The Jewish Community of Khust

Moses Ben Joseph Schick (1807-1879), rabbi and posek, also known as "Maharam Schick".

Born in Brezove, Neutra (Nyitra) district, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire, now in Slovakia). He was orphaned when still a child, and at the age of 11 went to study at the yeshivah of his uncle Isaac Frankel in Frauenkirchen. After three years he proceeded to the yeshivah of Moses Sofer in Pressburg (Pozsony, now Bratislava, Slovakia), where he remained for six years.

Sofer recommended him for a vacant rabbinic post at Vergin near Pressburg, and he served there about 24 years. In 1861 he accepted the rabbinate of Khust, Hungary (now in Ukraine), where he established a yeshivah and remained until his death.

Schick fought against the Reform movement. He protested especially against the decision permitting mixed marriages. His call for a united front of Orthodox Jewry was not accepted at that time. Following the publication in Hungary in 1867 of the granting autonomy to the Jews and the demand of the Reformers to convene a congress to discuss the organization of the communities and education, Schick gave his full support to the plan to found an independent communal organization. In the Budapest congress of 1868/69, he fought for complete separation from the Reform movement . Following the majority decision of the Austrian parliament in favor of the claims of the Orthodox community, the Landes-Organisations-Statuten were formulated that were later confirmed in 1871.

Schick took a moderate stand in certain matters. He resisted the demand of the Orthodox rabbis for a prohibition against preaching in the vernacular. His love for the old yishuv in Eretz Israel is reflected in his polemic against Graetz's pamphlet "Mikhtav Zikkaron" ("Memorial Letter") which calumniated the organization of the old yishuv and protested especially against halukkah, the lack of schools, and the paucity of secular knowledge.

Schick was a prolific respondent. Almost 1,000 of his response still exist; 345 on "Orah Hayyim" (Munkacs, 1880), 410 on "Yoreh De'ah" (1881), 155 on "Evan ha-Ezer" (Lemberg, 1884), and 62 on "Hoshen Mishpat" (ibid.). A new edition in two volumes was published in New York in 1961. He also published commentaries to the "Mitzvot ha-Shem" (Pressburg, 1846) of Baruch b. Zevi Hirsch Heilprin and expositions and novellae on the 613 commandments, in two parts (Munkacs, 1895-98). Also published were aggadic novellae on "Avot" (Paks, 1890); Maharam Schick, on the Pentateuch (Munkacs, 1905), and on "Hullin" (Szatmar, undated); and "Derashot" (new edition, 1968), including discourses given by him during the years 1839-1872. His son, Joseph, published his father's works (OH 264) and wrote a short introduction to the "Yoreh De'ah" sections of the response.

Group of Jews in Hust (Chust),
Czechoslovakia, c. 1910.
(The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot,
courtesy of Jiri Fiedler, Prague)

Shmuel "Shmelke" Klein (d. 1875), rabbi, after serving in Balkany, he was appointed rabbi of Huszt (now Khust, in Ukraine) with authority over a large region. There he founded a large yeshiva. In 1860 he moved to Szollos and established a broad reputation, many rabbis in Hungary turning to him with their problems. His inclination to Hasidism inspired his followers to relate unusual stories about him. Klein wrote novellae on the Talmud.  

Erno Szep (1884-1953), poet, author and playwright, born in Huszt, Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary, now Khust, in Ukraine). He began writing poetry at a very early age and went into journalism, first in Debrecen and later in Budapest. His delicate, refined verse reflects the life of poor rural Jews and sees the world through the innocent eyes of a child. Szep's works include the verse collection Elalvo hattyu ("Drowsing Swan", 1924); and the novels Lila akac ("Purple Acacia", 1919), Valentine (1927) and Marriage for One, (1929). His stories dealt with types that had not previously appeared in Hungarian literature-performers and circus artists, whose slang was accompanied by the rich, varied, and deep-rooted Hungarian of Szep's books. His novel Dali-dali-dal (1934) perpetuates the memory of his father. Szep also wrote the plays Az egyszeri kiralyfi ("The Once Upon a Time There Was a Prince", 1914), Patika ("Pharmacy", 1919), and Azra (1930), based on a poem by Heinrich Heine. His book Emberszag ("Human Smell", 1945) tells of the suffering of Jews in Budapest during the Holocaust.

