Self-Financing Genocide: The Gold Train, the Becher Case and the Wealth of Hungarian Jews

Discusses the process of the economic annihilation of the Jews in Hungary, who- from the economic point of view - were more influential than any other Jewish community in Europe.

Following the German occupation in March 1944 the collaborating Hungarian government attempted to assert its claim concerning the complete confiscation of Jewish assets at all stages of the road leading to the extermination camps.

The cooperation with the Germans proved to be the most problematic in this area.

The story of the Jewish Gold Train is a relatively small but all the more emblematic chapter of the economic annihilation.

The circumstances of the freight's assembling, the German-Hungarian conflicts concerning the train, the looting attempts, the fate of the assets seized by the Allies (double victimization of the survivors) provide the reader with an insight into the history of the repeated looting of the Hungarian Jewry.