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The Jewish Community of Beregsurány

A village in Szabolcs- Szatmár- Bereg county, northeast Hungary.

 

HISTORY

Between the end of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century Jewish immigration to this region intensified. It is likely that it was during this period that the first Jewish families settled in Beregsurány; in the first half of the 19th century there were already Jews living there. In 1840 the Jewish population of the village was 8. By the beginning of the 20th century due to the high birth rate and Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe this number had risen to 70.

The General Jewish Congress in Hungary was organized in 1868-69 in order to discuss the formation of an autonomous, united Jewish body that could organize the entire Hungarian Jewish community and act as its official representative. This initiative eventually failed, resulting in a split between the Neolog and Orthodox movements. Following the dispute in the General Jewish Congress in Hungary (1868-1869) between the Orthodox and the Neolog movements, the local Jews of Beregsurány affiliated with the Orthodox movement, which refused to accept the regulations adopted by the Congress.

The Jews of Beregsurány had a small prayer house and a kosher butcher, who also served additional small villages in the surrounding area.

 

THE HOLOCAUST

Due to the adoption of anti-Jewish laws in 1938 Jews were no longer allowed to work in intellectual professions, and they faced economic restrictions; their licenses to maintain inns and sell basic goods were confiscated. During this time, the Jews of the village were detained in one house for 10 days on suspicion of being traitors.

In 1941, all the Jews about whom there were doubts concerning their Hungarian citizenship were expelled. During this period the Jewish community of Beregsurány numbered 39 residents.

In April, a few weeks after the German occupation of Hungary (March 19, 1944), the jewelry and cash of the local Jews were confiscated. The following day the Jews of Beregsurány were taken to the brick factory Kont and Vály, which was located in Beregszász. The factory was already overcrowded with Jews who had been brought there from the city and from the surrounding area. On the 20th of May all of the Jews were deported to Auschwitz.

 

POSTWAR

After the war no Jews returned to Beregsurány.

In 1995 the Jewish cemetery was re-consecrated and a fence was built around it.  

 

Tiszaszalka

A village in the Bereg district, north east Hungary.

Already in the middle of the 18th century there was Jewish settlement in the place. Some of the residents were large estate owners, and the rest were landowners, farmers, merchants and tradesmen. In the village there were a synagogue, hevra kadisha, and additional charitable institutions including an old-aged home.

In World War I one Jew was killed in action.

During the period of the White Terror, pogroms against the Jews instigated by right wing military elements (1919-21), after the fall of the communist regime, Jewish homes were looted and the inhabitants terrorized. A few of the Jews were held in a detention camp.

In 1930 the community numbered 92.

In 1937 anti-Jewish acts were renewed with the murder of the shochet (ritual slaughterer). Although the murderers were known, no one was brought to trial.


The Holocaust Period

In 1938, attacks by groups of terrorists continued. They were meant to act across the Czechoslovakian border. Gangs of hoodlums robbed Jewish homes and terrorized the people. These acts continued to 1939 under the pretext of checking citizenship. Many Jews were arrested and sent to a concentration camp.

In 1941, 25 Jews were sent to do forced labor, work on fortifications and in services together with other Hungarian citizens whom the authorities would not permit to join the armed forces.

In April 1944, 70 Jews of the village were assembled in the synagogue yard, in the middle of the night, and from here sent at dawn to the Beregszasz ghetto. In May they were transported to Auschwitz.

After the war three men returned from Auschwitz. They did not renew communal life and by 1963 there were no Jews in Tiszaszalka.

Berehove/Berehovo

Yiddish: Beregsaz, Czech: Berehovo, Hungarian: Beregszasz, Russian: Beregovo

A city in Transcarpathia, western Ukraine, near the Hungarian border. A cultural center for ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine.

Timeline:

Until 1919: part of Hungary, called Beregszasz
1919-1938: part of Czechoslovakia, called Berehovo
End of 1938-1944: part of Hungary, called Beregszasz
After World War II: annexed to Soviet Union, called Beregovo
Post-Soviet era: part of Ukraine, called Berehove or Berehovo

For clarity, this article will refer to the city consistently as Berehove.

