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The Mikve (Ritual Bath). Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, 1985
The Mikve (Ritual Bath). Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, 1985

The Jewish Community of Nyiregyhaza

Nyiregyhaza

Yiddish: Niredhaz

A city in northeastern Hungary

Nyiregyhaza is the capital of the county of Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg.

A memorial for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust from Nyiregyhaza was erected in 2004, where the ghetto once stood.

The Jewish cemetery of Nyiregyhaza includes over 2,200 tombstones and is a protected national monument.

HISTORY

Jews first began living in Nyiregyhaza in 1840, when Jews throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire were granted the freedom of settlement. Most worked as merchants and artisans, while a few were members of the professional class.

In 1868, following the controversies that broke out at the Hungarian Jewish Congress between the Orthodox and more modern factions, Nyiregyhaza’s Jewish community chose to remain neutral, and affiliated with neither the Orthodox nor the Neolog movement; in 1877 the community subsequently aligned itself with the Status Quo communities. As a result, the community’s Orthodox members broke away and established their own Orthodox community. Nonetheless, the two communities enjoyed friendly relations, and shared community institutions, including a chevra kaddisha and welfare organizations.

The Tiszaeszlar Blood Libel of 1882 was tried in Nyiregyhaza. The trial lasted from June 17 until August 3, 1883, during which period both the Jews of Nyiregyhaza and their coreligionists throughout Hungary had to deal with rising anti-Semitism.

The community developed rapidly between the two World Wars, with many Jews coming to live in Nyiregyhaza from other areas in the region. The Jewish population jumped from 3,008 in 1900 to 5,066 in 1920 and 5,134 in 1936.

THE HOLOCAUST

A number of anti-Jewish laws were passed in Hungary beginning in 1938, that limited Jewish involvement in the country’s social, economic, and political life. In 1941 Jews throughout the country who could not prove their Hungarian citizenship were expelled to Kamenec-Podolsk where they were shot by the SS. A year later many young Jews were conscripted for forced labor to assist the Hungarian-German war effort; most of Nyiregyhaza’s Holocaust survivors were those who had been drafted for this forced labor.

The Germans occupied Hungary in March of 1944. That May, the Jews of Nyiregyhaza were confined to a ghetto together with Jews from nearby towns and villages. About 11,000 people occupied 123 buildings, and the overcrowding contributed to the suffering caused by a lack of food. Things were so bad that in the wake of a report sent by the Jewish Council to the local SS Commander detailing the deteriorating conditions within the ghetto, the Jews were sent to three neighboring ghettos.

The Jews of Nyiregyhaza were deported to Auschwitz in May 1944. A few days later the synagogue was destroyed.

POSTWAR

After the war a few hundred survivors returned and worked to revive the Jewish community. The survivors opened a yeshiva, and returned to maintaining separate Orthodox and Status Quo communities.

After the anti-Soviet revolution of 1956, however, most of Nyiregyhaza’s Jews emigrated. In 1946 there were 1,210m Jews living in Nyiregyhaza. By 1970 that number had dropped to 180.

The Mikve (Ritual Bath),
Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, 1985
This nearly 70 years old Mikve was in use until the Jews
of Nyiregyhaza were deported to Auschwitz in June 1944
Photo: Yale Strom, USA
(The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot,
courtesy of Yale Strom, USA(

Miksa Szabolsci (Weinstein) (1857-1915), author and editor born in Tura, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire). He was educated at several yeshivot and he attended also the National Rabbinical Seminary, but following his inclination he became a journalist in 1878.

From 1881 he collaborated on a daily newspaper published in Debrecen. In the Tiszaeszlar blood accusation (1882) he spent much time in successfully investigating the circumstances under which the alleged victim had disappeared, and wrote numerous articles for the "Pester Lloyd" and other newspapers denouncing machinations and illegal pressures in the affair. As a result of his informative work, he was ordered by the country’s legal authorities to leave Nyiregyhaza, the scene of the trial, and the anti-Semitic investigators made an attempt upon his life. Nevertheless, Szabolcsi's reports of the trial appeared in the "Pester Lloyd" and "Neue Freier Presse", and were reprinted by many of the leading European newspapers.

