1947

Ernő Munkácsi (Panticeu, 1896 – Balatonfüred, 1950) was a lawyer, jurist, and art historian who served as chief legal counsel of the Neolog Jewish Community of Pest and the director of our Museum from 1930. In 1944, Ernő Munkácsi was named secretary for the Central Jewish Council or Judenrat, an administrative body established by Nazis to help carry out the orders of the German and Hungarian persecutors. After the war, in response to accusations of having been complicit in the Nazis’ crimes, Munkácsi wrote How It Happened: Documenting the Tragedy of Hungarian Jewry(1947) based on his firsthand experience, inside information, and Jewish community records. Munkácsi’s seminal book is one of the earliest accounts of the Holocaust in Hungary.