The Shalom Foundation of Beregszasz/Berehove was established in 2000 and works to protect and promote the cultural heritage of the Jewish people, to serve the city's current Jewish population, as well as to protect and preserve the cultural, religious, and historical monuments of the historical Jewish population. Many of the 21st-century plans to renovate and restore Jewish sites in the city are initiated by The Shalom Foundation

There is a small synagogue in the city that holds weekly services on the Sabbath, followed by a kiddush. The synagogue has no rabbi, and is sustained through donations. Local leaders have undertaken a project to renovate and restore the small synagogue. There are also plans to establish a Museum of Sub-Carpathian Jewry on the synagogue's second floor.

What was once the Grand Synagogue has been used as a cultural center in Berehove since the building was expropriated by the Soviet authorities in the 1960s. The building that once housed the mikvah was turned into a bank.

A project to renovate the Jewish cemetery was undertaken in 1991 and completed in 1996. As of 2016 there have been additional plans to establish a memorial for the victims of the Holocaust from Berehove.

HISTORY

The first Jews who settled in the city, then called Beregszasz, arrived during the 18th century, mainly from Poland. They lived on the estates of the nobles of the House of Schoenborn. In 1768, when Jews first arrived, there were four Jewish families living in Berehove; by 1830 there were 200 Jews living in the city. In 1795 the community had a prayer house, as well as a hevra kaddisha.

By 1838 the Jews living in Berehove had established an organized community. The first rabbi was Rabbi Yitzchok Rochlitz, a descendant of the Maharal of Prague; he served for 21 years until his death on June 10, 1859. From 1861 until 1881 Abraham Judah Leib HaKohen Schwartz was the community's rabbi. Rabbi Solomon Schreiber, the grandson of the Hatam Sofer, led the community from 1884 until 1930. From 1930 until 1944, when the community was liquidated by the Nazis, the rabbi was Abraham Solomon Hirsch, Rabbi Schreiber's son-in-law.

The community owned a piece of land in the center of the town and the community's major institutions were built there: the big synagogue, the beit midrash, the mikvah, the community's offices, and the elementary school. The homes of the community's employees were also located there, including the head of the beit din (religious court), the cantor, the beadle, and the ritual slaughterers. The area was also home to a matzah bakery, a poultry slaughterhouse, and butcher shops. Religious services and Torah lessons were held on weekdays at the various prayer houses located throughout the city; on Sabbaths and festivals they were also held in the homes of the rabbis who lived in Berehove. The hevra kaddisha, in addition to its regular work as a burial society, also founded a soup kitchen to provide hot meals for the needy, and established a hostel for poor visitors. Shalom Schwartz was the chairman of the hevra kaddisha for many years; he was succeeded by Saul Weiss. The women's society organized weekly visits to Jewish patients at the local hospitals and provided them with kosher food. They were assisted by a youth group for girls.

The city had a Jewish elementary school as well as a Talmud Torah. These were in addition to a number of small yeshivas and the Yeshiva Bnei Asher under Rabbi Asher Steinmetz, which enrolled approximately 100 students from the area. During the 1930s an elementary Hebrew school was also founded. Because the community denied the school access to regular classrooms, it operated out of rented private rooms. Only in its final years did the community submit to public pressure and grant the school necessary recognition.

The majority of Jews in the city spoke Hungarian, while many also spoke Yiddish and German.

Following the emancipation of 1867 the Jews of Berehove began to prosper economically. A number of Jews worked as vintners. Among the businesses established by local Jews were a workshop for embroideries, a workshop for footwear, three brick kilns, two barrel factories, three flour mills, a quarry, and a sawmill. They owned inns and most of the shops in the bazaars. Jews were the managers of four out of the six banks of Berehove, and they also held high public posts. Others worked as artisans or farmers. There were also Jewish professionals who worked as engineers, lawyers, pharmacists, and physicians; in 1940 all 25 of the city's private physicians were Jewish. There were also Jewish movers and day laborers.

Among the presidents of the community, from the beginning of the 20th century, were Dr. Shimon Reismann, Schandor Vari, Lajos Herschkowitz, Fischl Hartmann, Albert Fodor, Jacob Marmelstein, and Dr. Bela Szekely. Mor Greenboim was a senior secretary of the community.