Jozsef Patai (1882-1953), Hungarian and Hebrew poet, translator, and editor, born in Gyongyospata, Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary). After finishing elementary school he studied at the yeshivas of Kisvarda, Satoraljaujhely, Huszt, Nyitra and Szatmar. He graduated from high school at Nyitra and in 1907 received his degree of doctor of philosophy at the University of Budapest. For one year he studied at the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary.

From 1908 to 1919 he taught at a Budapest municipal high school, and contributed to the Hungarian Jewish weekly "Egyenloseg", which opposed Zionism. He published a Hebrew verse collection, "Sha'ashu'ei Alumim" ("The Pleasures of Youth,"1902), and two anthologies of Hungarian poetry "Babilon vizein" ("By the Waters of Babylon", 1906) and "Szulamit latod a langot?" ("Shulamit, Do You See the Flame?", 1919). Following research in the archives at the Oxford he published many unknown poems of medieval Jewish poets in various Jewish periodicals. A selection of his poems also appeared in English (1920). He published Hungarian versions of the Hebrew poetry of many periuds of time, his translations eventually appearing in five volumes entitled "Heber koltok" ("Hebrew Poets", 1910-12; 1921?). Three of his most important works were his volumes of early recollections, "A kozepso kapu" ("The Middle Gate", 1927); "A foltamado Szentfold" ("The Holy Land Restored", 1926), on his first visit to Palestine; and his biography of Theodor Herzl (1931; "Star over Jordan", 1946).

Patai founded the Magyar Zsido Konyvtar ("Hungarian Jewish Library" - a popular series) and edited the Hungarian Jewish "Almanac". In 1911 he founded the Zionist monthly M"ult es Jovo", which he edited for 27 years. By publishing good translations of major Jewish writers from many countries, he helped to imbue Hungarian Jewish intellectuals with an appreciation for Jewish literature, art, and thought. Patai also helped to combat the anti-Zionists in Hungary when he and some associates founded the "Magyar Zsidok Pro Palestina Szovetsege" ("The League of Hungarian Jews for Palestine"), and by organizing annual visits to Erez Israel.

In 1938 Patai emigrated to Palestine. At first he lived in Jerusalem, but later settled in Givatayim. His subsequent publications include the three-volume selection of his writings Mivhar Kitvei Yosef Patai (1943); and a volume based on his lectures at the Hebrew University ("Mi-Sefunei ha-Shirah", 1939).

Judah Gruenfeld (1837-1907), rabbi, born in Satoraljaujhely, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire). He was one of the most important pupils of Abraham Judah Ha-Kohen Schwartz, rabbi of Beregszasz-Mad, and like his teacher frequented the court of the Hasidic rabbi of Zanaz. He lived for a time in Huszt, where Moses Schick often consulted him on important problems. In 1883 he was appointed rabbi of Budszentmihaly, serving there until his death.

Gruenfeld’s writings were not collected, but many of them were published by Joseph Schwartz in "Va-Yelakket Josef" (1899-1930). Twenty-six important responsa were published in "Responsa Maharshag" (1961) by his son Simeon (1881-1930), who served first as dayyan of Munkacs (now Mukacevo, in Ukriane) and then succeeded his father at Budszentmihaly. Simeon was collated and in 1931 published his "Responsa Maharshag", and in 1939 on both "Orah Hayyim" and "Yoreh De'ah". In 1961 this work was republished in Jerusalem with his additional responsa on "Hoshen Mishpat" and "Even ha-Ezer".

Gruenfeld’s responsa are distinguished by their clarity, their penetration, and their great erudition. He also wrote "Zehav Sheva" (1933), a commentary on the Pentateuch. In addition he wrote more than 2,000 responsa in manuscript form, together with new interpretations of several tractates of the Talmud, a large work on the halakhot of mikva'ot (laws concerning ritual immersion) and a work on ta'arovot (mixtures containing forbidden food). It is doubtful if these works have survived.

