The Jews in Baia Mare during the Holocaust

The history of Jews in Baia Mare

As early as the 18th century, the settlement of Jews in certain localities in Transylvania was banned. Until 1850, they were forbidden to settle in mining and royal cities, such as Baia Mare. Therefore, their presence in the city was sporadic and temporary.

However, starting with the following years, the settlement of the Jews is documented. In 1860, there was a Jewish community in Baia Mare, mentioning the existence of a funeral society in 1861 and a synagogue in 1887. In those years, the number of Jews gradually increased, from 222 in 1869 to 963 in 1900 and 1,402 in 1910. According to data from the 1930 census, 2,030 Jews lived in Baia Mare that year. In 1941, the number of Jews from Baia Mare was 3,623. Among the Jews were entrepreneurs who owned factories in the chemical, glass, dye, and soap industries, artisans, officials, lawyers, doctors, and engineers.

Between 1941 and 1944, the headquarters of the labour battalion no. 10 were located in Baia Mare. It functioned as a recruitment centre for military-aged Jews in northern Transylvania. The Jews in the battalion were used for work both in Hungary and on the border with Ukraine. The working conditions were terrible. According to available sources, from May 1st, 1943, with the appointment of Alezredes Imre Reviczky to lead the battalion, the situation of the Jews improved. He banned corporal punishment and abolished enrolment in disciplinary detachments. After the start of the ghettoization operations of the Jews in Transylvania, administered by the Hungarian authorities, began on May 3rd, 1944, the officer recruited about 3,000 Jews for work, thus saving them from deportation. For his role in saving the Jews, he was awarded the title of “Righteous Among the Nations” in 1962.

The organization of the ghettos in Northern Transylvania, including the one in Baia Mare, began shortly after the conference in Satu Mare on April 26th, 1944. At the origin of this decision, there was a bizarre motivation, namely that the Jews living in cities would have had “much better” housing than non-Jews. According to the Hungarian authorities, removing them from the cities would create a “healthier situation”, and their homes would be redistributed. According to the decree issued on that occasion, Jews could no longer live in communities with less than 10,000 inhabitants. In the case of large cities, it was possible to delimit “sections, streets, and buildings in which Jews were allowed to live”. This statement was in fact a legal euphemism, under the cover of which the local authorities could decide to set up ghettos. Thus, the fate of the Jews in the big cities depended on the mayors. Through their attitude, they could improve or worsen the fate of their fellows of Jewish origin.

Although at that time mayors could decide to isolate Jews “from other parts of the city, in separate streets and neighbourhoods”, in Baia Mare, Deputy Mayor Dr. Rosner Istvan opposed such a measure. According to a complaint from the Jewish Union of Baia Mare, he “did not consider this solution satisfactory”.

On May 3rd, 1944, the operation to detain the Jews from the city of Baia Mare and the neighbouring localities began. On that day, mixed commissions, consisting of civilians and armed police, blocked an entire street, entering Jewish homes. They were given up to 20 minutes to gather a few things. Those who failed to comply with this deadline were hit and beaten with a gun, being thrown into the street. The operation took place at an extremely fast pace. Until 14.00, the same day, all the Jews in the city have been picked up and interned in the ghetto.

The Jews from Baia Mare were transported to a ghetto set up on the outskirts of the city, on the former lands of the Bernat Factory. About 3,500-3,600 people were imprisoned here. For the accommodation of the Jews there were three large barracks, in which up to 100 people could be housed. The territory of the ghetto had an accommodation capacity of maximum 250 people. Therefore, many Jews, who could not find a place in the sheds, slept in the open air in the following conditions: “At night they were in the rain and in the cold wind, and during the day under the scorching sun. The rain was soaking their clothes and bedding”. At the same time, hygiene conditions were non-existent, water was lacking, and food consisted of a plate of inedible soup.

In the ghetto, torture and violent methods of investigation were part of the daily life of these concentration camps. A ghetto survivor said that due to torture and beatings during the investigations, “many people committed suicide”. At the same time, the mayor and the local police chief thwarted the attempts of the people of Baia Mare to bring food to the Jews from the ghetto, photographing those who initiated such relief activities and threatening them with internment.

Referring to the conditions in the ghetto, a former official of Baia Mare City Hall mentioned in his testimony during the trial that the Jews here were left without food and forced to urinate and defecate in common: “About how the Jews in the ghetto were treated, I know that they were destined to be without food, without bedding, without toilets, being forced to defecate men and women together in the middle of the ghetto. The place of the ghetto was surrounded by wire”.

Those in the ghetto stayed in those conditions “for three weeks”, and “only” a week before deportation several barracks were built, but they were insufficient. Once in the ghetto, the Jews were asked to hand over all the money and jewellery. They were threatened that in case of refusal or if a certain amount was not collected, “every 10th Jew would be shot”.

A second ghetto was improvised in the Borcut Valley, located a few kilometers from the city, being intended for Jews from Baia Sprie, Șomcuța Mare, and Copalnic Mănăștur. About 3,500 Jews were imprisoned in the Baia Mare ghetto, and 2,000 people in the one in the Borcut Valley.

On May 31st and June 5th, 1944, Jews from the two ghettos were boarded on trains and deported to Auschwitz. Many never returned to their birthplaces, being killed as soon as they arrived at the camp. 

Oliver Lustig (editor), Procesul ghetourilor din nordul Transilvaniei. Mărturii - Ghetoul din Baia Mare [The Process of Ghettos in Northern Transylvania. Testimonies - The Baia Mare Ghetto,], vol. II, București, Editura Aervh, 2007, accessible online at http://www.survivors-romania.org/text_doc/baia_mare.htm 

Ladislau Gyémánt, Baia Mare, accessible online at  https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Baia_Mare

Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, 11 Nov. 2004, accessible online at https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20080725-romania-commission-transylvania-romanian.pdf 

Randolph L. Braham, NAGYbÁNYA, în Geoffrey P. Megargee (general editor), Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2018, pp. 356-357.

Agnes Hegyi, Daniel Lowy, Baia Mare, în Randolph Braham, Zoltan Tibori Szabo, Enciclopedia geografică a Holocaustului din Transilvania de Nord [Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Northern Transylvania], Chișinău, Cartier/Editura Institutului Național pentru Studierea Holocaustului din România „Elie Wiesel”, 2019, pp. 368-374.