In 1914 there were 4,800 Jews living in Berehove. Forty-six men from the community who had enlisted in the army were killed in action during World War I. After the war, the number of Jews in Berehove rose considerably and Jews took an active part in the social and cultural activities of the city. In fact, the president of the local society for the promotion of art and literature was Jewish, and

Zionism arrived in the city relatively late, but it quickly became popular. In 1928 a convention of HaShomer Kadimah was held in Berehove. Two years later most of the local youth participated in the Betar movement, as well as in HaShomer HaTzair, Bnei Akiva, HaPoel HaMizrachi, and HeHalutz. Revisionist Zionists, as well as general Zionists, were active, as was the women's Zionist organization WIZO. In 1937 there were 104 Jews from Berehove who took part in the elections for the 20th Zionist Congress.

In addition to the Zionist movements, there were other organizations that were active in the city. These included Agudas Yisroel, communist organizations, as well as Zionist sports organizations such as HaKoach, HaNoar, and Maccabi. Most of the tennis players in the city were Jewish, and in 1934 HaKoach's football team won the local championship.

The organized community was Orthodox, but also relatively modern. At the beginning of the 1930s a controversy arose regarding the appointment of Rabbi Hirsch, resulting in a split in the community. Because state laws forbade two communities of the same denomination in one town, the dissenters were compelled to establish a Neolog community, in spite of the fact that most of them were actually followers of the Chassidic movement. This misnamed community formed its own institutions including a mikvah, a slaughterhouse, and butcher shops. Rabbi Asher Steinmetz was appointed as the new community's rabbi and Shmuel Schoenfeld and David Weiss were elected as its leaders. Haim Isaac Altmann served as the secretary and when he emigrated to Eretz Yisrael his son Moshe Altmann replaced him.

In 1938 there were about 6,500 Jews living in Berehove.

THE HOLOCAUST

About a year before World War II broke out, following the First Vienna Arbitration (and the subsequent First Vienna Award treaty) of 1938, the region encompassing Berehove returned to Hungarian control. The relationship between the Jews and their neighbors soon deteriorated. Anti-Semitism and harassment increased. Trade permits were withdrawn from Jewish businessmen and men were forcibly drafted into labor battalions. During this period many Zionist leaders left the city for Mandate Palestine.

After the outbreak of World War II (September 1, 1939), the Hungarians expelled many Jews who could not prove their Hungarian citizenship to Nazi-occupied Poland. Local branches of two Jewish institutions based in Budapest were active in Berehove during this time. The first was Omzsa, which collected funds, and the other was Parteogo Iroda, whose function was to assist Jews in obtaining citizenship documents, to extend legal aid, to represent Jews at government offices, and to help the needy. These institutions were aided by Dr. Sandor Kroo and Feri Weiss and the secretary was Bela Gross.

In 1941 about 500 Jews were expelled from Berehove to the USSR. At the end of 1942 all of the men in the community were forcibly mobilized and sent to the Ukrainian front (Hungary at that point was an ally of Germany) where they were treated badly by the Hungarian troops accompanying them. At the front, the men were sent in to clear minefiends. Those who survived were marched along the River Don at the beginning of 1943 and died in the frost and snow. The Berehove men also served in the Czechoslovak forces of General Ludvik Svoboda, who fought against the Germans outside of the Republic.

On March 19, 1944 the Germans occupied Hungary; they entered Berehove on March 31. At that time the community consisted almost entirely of old men, women, and children; most of the young men had either fled or had been taken for forced labor in the Hungarian army. The following day the Germans appointed a Judenrat, whose task was to carry out the German orders against the Jews. A curfew was imposed on the Jews of the city, their telephone lines were cut, and their radio sets and vehicles were confiscated. On Saturday, the 8th day of Passover 1944, a ghetto was set up at the brick factory of Vari; 12,000 Jews from Berehove and the surrounding area were transferred there. In the ghetto there was insufficient water, and the sanitary conditions were poor. All of the inmates were sent to the concentration camp Auschwitz after a series of aktions on May 15th, 17th, and 19th, 1944. About 80% of the Jews of Berehove perished in the Holocaust.

POSTWAR

After the war, survivors attempted to restore the community. However, they met with a hostile reception from the city's inhabitants, prompting most to emigrate to other countries.

During the 1960s the Soviet authorities seized the Grand Synagogue and built a "shell" around the original building; though the original exterior was not destroyed, the Soviets built around it so that it cannot be seen. The interior was converted into a cultural center.

There were about 300 Jewish families left in Berehove in 1970. In the 1980s there were only a few dozen Jews living in Berehove.
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The Jewish Community of Beregsurány

A village in Szabolcs- Szatmár- Bereg county, northeast Hungary.

