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Samu Stern
Personal life
Born	Samu Stern - Hungarian usage Stern Samu January 5, 1874 Nemesszalók, Austria-Hungary
Died	June 8, 1946 (aged 72) Budapest, Hungary
Nationality	Hungarian
Religious life
Religion	Judaism
Denomination	Neolog

Samu Stern (Template:Lang-hu; 5 January 1874 – 8 June 1946) was a businessman, banker, advisor to the royal court, and head of Hungary's Neolog Jewish Community from 1929 to 1945.

After the March 1944 German occupation, Stern was a member of the German-created Jewish Council (Judenrat, Zsidó tanács) along with Orthodox Community leader Pinchas Freudiger. The Jewish Council was among recipients of the Vrba–Wetzler report, also known as the Auschwitz Protocols, the Auschwitz Report. It detailed the atrocities in Auschwitz. Much like Rezső Kasztner (aka Rudolf), members of the Jewish Council failed to publicize the atrocities and warn the Jews of Hungary of their fate. Although Stern supported Jewish causes, he received criticism for dealing willingly with the German occupying authorities and their Hungarian collaborators.

Early life

Samu Stern was born into a Neolog Jewish farming family in Nemesszalók, Veszprém County on 5 January 1874. His parents were Lipót Stern and Fáni Hoffmann. His father farmed on a large estate and traded in agricultural products. Samu Stern attended a yeshiva for two years, but then he enrolled in a trade school, against his parents' wishes.

During the Holocaust

Nazi Germany invaded the Kingdom of Hungary on 19 March 1944. The arriving Germans, altogether was known as the Eichmann-Kommando under the leadership of Adolf Eichmann, Hermann Krumey and Dieter Wisliceny sought to avoid panic in the ranks of the Jewish leadership. Hours after the occupation, Schutzstaffel (SS) officers arrived at Síp utca 12, where PIH was holding its annual general assembly, which abruptly adjourned, when news of the German invasion spread. The Nazis demanded the convening of Neolog and Orthodox religious community leaders for the next day. On the morning of 20 March, they appeared at the headquarters of the PIH, fearing arrest or massacre. There, SS-Obersturmbannführer Hermann Krumey claimed that there will be "restrictions", but there is no need to fear deportation, if a centralized Jewish leadership cooperate. Upon their demand, the Jews presented a list of eight members of a Jewish council (Judenrat) to be set up. According to Stern and Freudiger, the Jewish council was appointed by the Germans, while Ernő Munkácsi, the secretary-general of PIH, the entire list was compiled by Stern. The Nazis insisted on the participation of actual community leaders from all denominations, but Stern granted a free hand to naming the specific people to become council members. Samu Stern and his two colleagues from PIH, Ernő Pető and Károly Wilhelm formed an inner circle within the council. In the absence of formal meetings, they made most immediate, emergency decisions.

Samu Stern wrote in his memoirs in 1946 that "I considered it a cowardly, unmanly and irresponsible behavior, a selfish escape and running away, if I let my fellow believers down now, right now, when leadership is needed the most, when the sacrificial work of experienced and politically connected men could perhaps help them". Regarding the latter, Stern trusted his personal connections, above all with Regent Miklós Horthy, whom he had known for two decades. Stern and his colleagues were convinced that they could hold together the network of religious communities and aid organizations, and if they do not lead the council, then a some far less competent and influential staff worsens the Jews' chances of survival.

On 21 March 1944 the Germans accepted Stern's list, establishing the Central Council of Hungarian Jews (Template:Lang-hu), to which jurisdiction covered the whole country (i.e. national Jewish affairs) have been assigned. Stern was selected president of the new body. On 31 March, Adolf Eichmann informed Stern and his deputies that he would also include converted Jews under the jurisdiction of the Central Council of Hungarian Jews, recognizing it as the only representative body of the Jewish population in Hungary, regardless their religion. The Jewish council took over the employees of the religious communities one by one. Samu Stern estimated the number of employees at 1,800.

The new German-installed government led by Döme Sztójay passed a number of decrees restricting Jews in the following days. According to the decree of 7 April, all Jews outside Budapest, regardless of gender and age had to be transported to designated internment camps (ghettos). On 19 April 1944, Samu Stern and his colleagues wrote a memorandum to Sztójay, in which they requested an extraordinary investigation and applied for personal audience with the prime minister. Interestingly, the council members signed the paper on behalf of their former affiliation (e.g. Stern as president of MIOI and Kahan-Frankl as president of OIKI). Due to restrictions on travel permits, the flow of information between Budapest and the countryside became difficult for Jews. After the war, Pető claimed that "it was not possible to communicate with the Jews in the countryside". Stern stated information came only from those who secretly fled to Budapest. The Jewish councils had to function in complete isolation from each other from the very beginning, because the Jews were deprived of all means of communication (e.g. termination of telephone lines, mail censorship and travel ban) soon after the invasion of Hungary. Under Stern, the Central Jewish Council repeatedly sent financial aid to the Jewish residents of rural ghettos. Regarding the ghettos and atrocities (i.e. deportations) in countryside, the council addressed a series of submissions to the Ministry of the Interior and other departments (including police and gendarmerie), as they were not received in person. These initiatives were pointless, since the council asked those bodies to investigate these atrocities, who were the initiators and executors of them.

