The Jews of Salonta: A Neolog Community on the Hungarian Border

Salonta (Hungarian Nagyszalonta), a farming town in western Bihor County near the Hungarian border, was home to a Hungarian-speaking Jewish community founded in 1850 that joined the Neolog stream. In 1886 it dedicated a large synagogue, and in 1940 the town was annexed to Hungary with Northern Transylvania. In summer 1944 its Jews were deported through the Oradea ghetto to Auschwitz. A memorial to them stands in the community’s cemetery.

A Community on the Hungarian Plain

According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the first Jews settled in Salonta around 1840, and their numbers grew after residence restrictions were lifted in 1848. In 1850 an organised community was founded and the first synagogue built, and in 1859 the burial society was established. From 1885 the community served as the official centre for the Jews of 15 surrounding villages. The community school ran, according to the Encyclopaedia, from 1869 to 1936, teaching in Hungarian until the end of the First World War.

The community was steeped in Hungarian culture: from 1882, according to the Encyclopaedia, the rabbis of the Great Synagogue preached only in Hungarian. After the split at the Hungarian Jewish Congress of 1868–1869 the community joined the Neolog stream, and only in 1927 was a small, separate Orthodox community founded in the town. The Neolog stream, which emerged in Hungary after that congress, sought to combine tradition with integration into Hungarian society and culture, and was widespread in the communities of the Hungary of the time.

The Great Synagogue

In 1886 the Great Synagogue of Salonta was dedicated. According to a survey of Jewish cemeteries made in 2000 for the US Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, the building was demolished under Ceaușescu. The early edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica still described it as standing, and we found no current source that settles the question.

The Rabbis

In 1925 Rabbi Abraham Isaac Nébel (1887–1967) was appointed rabbi of the community, and he led Zionist cultural activity in the town. Nébel survived the war and died in Jerusalem. The small Orthodox community was headed by Nathan Brisk, who perished in the Holocaust.

The community was never large. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, 843 Jews lived in the town in 1910, 740 in 1930, or 4.8% of the population, and 593 in 1941.

1940–1944: Under Hungarian Rule

Under the Second Vienna Award of August 1940, Salonta was annexed to Hungary. In 1942–1943 Jewish men were drafted into the forced-labour companies of the Hungarian army, and according to the Encyclopaedia most of them died. After the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, the Jews of Salonta were taken to the Oradea ghetto; according to the 2000 survey they numbered about 400. In May–June 1944 they were deported from there to Auschwitz, together with about 132,000 Jews of Northern Transylvania, according to the Wiesel Commission.

The Oradea Ghetto and the End of the War

In spring 1944 two ghettos were set up in Oradea: one for the city’s Jews, and a second for the Jews of the rural communities and small towns of a dozen districts, among them Salonta, Marghita and Săcueni. According to figures given by 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. Most of the deportees were murdered on arrival.

In autumn 1944 Salonta changed hands five times between 26 September and 5 October as the Soviet front approached. According to a study published in 2026, Hungarian army and gendarmerie units executed 18 Roma from the town in those days on charges of collaborating with the Soviets. The Jewish survivors who returned after the war found their community destroyed.

In 1947, 190 Jews lived in Salonta, survivors who returned and reorganised the community. According to the Encyclopaedia, memorials to the victims were then erected opposite the synagogue and in the cemetery. Emigration to Israel and elsewhere reduced the community to about ten families by 1971.

Visiting

• The Neolog cemetery: enclosed by a wall and fence with a locked gate. According to the 2000 survey it covers about 20,000 square metres and holds hundreds of gravestones inscribed in Hebrew and Hungarian, a section for Kohanim, a Holocaust memorial and marked mass graves.
• The Orthodox cemetery: a small plot outside town with a handful of gravestones, mostly overgrown.
• Addresses: according to the Federation’s list, the first cemetery is on Strada Aradului and the second on Strada Sarcadului. Other sources place both on Drumul Sarcadului, so confirm the location with the community.
• Arrangements: no hours are published. The cemeteries belong to the Jewish Community of Oradea, according to the Federation, which should be contacted in advance.
• Nearby: Oradea, with its synagogues; Beiuș; Marghita; Arad.