A new website, a database of Hungarian soldiers who died, were injured, or became prisoners of war during World War II, was unveiled Tuesday at the Military History Institute and Museum in Budapest.

The Military History Institute and Museum launched the “Memory of War Heroes” program in 2012 with the aim of creating a database containing the names and key dates of soldiers of Hungarian nationality who died heroic deaths, were injured, or became prisoners of war in the past two centuries.

According to the Military Historical Institute and Museum, the number of Hungarian soldiers who died a heroic death in World War II is between 120 and 140,000, and together with those who died in prisoner-of-war camps, it is more than 200,000. The number of wounded who could not fight anymore is estimated between 90-100,000, while the number of those soldiers unnacounted for is between 120-130,000. A total of 500-700,000 soldiers are estimated to have become prisoners of war.

The value and importance of the newly completed World War II database are that the more detailed circumstances of 241,087 of these long-known victims can now be known. This is also important because almost all Hungarian families were affected by the losses of the war, and the associated memories and stories are in many cases still to be processed.

The terms “fallen” and “wounded” refer specifically to what happened on the battlefields during a battle, while “killed” and “injured” refer to what occurred in connection with the war but not specifically in combat. The first four digits of the soldier’s 10-digit identification number indicate the district of birth, so the soldier’s place of birth can also be inferred.

Within the framework of the program, the database on the one and a half million soldiers of Hungarian nationality of the First World War was already presented in 2019. In October 2021, on the occasion of the 65th anniversary, the data of the deceased soldiers who died during the 1956 freedom struggle were also compiled in a database. Regarding the Second World War, the website katonakagulagon.hu was created in 2017, which contains the data of the 66,000 Hungarian soldiers who died in prisoner-of-war camps.

According to plans, the database of soldiers who died heroic deaths in the 1848/49 Revolution, the Hungarian People’s Army, as well as the Hungarian Armed Forces after 1991, will be created by the 175th anniversary of the Hungarian Home Guard in 2023.

István Ravasz, a historian of the Military History Institute and Museum, explained that they ask relatives and loved ones to update the data of the soldiers with their documents from that time.