At the behest of Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and in coordination with forensic experts from the Israeli emergency organization ZAKA, an Israeli recovery team will dive to the bottom of Hungary’s Danube river to search for the remains of Holocaust victims.
Hungarian Interior Minister Sandor Pinter agreed to allow the provision of special equipment in order to search for remains in the hopes of finding some of the thousands of Jews who were murdered on the banks of the Danube and providing them a proper burial.
Divers will use sonar devices with a range of 500 feet to identify objects below the water.
Approximately 565,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, primarily at the Auschwitz death camp in Poland between May and July 1944.
However, in October 1944, thousands of Budapest Jews were murdered along the large river when the Arrow Cross party took power in Hungary.
“I hope that immediately, tomorrow, the righteous men of ZAKA will bestow mercy on these highest of martyrs and bring them to Jewish burial,” Deri said in a video posted to Twitter.