After editing the "Pester Juedische Zeitung" for two years, Szabolcsi became editor of the Hungarian weekly newspaper "Egyenloseg" in 1886. In 1889, together with Vilmos Vazsonyi, he started a movement for the recognition of the Jewish faith by the Hungarian state; his agitation, which at the outset met with opposition by official Jewish leaders, resulted in the enactment of a law to that effect in 1895. This important achievement made "Egyenloseg" the dominant Jewish newspaper in Hungary. In its columns Szabolcsi successfully fought other attempts at blood accusations, and caused the dismissal from his post of Bela Makay, a biased official in charge of Jewish religious affairs in the ministry of education (1911).

Szabolcsi advocated religious Judaism and the recognition of its adherents as a constituent part of the Hungarian nation. When the first Zionist movement was started in Hungary, Szabolcsi violently denounced it, believing that it would jeopardize the position of the Jews in Hungary which had been consolidated shortly before.

Szabolcsi was partly responsible for the founding of the Hungarian-Jewish Literary Society (IMIT) and of the Hungarian-Jewish Culture Association (OMIKE). He was constantly in search of Jewish journalistic talent, and in his writings served as a model for the Hungarian Jewish press.

Among his published books were "Magyar Szanhedrin" (a Talmud translation; 1878); "Olasz zsidok kozott" ("Among Italian Jews", 1903); "Nemet zsidok kozott" ("Among German Jews", 1905); and an abridged Hungarian version of Heinrich Graetz' "History of the Jews" (2 vol., 1908-9). In 1938 his "Gyongyszemek a Talmudbol es Midrasbol" ("Pearls from the Talmud and Midrash") was published by Ella B. Szabolcsi.

Bela Bernstein (1868-1944), rabbi and historian, born in Varpalota, Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary). He studied at the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary and at Leipzig University. He was rabbi in Szombathely from 1892 to 1909 and then in Nyiregyhaza. In 1901 he tried to introduce a uniform religious education in Hungary. Bernstein's writings were on Hungarian Jewish history. In 1944 he was deported by the Nazis to his death in Auschwitz.

Dávid Jándi (born David Lederer) (1893-1944), painter, painter, born in Jánd, a village in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary). He was educated in Nyíregyháza, where his family settled towards the end of the 19th century. In 1911 he moved to Baia Mare (Nagybánya), now in Romania, and joined the local school of painting led by János Thorma (1870-1937) and as of 1912 he adopted the name David Jandi. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army during WW I creating numerous drawings. It seems that he was captured by the Russian army and held in Siberia, before returning to Nyíregyháza after the end of WW I. After the war he studied at the Budapest College of Fine Arts in 1922. In 1925, for nearly a year he lived in Italy, and then visited that country almost every year until 1930 working in Venice and Florence. His experiences in Italy had a huge impact on his work. He painted landscapes, biblical and mythological scenes strongly emphasizing the spatiality of the forms. He participated at several exhibitions in Budapest as well as in various cities in Transylvania. In 1926 he was elected a full member of the Society of Painters of Baia Mare. After Northern Transylvania was annexed by Hungary in September 1940 and as a result of the implementation of the anti-Semitic policy, he could participate only at exhibitions organized by Jewish associations. His work Ghetto apparently was created during the last month of his life when the Jews of northern Transylvania were forced into ghettoes by the Hungarian authorities before being deported to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Jandi was deported from Baia Mare in 1944 and shot dead while attempting to escape from the deporting train.

Ujfeherto

Újfehértó

A town in the Szabolcs district, 11 km from Nyiregyhaza, north east Hungary.

