BUDAPEST — Two of the most notorious architects of the Holocaust in Hungary, Laszlo Baky and Laszlo Endre, were executed by public pole hanging before a massive crowd in the courtyard of the Marko Street Prison on the morning of March 29, 1946, bringing a dramatic close to one of the darkest chapters in the nation’s history.
The two men, former state secretaries in the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior, were found guilty of organizing the systematic ghettoization and deportation of more than 437,000 Hungarian Jews during a frenzied 56-day period in 1944, a crime so vast in its scale and so methodical in its cruelty that even Nazi officials stationed in Budapest were reportedly taken aback by the zeal with which the Hungarian authorities pursued their murderous work.
Baky and Endre were not battlefield commanders. They were bureaucrats, men who wielded pens and telegrams rather than rifles, yet their positions at the heart of the Ministry of the Interior gave them control over the nation’s police force and its entire administrative apparatus. From their offices, they transformed the machinery of the Hungarian state into a localized instrument of genocide.
Their partnership with Adolf Eichmann, the SS officer who oversaw the logistics of the Final Solution, was not one of reluctant collaboration. According to historical records and testimony presented at their trial, the two Hungarians took the lead, coordinating with German authorities to convert Hungary into what prosecutors described as a massive production line for death.
The speed of the operation shocked even seasoned observers. In less than two months, hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were stripped of their property, forced into overcrowded ghettos, and loaded onto trains bound for Auschwitz-Birkenau and other killing centers. The deportation trains ran day and night, and the Hungarian gendarmerie, under the direction of Baky and Endre, carried out the roundups with brutal efficiency.
When the Third Reich began to collapse under the weight of Allied advances, Baky and Endre fled westward, hoping to disappear into the chaos of a falling Europe. Their flight was short-lived. American forces captured them and extradited them back to Budapest, where they were forced to stand before a people’s tribunal and answer for their crimes.
Throughout the proceedings, the two men remained chillingly defiant. They offered no remorse, no apology, and no acknowledgment of the hundreds of thousands of lives they had destroyed. Their testimony, marked by ideological fervor and open contempt for their accusers, only deepened the outrage of a nation struggling to confront the scale of its wartime complicity.
On the morning of their execution, a large crowd gathered outside the Marko Street Prison. The method chosen for their death was the pole hanging, a brutal form of execution in which the condemned are hoisted by their necks onto tall wooden pillars, leaving them to die slowly by strangulation. It was a punishment reserved for those deemed to have committed the most heinous of crimes.
Witnesses described the scene as somber and tense. Baky and Endre were led into the courtyard side by side, just as they had worked side by side during the deportations. They were hoisted onto the pillars and left to hang, their deaths slow and agonizing.
The crowd watched in silence as the two men who had sent so many to their deaths finally faced their own.
The executions marked the end of a long and painful reckoning for Hungary, a nation that had been an ally of Nazi Germany and whose authorities had actively participated in the Holocaust. The people’s tribunals that followed the war sought to hold accountable those who had orchestrated the deportations, and the cases of Baky and Endre were among the most high-profile.
Historians note that the brutality of the Hungarian deportations was exceptional even by the standards of the Nazi regime. In many occupied countries, the Germans had to pressure local authorities to cooperate. In Hungary, Baky and Endre needed little encouragement.
They saw the deportation of the Jews as a patriotic duty, a way to rid the nation of what they considered an alien element.
The legacy of their crimes continues to haunt Hungary. The 437,000 people deported during those 56 days represented a majority of the Jewish population in the Hungarian countryside. Most were murdered immediately upon arrival at Auschwitz.
Only a fraction survived the war.
The execution of Baky and Endre was intended to serve as a warning to future generations, a demonstration that those who commit crimes against humanity will eventually face justice. Yet the passage of time has not diminished the horror of what they did, nor has it erased the memory of the thousands of Hungarian Jews who perished as a result of their actions.
In the years since the executions, Hungary has struggled to come to terms with its wartime past. The role of Hungarian authorities in the Holocaust has been the subject of intense debate, with some arguing that the nation was merely a victim of German pressure and others insisting that the complicity of men like Baky and Endre was central to the tragedy.
The documents and testimony from the trials paint a clear picture. Baky and Endre were not passive participants. They were initiators, organizers, and enthusiastic executors of a plan to annihilate an entire community.
