The Jews of Gheorgheni: Timber, a Synagogue and Names in Marble

Gheorgheni — Gyergyószentmiklós in Hungarian — is a Székely town in the Gyergyó basin in the north of Harghita county. In the 20th century a Jewish community of several hundred grew up there, mostly around the timber industry. On 3–5 May 1944 the Jews of the town and its surroundings were concentrated in a school courtyard, sent by train to the Reghin ghetto and from there to Auschwitz. The 1927–1928 synagogue still stands, its walls lined with marble plaques bearing the names of the murdered.

A town of Armenians, timber and Jews

For generations the town’s commerce was led by Armenian merchants who settled here in the 17th century. Their Armenian Catholic church was consecrated in 1733. Jews came late. According to the local historian Dezső Garda, the town had 15 Jews in 1857–1869, 177 in 1900, 321 in 1910 and 619 in 1930. In the Romanian census of 1930, 624 of 10,341 inhabitants declared the Jewish faith, and the 1941 census counted 559 Jews, according to Attila Gidó.

What drew Jews was the forest of the Gyergyó mountains. According to Transtelex, the first Jewish-owned sawmill opened in 1897, and by 1898 thirteen of the town’s sixteen sawmills were Jewish-owned. Many Jewish workers came from northern Transylvania and from Moldavia. A 2014 Mediafax report describes a religious, Yiddish-speaking community, most of whom worked in the timber factories, alongside a middle class of doctors, lawyers, merchants and industrialists. Garda writes that before the synagogue was built the community was given space to meet in the craftsmen’s guild hall and the merchants’ club.

The synagogue of 1927–1928

The synagogue was built in 1927–1928, under Romanian rule. The Federation’s list of synagogues gives 1927, and the US Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad gives 1928. The building stands on Strada Nicolae Bălcescu. In December 2016, at the community’s initiative, Culture Minister Corina Șuteu signed the order declaring it a historic monument. According to the newspaper Hargita Népe, it is the only Jewish house of prayer in the Székely Land, apart from the one in Târgu Mureș, that has survived intact.

What sets it apart are the marble plaques on its walls, bearing the names of hundreds of victims — more than 900 names, according to Informația Harghitei. The dead have no graves, and the plaques serve as their gravestones. A plaque put up in 1945 sums up the whole community in one line: “We were 986, 92 remained.” The synagogue is not used for regular services, but it is opened for commemorations and school visits. In 2020 a documentary by Katalin Daczó was devoted to the building and its community.

1940–1944: from the Vaskertes school to the Reghin ghetto

Under the Second Vienna Award of August 1940, Gheorgheni, then part of Csík county, passed to Hungary. Jewish men were drafted into forced-labour companies. According to Transtelex, 77 men from the town were conscripted, and after the war 47 of them were recorded as dead and six as missing.

Ghettoisation in Northern Transylvania began on 3 May 1944. According to Gidó’s research, a meeting in Târgu Mureș on 28 April had already decided that the Jews of northern Csík county and eastern Maros county would be concentrated in Reghin (Szászrégen). In Gheorgheni, the Jews of the town and nearby villages were held on 3–5 May in the courtyard of the Vaskertes primary school, next to the synagogue. A plaque placed on the school façade by the town in 2014 reads: “Here was the collection point of the Jews of Gyergyó, 3–5 May 1944.” From the town’s railway station they were sent to the Reghin ghetto, set up in a brickworks. According to Garda, the police captain Antal Örményi refused to organise the collection camp and resigned.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) holds a list of 986 Jews transported from Gheorgheni to the Reghin ghetto and on to Auschwitz. According to Transtelex, the Reghin ghetto was cleared on 4 June 1944, and 3,149 people were deported from it. Of the Jews of the area, 92 came back.

After the war and today

Most survivors emigrated, mainly to Israel. According to Gidó, three Jews remained in the town at the 2011 census, and in 2018 Informația Harghitei reported three elderly Jews and ten to twelve people from mixed families. In 2019 the Gheorgheni–Toplița community, led by Géza Geller, had 18 members, according to Agerpres. The Federation’s website lists Gheorgheni as a community affiliated to Târgu Mureș.

The community held a commemoration in 1994. In May 2014, on the 70th anniversary of the deportation, ceremonies were held at the railway station, the synagogue and the Vaskertes school, attended by Culture Minister Hunor Kelemen and the Federation’s president Aurel Vainer, and local children sang Jewish songs in the synagogue. The Tarisznyás Márton Museum placed a memorial plaque at the station. According to Geller, the community has held no further ceremonies since 2014.

The cemetery

We found no authoritative, current description of the Jewish cemetery of Gheorgheni — neither its location nor its condition. The US Commission surveyed eleven Jewish cemeteries in Harghita county in 2010, but the site-level data were not available to us. Anyone wishing to visit a family grave should contact the community’s representative in advance.

Visiting

• The synagogue: on Strada Nicolae Bălcescu. Not open on a regular basis; no visiting hours are published.
• The Vaskertes school: next to the synagogue, with the 2014 memorial plaque on its façade.
• The railway station: a plaque commemorating the deportation.

To arrange a visit to the synagogue, contact the Jewish Community of Târgu Mureș, Strada Aurel Filimon 23, to which the Gheorgheni community is affiliated (representative: Géza Geller), per the Federation’s website. Gheorgheni lies on the road between Târgu Mureș and Piatra Neamț via the Bicaz pass, and fits well into a route that includes Reghin and Târgu Mureș.