Israel Goldberger (b. 1922), cantor and Holocaust survivor, known as "the Cantor of Bergen-Belsen", born in Satu Mare (Satmar), Romania, the son of Esther and Shmuel Goldberger, the seventh of eight children in a family of Satmar Hasidim. His mother died when he was 5 years old and his father remarried with his mother's sister and they had one daughter. After his studies at "heder", from 1934 he began to study at a yeshiva in the city of Tasnad in Transylvania, until it was closed following the annexation of Northern Transylvania by Hungary in September 1940. Goldberger returned to Satu Mare where he worked together with his father who was a wine merchant. He taught himself cantorial music by listening to records, especially recordings of Yossele Rosenblatt. In April 1944, the Jews of Satu Mare were concentrated in the ghetto and during May and June 1944 they were deported to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Godlberg's father, by bribing a Hungarian officer, managed to send him to a Hungarian military camp. He was recruited to a forced labour detachment and arrived in the city of Baia Mare (Nagybanya), where the Hungarians robbed him of his money, food and clothes for the winter. Later he was held in Khust (Huszt) in the Carpathian Mountains region (today in Ukraine) and from there he was transferred to Hungary, first to Debrecen and finally to Budapest, where he stayed in a shelter known as Columbus. On December 4, 1944, Goldberger was arrested in Budapest and sent to the Nazi concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen, where he arrived after three days by train without food and water. He survived in very difficult conditions in Bergen-Belsen until in April 1945, when he was sent to the ghetto in Theresienstadt while he was ill with dysentery and later with typhus. During the time he was in the camps he did not stop singing prayers and also songs in Yiddish, granting rare moments of comfort to the prisoners. At the end of the war he returned to Satu Mare via Prague, Brno, Bratislava, and Budapest. In Satu Mare he discovered that his parents, most of his brothers and sisters along with their children perished in the Holocaust. Of his family only two brothers who immigrated to the Land of Israel before World War II and another brother and sister survived the Holocaust. Together with his brother, a Holocaust survivor, he tried to re-establish his father's wine business, but in October 1947 he left Satu Mare with the intention of immigrating to Israel. He passed through Austria to Germany, where he underwent a preparatory course for the Hagannah organization. Goldberger immigrated to Israel in November 1948 and was immediately drafted into the IDF. He served through April 1949. Until 1953 he stayed in a transit camp in Zarnuga near Ramlah, and since 1953 he lived in Nir Galim, a moshav near Ashdod. For almost seventy years he served as the cantor of the settlement while he worked as a poultry grower and also served as the moshav's secretary. Goldberger founded a large family in Israel. Over the years he recorded himself singing a wide variety of prayers. These recordings serve as an important testimony to the musical tradition of the Jews of Satmar, most of them perished in the Holocaust.

Kushnytsya

Кушниця / Kushnytsya; in Hungarian: Kovacsret; also Kusnica

A village in the Chust (Khust) district, Subcarpatian Ruthenia, Ukraine. Until WW I it was part of Austria-Hungary and in the period between the two world wars it was incoporated into Czechoslovakia. 

The village of Kusnica lies between the small towns of Dolha and Kerecki, some 30 km north of the town of Chust. All its inhabitants are Ruthenians (Ukrainians). The region belonged to the district of Marmarosh in the Kingdom of Hungary. In 1919 a part of the district of Marmarosh, including the Chust area, was annexed to the Republic of Czechoslovakia. From 1939 to 1945 the region was under Hungarian occupation, and in 1945 it was annexed to Ukraine, at that time a republic in the USSR.

The first Jews apparently came to Kusnica from Galicia. They arrived during the second half of the 17th century. Gravestones dating to that time were found in the Jewish cemetery. Three Jewish families (9 persons), counted in the census of 1768, were the first Jews documented in the village. 49 Jews were living there in 1830 and by 1880 their number had risen to 121.

