Within a few weeks of the fascist Arrow Cross gaining control of the Hungarian government, on October 15, 1944, thousands of Jews were taken from the ghetto to forced labor camps, or massacred on the banks of the Danube. Tens of thousands of Jewish children were orphaned or left without their parents. The underground Zionist Youth Resistance Movement took upon itself to rescue these children, and established 55 homes, with a staff of around 1,000 young men and women. Around 5,000 children were housed, fed, clothed, kept warm in the harsh Hungarian winter, and even educated in these houses, under the protection of the Swiss Legation, until and even after their liberation by the Red Army, on January 18, 1945. The youth groups then promoted the Aliyah of these children to Eretz Israel.