 

HISTORY

Between the end of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century Jewish immigration to this region intensified. It is likely that it was during this period that the first Jewish families settled in Beregsurány; in the first half of the 19th century there were already Jews living there. In 1840 the Jewish population of the village was 8. By the beginning of the 20th century due to the high birth rate and Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe this number had risen to 70.

The General Jewish Congress in Hungary was organized in 1868-69 in order to discuss the formation of an autonomous, united Jewish body that could organize the entire Hungarian Jewish community and act as its official representative. This initiative eventually failed, resulting in a split between the Neolog and Orthodox movements. Following the dispute in the General Jewish Congress in Hungary (1868-1869) between the Orthodox and the Neolog movements, the local Jews of Beregsurány affiliated with the Orthodox movement, which refused to accept the regulations adopted by the Congress.

The Jews of Beregsurány had a small prayer house and a kosher butcher, who also served additional small villages in the surrounding area.

 

THE HOLOCAUST

Due to the adoption of anti-Jewish laws in 1938 Jews were no longer allowed to work in intellectual professions, and they faced economic restrictions; their licenses to maintain inns and sell basic goods were confiscated. During this time, the Jews of the village were detained in one house for 10 days on suspicion of being traitors.

In 1941, all the Jews about whom there were doubts concerning their Hungarian citizenship were expelled. During this period the Jewish community of Beregsurány numbered 39 residents.

In April, a few weeks after the German occupation of Hungary (March 19, 1944), the jewelry and cash of the local Jews were confiscated. The following day the Jews of Beregsurány were taken to the brick factory Kont and Vály, which was located in Beregszász. The factory was already overcrowded with Jews who had been brought there from the city and from the surrounding area. On the 20th of May all of the Jews were deported to Auschwitz.

 

POSTWAR

After the war no Jews returned to Beregsurány.

In 1995 the Jewish cemetery was re-consecrated and a fence was built around it.  

 

Written by researchers of ANU Museum of the Jewish People

Tiszaszalka

Tiszaszalka

A village in the Bereg district, north east Hungary.

Already in the middle of the 18th century there was Jewish settlement in the place. Some of the residents were large estate owners, and the rest were landowners, farmers, merchants and tradesmen. In the village there were a synagogue, hevra kadisha, and additional charitable institutions including an old-aged home.

In World War I one Jew was killed in action.

During the period of the White Terror, pogroms against the Jews instigated by right wing military elements (1919-21), after the fall of the communist regime, Jewish homes were looted and the inhabitants terrorized. A few of the Jews were held in a detention camp.

In 1930 the community numbered 92.

In 1937 anti-Jewish acts were renewed with the murder of the shochet (ritual slaughterer). Although the murderers were known, no one was brought to trial.


The Holocaust Period

In 1938, attacks by groups of terrorists continued. They were meant to act across the Czechoslovakian border. Gangs of hoodlums robbed Jewish homes and terrorized the people. These acts continued to 1939 under the pretext of checking citizenship. Many Jews were arrested and sent to a concentration camp.

In 1941, 25 Jews were sent to do forced labor, work on fortifications and in services together with other Hungarian citizens whom the authorities would not permit to join the armed forces.

In April 1944, 70 Jews of the village were assembled in the synagogue yard, in the middle of the night, and from here sent at dawn to the Beregszasz ghetto. In May they were transported to Auschwitz.

After the war three men returned from Auschwitz. They did not renew communal life and by 1963 there were no Jews in Tiszaszalka.

Berehove/Berehovo/Beregszasz
Berehove/Berehovo

Yiddish: Beregsaz, Czech: Berehovo, Hungarian: Beregszasz, Russian: Beregovo

A city in Transcarpathia, western Ukraine, near the Hungarian border. A cultural center for ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine.

Timeline:

Until 1919: part of Hungary, called Beregszasz
1919-1938: part of Czechoslovakia, called Berehovo
End of 1938-1944: part of Hungary, called Beregszasz
After World War II: annexed to Soviet Union, called Beregovo
Post-Soviet era: part of Ukraine, called Berehove or Berehovo

For clarity, this article will refer to the city consistently as Berehove.