Jews began to settle in Ujfeherto during the first half of the 18th century, but the settlement began to develop only from 1840, when Jews were permitted to live in the towns of Hungary. Most of the Jewish inhabitants were engaged in commerce, mainly dealing in agricultural products. Others were artisans and carters. The community, which was affiliated with the orthodox stream, established a hevra kadisha (burial society), many benevolent institutions, a school and a yeshiva. Relations with the Christians were generally good.

During the White Terror (pogroms instigated by right wing military elements against Jews, 1919-21, after the failure of the communist revolution), gangs of ruffians attacked individual Jews. One Jew was taken by them to the district capital where he was tortured to death. In 1930 the community numbered 1,228.

The Holocaust Period

In 1938, with the publication of discriminatory laws which aimed at limiting Jewish participation in the economic and cultural fields, the economic situation of the Jews worsened greatly. In 1944, after the German occupation, all the Jews were sent to the Nyiregyhaza ghetto, together with the rest of the Jews of the district. From here they were transferred to Nyirjes and Sima. In the second half of may all the inhabitants of the ghetto were transported to Auschwitz.

After the war about 90 survivors returned from forced labor and Auschwitz, but most of them soon left for Budapest. Many of the remainder went on aliyah to Israel. In 1958 not a single Jew remained in the town.

Polgar

A small town in the Szabolcs district, north east Hungary.

Jews settled in the place in the middle of the 19th century, when the towns of Hungary were opened to Jewish settlement. Their numbers grew quickly.

The majority of the Jews were engaged in commerce or were tradesmen. There were also some carters and industrialists. By 1880 there was already an organized community. There were two synagogues, a hevra kadisha (burial society), a women's society and educational and charitable institutions.

After World War I, anti-semitism succeeded in rousing the mobs who attacked Jewish shops and homes and took whatever was at hand.

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, several Jews fled from the town because of fear created by the outbreaks of hatred.

In 1930 the community numbered 490.


The Holocaust Period

In 1941, 60 young people were taken for forced labor, work on fortifications and in services together with other Hungarian citizens whom the authorities did not want to join the armed forces, to the Ukrainian front. They worked at clearing minefields, and only six survived.

In 1942 the flour mill went up in flames and the Jews were accused of setting it alight. Many of the leaders of the community were cruelly tortured; 13 of them were held in the detention camp at Nagykanizsa for 10 months.

In May 1944, after the German occupation and immediately following Pesach, young members of the Facsist Arrow Cross party broke into Jewish homes, forcibly ejected the occupants by violent means and took them to the synagogue. After undergoing searches of their possessions and bodies, they were sent to Nyiregyhaza where the majority of the Jews of the district were held. Because of the severe overcrowding, the Jews of Polgar were taken to deserted estates in the vicinity. After some weeks of starvation and torture they were transported to Auschwitz.

After the war 26 survivors returned. They found the synagogue and cemetery desecrated. They renewed communal life. In 1949 there were 42 Jews in the town, but one by one they began to leave. By 1970 there were none left in Polgar.

Nyirbogdany

A village in the Szabolcs district, north east Hungary.

The first information about Jews in the village is in the census of 1770.

Most of them made a living from trade, peddling and trades. A few worked in agriculture, including some who leased estates.

Because of differences between haredim (orthodox) and maskilim (moderates) at the Jewish Congress in 1868, the community affiliated with the orthodox stream. There were a house of prayers, hevra kadisha (burial society), heder and mikveh (ritual bath).

In 1930 the community numbered 130.
 

The Holocaust Period

In 1938, with the publication of discriminatory laws which aimed at limiting Jewish participation in the economic and cultural fields, the majority of Jews lost their means of livelihood. About 30 young people were taken for forced labor; 20 of them perished.

In 1944, following the German occupation and immediately after Pesach, the Jews were moved to Nyiregyhaza together with all the Jews of the district. Here they were severly overcrowded and held under the most difficult conditions. At the end of May they were transported to Auschwitz.

