Synagogue from Horea Street, Cluj
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The Jews in Cluj-Napoca during the Holocaust
May 1944
The History of the Jews in Cluj-Napoca
The presence of Jews in Cluj has been attested since 1481, the year in which they were mentioned in the documents of the Cluj-Mănăstur monastery. The increase in the number of Jews in the next century alarmed local authorities, who took steps to limit their settlement in the city. Prohibitions intensified after 1790.
Until the revolution of 1848, the community did not have a synagogue, school, or cemetery, and it was forbidden to create such settlements. Later, however, with the adoption of a new constitution in 1849, Jews were given the right to settle in cities and purchase a property. After that year, the number of Jews gradually increased, from 479 people in the years 1850-1851 to 776 in 1866. A significant increase was recorded after obtaining civil rights.
The existing data mention that between 1869-1870 3,008 Jews lived in Cluj. In 1910, their number was 7,046. The figures from the interwar period, the time when the city was part of Romania, show that 13,504 Jews lived in the city, which represented 12.7% of the population of the urban center.
With the emancipation and growth of the Jewish population, they built their own religious, cultural, and social edifices. For example, in 1851, the first synagogue in the city appeared, and in 1875 the first primary school was established. In the following decades, other schools and educational institutions were created.
From the mid-nineteenth century until the decline of the Jewish community in Cluj, in the years of World War II, Jews were involved in industry, trade, banking, and other branches of the economy. Existing data mention about 110 companies established or owned by Jewish entrepreneurs until 1940.
Persecutions
Interwar Cluj was an effervescent cultural and university center, here being established, in 1919, the “King Ferdinand I” University. With the development of the university center, student movements appeared, and among them, the anti-Semitic and extremist groups found their place. From demands such as the introduction of numerus clausus, the expulsion of Jewish students, violent actions took place in the 1930s, the destruction of Jewish shops, the headquarters of major Jewish newspapers, the physical ill-treatment of Jewish students and other members of the community, and in 1938, even in attacks organized by legionary students. That year, legionary students planted bombs in the building of the gas plant in Cluj, in the Jewish student canteen and in several restaurants. At the same time, the rector of the university, Professor Florian Ștefănescu-Goangă, was the victim of a legionary attack.
The repressive measures taken against the Jews, adopted on the basis of racial criteria, increased in intensity in Romania, both with the adoption of laws issued by the Goga - Cuza government and after the city was taken over by the Hungarians in 1940, although most Jews had a culture of Hungarian origin. During the Hungarian period, the measures consisted in the deportation of “foreign” Jews from the city, the use of men aged 20 to 48 in forced labour, the expropriation of Jewish property, the generalization of forced labour for all Jews of military age or their dismissal from public office.
The peak of repressive policies against Jews was recorded in 1944. The day before the ghettoization began, Jews were asked not to leave their homes. The ghettoization was announced through pasted ads and spread in the city.
On May 3rd, 1944, the picking up of the Jews in the city and their internment in the ghetto in Cluj began. In the morning of that day, mixed teams, consisting of civilians and soldiers, entered the homes of the Jews. The Jews from Huedin also arrived in the Cluj ghetto. One survivor reported that after being evacuated from their homes, they were temporarily imprisoned in the “courtyard of the Jewish church” in Huedin, where they were subjected to brutal and violent searches.
Having just arrived in the Cluj ghetto, the inmates were subjected to the same violent and torture practices reported in other places. Suspected of hiding their valuables, they were asked, during interrogations and investigations, to tell whom they gave these goods for storage or to indicate where they hid them. The testimonies of the survivors depict the numerous ill-treatments and tortures to which they were subjected.
The existing data mention that within a few days, between 12,000 and 14,000 Jews were imprisoned in this ghetto, the Hungarian authorities benefiting from the assistance of Nazi specialists. The number of internees soon reached 18,000, after bringing Jews from Borsa, Huedin, and other regions.