Their defiance at trial and their lack of remorse only confirmed the depth of their ideological commitment.
The pole hanging method used to execute them was itself a subject of controversy. Some argued that it was a relic of a barbaric past, while others insisted that it was a fitting punishment for men who had shown no mercy to their victims. The public nature of the execution was intended to send a message that justice had been done.
For the survivors of the Holocaust in Hungary, the executions brought a measure of closure, though no amount of punishment could ever undo the suffering that had been inflicted. Many survivors testified at the trials, recounting the horrors they had witnessed and the loved ones they had lost. Their voices, often drowned out in the chaos of postwar Europe, were finally heard.
The Marko Street Prison, where the executions took place, has since become a site of memory. It stands as a reminder of the violence that consumed Hungary during the war and the justice that followed. The courtyard where Baky and Endre died is now a quiet place, far removed from the noise and fury of that March morning in 1946.
Historians continue to study the events of 1944, seeking to understand how a modern European nation could have participated so enthusiastically in the murder of its own citizens. The answers are complex, rooted in a toxic mix of nationalism, anti-Semitism, and opportunism. But the roles of Baky and Endre are clear.
They were the bridge between the Hungarian government and the Nazi killing machine. They provided the administrative framework, the police power, and the ideological justification for the deportations. Without their cooperation, the Holocaust in Hungary would not have been possible on the scale that it was.
The execution of the two men was a moment of reckoning, but it was not the end of the story. The scars of the Holocaust remain deep in Hungary, and the debate over the nation’s responsibility continues. What is undeniable is that Baky and Endre played a central role in one of the worst crimes in human history.
As the sun rose over Budapest on that March morning, the two men were hoisted onto the wooden pillars. The crowd watched in silence as they died, their bodies hanging limp in the cold air. It was a scene of grim justice, a final chapter in a story of unimaginable cruelty.
The legacy of Baky and Endre is one of blood and shame. Their names are remembered not for any achievement or honor, but for the hundreds of thousands of lives they destroyed. Their executions were a warning, a reminder that those who commit crimes against humanity will not escape judgment.
In the decades since, Hungary has undergone profound changes. The communist regime that followed the war has fallen, and the nation has embraced democracy. But the ghosts of the past remain, and the story of the Hangmen of Hungary serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of hatred and the importance of justice.
The people’s tribunal that convicted Baky and Endre was one of many that sought to hold accountable those who had collaborated with the Nazis. The trials were often chaotic, and the evidence was sometimes incomplete. But in the case of the two state secretaries, the verdict was never in doubt.
Their guilt was established by documents they had signed, orders they had issued, and testimony from those who had witnessed their crimes. The defense they offered, rooted in nationalism and anti-Semitism, was rejected by the court and by history.
The execution of Baky and Endre was not just a punishment for their crimes. It was a statement by the new Hungary that the atrocities of the past would not be tolerated. It was a message to the world that even the most powerful and fanatical perpetrators could be brought to justice.
Yet the question remains: why did it take so long? Why did the international community not intervene sooner to stop the deportations? Why did so many Hungarians stand by while their neighbors were taken away?
These are questions that historians continue to debate, and that the people of Hungary continue to confront.
The story of the Hangmen of Hungary is a reminder that evil does not always come in the form of a monster. Sometimes it comes in the form of a bureaucrat, a man in a suit who sits at a desk and signs papers that send thousands to their deaths. Baky and Endre were such men, and their execution was a fitting end to their lives.
As the crowd dispersed from the Marko Street Prison on that March morning, the bodies of the two men were taken down and buried in unmarked graves. Their names have since become synonymous with betrayal and cruelty, a permanent stain on the history of Hungary.
The survivors of the Holocaust, those who lived through the ghettos and the camps, have carried the memory of their suffering for decades. The execution of Baky and Endre brought them a measure of justice, but it could never bring back the loved ones they lost. Their pain remains, a testament to the horrors that were committed.
The world has changed since 1946, but the lessons of the Holocaust remain as relevant as ever. The rise of nationalism and anti-Semitism in Europe and beyond is a stark reminder that the hatred that drove Baky and Endre is not a thing of the past. It is a living force that must be confronted and defeated.
The execution of the Hangmen of Hungary was a moment of justice, but it was also a warning. It reminded the world that those who commit crimes against humanity will be held accountable, no matter how long it takes. It is a warning that must never be forgotten.