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WWII On This Day: March 19

What happened on March 19 during World War II? This date brings together 1 event from 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1944
Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence.
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Germany occupies Hungary

German forces occupied Hungary on 19 March 1944 after the government of Regent Miklós Horthy sought greater room to manoeuvre as the Axis military position deteriorated. Adolf Eichmann arrived with a small SS deportation staff. Hungary contained the largest remaining Jewish population under an Axis government. German SS officials and Hungarian authorities rapidly imposed ghettos and collection zones in the provinces, preparing a deportation programme that began less than two months after the occupation.

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