By 1933 they had become a community with its own wooden synagogue. The community belonged to the Kerecki rabbinate. The ritual slaughterer came to the village from Dolha or Kerecki. The Jews of Kusnica, like all the Jews in the region, preserved the way of life of Galician Jewry and dressed in their traditional style. They all studied the torah, and the books, in which halahic ideas were published, were signed by some of the community’s dignitaries.

Among the community’s institutions were Talmud torah and its charity institution, mishnah study societies a Gmilut Chassadim charity. In 1938 a new stone and brick synagogue was dedicated in the center of the village. The community employed a shamash who looked after the synagogue. As soon as they settled in Kusnica, the Jews set up a heder, which was held every two weeks in the home of a different student. The studies took place before and after school hours of the local school. After their bar mitzvah some of the students continued their studies in the yeshivas of the large towns. The Jews of Kusnica made their living mostly from commerce and crafts (tailors, carpenters, barbers, cobblers, dressmakers and so on), but most of them were poor. The majority had small allotments next to their houses to supplement their livelihood. Only a few were wealthy. Some of the Jews in the village owned plots of land, a two storey hotel, a cellar for burnt wine and taverns. From the beginning of the 20th century, the local post office was run by a Jewish woman.

The villagers’ attitude to the Jews was usually tolerant. Only the young ones taunted the Jewish children and occasionally threw stones at them. Some of the Jews became integrated within local public life. One of the members of the community served as a starosta (village head and local judge). Under the Czechoslovak Republic, when the Jews were granted the rights of a national minority, Zionist activity was initiated and it expanded as the years passed. In 1932 a branch of Hapoel Hamizrachi opened and the Bnei Akiva movement was set up, numbering 50 members. In 1935 two youths went on hachshara. There were also Beitar members in Kusnica, but without a clubroom of their own. In 1938 a month of Zionist activity was proclaimed in the new synagogue. Representatives of Kusnica participated in the Zionist conferences in Budapest in 1939 and 1944 and were also active within the Hungarian Zionist framework.

In 1930 there were in Kusnica 324 Jews in a population of 2,268.


The Holocaust Period

Before the 5698 New Year (September 1938), all the men aged 20 to 40 were enlisted in the Czech army, and released after a short time. Following upon the Muenchen Accord in September 1938, about a year before the outbreak of the Second World War, a part of Pokarpatska Rus was given back to Hungary. The rest of the region, including the Kusnica area, was granted Ruthenian (Ukrainian) autonomy, under the aegis of Nazi Germany. The attitude of the inhabitants towards the local Jews deteriorated.

On the 15th of March 1939, Hungary also occupied the autonomous region. The anti-Jewish laws passed by the pro-German Hungarian government affected the local Jews and many of them lost their livelihood.

In 1941 there were 434 Jews in Kusnica. In the summer of that year, the Hungarians expelled several Jewish non-Hungarian families, unable to prove that they lived in Hungary since 1851. The men who remained in the village were enlisted for forced labor within the army framework. Most of them were sent to the eastern front, where the Hungarians fought on the German side, and they died of cold, starvation and disease. The Jewish men who remained in the village were mostly employed in logging.

On the 19th of March 1944, the German army occupied Hungary. Zionist activity was forbidden. A few days after Pessach the Jews of Kusnica were taken to the Irsava ghetto, from there to the ghetto set up in the town of Munkacs, and between the 24th and 27th of Iyar 5704 they were sent to the Auschwitz death camp. After the expulsion of the Jews the villagers gutted the synagogue and turned the building into a carpentry workshop.

Oren Friedman, a Kusnica Jew, fought against the Nazis within the framework of the Czech unit, operating in the French resistance movement, and was one of the three members of the leadership committee. He was captured by the Nazis and tortured to death. After the war, his family received the highest honor for valor on his behalf.

