Satu-Mare, Romania

Satu-Mare, known in Hungarian as Szatmar, is a town in northern Transylvania, north-western Romania.

Six of the Boys came from here.

PRE-WAR SATU-MARE

Jews were present in the town since the early eighteenth century. In 1715, when Satmar became a royal town, they were expelled, beginning to resettle in the 1820s. In 1857, a synagogue was built. The first Jewish printing press was established in 1903. Jews also contributed to the local Hungarian press.

Satu-Mare was a center of Jewish Orthodoxy and Hasidism; it was the home of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the founder and leader of the Satmar Hasidic sect. In the 1920s, there were several Zionist organizations in Satu-Mare, and the yeshiva, one of the largest in the region, was attended by 400 students.

OCCUPATION BY HUNGARY

In September 1940, Hungary occupied the region of Satu-Mare and civil and economic rights and of the Jews were restricted.

Like other Jews in the region, in summer 1941, those who could not prove Hungarian nationality were deported to Kamenets-Podolski, where they were murdered by Hungarian and German troops

In 1941 there were 12,960 Jews living in Satu-Mare, about 25% of the total population.

LIFE IN THE GHETTO

On April 26, 1944, the Nazis established a ghetto in Satu-Mare. Jews from Satu-Mare, as well as from the surrounding areas, were concentrated there until the deportations began that summer. At its peak, there were 18,000-19,000 Jews living in the ghetto.

DEPORTATION

On May 3, 1944, the Jews of Satu-Mare were ordered into a ghetto that was established in the Jewish section of the city. The ghetto held approximately 19,000 Jews, including those who were brought in from the rural communities in the Arded, Carei, and Satu-Mare districts.

The ghetto in Satu-Mare was liquidated between 19 May and 1 June 1944. In total, 18,863 Jews were deported from Satu Mare, Carei and the surrounding municipalities. Of these, 14,440 were killed.

LIBERATION

After World War II, a handful of survivors returned to Satu-Mare, which at that point had become part of Romania.

In 1947, there were about 7,500 Jews living in the city. Many of these Jews were from southern Transylvania and other parts of Romania where the Jewish communities survived almost intact.

Subsequently, many of the Jews of Satu-Mare emigrated to Israel. By 1970, there were about 500 Jews remaining in Satu-Mare.

PRESENT-DAY SATU-MARE

In 2004, a Holocaust memorial was dedicated in the Decebal Street Synagogue's courtyard. Aside from the synagogues, two Jewish cemeteries also remain.

In 2011, only 34 Jews remained.

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