A ministerial decree of Andor Jaross on 22 April 1944 re-organized the Central Jewish Council as the nine-member Association of Hungarian Jews Provisional Executive Committee (Template:Lang-hu) with the effect of 8 May 1944. The new regulation also involved personnel changes: Béla Berend, the chief rabbi of Szigetvár, became a member on the recommendation of Zoltán Bosnyák, director of the anti-Semitic Jewish Question Institute. From the beginning, this created general distrust between him and Stern's circle. On the orders of latter, some confidential documents had to be destroyed, because it was known that "Berend had entered the Jewish Council as a traitor". Because of Stern's illness, Samu Kahan-Frankl presided the inaugural meeting of the "second council" on 15 May 1944. They prepared the organization's statute on May 22, but it was never approved by the Ministry of the Interior.

Overall the Jewish Council of Budapest was powerless in any attempt to influence events of the Holocaust in Hungary. Apart from sending memoranda, they didn't have many tools, as a result many Jewish intellectuals committed suicide. A council's memorandum with the date 8 June to the Sztójay cabinet urged the suspension of deportations and recommended the Jews' active participation in physical work and labour service. The council was clearly playing to gain time, since the approach of the Soviet army was increasingly expected.

See also

• Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest

References

1. "YIVO | Stern, Samu".
2. "Dr. Samuel Stern, Leader of Hungarian Jewry, Dies in Budapest". 1946-06-17.
3. Randolph L. Braham: The Politics of Genocide, 1990, p. 711f.
4. http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206047.pdf
5. ^ Braham 1981, p. 419.
6. Braham 1981, p. 421.
7. Munkácsi 1947, p. 17.
8. Kádár & Vági 2008, p. 73.
9. Braham 1981, p. 422.
10. Schmidt 1990, pp. 60–61.
11. Kádár & Vági 2008, p. 78.
12. Molnár 2002, p. 99.
13. Munkácsi 1947, pp. 28–33.
14. Veszprémy 2023, pp. 127–130.
15. Molnár 2002, p. 103.
16. Schmidt 1990, pp. 69, 74, 329.
17. Molnár 2002, p. 107.
18. Braham 1981, p. 450.
19. Munkácsi 1947, pp. 71–73.
20. Schmidt 1990, pp. 75, 326.
21. Molnár 2002, p. 104.
22. Munkácsi 1947, p. 75.
23. Munkácsi 1947, pp. 118–119.
24. Karsai 1967, pp. 173–176.

Sources

• Braham, Randolph L. (1981). The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. Vol. 1–2. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-04496-8.
• Kádár, Gábor; Vági, Zoltán (2008). "Compulsion of Bad Choices. Questions, Dilemmas, Decisions: The Activity of the Hungarian Central Jewish Council in 1944". In Kovács, András (ed.). Jewish Studies at the Central European University, 2005–2007. CEU Press. pp. 71–89. ISBN 978-9637326721.
• Karsai, Elek (1967). Vádirat a nácizmus ellen. Dokumentumok a magyarországi zsidóüldözés történetéhez (in Hungarian). Vol. 3. Budapest: National Representation of Hungarian Israelites (MIOK).
• Molnár, Judit (2002). "The Foundation and Activities of the Hungarian Jewish Council, March 20 – July 7, 1944". Yad Vashem Studies. 30: 93–123. ISSN 0084-3296.
• Munkácsi, Ernő (1947). Hogyan történt? Adatok és okmányok a magyar zsidóság tragédiájához (in Hungarian). Budapest: Renaissance.
• Schmidt, Mária (1990). Kollaboráció vagy kooperáció? A Budapesti Zsidó Tanács (in Hungarian). Budapest: Minerva. ISBN 963-223-438-3.
• Veszprémy, László Bernát (2023). Tanácstalanság. A zsidó vezetés Magyarországon és a holokauszt, 1944–1945 (in Hungarian). Budapest: Jaffa Kiadó. ISBN 978-963-475-731-3.

External links

• http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206047.pdf
• http://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/jews-of-hungary-during-the-holocaust.html

Publications

• Nathaniel Katzburg, Shemu’el Shtern: Ro’sh kehilat Pesht, in Pedut: Hatsalah bi-yeme sho’ah (Ramat Gan, Isr., 1984)
• Mária Schmidt, Kollaboráció vagy kooperáció? (Budapest, 1990), pp. 49–111
• Samu (Samuel) Stern, A Race with Time: A Statement, Hungarian Jewish Studies 3 (1973): 1–48

• 1874 births
• 1946 deaths
• Hungarian Jews
• Holocaust survivors
• Businesspeople from Austria-Hungary
• People from Veszprém County
• Members of the Jewish Council of Budapest