another widely quoted
“eye-witness” was one Tommy Dick, who claimed to have been shot in the jaw
instead of the head during one of the executions. Somehow, he survived—or so he
claimed. His account is worth quoting in full, because it describes how the
bodies were supposedly disposed of in the Danube:
“I remember the commander shouting, ‘Shoot!’ For just a second, a very long second, nothing happened. One couldn’t just stand there waiting to die. So I turned my head to watch the person on my right getting killed. In that moment, the Nyilas [Arrow Cross man] behind me pulled the trigger, clearly aiming at the base of my skull. He stood no more than a metre behind me. Somehow, as I turned my head, the bullet shattered my jaw instead of my skull. I have no recollection of the next moment. I was standing right at the water’s edge. I must have either fallen forward from the force of the bullet, or perhaps the Nyilas behind me gave me a kick that landed me in the river. I don’t remember falling. I must have passed out for a second or two but the ice cold water of the Danube in December revived me instantly.” (Getting Out Alive, Tommy Dick, The Azrieli Foundation, 2007).
Dick died in 1999, but for some
mysterious reason, his “memoirs” were only published in 2007. This convenient
fact prevents any cross-questioning of the claims. His description, however, of
the victims supposedly standing so close to the river bank so that the “force
of the bullet” propelled them into the water, or that they were “kicked” into
the river, is important when the “photographic evidence” is reviewed.
“Photographic Evidence” Relies
on “Caption Interpretation”
As is the case with so much
other “photographic evidence” of the holocaust story, the “evidence” is largely
based on the post-war captions given to the pictures by Holocaust Storytellers.
The two examples below, both
from the US Holocaust Museum, illustrate this tactic.
The first USHM photograph,
titled “Execution of Jews along the banks of the Danube river” is captioned “Arrow
Cross Party members execute Jews along the banks of the Danube River. Budapest,
Hungary, 1944.” This photograph appears to show a genuine execution, but the caption
does not say why these Jews were being executed: was it a random murder, or was
it a judicial execution for looting? We will never know.
The second, titled “Aftermath
of a shooting along the banks of the Danube river,” shows a group of seven
bodies on the ground, some distance from what appears to be the river. The
official USHM caption reads: “This photograph shows the aftermath of a shooting
along the banks of the Danube River in Budapest. Members of the pro-German
Arrow Cross party massacred thousands of Jews along the banks of the Danube.
Budapest, Hungary, 1944.”
This, like the first photograph,
does indeed appear to show the result of an execution, as the background tree
branches (visible on the right hand side of the picture) appear to be the same
as in the first photograph above.
While the circumstances of
these two pictures are unclear, what they do show is that the location—some distance
from a river bank, contradicts the “eye-witness” accounts, which claim that the
Jews were shot so close to the river bank that the “force of the bullet” (or a “kick”)
was enough to propel them into the river.
The bodies in the USHM “photographic
evidence” would have had to be dragged to the river by the executioners and thrown
in, and therefore, were obviously not part of the claimed “mass executions.”
2019: Israeli Sonar Search of the
Danube Finds Nothing
The vagueness of the shooting
allegations—and the clear lack of any real evidence—obviously concerned the Holocaust
Storytellers so much that they decided in 2019 to launch an official search for
the remains of these 80,000 Jews supposedly thrown into the Danube.
The search, started after three
years of preparation, was conducted by the official Israeli search and rescue
organization, ZAKA. That organization was chosen because it also specializes in
missions to find bodies for burial in accordance with Jewish customs.
The ZAKA divers were assisted in
their search by a “brand new sonar device, which can descend to a depth of 150
meters and scan within 130 meters, quickly identifying objects and transferring
the information and exact location to the device operator.” (“75 years after
the mass shooting of Jews into the River Danube, Budapest, ZAKA divers attempt
to retrieve their bones for burial,” ZAKA, 14.01.2019).
The operation was started on January
15, 2019, with ZAKA Special Units commander Haim Outmezgine launching the sonar
scanner in an area of the Danube River “identified” as the major “execution”
spot.
Predictably, the search found
absolutely nothing: no bullets, no bones, no remains of any sort. As recounted
in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a
“sonar scan of the bottom of the Danube River in Budapest revealed no human
remains.” This came after weeks of build-up which involved much discussion on
whether the mass of remains which they expected to find should be left alone or
raised and reburied, with some Jewish leaders demanding that the expected pile
of bones should be left alone. (“Sweep of the Danube riverbed finds no bones of
Holocaust victims,” Jewish Telegraphic
Agency, January 16, 2019).
Clearly disappointed with the negative
findings, ZAKA announced that they would conduct a second search in February
2019. This however, was called off after “discussions,” and the entire project
abandoned.
Although no reason was given,
the reason is clear: further searching was pointless, as the most likely spot
to find any remains had proved negative. Further searches were equally likely
to find nothing.
It was a severe embarrassment,
as the search had proven that there is zero physical evidence of 80,000 Jews
having been shot and thrown into the Danube. Given the amount of claimed
victims, the amount of ammunition which would have had to have been expended,
and the personal effects which would have remained, this can only mean that the
entire episode has been invented.
US Holocaust Museum Slices 60,000
off the “Victim” Total
Finally, it is worth noting that,
as usual, the Holocaust Storytellers cannot get their stories straight on this
matter.
While Israel’s Yad Vashem
claims 80,000 Jews were shot and thrown into the Danube, the United States
Holocaust Museum (which, it will be recalled, was chartered by an Act of
Congress, receives US taxpayer funding, and employs over 400 people) has
casually sliced 60,000 off this number, and claims that 20,000 Jews were shot
and thrown into the Danube.
The USHM provides no explanation
for why this figure has been cut by two-thirds, although the reason is clear:
the 80,000 figure is preposterous, even by Holocaust Storyteller standards. Although
20,000 “sounds” better, it is of course just as preposterous as 80,000, for the
reasons outlined above.
Summary of the “Danube Shootings”
Story
In summary then, the following
conclusion can be made about the Danube shooting claim:
1. It is likely that some Jews
were executed near the banks of the Danube River towards the end of 1944. While
it is possible that some of these executions were random murders, it is more likely
that they were the result of judicial orders for looting or other crimes.
2. The number of victims of
such executions is completely unknown, as evidenced by the widely varying
claims (between 80,000 and 20,000) by the Holocaust Storytellers. Given the
time frame and conditions in the city, even the lower claimed figure is obviously
a gross exaggeration.
3. There remains absolutely no physical
evidence of such a massacre, either then or in present-day times, something which
would be absolutely impossible if 80,000 (or even 20,000) bodies had been
thrown into the river in the middle of Hungary’s largest city.
As a result, it is safe to say
that the entire event is yet another fiction in the web of deceit which makes
up the Holocaust Storytellers’ lies.
