The Jews of Săcueni: An Orthodox Community in Northern Bihor

Săcueni (Hungarian Székelyhíd), a town in northern Bihor County near the Hungarian border, was home to an Orthodox community founded in 1848 that built an imposing synagogue in the 1880s. In 1940 the town was annexed to Hungary, and in May 1944 its Jews were taken to the Oradea ghetto and from there to Auschwitz. The synagogue has been demolished; the cemetery, where generations of the community are buried, holds a memorial to the victims.

A count’s permit

According to the Oradea memorial book, in its chapter on the surrounding communities, the first Jews settled in Săcueni in 1848, by permit from Count Stubenberg, the local landowner. It was the year of the Hungarian revolution, when many residence restrictions on Jews were lifted.

The community grew slowly. According to the JewishGen cemetery survey, the town had 305 Jews in 1880, 409 in 1900 and 547 in 1930. The memorial book speaks of a community of 800 on the eve of the Holocaust, but gives no year and does not say whether the figure includes the surrounding villages.

The synagogue and the rabbi

Between 1886 and 1888, according to the memorial book, the community built an imposing synagogue. The building no longer exists: the memorial book says it was demolished, and it is not on the synagogue list of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania.

The community was led by Rabbi Juda Rosner, whom the memorial book describes as a Talmud scholar and one of the leading figures of the Hungarian Orthodox rabbinate. The JewishGen survey lists Rabbi Jehuda Szegal Rosner (1879–1944) among the notable burials in the cemetery. His year of death, 1944, is the year of the deportation, and we found no source that makes clear whether this is a grave or a memorial stone.

1940–1944: under Hungarian rule

Under the Second Vienna Award of August 1940, northern Bihor and Săcueni were annexed to Hungary. The memorial book describes what happened to the town’s Jews in the war years: the conscription of men into forced-labour companies, the ghetto and the deportation. According to the JewishGen survey, Săcueni’s Jews were taken to the Oradea ghetto in May 1944.

In spring 1944 two ghettos were set up in Oradea: one for the city’s Jews, the other for the Jews of the towns and villages of the surrounding districts, among them Săcueni, Salonta and Marghita. According to figures from the Northern Transylvania Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem, nine trains carrying 27,215 Jews left the Oradea ghettos for Auschwitz between 23 May and 27 June 1944. According to the Wiesel Commission, about 132,000 Jews from Northern Transylvania were deported to Auschwitz in those months.

According to the memorial book, only about 90 people from the Săcueni community survived. Most survivors emigrated, mainly to Israel, and no Jews remain in the town.

The cemetery

The Orthodox cemetery was founded in the mid-19th century, and the last known burial took place in 1959. According to the 2000 JewishGen survey, its oldest stone dates from the second half of the 19th century. It covers about 44 by 56 metres and holds between 20 and 100 stones, some no longer in their original places, with a quarter to a half of them toppled or broken. There is no sign, the gate does not lock, and seasonal overgrowth can block access. The cemetery holds a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.

The 2010 survey by the US Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad places the cemetery on Irinyi János street, and lists two more small Jewish cemeteries within the commune, in the villages of Cadea and Ciocaia.

Visiting

• Cemetery: on the Federation’s 2007 cemetery list, with no address. According to the US Commission survey it is on Irinyi János street. No hours are published.
• Arrangements: the cemetery belongs to the Jewish Community of Oradea, Strada Mihai Viteazu 4, according to the Federation; contact it in advance.
• Nearby: Oradea, with its synagogues and museum; Valea lui Mihai, with its Orthodox synagogue; Marghita; Carei.