The Jews of Carei: The Count’s Town and the Ghetto of 1944

Carei — Nagykároly in Hungarian, “Krole” to its Jews — is the estate town of the Károlyi counts in north-western Romania, between Satu Mare and Oradea. Between the two world wars almost one inhabitant in seven was Jewish, and from 1926 to 1934 the town’s rabbi was Joel Teitelbaum, later the Satmar Rebbe. In the spring of 1944, under Hungarian rule, the Jews of the town were confined in a ghetto, moved to the Satu Mare ghetto and deported from there to Auschwitz.

The count’s Jews

According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, in 1720 the lord of the town invited twelve Jewish families to settle there, and organised community life dates from that year. Local sources attribute the invitation to Count Sándor (Alexandru) Károlyi and give the years 1720–1740; according to the ANU Museum database, in the mid-18th century the count also brought in a rabbi from outside to secure the Jews’ residence on his estate. The settlers lived in a quarter known as the “Jewish Passage”. In 1740 there were 66 Jews in the town, in 1770 56 families, and in the 1860s about 300 families. The first Jewish school was built in 1785.

Carei’s nearness to Galicia brought Galician immigrants, who enlarged the community and introduced Hasidic influence. The town’s Jews traded mainly in leather, tools, timber and building materials. In 1891 there were 2,073 Jews out of 13,475 inhabitants, in 1910 2,491 out of 16,078, and in 1930, under Romanian rule, 2,394 out of 16,042.

A yeshiva, rabbis and the Satmar Rebbe

After the General Jewish Congress in Hungary in 1868–1869 the community belonged for a time to the Status Quo Ante stream; in 1881 an Orthodox community was founded in the town, and in the end the older community became Orthodox too. A yeshiva was founded in 1883. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum served in Carei from 1926 to 1934, when he moved to the rabbinate of Satu Mare — Satmar — and after the Holocaust he built the Satmar Hasidic community in New York.

The synagogue on Strada Progresului

According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, two large synagogues were built in Carei, in 1870 and in 1901. The surviving synagogue stands at Strada Progresului 6, and the sources disagree on its dates: the Federation’s list of synagogues records 1870, the Federation’s page on the building gives 1893, and the local press says that construction began in 1866 and that the Neolog community renovated and altered it in 1890. The Federation describes it as Carei’s “monumental synagogue”, with a floor area of 585 m² and an unusual eclectic style.

The building has three naves in a Romantic-Moorish style, the central nave only slightly wider than the side ones. On the façade two columns taller than the rest frame the entrance, with a rose window above; two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments crown the cornice, and a Star of David recurs along the frieze. The rear apse holds the niche of the Ark. According to local sources, the Orthodox community built a much smaller synagogue nearby, which no longer exists. According to the welcometoromania travel site, a Holocaust memorial stands in front of the synagogue.

The synagogue is not among the active synagogues on the Federation’s list. In June 2023 the mayor brought draft decisions to the town council on transferring the building’s administration to the municipality and on its rehabilitation, and in April 2025 it was reported that the town hall, together with its twin town of Nyírbátor in Hungary, had submitted a cross-border project to restore it. We found no report that the funding was approved.

1940–1944: under Hungarian rule

Under the Second Vienna Award of August 1940, Carei passed with the rest of Northern Transylvania to Hungary. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, in 1941 the town’s Jews classed as “foreign” were deported to Kamenets-Podolsky in Ukraine and murdered there. The community’s memorial book also devotes chapters to the anti-Jewish laws and to the Hungarian army’s forced-labour companies. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2,255 Jews lived in the town in 1944.

Ghettos in Northern Transylvania were set up from 3 May 1944. According to the chronology of the Hungarian “Yellow-Star Houses” project, Carei also had a ghetto, and the Jews of the town and district were sent to the Satu Mare ghetto; the Virtual Museum of the Holocaust in Northern Transylvania describes Carei as a “temporary ghettoisation centre”. Some 18,800 Jews in all were concentrated in the Satu Mare ghetto, the second largest in Northern Transylvania. Six trains left it, via Košice, carrying 18,863 people; they reached Auschwitz between 21 May and 3 June 1944. The Jews of the surrounding villages, such as Craidorolt, were also first gathered in the Carei ghetto and then moved to Satu Mare, according to JewishGen’s cemetery survey.

After the Holocaust

In 1947 about 590 Jews lived in Carei — returning survivors and Jews from the surrounding area — and many of them emigrated to Israel. By 1969 about 40 remained, by 1977 about 20, and by the early 21st century, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the community had all but ceased to function. In 2018 the town’s survivors published in Jerusalem the Memorial Book for the Jews of Carei (Nagy Karoly) and its Surroundings, edited by Israel Weiser; its list of victims has been translated into English and appears on JewishGen.

The cemeteries

According to JewishGen’s Cemetery Discovery Project, Carei has two Jewish cemeteries. The old one, on Strada Șoimului, holds stones from the 1810s to the 1880s; about 70% are in Hebrew only, and they were cleaned in the decade before 2019 and are legible. The new one, on Strada Oborului, opened in the mid-1880s; men and women are generally buried separately. On visits in 2019 and 2025 both were found well kept, and a caretaker who lives beside the new cemetery helps visitors.

Visiting

• The synagogue: Strada Progresului 6, per the Federation’s website. The building is not in use and no opening hours have been published; the façade and the memorial can be seen from the street.
• The cemeteries: Strada Șoimului (old) and Strada Oborului (new), according to JewishGen. If you are looking for family graves, bring someone who reads Hebrew.
• Arrangements: Carei has no community in the Federation’s contact list. The nearest is the Jewish Community of Satu Mare, Strada Decebal 4A, telephone per the Federation’s website: +40 261 713 703.
• Nearby: Satu Mare — the Great Synagogue and the ghetto memorial; Oradea.