After the war 13 survivors returned from forced labor and from Auschwitz. They did not renew communal life, and soon began to leave the village.

Tiszadob

A village in the Szabolcs district, north east Hungary.

Jews were permitted to settle in Tiszadob in the second half of the 18th century, under the patronage of the estate owners, the family of Count Andrassy. The majority made a living from commerce on a small scale; others owned farmsteads or were fishermen. The village had a synagogue and hevra kadisha (burial society). In 1876 the community affiliated with the orthodox stream.

In 1930 the village had 101 Jewish inhabitants.

The Holocaust Period

On April 14, 1944, after the German occupation, police burst into Jewish homes in the middle of the night and ordered all the Jews to assemble immediately in the synagogue, and from here they were taken to the Nyiregyhaza ghetto, without being permitted to take food. Immediately after their departure, the inhabitants of the village divided up all their possessions. 4 days later they were sent to Harangod and on May 22 they were marched eight kilometers in pouring rain, to the Nyiregyhaza railway station and transported to Auschwitz.

After the war 8 survivors returned. Communal life was not renewed. In 1947 a monument was set in memory of the martyrs.

Buj

A village in the Szabolcs district, north east Hungary.

Jews settled in the place in the middle of the 18th century. The majority earned a livelihood from commerce and trades. Relations with the Christians were generally good. The community was organized at the end of the 18th century and established a synagogue and cemetery.

In 1930 the community numbered 104.


The Holocaust Period

In 1938, with the publication of discriminatory laws which aimed at limiting Jewish pariticipation in the economic and cultural fields, an atmosphere of hatred towards the Jews developed and local ruffians broke into the synagogue, damaged the windows and destroyed the furniture.

In 1941, all the males up to the age of fifty were sent to do forced labor, work on fortifications and in services together with other Hungarian citizens whom the authorities would not allow to join the armed forces. The majority perished.

In the spring of 1944, after the German occupation, the Jews were sent to Nyiregyhaza, the capital of the district. In the second half of June, all the camp inhabitants were transported to Auschwitz.

After the war only a few survivors returned from Auschwitz and forced labor. Neither the synagogue nor the cemetery was damaged. Communal life was not renewed and in 1947 the community officially ceased to exist.

Gava

A small town in the Szabolcs district, near Nyiregyhaza, north east Hungary. In 1971 Gava was merged with the neighboring village of Vencsello to form the current town of Gavavencsello.

Jews came to Gava at the end of the 18th century. They made a living from commerce, trades and agricultural land holdings. Relations with the other inhabitants were generally good until after World War I. The Jews suffered after the fall of the communist regime.

In 1869, after the separation of the communities in Hungary because of differences of opinion between maskilim (moderates) and haredim (orthodox), the community affiliated with the orthodox stream. There was a synagogue as well as social institutions and a hevra kadisha (burial society).

In 1939 a group of youth organized a Zionist circle. The authorities arrested the initiator and held him in jail for a year.

In 1930 the community numbered 186.

The Holocaust Period

In 1940, men up to the age of 60 were sent to do forced labor. They were mobilized in an auxiliary unit, together with other Hungarian citizens whom the authorities did not want to join the armed forces. After some time, the older men were returned to their homes. The young men, about 40 in number, were sent to construct airfields in Transylvania.

In 1942 they were sent to help the Hungarian-German war effort on the Ukrainian front, where many perished.

With the Nazi conquest in 1944, a district ghetto was set-up in Nyiregyhaza to which were also sent the Jews of Gava. After a few days of cruel treatment and hunger they were transported to Auschwitz. They reached the concentration camp on the festival of Shavuot, and on the same day the majority perished in the gas chambers.

After the war 15 survivors from Auschwitz and another six from forced labor returned. They organized a hachshara (preparation) group on a nearby farm and they tried to renew communal life. Because of anti-semitism they slowly left Gava, and in 1963 not a single Jew remained.

