Number of Jewish deportees Auschwitz 1941-1945 by country of origin

Between 1941 and early 1945, over 1.3 million people were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp complex; approximately 1.1 million of these deportees were Jewish, and one million Jews were murdered. Auschwitz was the largest of six extermination camps constructed by the Nazi regime in Poland, as part of their "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", which sought to exterminate Europe's Jewish population.

The Holocaust in Hungary

Of the 1.1 million Jews sent to Auschwitz, the most common country of origin was Hungary. Hungary had a sizeable Jewish population of around 445,000 people in 1930, but Hungary's territory grew significantly after it annexed parts of Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia in the late-1930s, and the total Jewish population (including Christians with Jewish heritage) in the 1941 census was approximately 825,000. Compared to the Germans, Hungary's treatment of the Jews throughout the war had been much less restrictive, and its prime minister opposed deportations to concentration camps.

German invasion and increasing number of deportations

This changed, however, in March 1944; as the Axis forces were being pushed west out of Soviet territory; Germany then invaded Hungary to prevent them from negotiating a peace with the Allies. Thereafter, a puppet government was installed and authorities, under the leadership of Adolf Eichmann, began to round up and deport Jews to Poland. While the Nazi extermination of Jews began on a large scale in 1941, the majority of Hungary's victims were deported and murdered over an eight week period, between May and July 1944. 430,000 Jews were deported from Hungary to Auschwitz in this time; it is estimated that around 20 percent of these were selected for labor, and the remaining 80 percent were sent directly to the gas chambers. Arrivals from Hungary were so rapid that the crematoriums could not keep up with the rate of murder, and additional mass graves had to be dug while the number of trains was reduced. Eventually, as the Axis position deteriorated, Hungarian authorities ceased deportations under mounting pressure from the Allies in early July. Exact figures for Hungary's death toll in the Holocaust remain elusive, although it is estimated that over 560,000 Jews were killed from within Hungary's wartime borders (270,000 from pre-war territories), with 434,000 of these deaths taking place between May and July 1944, the majority of which at Auschwitz.