x
On August 30, 1940, Romania was forced to transfer Northern Transylvania to Hungary, as a reward for siding with Germany. In June 1941, Romania joined the Third Reich in the war against the Soviet Union. During the war, individual Jews' fates in Romania and Transylvania critically depended on the region in which they lived at the beginning of the war.
Before the partition of the territory, the Jewish population of Transylvania was about 200,000. Of these about 165,000 lived in the territories ceded to Hungary. The historical and cultural heritage that tied the Jews to Hungary and the socioeconomic and political realities that tied them to Romania were the source of many conflicts during the interwar period. It is one of the ironies and tragedies of history that after the division of Transylvania, the Jews fared far worse in the part allotted to Hungary, the country with which they maintained many cultural and emotional ties, than in the one left with Romania, the state identified with many anti-Semitic excesses in the course of history.
The socio economic structure of Transylvanian Jewry was similar to that of the Jews in the neighboring provinces. Many were engaged in business or trade, and their percentage in the professions were high. However, there was a large proportion of poor Jews who lived in the densely populated Jewish centers of the northwest.
The newly established Hungarian authorities started immediately to implement the anti-Jewish laws and policies that had already been in effect in Hungary proper. These discriminatory measures affected the Jews in their economic and educational pursuits. However, the most difficult was the forced labor service.
The forced labor service system was introduced in Hungary in 1939. During the first two years of its operation, the Jewish recruits of military age, though subjected to many discriminatory measures, fared relatively well. In 1941, the forced labor system acquired a punitive character. Jews were compelled to serve in their own civilian clothes, were supplied with an insignia free military cap, instead of arms they were equipped with shovels and pickaxes, and were required to wear a yellow armband.
After Hungary joined the Third Reich in the war against the Soviet Union, on June 27, 1941, the labor service system was also used as a means to "solve" the Jewish question. Many of the Jews were called up on an individual basis, rather than by age group. By this practice, the military governmental authorities, called up the rich, the prominent professionals, community leaders and those that have been denounced by the local Christians as "offensive" elements. Many of those were unfit for labor, and perished in the Ukraine, Serbia and other places.
In the summer of 1941, the Jews of Northern Transylvania also suffered following the campaign of the Hungarian authorities against "alien" Jews. Particularly hit were the communities in Maramureş and Satu Mare counties, where an indeterminate number of Jews were rounded up as "aliens". They were among the approximately 18,000 Jews who were deported from all over Hungary to near Kamenets Podolsk, were most were murdered in late August 1941.
Despite the many casualties and discriminatory measures, the bulk of the Jews of Northern Transylvania, like those of Hungary as a whole, lived in relative physical safety until the German occupation on March 19, 1944. All this changes following the German occupation of Hungary, and the fate of the Jews from Northern Transylvania, most of whom lived in the areas of Dej, Cluj, Sighetu Marmaței, Târgu Mureş, Oradea, and Satu Mare was similar to the fate of Hungarian Jews.
Due to the worsening military situation, as the Red Army was approaching the borders of Romania, the Nazis and their Hungarian accomplices decided to implement the Final Solution of the Jewish question in Hungary at lightning speed. The details of the plan were worked out on April 4, 1944, at a joint German Hungarian meeting held in the Ministry of Interior. The details regarding to the ghettoization of the Jews in Northern Transylvania were finalized at two conferences chaired by László Endreon April 6 and April 8 ,1944. Following several decrees of the Hungarian government and high-level consultations at a meeting on April 26,1944 with László Endre in Satu Mare, the deportation of the Jews was decided.
On May 3, 1944, the ghettoization of the close to 165165,000 Jews of began. The operation, was organized by mayoral commissions including gendarmes, policemen and teachers, and was directed by a field dejewification unit under the guidance of representatives of the Adolf Eichmann Sonderkommando.
The Jews in the villages and smaller towns were gathered in the local synagogues, and community buildings, and after a few days they were moved to the ghettoes in the larger towns. At each stage they were subjected to an expropriation process that assumed an increasingly barbaric character. Each ghetto had its own Judenrat, which carried out the instructions given to them by the main Jewish Council or by the Hungarian or German authorities. Each ghetto also had a building, nicknamed "mint" where Jews were tortured in order to reveal where their valuables were hidden.
The ghettoization of the Jews of Northern Transylvania was carried out smoothly, took only ten days, and there was hardly any resistance on the part of either Jews or Christians. Some did not realize what was going to happen them, others thought they were being sent away to work, and others hoped the Allies will soon win the war.
The Cluj Ghetto, one of the largest in Northern Transylvania, was initiated on May 3,1944,included about 18,000 Jews, and was liquidated in six transports to Auschwitz, between May 25 and June 9.On May 3, the authorities of Dej launched the actionof ghettoization. Most of the Jews in Someş County were concentrated in the Bungăr forest, about two kilometers from Dej. About 3,700 Jews from Dej and 4,100 Jews from other localities in the area were imprisoned there. The Dej ghetto was liquidated in six transports to Auschwitz, between May 28 and June 8,1944. Other ghettoes were set up during this period in Şimleu Silvanei, and the Jews of Salaj County were concentrated in the Klein Brickyard in Cehei, in a marshy and muddy area about three miles from Şimleu Silvanei.
