The Jews of Petroșani: A Community in the Mining Town of the Jiu Valley

Petroșani (Hungarian Petrozsény), the capital of the Jiu Valley, grew in the 19th century from a shepherds’ village into a mining town, and with it grew a Jewish community of merchants, mine officials and professionals. In 1940 the town remained on the Romanian side of the border, and its Jews were not deported to Auschwitz. Its three synagogues have been demolished; what remains to see is the cemetery on the hill and the small prayer house of a tiny community.

A coal town

Until the mid-19th century the Jiu Valley, in the south of Hunedoara County, was a rural district of shepherds. Coal mining began around 1840, and in the second half of the century the area — Petroșani, Petrila, Lupeni and Vulcan — became a major mining district. Workers and professionals came to the growing town from across the empire, Jews among them.

The community: from “autonomous community” to three synagogues

According to the local newspaper Ziarul Văii Jiului, which surveyed the history of the valley’s Jews from archival documents in 2011, a community existed in Petroșani by around 1890, and statutes were submitted to the authorities in 1913. The First World War delayed recognition. On 18 January 1920 the founding of the “Autonomous Orthodox Israelite Community of Petroșani” was decided, with 163 members at its founding. In 1929 the Jewish women’s associations organised a masked ball, and Jewish merchants, according to the paper, dominated the local market.

In the early 20th century the town had three synagogues. Later two remained, on Maleia Street and Radu Șapcă Street. According to Jewish Heritage Europe, all three synagogues that stood in the town before the war have been demolished. According to Roseanu, after the war the Jews who remained in Petrila, Lonea and Lupeni also came to the synagogue in Petroșani.

Oscar Roseanu, born in Petroșani in 1923 as Oszkar Rosenfeld, told the Centropa archive of “over 100 Jewish families” and a main street lined with Jewish shops and houses. Among the community’s members he named the town notary, Bercovici, and his own father, Martin Rosenfeld, head of the supply department of the Lonea mines.

1940–1944: on the Romanian side of the border

Under the Second Vienna Award of August 1940, Transylvania was partitioned. The whole of Hunedoara County remained in Romania, and Yad Vashem’s Pinkas HaKehillot Romania lists Petroșani among the communities of Southern Transylvania. The town’s Jews suffered the Antonescu regime’s racial laws, expropriation and forced labour, but there was no ghetto here and no deportation to Auschwitz, as there was in Hungarian-ruled Northern Transylvania.

Police reports from the Hunedoara county archives, cited by Adevărul, record the fear. In January 1941 the Petroșani police reported that Jewish merchants had sold their shops to Christians. In July 1941 they reported that the government’s measures to intern Jews had terrified the community. On 18 June 1941 Antonescu ordered the Jews of the villages moved to county seats and towns, according to the Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. According to Adevărul, most of the county’s Jews were concentrated in three “evacuation centres”, at Deva, Ilia and Hațeg. According to the local paper, the Jews of Lupeni were moved to Hațeg on 14 July 1941, and those of Petrila and Lonea to Hațeg and Deva. We found no authoritative source on what happened to the Jews of Petroșani itself in those days. A staff list of the Hunedoara county communities from the time of the Jewish Council of Romania, kept in the National Archives in Bucharest, includes Petroșani — evidence that the community continued to function. The plan to deport the Jews of the Regat and Southern Transylvania to Bełżec, agreed to by the regime in 1942, was never carried out.

After the war

According to Roseanu, after the war the young Jews joined the Zionist Social-Democratic movement Ihud, set up a club and a small band, and held balls every January until 1948. Then came nationalisation and mass emigration, mainly to Israel. According to the local paper, in the 2002 census 25 people in Petroșani declared Jewish ethnicity and 27 the Jewish religion. According to Adevărul, the 2011 census counted six Jews in the town. In 2005 Roseanu estimated that fewer than ten remained, not enough for a minyan.

The Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania today lists in Petroșani an obște — a small community attached to the Deva community — headed by Marius Rosenfeld. According to Ziarul Văii Jiului, it prays in a small prayer house in a converted dwelling, where about four people come on ordinary days.

The cemetery on the hill

The Federation’s 2007 list of Jewish cemeteries records a Jewish cemetery in Petroșani on Strada Cireșilor. According to Jewish Heritage Europe, it was founded in 1880, lies on a hill and has about 300 grave markers. In 2011 the local paper described it as owned by the community, at the top of a steep street, fenced with wire. Roseanu said he came once a year to his parents’ graves, and that almost everyone buried there had been a friend or acquaintance. The cemeteries of nearby Vulcan, Lupeni and Lonea are neglected or have vanished.

Visiting

• Cemetery: Strada Cireșilor, according to the Federation’s list (no street number). No visiting hours are published; arrange in advance.
• Prayer house: the community’s small prayer house. Ask the community for the address and whether a visit is possible.
• Arrangements: Jewish Community of Deva, Strada Gheorghe Barițiu 5, according to the Federation; the person responsible for the Petroșani community is Marius Rosenfeld.
• On the way: Petroșani is about 50 km south of Hațeg, and can be combined with the Hațeg synagogue and Deva’s restored Great Synagogue.