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The Jewish Community of Nyiregyhaza
Nyiregyhaza

Yiddish: Niredhaz

A city in northeastern Hungary

Nyiregyhaza is the capital of the county of Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg.

A memorial for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust from Nyiregyhaza was erected in 2004, where the ghetto once stood.

The Jewish cemetery of Nyiregyhaza includes over 2,200 tombstones and is a protected national monument.

HISTORY

Jews first began living in Nyiregyhaza in 1840, when Jews throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire were granted the freedom of settlement. Most worked as merchants and artisans, while a few were members of the professional class.

In 1868, following the controversies that broke out at the Hungarian Jewish Congress between the Orthodox and more modern factions, Nyiregyhaza’s Jewish community chose to remain neutral, and affiliated with neither the Orthodox nor the Neolog movement; in 1877 the community subsequently aligned itself with the Status Quo communities. As a result, the community’s Orthodox members broke away and established their own Orthodox community. Nonetheless, the two communities enjoyed friendly relations, and shared community institutions, including a chevra kaddisha and welfare organizations.

The Tiszaeszlar Blood Libel of 1882 was tried in Nyiregyhaza. The trial lasted from June 17 until August 3, 1883, during which period both the Jews of Nyiregyhaza and their coreligionists throughout Hungary had to deal with rising anti-Semitism.

The community developed rapidly between the two World Wars, with many Jews coming to live in Nyiregyhaza from other areas in the region. The Jewish population jumped from 3,008 in 1900 to 5,066 in 1920 and 5,134 in 1936.

THE HOLOCAUST

A number of anti-Jewish laws were passed in Hungary beginning in 1938, that limited Jewish involvement in the country’s social, economic, and political life. In 1941 Jews throughout the country who could not prove their Hungarian citizenship were expelled to Kamenec-Podolsk where they were shot by the SS. A year later many young Jews were conscripted for forced labor to assist the Hungarian-German war effort; most of Nyiregyhaza’s Holocaust survivors were those who had been drafted for this forced labor.

The Germans occupied Hungary in March of 1944. That May, the Jews of Nyiregyhaza were confined to a ghetto together with Jews from nearby towns and villages. About 11,000 people occupied 123 buildings, and the overcrowding contributed to the suffering caused by a lack of food. Things were so bad that in the wake of a report sent by the Jewish Council to the local SS Commander detailing the deteriorating conditions within the ghetto, the Jews were sent to three neighboring ghettos.

The Jews of Nyiregyhaza were deported to Auschwitz in May 1944. A few days later the synagogue was destroyed.

POSTWAR

After the war a few hundred survivors returned and worked to revive the Jewish community. The survivors opened a yeshiva, and returned to maintaining separate Orthodox and Status Quo communities.

After the anti-Soviet revolution of 1956, however, most of Nyiregyhaza’s Jews emigrated. In 1946 there were 1,210m Jews living in Nyiregyhaza. By 1970 that number had dropped to 180.
Written by researchers of ANU Museum of the Jewish People
The Mikve (Ritual Bath). Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, 1985
The Mikve (Ritual Bath),
Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, 1985
This nearly 70 years old Mikve was in use until the Jews
of Nyiregyhaza were deported to Auschwitz in June 1944
Photo: Yale Strom, USA
(The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot,
courtesy of Yale Strom, USA(
Miksa Szabolsci

Miksa Szabolsci (Weinstein) (1857-1915), author and editor born in Tura, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire). He was educated at several yeshivot and he attended also the National Rabbinical Seminary, but following his inclination he became a journalist in 1878.

From 1881 he collaborated on a daily newspaper published in Debrecen. In the Tiszaeszlar blood accusation (1882) he spent much time in successfully investigating the circumstances under which the alleged victim had disappeared, and wrote numerous articles for the "Pester Lloyd" and other newspapers denouncing machinations and illegal pressures in the affair. As a result of his informative work, he was ordered by the country’s legal authorities to leave Nyiregyhaza, the scene of the trial, and the anti-Semitic investigators made an attempt upon his life. Nevertheless, Szabolcsi's reports of the trial appeared in the "Pester Lloyd" and "Neue Freier Presse", and were reprinted by many of the leading European newspapers.