Due to the large concentration of Jews in Satu Mare County, the authorities set up two ghettoes: one in the city of Satu Mare and the other in Baia Mare. The ghetto of Satu Mare that held about 18,000 Jews was liquidated in six transports between May 19 and June 1. The ghetto of Baia Mare that held approximately 3,500 Jews, and that of Valea Borcutului that held over 2,000 were liquidated in two transports on May 31 and June 5. The 6,000 Jews of Bistrița and other communities in the Bistrița-Năsăud County that were concentrated at Stamboli farm, were deported on June 2 and 6.
The Oradea ghetto, was the largest in Northern Transylvania and included about 35,000 Jews. In fact Oradea had two ghettoes: one for the city's Jews, holding about 27,000 people, and the other for about 8,000 Jews brought from the rural communities. The first transport for Auschwitz departed on May 23, with the Jews from the rural communities, followed on May 28 with the first transport from the city itself. The last transport left Oradea on June 27.
The Jews of the so-called Szeklers County, which included Mureş, Turda, Odorhei, and Trei Scaune counties were placed in three ghettoes: Târgu-Mureş, Reghin and Sfântu Gheorghe. The Târgu Mureş ghetto included 7,380 Jews, of whom about 5,500 were from the city, and others from the rural communities. The first transport for Auschwitz departed on May 27, and by June 8, the third and last transport departed.
The ghetto of Reghin was established in a brickyard, and held 4,000 people, of whom about 1,400 from the town itself. The total population of the ghetto of Sfântu Gheorghe was 850. The conditions in the ghetto of Sfântu Gheorghe were harsh, and a week later the Jews of the ghetto were transferred to the ghetto of Reghin.
Although geographically Maramureş County was part of Northern Transylvania, for dejuification purposes it was considered part of Subcarpathian Rus (administrative region in present-day Ukraine) and Northeastern Hungary. Given that it contained one of the largest concentrations of Orthodox and Hassidic Jews in Hungary, the German and Hungarian officials were particularly anxious to clear this area of Jews.
The details of the anti Jewish measures enacted in Maramureş County, as in Subcarpathian Rus as a whole, were adopted at the conference held in Munkacs on April 12, 1944. The ghetto of Sighetu Marmației was established in two peripheral sections of the city, populated by poor Jews, and held 12,000 Jews of whom about 10,000 came from the city itself. The others were brought from many villages with a majority Romanian population located within the districts of Dragomireşti, Maramureş, Ocna Şugatag, Ökörmezö (today in Ukraine), Rahó (today in Ukraine), Técsö (today in Ukraine) and Vișeu de Sus. The ghetto of Sighetu Marmației was among the first to be liquidated after the beginning of the mass deportations on May, 15, 1944. It was liquidated in four transports that were dispatched from the city between May 16 and May 22.
There were two other ghettoes in Maramureş County. The one in Okormezo, in which 3,052 Jews were concentrated was liquidated on May 17. A much larger ghetto was established in Viseu de Sus with a total of 12,079 people Viseu de Sus and Viseu de Jos, that were deported in four transports between May 19 and May 25, 1944.
Unlike what happened in Poland, the Jews in Hungary, did not stay long in the ghettoes. The schedule of the deportations was in accord with the instructions of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) as worked out by the Eichmann-Sonderkommando, which called for the dejewification of Hungary from east to west. Accordingly, theJews of Northern Transylvania and those of Subcarpathian Rus and Northeastern Hungary were to be deported first, between May 15 and June 11. Thus from May 16 to June 27, 131,641 Jews from Northern Transylvania were deported to Auschwitz.
Only the Jews working in labor units and a few exemptions were left behind. The deportation to the Nazi death camps was done with freight wagons, in three stages, and were facilitated by local military and civilians. Most of the deported Jews were exterminated in the Auschwitz–Birkenau camp, with just over 800 people surviving.
Unlike in Northern Transylvania, in Southern Transylvania and in the Regat, although Jews experienced multiple deprivations, persecution, and forced labor, the Final Solution was not implemented. The Paris Peace treaty at the end of World War II rendered the Vienna Awards void: Northern Transylvania returned to Romania, but Bessarabia, northern Bucovina and southern Dobruja were not recovered. Antonescu and several other officials of the wartime regime were tried after the war. Antonescu was convicted and executed in 1946. However most Romanian war criminals were never brought to justice.
Moshe Carmilly-Weinberger, Toldot yehude Transilvanyah: 1623–1944 , Jerusalem, 2003
Paul Cernovodeanu, ed., Toldot ha-Yehudim be-Romanyah, vol. 1 ,Tel Aviv, 1996
Randolf L. Braham, Genocide and Restriction. The Holocaust in Hungarian -Ruled Northern Transylvania, Boston, Kluwer -Nijhoff, 1983
Randolf L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide, The Holocaust in Hungary,2nd ed. New York, Colombia University Press, 1994, 125-130, 151-160
