Before May 1944, Maramures had over 150 Jewish communities and was one of the largest Jewish communities in eastern Europe.
In May 1944, 150,000 Jews were deported from the Maramures region to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. 90% of the Jews who lived in the region were murdered in the Holocaust.
Of the survivors, only about 4,000 returned to the region where they settled in Sighet, Satu-Mare and Baia Mare. Today, the Maramures Jewish communities no longer exist, with most Jews having emigrated from there to Israel.