After editing the "Pester Juedische Zeitung" for two years, Szabolcsi became editor of the Hungarian weekly newspaper "Egyenloseg" in 1886. In 1889, together with Vilmos Vazsonyi, he started a movement for the recognition of the Jewish faith by the Hungarian state; his agitation, which at the outset met with opposition by official Jewish leaders, resulted in the enactment of a law to that effect in 1895. This important achievement made "Egyenloseg" the dominant Jewish newspaper in Hungary. In its columns Szabolcsi successfully fought other attempts at blood accusations, and caused the dismissal from his post of Bela Makay, a biased official in charge of Jewish religious affairs in the ministry of education (1911).

Szabolcsi advocated religious Judaism and the recognition of its adherents as a constituent part of the Hungarian nation. When the first Zionist movement was started in Hungary, Szabolcsi violently denounced it, believing that it would jeopardize the position of the Jews in Hungary which had been consolidated shortly before.

Szabolcsi was partly responsible for the founding of the Hungarian-Jewish Literary Society (IMIT) and of the Hungarian-Jewish Culture Association (OMIKE). He was constantly in search of Jewish journalistic talent, and in his writings served as a model for the Hungarian Jewish press.

Among his published books were "Magyar Szanhedrin" (a Talmud translation; 1878); "Olasz zsidok kozott" ("Among Italian Jews", 1903); "Nemet zsidok kozott" ("Among German Jews", 1905); and an abridged Hungarian version of Heinrich Graetz' "History of the Jews" (2 vol., 1908-9). In 1938 his "Gyongyszemek a Talmudbol es Midrasbol" ("Pearls from the Talmud and Midrash") was published by Ella B. Szabolcsi.

Bela Bernstein

Bela Bernstein (1868-1944), rabbi and historian, born in Varpalota, Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary). He studied at the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary and at Leipzig University. He was rabbi in Szombathely from 1892 to 1909 and then in Nyiregyhaza. In 1901 he tried to introduce a uniform religious education in Hungary. Bernstein's writings were on Hungarian Jewish history. In 1944 he was deported by the Nazis to his death in Auschwitz.

David Jandi

Dávid Jándi (born David Lederer) (1893-1944), painter, painter, born in Jánd, a village in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary). He was educated in Nyíregyháza, where his family settled towards the end of the 19th century. In 1911 he moved to Baia Mare (Nagybánya), now in Romania, and joined the local school of painting led by János Thorma (1870-1937) and as of 1912 he adopted the name David Jandi. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army during WW I creating numerous drawings. It seems that he was captured by the Russian army and held in Siberia, before returning to Nyíregyháza after the end of WW I. After the war he studied at the Budapest College of Fine Arts in 1922. In 1925, for nearly a year he lived in Italy, and then visited that country almost every year until 1930 working in Venice and Florence. His experiences in Italy had a huge impact on his work. He painted landscapes, biblical and mythological scenes strongly emphasizing the spatiality of the forms. He participated at several exhibitions in Budapest as well as in various cities in Transylvania. In 1926 he was elected a full member of the Society of Painters of Baia Mare. After Northern Transylvania was annexed by Hungary in September 1940 and as a result of the implementation of the anti-Semitic policy, he could participate only at exhibitions organized by Jewish associations. His work Ghetto apparently was created during the last month of his life when the Jews of northern Transylvania were forced into ghettoes by the Hungarian authorities before being deported to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Jandi was deported from Baia Mare in 1944 and shot dead while attempting to escape from the deporting train.

Ujfeherto

Ujfeherto

Újfehértó

A town in the Szabolcs district, 11 km from Nyiregyhaza, north east Hungary.

