Kisvárda Jewish Community

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The Jewish community of Kisvárda (German Kleinwardein ) in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County in northeast Hungary was founded in 1796. The first synagogue was built in the village as early as 1801 . The current one, which is used as a museum , was built in the same place about a hundred years later.

history

The first traces of Jewish settlements in Kisvárda can be traced back to 1508. According to contemporary surveys, 21 families lived in 13 villages in the Kisvárda district in 1753 and 49 Jews in Kisvárda in 1770 .

The Jewish community of Kisvárda was founded in 1796 and was subordinate to the community in Nagykálló under Isaiah Banet as rabbi in the first years . The first synagogue was built in the village as early as 1801 . From 1843 the community became independent and its own rabbi was appointed. In 1848 there were 723 Jewish people in 161 families in Kisvárda. That number rose to 1,483 Jewish residents in 1860. Around 1900 their number was 2,624 and rose to 3,770 by 1941. That means that Jews made up around a quarter of the total population that year.

From 1932 the Zionist movements also grew stronger in Hungary. At the same time, anti-Semitic activities increased and the first armed attacks against Jews in Hungary occurred in 1938. As early as 1937, around 400,000 Jews were deported to Germany by the Hungarian authorities under the government of Reich Administrator Miklós Horthy . After the German occupation in the spring of 1944, the Jewish population of Kisvárda and the surrounding area was rounded up in the Kisvárda ghetto and a few weeks later deported to Auschwitz or other concentration camps, where most of them perished. Because of these events and the ongoing anti-Semitism in Hungary until the 1960s, only a few Jews still live in Kisvárda, their number is probably less than ten.

graveyard

The Jewish cemetery on Árpád Street

The Jewish cemetery is on Árpárd Street. It contains several thousand tombstones in a well-preserved condition and with Hebrew, Yiddish and Hungarian inscriptions.

It is documented for the year 1824 that the Jewish community sought to build a new cemetery, as the land previously leased by landowners was no longer sufficient. She was initially instructed to lease land again. Their request was only granted in 1839 and the new Jewish cemetery has been in its current location ever since. The old cemetery is now a sports field. The graves are below and the tombstones have been moved to the new cemetery.

The new cemetery had to be expanded by purchasing land. On May 3, 1920, Rabbi Moses Rosenbaum held the opening ceremony in the presence of a large crowd . On the occasion of this ceremony, the Israelite community distributed 1,500 Hungarian crowns to the needy population.

In 2005, a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust was erected in the cemetery . The cemetery is being maintained. At least in 2016 there was a cemetery attendant who also gives visitors the key. There is no list of tombs.

See also

literature

  • István Nezö, The Jewish people In Kisvárda. Their life and history. A study by István Nezö. Published by ARDLEA, Nyiregyháza 1998. Translated from the Hungarian original by Henry C. Tausk MD Ardlea Edition, Nyiregyháza 1998. online: [1]

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rabbi Dr. Karoly Jolesz, Efrajim Agmon, Rabbi Smuel Aba Grosz, Jichak Mandel, Avraham Marmorstein and Jozsef Reismann, Memorial Book of the Jews of Kisvarda and its Vicinity , published in Tel Aviv (1980) in Hebrew , Hungarian and English
  2. ^ Gerhard Seewann , Péter Dippold, Südosteuropa-Bibliographie / Bibliographisches Handbuch der Ethnischengruppen Südosteuropas: 3 , Verlag Oldenbourg (1998), ISBN 3-486-56261-4 , pp. 355 ff.
  3. ↑ Ferenc Virágh. Data concerning the history of Kisvárda. Edited and arranged for publication by Zoltán Ács - András Jósa Museum, Kisvárda-Nyiregyháza. 1981, p. 106, quoted by István Nezö

Web links

  • Photos of the cemetery and map: [2]
  • International Jewish Cemetery Project: [3]
  • JewishGen: [4]
  • Map of the Jewish institutions in the 1930s: [5]

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 '44.8 "  N , 22 ° 5' 8.4"  E