After the war the survivors returned to Kusnica. In spite of the open hostility of the local population, 29 Jewish families settled in the village. Torah scrolls were collected from all over the region, a public kitchen was established with the help of the Joint, and the life of the community was revived for a short time. A few years later most of the Jews left the village. Some of them went to the town of Liberec, in the Sudeten region, and from there came to Israel. A few emigrated to the USA.

In 1950 the synagogue building was confiscated. From then on the prayers took place in the renovated mikveh building. However, the communist regime forbade public prayer, and the Jews went on praying in secret. Jews, visiting Kusnica in 1980, found the cemetery fence and the grave stones broken.

Koselovo

Koshelovo; Koshele; in Yiddish: Koshli, in Czech: Koseljovo, in Hungarian: Keselymezo)

A village in the Chust district, Carpatho-Russia, Ukraine

The village of Koselovo lies 10 km north of the town of Chust. All its inhabitants are Ruthenians (Ukranians). The region belonged to the Marmarosh district in the Hungarian Kingdom and from 1918 to 1938 it was within the Republic of Czechoslovakia. During the Second World War it was occupied by Hungary and in 1945 it was annexed to Ukraine, at the time a republic in the Soviet Union.

At the time of the census of Hungarian Jews in 1768, M. Selig was the only Jew in Koselovo and several generations of Jews in the village stemmed from him. 54 Jews were living there in 1830. In 1832 there were 11 Jewish families (62 Jews) in Koselovo. By 1880 the number had grown to 243. There were two wooden synagogues in the village. The first was apparently built in the 18th century. A mikveh (purification bath) and a cemetery also date from that time.

Most of the Kosolovo Jews were Wizhnitz hasids, a minority were Spinka, Dolina and Sziget hasids. After the First World War (1914-1918) the old synagogue building was declared unsafe, and the Czech authorities ordered the community to build a new one. It was dedicated in 1922. At the time of discord between the factions of the hasidim, or between the supporters and opponents of Zionist activities, the old synagogue was occasionally opened for the seceding groups, and closed again when peace was restored. Once the roof of the building collapsed and, miraculously, no one was hurt.

During the period between the two world wars, Rabbi Yaakov Marmelstein taught torah and halacha in the synagogue. The lessons took place daily and were apparently attended by adults.

The community had no rabbi of its own, it received the help of the Chust rabbi, who used to come to the village every year together with his students. Some 25 Koselovo Jews signed the books Arugot Habosem, Yoreh Deah (both published in Satmar in 5686 Hebrew date) and The Book Beit Asher (Mukachevo in 5697 Hebrew date).

Most of the Koselovo Jews were extremely poor, barely making a living as small traders and craftsmen, from their allotments or by transporting firewood to Chust. A few owned apple and plum orchards. Only two of the village Jews owned property such as fields and woods, and owing to their economic status they headed the community.

Under the Czechoslovak Republic, between the two wars, the Jews were recognized as a national minority with specific rights. At that time there was Zionist activity in the village and a branch of Hapoel Hamizrachi opened in 1931, with 30 members.

In 1930 there were 423 Jews out of a population of 3,093.


The Holocaust Period

On the 22nd November 1938, following upon the Munich Accord, signed in September that year, about a year before the outbreak of the Second World War, the Czechoslovak part of the Marmarosh district was granted cultural autonomy under the aegis of Nazi Germany. It was abolished after a few months, when the Hungarian army occupied the region. The anti-Jewish laws passed by the pro-German Hungarian government also affected the local Jews and many of them lost their livelihood.

There were 410 Jews living in Koselovo in 1941. In the summer of that year, Jews without Hungarian citizenship were expelled into the territories under German occupation, presumably also most of the Koselovo Jews. Almost all the Jews, expelled from Hungary under those circumstances, were murdered at the site near the Ukranian town of Kamenec Podolski, together with thousands of Hungarian Jews.

The Jews who had remained in the village lived in relative safety until the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944. A few weeks later, the Jews of Koselovo were taken to the ghetto established in the village of Iza. The Koselovo Jews were better off than the rest of the prisoners, thanks to the Ruthenian inhabitants of Koselovo, who managed to sneak them in some food. One of the inhabitants of Koselovo hid four members of a Jewish family and did not hand them over, even when tortured by the Hungarian police.