The ghetto was an open-air space in the courtyard of the former Iris brick factory in the north of the city. Interns took shelter under several sheds previously used to store tiles and bricks. They slept huddled together. Food was distributed only once a day. From May 25th, 1944 until June 9th of the same year, 16,148 Jews from Cluj were deported to Auschwitz.
In those weeks when starvation, physical and mental torture took over the Jewish community in Cluj, several hundred Jews still managed to escape, taking refuge in Romania, on their own, or with the help of benefactors or of Zionist organizations. At the same time, during the deportation, 388 Jews were rescued, being transferred from Cluj to Budapest following the “controversial agreement between Kasztner and the SS”. Following the agreement between the lawyer and the journalist from Cluj, Rudolf Kasztner, and Adolf Eichmann, about 1,700 were rescued from deportation, arriving by train in Switzerland. According to the available information, the sum of 1,000 would have been paid for each Jew. They were selected from wealthy Jews, Zionist leaders, rabbis, but also journalists, teachers, artists.
At the end of the war, some of the survivors, both from Cluj and other localities, settled in the city. In 1947, their number was 6,500. Later, during the communist period, a significant part of them emigrated.
Sources
Oliver Lustig, Procesul ghetourilor din nordul Transilvaniei - Ghetoul din Cluj. Mărturii [The Process of Ghettos in Northern Transylvania - The Ghetto in Cluj. Testimonies], vol. II, București, Editura Aervh, 2007, accessible online at http://www.survivors-romania.org/text_doc/cluj.htm
Ladislau Gyémánt, Cluj, accessible online at https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Cluj
Anca Filipovici, Cluj, http://www.inshr-ew.ro/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Cluj.pdf
Comisia Internațională pentru Studierea Holocaustului în România [International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania], Raport Final [Final Report], Iași, Polirom, 2004, pp. 270-271.
Gido Attila, Două decenii. Evreii din Cluj în perioada interbelică [Two Decades. The Jews of Cluj in the Interwar Period], Cluj-Napoca, Institutul pentru Studierea Problemelor Minorităților Naționale, 2104, p. 148.
***, Rudolf Kasztner, accessible online at https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/rudolf-rezsoe-kasztner
The presence of Jews in Cluj has been attested since 1481, the year in which they were mentioned in the documents of the Cluj-Mănăstur monastery. The increase in the number of Jews in the next century alarmed local authorities, who took steps to limit their settlement in the city. Prohibitions intensified after 1790.
Until the revolution of 1848, the community did not have a synagogue, school, or cemetery, and it was forbidden to create such settlements. Later, however, with the adoption of a new constitution in 1849, Jews were given the right to settle in cities and purchase a property. After that year, the number of Jews gradually increased, from 479 people in the years 1850-1851 to 776 in 1866. A significant increase was recorded after obtaining civil rights.
The existing data mention that between 1869-1870 3,008 Jews lived in Cluj. In 1910, their number was 7,046. The figures from the interwar period, the time when the city was part of Romania, show that 13,504 Jews lived in the city, which represented 12.7% of the population of the urban center.
With the emancipation and growth of the Jewish population, they built their own religious, cultural, and social edifices. For example, in 1851, the first synagogue in the city appeared, and in 1875 the first primary school was established. In the following decades, other schools and educational institutions were created.
From the mid-nineteenth century until the decline of the Jewish community in Cluj, in the years of World War II, Jews were involved in industry, trade, banking, and other branches of the economy. Existing data mention about 110 companies established or owned by Jewish entrepreneurs until 1940.
Persecutions
Interwar Cluj was an effervescent cultural and university center, here being established, in 1919, the “King Ferdinand I” University. With the development of the university center, student movements appeared, and among them, the anti-Semitic and extremist groups found their place. From demands such as the introduction of numerus clausus, the expulsion of Jewish students, violent actions took place in the 1930s, the destruction of Jewish shops, the headquarters of major Jewish newspapers, the physical ill-treatment of Jewish students and other members of the community, and in 1938, even in attacks organized by legionary students. That year, legionary students planted bombs in the building of the gas plant in Cluj, in the Jewish student canteen and in several restaurants. At the same time, the rector of the university, Professor Florian Ștefănescu-Goangă, was the victim of a legionary attack.
