Cultural Aspects

Before World War II, approximately 200,000 Jewish people lived in Budapest, making it the center of Hungarian Jewish cultural life. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Budapest was a safe haven for Jewish refugees. Before the war approximately 5,000 refugees, primarily from Germany and Austria, arrived in Budapest. While many thought that Budapest was a safe place as the war began they then realized as the Germans started to occupy more of the land the less safe and secure that felt. In March 1944 he Germans ordered the establishment of a Jewish council in Budapest and severely restricted Jewish life. Jewish people such as Miriam and her mother would then be rounded up and snatched of their homes and lives that they once lived. They were forced to scatter for safety or they would be put into refugee camps. This meant that Jewish people were no long allowed to live freely; they would no longer be able to celebrate their culture that they once had no fear to show. Between April and July 1944, the Germans and Hungarians deported Jews from the Hungarian provinces.  The Hungarian authorities had put many Jews into homes that were scattered throughout the city and marked with the star of David, they were being victimized for their culture and their relgion which is seen within the graphic novel.

this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j-Vte6meqA    shows a visual aspect of how the culture and the environment had been ruined and taken by the Germans in the time of 1944