From Iza the Jews were transferred to Chust and then to the Auschwitz death camp.

After the war a few survivors of the Koselovo community returned. The last one apparently died in the seventies of the 20th century, and since then no Jews have lived in the village. The synagogue has been turned into a store for corn.

Bustyn

In Ukrainian: Bushtino; in Hungarian: Bustyahaza

A small town in the sub-district of Tachovo or Tyachiv, Carpatho-Russia, Ukraine.

Bustyn lies about 20 km south east of the town Chust. The majority of the inhabitants are Ruthenians (Ukraines), the minority Hungarians. Until 1918 the sub-district of Tachovo was in the district Maramaros of Hungary, and at the end of World War I it was annexed to the new Republic of Czechoslovakia. In the years 1939-1945 the area was under Hungarian occupation and in 1945 it was annexed to Ukraine, then a Republic of the Soviet Union.
 

In 1728 one Jew was living at Bustyn, under the protection of the noble of the area. He produced wines, kept an inn and leased 3 flour mills. After him no Jews lived at the place for a period of one hundred years because of the opposition of the Christian inhabitants. Only in the 1850s, following the abolition of the restrictions on the settlement of Jews in Hungary, Jews began to settle in Bustyn. In 1880 there were 142 Jews in the town and by 1910 their number rose to 579.

The Jews of Bustyn differed from the other Jews of Maramaros. All of them indeed adhered to tradition but not all of them wore the streimel headdress and some kept their beards short. Some of them were maskilim (enlightened) and spoke German, Hungarian, and Czech. Most of the Jews of Bustyn were hasidim of Sziget or Spinka. The community was linked to the Rabbinate of Tachovo and did not have its own rabbi. At the beginning of the 1930s Rabbi Avishai Horowitz, the son-in-law of the Admor of Spinka, Rabbi Ithamar Leifer, was elected as the Rabbi of Bustyn but because of the opposition of the hasidim of Sziget the appointment was not realized.

Public prayers were first held in private houses. In the first synagogue, the “Central Schul”, which was built of wood, were about 200 seats. The second synagogue, the “Handel Schul”, was built in the late 1920s and had some 150 seats. The synagogue was built on the site of a former old synagogue. The synagogue of the villagers, the “Dorfs Schul”, was in use particularly on the Sabbath and feast days. A big bet midrash was at the home of the Admor Ithamar Leifer. A small bet midrash was in the Chocolate Street and near it the old mikveh.

For scores of years the children of the community had been taught by private melamdim (teachers of small children). A Talmud torah school was founded only in the 1930s. In the period between the two world wars about 20% of the youth studied at the yeshivot of the district or at the big yeshivot of Slovakia. Many studied at the civil school Polgari of Tachovo, at the Hebrew gymnasium of Uzhorod or at Mukacevo (Munkacs) and at the trade school of Sevlus (Vinogradov from 1947). A few studied medicine, law or engineering at Bratislava or Brno.

Among the institutions of the community were a Talmud study society and a women’s charity society. A hevra kaddisha (burial society) was founded when the community was first organized but a cemetery was consecrated only at the end of the 19th century. Until then the dead of Bustyn had been buried in the nearby villages. A shohet (ritual slaughterer) was employed at Bustyn from 1868.

In 1921 there were about 1300 Jews at Bustyn. The head of the community was then Kalman Kraus, who had been elected for life. Eliaz Teitelbaum was the rabbi. Among later heads of the community were Koppel Krois, Haim Sherter and Jacov Feig.

In the valley in which Bustyn is situated fruits and grains were grown and Bustyn served as a wholesale and ritail trade center for agricultural and other products. The flourishing economy of Bustyn attracted Jews to settle in the town and most of its trade was in the hands of Jews. About one third of the Jewish households made their living in the lumber industry (cutting, sawmills and transportation). Among the Jews were big merchants of lumber, owners of woods, wines and spirit stores, and textile stores. Among the craftsmen were cobblers, tailors, carpenters, and others. Some 50 Jews were carters. One Jew set up a factory for walking sticks.