The repressive measures taken against the Jews, adopted on the basis of racial criteria, increased in intensity in Romania, both with the adoption of laws issued by the Goga - Cuza government and after the city was taken over by the Hungarians in 1940, although most Jews had a culture of Hungarian origin. During the Hungarian period, the measures consisted in the deportation of “foreign” Jews from the city, the use of men aged 20 to 48 in forced labour, the expropriation of Jewish property, the generalization of forced labour for all Jews of military age or their dismissal from public office.
The peak of repressive policies against Jews was recorded in 1944. The day before the ghettoization began, Jews were asked not to leave their homes. The ghettoization was announced through pasted ads and spread in the city.
On May 3rd, 1944, the picking up of the Jews in the city and their internment in the ghetto in Cluj began. In the morning of that day, mixed teams, consisting of civilians and soldiers, entered the homes of the Jews. The Jews from Huedin also arrived in the Cluj ghetto. One survivor reported that after being evacuated from their homes, they were temporarily imprisoned in the “courtyard of the Jewish church” in Huedin, where they were subjected to brutal and violent searches.
Having just arrived in the Cluj ghetto, the inmates were subjected to the same violent and torture practices reported in other places. Suspected of hiding their valuables, they were asked, during interrogations and investigations, to tell whom they gave these goods for storage or to indicate where they hid them. The testimonies of the survivors depict the numerous ill-treatments and tortures to which they were subjected.
The existing data mention that within a few days, between 12,000 and 14,000 Jews were imprisoned in this ghetto, the Hungarian authorities benefiting from the assistance of Nazi specialists. The number of internees soon reached 18,000, after bringing Jews from Borsa, Huedin, and other regions.
The ghetto was an open-air space in the courtyard of the former Iris brick factory in the north of the city. Interns took shelter under several sheds previously used to store tiles and bricks. They slept huddled together. Food was distributed only once a day. From May 25th, 1944 until June 9th of the same year, 16,148 Jews from Cluj were deported to Auschwitz.
In those weeks when starvation, physical and mental torture took over the Jewish community in Cluj, several hundred Jews still managed to escape, taking refuge in Romania, on their own, or with the help of benefactors or of Zionist organizations. At the same time, during the deportation, 388 Jews were rescued, being transferred from Cluj to Budapest following the “controversial agreement between Kasztner and the SS”. Following the agreement between the lawyer and the journalist from Cluj, Rudolf Kasztner, and Adolf Eichmann, about 1,700 were rescued from deportation, arriving by train in Switzerland. According to the available information, the sum of 1,000 would have been paid for each Jew. They were selected from wealthy Jews, Zionist leaders, rabbis, but also journalists, teachers, artists.
At the end of the war, some of the survivors, both from Cluj and other localities, settled in the city. In 1947, their number was 6,500. Later, during the communist period, a significant part of them emigrated.
Sources
Oliver Lustig, Procesul ghetourilor din nordul Transilvaniei - Ghetoul din Cluj. Mărturii [The Process of Ghettos in Northern Transylvania - The Ghetto in Cluj. Testimonies], vol. II, București, Editura Aervh, 2007, accessible online at http://www.survivors-romania.org/text_doc/cluj.htm
Ladislau Gyémánt, Cluj, accessible online at https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Cluj
Anca Filipovici, Cluj, http://www.inshr-ew.ro/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Cluj.pdf
Comisia Internațională pentru Studierea Holocaustului în România [International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania], Raport Final [Final Report], Iași, Polirom, 2004, pp. 270-271.
Gido Attila, Două decenii. Evreii din Cluj în perioada interbelică [Two Decades. The Jews of Cluj in the Interwar Period], Cluj-Napoca, Institutul pentru Studierea Problemelor Minorităților Naționale, 2104, p. 148.
***, Rudolf Kasztner, accessible online at https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/rudolf-rezsoe-kasztner