The Shalom Foundation of Beregszasz/Berehove was established in 2000 and works to protect and promote the cultural heritage of the Jewish people, to serve the city's current Jewish population, as well as to protect and preserve the cultural, religious, and historical monuments of the historical Jewish population. Many of the 21st-century plans to renovate and restore Jewish sites in the city are initiated by The Shalom Foundation

There is a small synagogue in the city that holds weekly services on the Sabbath, followed by a kiddush. The synagogue has no rabbi, and is sustained through donations. Local leaders have undertaken a project to renovate and restore the small synagogue. There are also plans to establish a Museum of Sub-Carpathian Jewry on the synagogue's second floor.

What was once the Grand Synagogue has been used as a cultural center in Berehove since the building was expropriated by the Soviet authorities in the 1960s. The building that once housed the mikvah was turned into a bank.

A project to renovate the Jewish cemetery was undertaken in 1991 and completed in 1996. As of 2016 there have been additional plans to establish a memorial for the victims of the Holocaust from Berehove.

HISTORY

The first Jews who settled in the city, then called Beregszasz, arrived during the 18th century, mainly from Poland. They lived on the estates of the nobles of the House of Schoenborn. In 1768, when Jews first arrived, there were four Jewish families living in Berehove; by 1830 there were 200 Jews living in the city. In 1795 the community had a prayer house, as well as a hevra kaddisha.

By 1838 the Jews living in Berehove had established an organized community. The first rabbi was Rabbi Yitzchok Rochlitz, a descendant of the Maharal of Prague; he served for 21 years until his death on June 10, 1859. From 1861 until 1881 Abraham Judah Leib HaKohen Schwartz was the community's rabbi. Rabbi Solomon Schreiber, the grandson of the Hatam Sofer, led the community from 1884 until 1930. From 1930 until 1944, when the community was liquidated by the Nazis, the rabbi was Abraham Solomon Hirsch, Rabbi Schreiber's son-in-law.

The community owned a piece of land in the center of the town and the community's major institutions were built there: the big synagogue, the beit midrash, the mikvah, the community's offices, and the elementary school. The homes of the community's employees were also located there, including the head of the beit din (religious court), the cantor, the beadle, and the ritual slaughterers. The area was also home to a matzah bakery, a poultry slaughterhouse, and butcher shops. Religious services and Torah lessons were held on weekdays at the various prayer houses located throughout the city; on Sabbaths and festivals they were also held in the homes of the rabbis who lived in Berehove. The hevra kaddisha, in addition to its regular work as a burial society, also founded a soup kitchen to provide hot meals for the needy, and established a hostel for poor visitors. Shalom Schwartz was the chairman of the hevra kaddisha for many years; he was succeeded by Saul Weiss. The women's society organized weekly visits to Jewish patients at the local hospitals and provided them with kosher food. They were assisted by a youth group for girls.

The city had a Jewish elementary school as well as a Talmud Torah. These were in addition to a number of small yeshivas and the Yeshiva Bnei Asher under Rabbi Asher Steinmetz, which enrolled approximately 100 students from the area. During the 1930s an elementary Hebrew school was also founded. Because the community denied the school access to regular classrooms, it operated out of rented private rooms. Only in its final years did the community submit to public pressure and grant the school necessary recognition.

The majority of Jews in the city spoke Hungarian, while many also spoke Yiddish and German.

Following the emancipation of 1867 the Jews of Berehove began to prosper economically. A number of Jews worked as vintners. Among the businesses established by local Jews were a workshop for embroideries, a workshop for footwear, three brick kilns, two barrel factories, three flour mills, a quarry, and a sawmill. They owned inns and most of the shops in the bazaars. Jews were the managers of four out of the six banks of Berehove, and they also held high public posts. Others worked as artisans or farmers. There were also Jewish professionals who worked as engineers, lawyers, pharmacists, and physicians; in 1940 all 25 of the city's private physicians were Jewish. There were also Jewish movers and day laborers.

Among the presidents of the community, from the beginning of the 20th century, were Dr. Shimon Reismann, Schandor Vari, Lajos Herschkowitz, Fischl Hartmann, Albert Fodor, Jacob Marmelstein, and Dr. Bela Szekely. Mor Greenboim was a senior secretary of the community.