In 1867 the Jews were granted civil rights and the Republic of Czechoslovakia in the period between the two world wars recognized them as a national minority with appropriate rights. At that time a few Jews served on the rural council. Emanuel Kraus was elected in 1926 to the post of the vice chairman of the local council. One of his sons, Alexander Kraus, was an assistant of Edvard Benes, the President of the Republic, and in 1938 went with him to London, the seat of the National Council in exile.

In 1927 a Zionist gathering was held at Bustyn, in which 200 young Jews participated. On that occasion a branch of the Betar movement was set up at Bustyn, with some 80 members. In their club Hebrew classes, lectures and prayers were held. In 1930 a group of Hehalutz Hazair was formed, with some 100 members. In 1933 the National Religious Youth and the Youth of Agudat Israel were also organized, most of them students of yeshivot.

From 1933 until the outbreak of World War II some 80 young Jews and a few families of Bustyn emigrated to Eretz Israel. Prior to the elections to the 20th Zionist Congress in 1937, 32 Shekels membership in the Zionist Organization and a voting right were acquired at Bustyn.

In 1930, 1,042 Jews were living at Bustyn.


The Holocaust Period

Following the Munich Agreement of September 1938, about a year before World War II broke out, the Republic of Czechoslovakia disintegrated. The region of Carpatho-Russia, with Bustyn in it, was granted in November 1938 a national Ruthenian autonomy. The Ukrainians (Ruthenians) persecuted the Jews until the autonomy was occupied by the Hungarian army on 15.3.1939. The Hungarians continued in the same vein. The Jews were deprived of their work and trade permits and many families were left without their means of livelihood. In the summer of 1941 Jews without Hungarian citizenship were deported to Kamenets Podolski in the Ukraine or to the German occupied parts of Poland. On the 9th of August Hungarian jendarmes held up Jews and transported them to Jasina, where they were further expelled across the border. At the end of two weeks, during which about 200 families, among them also Hungarian citizens, had been expelled across the border, an order was given to stop the deportations and to
return the deportees. A few dozens were returned to Bustyn, but 60% of the Jews of the town had already been murdered in various places in the Ukraine and Poland. Several Jews managed to escape from the killing site at Kamenets Podolski and found their way back to Hungary.

In 1941 Jewish men were mobilized to the military auxiliary force of Hungary and were sent to the Ukrainian front, where they found their death. Jews who were captured by the Russians and who asked to fight the Germans in the ranks of the Red Army were however rejected and taken to prisoner of war camps. About a dozen of them finally joined the Czech legion of general Svoboda. Another ten Jews of Bustyn served in the Czech brigade which faught in the framework of the allied forces.

In 1941 a number of work companies of Jews were brought to Bustyn for the purpose of preparing a military airfield. Some of them were accommodated at the synagogues of the town and were assisted by the community. In a census of that year 994 Jews were counted at Bustyn.

On 19.3.1944 the German forces entered Hungary. On 16.4.1944, immediatey after Pesach, the Jews of Bustyn were taken by train to the ghetto of Mateszalka, where thousands of Jews of the vicinity were concentrated for deportation to the death camps. The Jews of Bustyn were sent to Auschwitz in the third transport on 29.5.44. (the second day of Shavuot). All the synagogues and batei midrash of Bustyn were destroyed in the course of the war.

Some Jewish survivors returned to Bustyn after the war. They set up a public kitchen and prayer rooms for men and for women.

As from 1947, when the authorities forbade public prayers, the prayers were held at private homes.

In the years 1945-47 some 30 Jewish families lived at Bustyn. The majority of them had lived before the war in settlements around the town. A few years later most of them emigrated to Eretz Israel. When they left, the mikveh building (purification bath) was turned into a warehouse.

In the 1980s six Jews were living at Bustyn. At that time the cemetery was desolate and tombstones ahd been removed for building purposes. The grave of the Zaddik Rabbi Mordecai of Nadvorna was then intact.