Government attempts to categorise Jewry as an ‘ethnic group’ in Hungary (1938–1939)

Abstract In the period from 1938 to 1944, the Hungarian Parliament passed 21 anti-Jewish laws, simultaneously abolishing the principle of equal rights for all citizens, through which the Jewish population of the country, or those who were legally classified as Jews, were gradually excluded from the most diverse areas of economic, social, cultural and public life. At the same time, the draft version of Act IV of 1939, also known as the ‘Second Jewish Law’, sought to change the public status of Jewish people in order to achieve dissimilation. The bill sought to change the status of the Jews of Hungary from that of a religious denomination, which they had traditionally been, to an ethnic group (népcsoport) – an ethnic minority – simultaneously proposing separate parliamentary representation for them. These proposals were later omitted from the final text adopted by Parliament. This study aims to show: 1) why the legislator wanted to declare the Jews of Hungary an ethnic group; 2) how the legislator envisioned the representation of the Jews in parliament and local government; 3) how these ideas changed from the original proposal; and 4) the reaction the government's intention to declare the Jews an ethnic group provoked within the Jewish community.