In 1914 there were 4,800 Jews living in Berehove. Forty-six men from the community who had enlisted in the army were killed in action during World War I. After the war, the number of Jews in Berehove rose considerably and Jews took an active part in the social and cultural activities of the city. In fact, the president of the local society for the promotion of art and literature was Jewish, and

Zionism arrived in the city relatively late, but it quickly became popular. In 1928 a convention of HaShomer Kadimah was held in Berehove. Two years later most of the local youth participated in the Betar movement, as well as in HaShomer HaTzair, Bnei Akiva, HaPoel HaMizrachi, and HeHalutz. Revisionist Zionists, as well as general Zionists, were active, as was the women's Zionist organization WIZO. In 1937 there were 104 Jews from Berehove who took part in the elections for the 20th Zionist Congress.

In addition to the Zionist movements, there were other organizations that were active in the city. These included Agudas Yisroel, communist organizations, as well as Zionist sports organizations such as HaKoach, HaNoar, and Maccabi. Most of the tennis players in the city were Jewish, and in 1934 HaKoach's football team won the local championship.

The organized community was Orthodox, but also relatively modern. At the beginning of the 1930s a controversy arose regarding the appointment of Rabbi Hirsch, resulting in a split in the community. Because state laws forbade two communities of the same denomination in one town, the dissenters were compelled to establish a Neolog community, in spite of the fact that most of them were actually followers of the Chassidic movement. This misnamed community formed its own institutions including a mikvah, a slaughterhouse, and butcher shops. Rabbi Asher Steinmetz was appointed as the new community's rabbi and Shmuel Schoenfeld and David Weiss were elected as its leaders. Haim Isaac Altmann served as the secretary and when he emigrated to Eretz Yisrael his son Moshe Altmann replaced him.

In 1938 there were about 6,500 Jews living in Berehove.

THE HOLOCAUST

About a year before World War II broke out, following the First Vienna Arbitration (and the subsequent First Vienna Award treaty) of 1938, the region encompassing Berehove returned to Hungarian control. The relationship between the Jews and their neighbors soon deteriorated. Anti-Semitism and harassment increased. Trade permits were withdrawn from Jewish businessmen and men were forcibly drafted into labor battalions. During this period many Zionist leaders left the city for Mandate Palestine.

After the outbreak of World War II (September 1, 1939), the Hungarians expelled many Jews who could not prove their Hungarian citizenship to Nazi-occupied Poland. Local branches of two Jewish institutions based in Budapest were active in Berehove during this time. The first was Omzsa, which collected funds, and the other was Parteogo Iroda, whose function was to assist Jews in obtaining citizenship documents, to extend legal aid, to represent Jews at government offices, and to help the needy. These institutions were aided by Dr. Sandor Kroo and Feri Weiss and the secretary was Bela Gross.

In 1941 about 500 Jews were expelled from Berehove to the USSR. At the end of 1942 all of the men in the community were forcibly mobilized and sent to the Ukrainian front (Hungary at that point was an ally of Germany) where they were treated badly by the Hungarian troops accompanying them. At the front, the men were sent in to clear minefiends. Those who survived were marched along the River Don at the beginning of 1943 and died in the frost and snow. The Berehove men also served in the Czechoslovak forces of General Ludvik Svoboda, who fought against the Germans outside of the Republic.

On March 19, 1944 the Germans occupied Hungary; they entered Berehove on March 31. At that time the community consisted almost entirely of old men, women, and children; most of the young men had either fled or had been taken for forced labor in the Hungarian army. The following day the Germans appointed a Judenrat, whose task was to carry out the German orders against the Jews. A curfew was imposed on the Jews of the city, their telephone lines were cut, and their radio sets and vehicles were confiscated. On Saturday, the 8th day of Passover 1944, a ghetto was set up at the brick factory of Vari; 12,000 Jews from Berehove and the surrounding area were transferred there. In the ghetto there was insufficient water, and the sanitary conditions were poor. All of the inmates were sent to the concentration camp Auschwitz after a series of aktions on May 15th, 17th, and 19th, 1944. About 80% of the Jews of Berehove perished in the Holocaust.

POSTWAR

After the war, survivors attempted to restore the community. However, they met with a hostile reception from the city's inhabitants, prompting most to emigrate to other countries.

During the 1960s the Soviet authorities seized the Grand Synagogue and built a "shell" around the original building; though the original exterior was not destroyed, the Soviets built around it so that it cannot be seen. The interior was converted into a cultural center.

There were about 300 Jewish families left in Berehove in 1970. In the 1980s there were only a few dozen Jews living in Berehove.