Persecution and deportation of the Jews of Čakovec

Čakovec, the county seat of Međimurje, that triangle of land between the Drava and the Mura, met a different fate from the rest of Croatia: the province was annexed by Hungary and not incorporated into the Ustasha state. Its Jewish community, large and long-established, thus fell under the racial laws of Budapest — exclusion from professions, revocation of licenses, requisition of men for labor companies sent to the front. It survived in this way for three years, dispossessed but in place. The German occupation of Hungary put an end to this reprieve: in the spring, the families were confined in a ghetto, then transferred to the province's assembly centers and loaded onto convoys bound for the East.