The Jews of Făgăraș and Sfântu Gheorghe: Two Communities on Either Side of a Border

Two towns an hour’s drive from Brașov, on opposite sides of the 1940 border. The Jews of Făgăraș stayed under Romanian rule and survived the war through forced labour and confiscations; their synagogue still stands. The Jews of Sfântu Gheorghe found themselves across the border, under Hungarian rule, and in 1944 were sent to Auschwitz. Their synagogue was demolished, and the town keeps its cemeteries and a memorial.

Făgăraș: Southern Transylvania’s Largest Community

Făgăraș (Hungarian: Fogaras) lies in the Olt valley at the foot of the Făgăraș Mountains. According to Pinkas HaKehillot, Jews were barred from living in the town itself until the early 19th century, but they lived in the surrounding villages from the second half of the 17th century; a record of 1690 mentions Jews appearing before the local court.

According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica and Pinkas HaKehillot, the community was organised in 1827, when a cemetery plot was bought and a burial society founded; the JewishGen cemetery survey and the JBAT archive give 1820. By the mid-19th century Făgăraș was the largest Jewish community in southern Transylvania. It had 286 Jews in 1856 and 514 in 1910. According to JBAT, in 1838 townspeople attacked Jewish homes after demanding that the Jews leave; in 1840 the court in Vienna ordered the instigators arrested and the community compensated.

The first rabbi, Yehuda Silbermann, served from 1855 to 1863 and kept a diary of community life known as the “Făgăraș Diary.” In 1869, during the split in Hungarian Jewry, the community joined the Neolog movement; in 1926 it became Orthodox. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the Jewish school ran from 1867 to 1938.

The Făgăraș Synagogue: Four Dates, One Building

The synagogue stands at Strada Aron Pumnul 3, according to the Federation of Jewish Communities’ list of synagogues. Sources disagree on when it was built. According to JBAT, a first prayer house was built in 1829 and demolished on the authorities’ orders in 1836, and the synagogue was rebuilt in 1858. Pinkas HaKehillot describes a new “Cultus Tempel” with 84 seats built in 1859, and the Encyclopaedia Judaica also gives 1859. The Federation’s list records 1900, and a 2022 Digi24 report gives 1870. We found no source that settles the question.

After the war most Jews left the town and the synagogue was abandoned. According to the Foundation for Jewish Heritage, the building is formally owned by the Federation, which has made a long-term lease arrangement with the Municipality of Făgăraș. The municipality is considering turning the site into a community resource, a memorial and a place of education about the Jewish community. According to Digi24, restoration began in 2019 with funding from a private company, later joined by a local community foundation and the Ambulanța pentru Monumente (Monuments Ambulance) organisation. The façade work was funded by the municipality. In January 2022, shortly after part of the work was finished, an unidentified substance was smeared over the south wall. The plan is to turn the building into an international cultural centre.

Făgăraș in the War and After

Făgăraș had 390 Jews in 1930 and 267 in 1941. According to Pinkas HaKehillot, when the Legionaries came to power in 1940 the town became a regional centre of political extremism. Saxon Nazi groups and Iron Guard members robbed Jewish property and attacked Jews. In 1940–1941 about half of the community’s property was confiscated, including the culture hall, the school, the shelter for the poor and the mikveh. Jews from the surrounding villages were concentrated in the town without their belongings. About sixty people were sent to forced labour. Some Jews, mostly those accused of Communist activity, were deported to Transnistria, and three of them died there.

In 1947 Făgăraș had 360 Jews. Most later moved to the larger cities and emigrated to Israel. By 1970 about twenty remained; according to JBAT, by 2003 there were three, counted as members of the Brașov community. The cemetery, next to the Orthodox cemetery, was surveyed in 2000. It has between 100 and 500 stones, a quarter to a half of them toppled or broken, and no one maintains it.

Sfântu Gheorghe: The “Status Quo” Community of Háromszék

Sfântu Gheorghe (Hungarian: Sepsiszentgyörgy) is a town of the Hungarian-speaking Székelys, about 30 km north of Brașov. According to local historian Zoltán Féder, 56 Jews lived there in 1850, and the first settlers came from Moldavia. According to the Hungarian Jewish Lexicon of 1929, the community was organised in the 1840s. In 1867 the government gave it the name “Israelite Community of Háromszék County,” and it was then the only county-wide community of its kind in Hungary. The community belonged to the “Status Quo” stream. Until 1895 it had only a prayer house. That year the synagogue was built, at the initiative of József Kupferstich, who led the community for fifty years.

In 1910 the county as a whole had 1,227 Jews, and according to the 1941 census the town had about 400. The Sfântu Gheorghe synagogue was the only one in the county.

1944: The Ghetto on Strada Ciucului and the Road to Auschwitz

Under the Second Vienna Award of August 1940, Northern Transylvania — including Sfântu Gheorghe — was annexed to Hungary. The new border ran between the town and Brașov. After Germany occupied Hungary on 19 March 1944, anti-Jewish laws and orders followed. From 5 April Jews had to wear the yellow star, and on 3 May they were confined to a ghetto in an unfinished building, with no roof or windows, on Strada Ciucului. Sapientia University stands on the site today. Jews from the villages of the county and from southern Csík were also brought to the ghetto.

On 10 May 1944 the Jews were loaded into wagons at the railway station and taken to the ghetto-camp in Reghin, where, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, about 6,000 Jews were concentrated. From 1 June the first groups were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. According to community representatives, of the 756 Jews of Trei Scaune (Háromszék) county who were deported or sent to forced labour, only 148 returned. Among those murdered were 52 children. Féder’s book gives slightly different figures: about 950 Jews, and people classified as Jews, were affected, and about 150 survived.

After the War: A Synagogue Sold, Cemeteries That Remain

Most survivors who came back settled in Sfântu Gheorghe, and in 1945–1946 several hundred Jewish refugees from Bukovina and Bessarabia stayed in the town temporarily. Emigration to Israel reduced the community to a few dozen by the 1960s. According to Féder, in 1970 the synagogue was sold to a local small-industry cooperative, and in 1971 it was demolished. Agerpres dates the demolition to “the early 1970s.”

The town has two Jewish cemeteries. The old one, at Strada Varviz 32, was founded in the mid-19th century. Its earliest known stone dates from 1852; it is fenced and reached through a private yard. The newer one, on Strada Voican, was founded in the early 20th century and has a tahara house and a Holocaust memorial; its upkeep was formerly funded by the Brașov community (JewishGen survey, 2000–2003). In 2014 a Holocaust memorial park was inaugurated in the Jewish cemetery, with a chapel, an obelisk and a wall bearing the names of all the county’s Jews murdered in the camps. In July 2022 the municipality set 15 “stumbling stones” outside former Jewish homes, at the ghetto site and where the synagogue stood. In November 2023 a Kabbalat Shabbat was held in the town — the first in the county since 1971, according to the weekly Szombat.

Visiting

Făgăraș is about 1 hour 10 minutes’ drive from Brașov; Sfântu Gheorghe is about 35 minutes by car or about 45 minutes by train. No opening hours have been published for any of the sites. The Făgăraș synagogue and the cemeteries in both towns are usually locked, so arrange visits in advance with the Jewish Community of Brașov, Strada Poarta Schei 27, tel. +40 268 511 867. The stumbling stones in Sfântu Gheorghe are set into the pavements and can be seen without arrangement.