89 Joint photo album

Album about the activities of the Joint in Hungary

Budapest, 1945–1948

Documents returned from the Hungarian National Archive, 1998

The Stalinist dictatorship in Hungary prepared a staged criminal proceeding in 1953 regarding the death of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who had played a significant role in saving Jews in Budapest. This trial was supposed to show that Wallenberg was not killed by the Soviet KGB, but by members of the Jewish council of Pest. In 1953, besides arresting those accused of the crime, the State Protection Authority, which was the secret police of Hungary, confiscated documents from the Jewish community as well. These documents were moved eventually, in 1994, to the Ministry of the Interior to the Hungarian National Archive, among them this photo album showing the activity of the Joint Distribution Committee in Hungary. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, founded in 1914, had a very important role in providing for people returning from deportation. In 1953 there was a staged trial against them as well, in course of which they had to stop their activities. In the album, we can see their aid work, among others, photos of the work in associations helping to observe the Shabbat. The documents and this album were returned to our collection by the Hungarian National Archive in 1998.