The Jews in Satu Mare during the Holocaust

The presence of Jews in Satu Mare has been attested since the beginning of the 18th century. After the city was declared a royal city in 1715, their settlement in the locality was banned. The lifting of the restrictions regarding their establishment in the city, in 1840, determined the arrival of the Jews in Satu Mare. Their number increased in the 19th and 20th centuries, from 1,357 in 1869 to 11,533 in 1930, transforming the Jewish community here into one of the largest in Transylvania.

Founded in 1842, the community was officially recognized in 1852. In the following decades, religious, cultural, or aid institutions were also established. In 1858, the first synagogue was opened. Over the years, Jews have been involved in the trade. With the growth of the community, its representatives became involved in industry, setting up factories and industrial plants, or in the field of credit.

The entry of the city of Satu Mare into the composition of Hungary following the Vienna Diktate, August 30th, 1940, soon revealed its detrimental consequences for the local Jewish population. For a start, Jewish students in public schools were expelled, and from March 6th, 1943, Jews were forbidden to go to swimming pools. The authorities’ motivation was that they represented an “immoral social category”, with Jews deprived of their constitutional rights, marginalized and isolated in the society in which they lived.

At the same time, like the Jews from other cities administered by the Hungarians, the Jewish men aged between 22 and 45 from Satu Mare were mobilized to forced labour, being sent to Ukraine, where many died. Another bloody episode in the history of the Jews of Satu Mare is linked to Ukraine. In August 1941, the “stateless” Jews from the city were deported to Camenița, Kameaneț-Podilskîi, where they were executed by the Nazis. It is estimated that of the 16,000 to 18,000 Jews murdered at that time, 1,000 were from Satu Mare.

On April 28th, 1944, the decision was made to ghettoize the Jews of Satu Mare. Starting with May 3rd, 1944, the local Jews were evacuated from their homes and interned in the ghetto, set up in the city centre. In the ghetto, there were at one time 18,800 Jews from Satu Mare and neighbouring localities, including those from Carei, Copalnic-Mănăștur, Șomcuța Mare.

The conditions in which they were kept were similar to those in other ghettos: torture, starvation, overcrowding, lack of medical care. The women also underwent extremely violent intimate medical examinations. Here, too, the Jews were taken to the infamous “mint”, where they were tortured to say where they had hidden their valuables. The tortures they were subjected to were narrated by several survivors in their post-war statements, given during the trials of the former torturers. One survivor mentioned about the torture in the ghetto: “We waited in the yard and already there, we heard the cries and groans of the victims. It wasn’t [long] before my turn came. I was led before a commission of three [people] who tried to persuade me to declare where my Persian fur was, which, moreover, I had never had, just like other values, saying that they knew very well that I had hidden many things. Meanwhile, their superior entered, also in civilian clothes, a small, blond man, who said that there was no point in talking and they should take action. Then I was restrained and after I was forced to take off my shoes, they laid me on a bench and one of them grabbed me with his knees and the other started beating me on the soles with a long stick, until he got tired. Then he lifted my coat and beat me where he could. I shouted and groaned in agony. I was beaten terribly and then forced to run around the room, then forced to put on my shoes, which was a torment. Again, I was investigated to tell the truth - where were the values hidden - and because I did not say, they repeated the same procedure. They took off my shoes again, I was beaten and tortured again. During the beating, their leader came in and told them to beat me even harder. Then I was sent out and waited in another yard until I was called again and sent back to the ghetto. I was so crushed that my body was full of bruised marks and I could not walk, being carried by two people. A week later, I was called back to the investigation and then, for fear of being beaten, I volunteered for a transport to be deported as soon as possible; thus, getting rid of other torments”. 

To escape such torture, some of those who were to be interrogated and investigated chose to commit suicide. Between May 19th and June 1st, 1944, 18,800 Jews from the Satu Mare ghetto were deported to Auschwitz, and 70-75 people were loaded into a wagon. After the liquidation of the ghetto, by order of the prefect, a hunt began for the Jews who hid and managed to escape deportation. All those caught were executed. During that period, some of the Jews took refuge in Romania. All those captured during such an attempt were ill-treated, beaten, tortured, and eventually deported. In those years, there were also cases of people of Hungarian, German, or Romanian nationality who had a humanitarian attitude towards Jews. For example, the commander of the work detachment no. 110/68 managed to save “the lives of about 250 Jews from the labour service”. He issued them discharge papers or hid them in the work detachments. A bricklayer, Krammer, built a hideout for several Jewish families.

Of the deported Jews from Satu Mare, very few survived. Some of them returned to Satu Mare after the end of the war. In 1947, the number of Jews was 7,500, but many were from other regions. During the communist years, a significant part of them emigrated. In 1970, 700 Jews still lived in Satu Mare. In the following decades, their number decreased considerably.

Agnes Hegyi, Daniel Lowy, Satu Mare, in Randolph Braham, Zoltan Tibori Szabo, Enciclopedia geografică a Holocaustului din Transilvania de Nord [The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Northern Transylvania], Chișinău, Cartier/Editura Institutului Național pentru Studierea Holocaustului din România „Elie Wiesel”, 2019 pp. 406-411. 

Cristina Bejan, Satu Mare, in Geoffrey P. Megargee (general editor), Encyclopaedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2018, pp. 373-374. 

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

Comisia Internațională pentru Studierea Holocaustului în România [International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania], Raport Final [Final Report], Iași, Polirom, 2004, p. 274.

Tamás Csíki, Satu Mare, accessible online at https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Satu_Mare