Jews began to settle in Ujfeherto during the first half of the 18th century, but the settlement began to develop only from 1840, when Jews were permitted to live in the towns of Hungary. Most of the Jewish inhabitants were engaged in commerce, mainly dealing in agricultural products. Others were artisans and carters. The community, which was affiliated with the orthodox stream, established a hevra kadisha (burial society), many benevolent institutions, a school and a yeshiva. Relations with the Christians were generally good.

During the White Terror (pogroms instigated by right wing military elements against Jews, 1919-21, after the failure of the communist revolution), gangs of ruffians attacked individual Jews. One Jew was taken by them to the district capital where he was tortured to death. In 1930 the community numbered 1,228.

The Holocaust Period

In 1938, with the publication of discriminatory laws which aimed at limiting Jewish participation in the economic and cultural fields, the economic situation of the Jews worsened greatly. In 1944, after the German occupation, all the Jews were sent to the Nyiregyhaza ghetto, together with the rest of the Jews of the district. From here they were transferred to Nyirjes and Sima. In the second half of may all the inhabitants of the ghetto were transported to Auschwitz.

After the war about 90 survivors returned from forced labor and Auschwitz, but most of them soon left for Budapest. Many of the remainder went on aliyah to Israel. In 1958 not a single Jew remained in the town.

Polgar

Polgar

A small town in the Szabolcs district, north east Hungary.

Jews settled in the place in the middle of the 19th century, when the towns of Hungary were opened to Jewish settlement. Their numbers grew quickly.

The majority of the Jews were engaged in commerce or were tradesmen. There were also some carters and industrialists. By 1880 there was already an organized community. There were two synagogues, a hevra kadisha (burial society), a women's society and educational and charitable institutions.

After World War I, anti-semitism succeeded in rousing the mobs who attacked Jewish shops and homes and took whatever was at hand.

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, several Jews fled from the town because of fear created by the outbreaks of hatred.

In 1930 the community numbered 490.


The Holocaust Period

In 1941, 60 young people were taken for forced labor, work on fortifications and in services together with other Hungarian citizens whom the authorities did not want to join the armed forces, to the Ukrainian front. They worked at clearing minefields, and only six survived.

In 1942 the flour mill went up in flames and the Jews were accused of setting it alight. Many of the leaders of the community were cruelly tortured; 13 of them were held in the detention camp at Nagykanizsa for 10 months.

In May 1944, after the German occupation and immediately following Pesach, young members of the Facsist Arrow Cross party broke into Jewish homes, forcibly ejected the occupants by violent means and took them to the synagogue. After undergoing searches of their possessions and bodies, they were sent to Nyiregyhaza where the majority of the Jews of the district were held. Because of the severe overcrowding, the Jews of Polgar were taken to deserted estates in the vicinity. After some weeks of starvation and torture they were transported to Auschwitz.

After the war 26 survivors returned. They found the synagogue and cemetery desecrated. They renewed communal life. In 1949 there were 42 Jews in the town, but one by one they began to leave. By 1970 there were none left in Polgar.

Nyirbogdany

Nyirbogdany

A village in the Szabolcs district, north east Hungary.

The first information about Jews in the village is in the census of 1770.

Most of them made a living from trade, peddling and trades. A few worked in agriculture, including some who leased estates.

Because of differences between haredim (orthodox) and maskilim (moderates) at the Jewish Congress in 1868, the community affiliated with the orthodox stream. There were a house of prayers, hevra kadisha (burial society), heder and mikveh (ritual bath).

In 1930 the community numbered 130.
 

The Holocaust Period

In 1938, with the publication of discriminatory laws which aimed at limiting Jewish participation in the economic and cultural fields, the majority of Jews lost their means of livelihood. About 30 young people were taken for forced labor; 20 of them perished.

In 1944, following the German occupation and immediately after Pesach, the Jews were moved to Nyiregyhaza together with all the Jews of the district. Here they were severly overcrowded and held under the most difficult conditions. At the end of May they were transported to Auschwitz.

After the war 13 survivors returned from forced labor and from Auschwitz. They did not renew communal life, and soon began to leave the village.

Tiszadob

Tiszadob

A village in the Szabolcs district, north east Hungary.

Jews were permitted to settle in Tiszadob in the second half of the 18th century, under the patronage of the estate owners, the family of Count Andrassy. The majority made a living from commerce on a small scale; others owned farmsteads or were fishermen. The village had a synagogue and hevra kadisha (burial society). In 1876 the community affiliated with the orthodox stream.

In 1930 the village had 101 Jewish inhabitants.

The Holocaust Period

On April 14, 1944, after the German occupation, police burst into Jewish homes in the middle of the night and ordered all the Jews to assemble immediately in the synagogue, and from here they were taken to the Nyiregyhaza ghetto, without being permitted to take food. Immediately after their departure, the inhabitants of the village divided up all their possessions. 4 days later they were sent to Harangod and on May 22 they were marched eight kilometers in pouring rain, to the Nyiregyhaza railway station and transported to Auschwitz.

After the war 8 survivors returned. Communal life was not renewed. In 1947 a monument was set in memory of the martyrs.

Buj

Buj

A village in the Szabolcs district, north east Hungary.

Jews settled in the place in the middle of the 18th century. The majority earned a livelihood from commerce and trades. Relations with the Christians were generally good. The community was organized at the end of the 18th century and established a synagogue and cemetery.

In 1930 the community numbered 104.


The Holocaust Period

In 1938, with the publication of discriminatory laws which aimed at limiting Jewish pariticipation in the economic and cultural fields, an atmosphere of hatred towards the Jews developed and local ruffians broke into the synagogue, damaged the windows and destroyed the furniture.

In 1941, all the males up to the age of fifty were sent to do forced labor, work on fortifications and in services together with other Hungarian citizens whom the authorities would not allow to join the armed forces. The majority perished.

In the spring of 1944, after the German occupation, the Jews were sent to Nyiregyhaza, the capital of the district. In the second half of June, all the camp inhabitants were transported to Auschwitz.

After the war only a few survivors returned from Auschwitz and forced labor. Neither the synagogue nor the cemetery was damaged. Communal life was not renewed and in 1947 the community officially ceased to exist.

Gava

Gava

A small town in the Szabolcs district, near Nyiregyhaza, north east Hungary. In 1971 Gava was merged with the neighboring village of Vencsello to form the current town of Gavavencsello.

Jews came to Gava at the end of the 18th century. They made a living from commerce, trades and agricultural land holdings. Relations with the other inhabitants were generally good until after World War I. The Jews suffered after the fall of the communist regime.

In 1869, after the separation of the communities in Hungary because of differences of opinion between maskilim (moderates) and haredim (orthodox), the community affiliated with the orthodox stream. There was a synagogue as well as social institutions and a hevra kadisha (burial society).

In 1939 a group of youth organized a Zionist circle. The authorities arrested the initiator and held him in jail for a year.

In 1930 the community numbered 186.

The Holocaust Period

In 1940, men up to the age of 60 were sent to do forced labor. They were mobilized in an auxiliary unit, together with other Hungarian citizens whom the authorities did not want to join the armed forces. After some time, the older men were returned to their homes. The young men, about 40 in number, were sent to construct airfields in Transylvania.

In 1942 they were sent to help the Hungarian-German war effort on the Ukrainian front, where many perished.

With the Nazi conquest in 1944, a district ghetto was set-up in Nyiregyhaza to which were also sent the Jews of Gava. After a few days of cruel treatment and hunger they were transported to Auschwitz. They reached the concentration camp on the festival of Shavuot, and on the same day the majority perished in the gas chambers.

After the war 15 survivors from Auschwitz and another six from forced labor returned. They organized a hachshara (preparation) group on a nearby farm and they tried to renew communal life. Because of anti-semitism they slowly left Gava, and in 1963 not a single Jew remained.