The Jews of Târgu Lăpuș: The Ohel in the Cemetery of the Lăpuș Land

Târgu Lăpuș (Hungarian Magyarlápos), the market town of the Lăpuș Land in southern Maramureș, was home to hundreds of Orthodox Jews. In 1940 it was annexed to Hungary, and in May 1944 its Jews were locked in the synagogue, taken to the Dej ghetto and from there to Auschwitz. The synagogue is gone, but the cemetery, with 470 gravestones and an ohel over two rabbis’ graves rebuilt by visitors from Israel, survives and is looked after.

A Market Town in the Lăpuș Land

The Lăpuș Land (Țara Lăpușului) is a mountain basin in the south of Maramureș County, between Baia Mare and Dej, and Târgu Lăpuș is its market town. According to a report in eMaramureș, about 500 Jews lived in the town in 1885; they built a large synagogue and contributed substantially to local trade and industry. According to JewishGen’s Cemetery Discovery Project, the community numbered 425 in 1891 and was Orthodox. The Jews of the villages of Răzoare and Dămăcușeni also buried their dead in the town.

The Hungarian census of 1941 counted 2,411 inhabitants in Târgu Lăpuș, 717 of them Jews, according to Southern Jewish Life, citing the figures on the plaque placed in the town. After the Holocaust, former members of the community collected their memories in A Golden Album: Childhood Memories, Four Generations of the Community of Magyarlápos and Vicinity (Jerusalem, 1982), edited by Arye Ayzik.

1940–1944: Under Hungarian Rule

Under the Second Vienna Award of August 1940, Northern Transylvania and Maramureș, Târgu Lăpuș included, passed to Hungarian rule. According to eMaramureș, the situation of the Jews in north-western Transylvania worsened at once: antisemitism spread and Jewish businesses were closed.

After Germany occupied Hungary in March 1944, ghettoisation and deportation began. “4 May 1944 was the beginning of the Holocaust for the Jews of Târgu Lăpuș,” wrote eMaramureș: they were locked in the synagogue and the next day taken to Dej, to the ghetto set up in the Bungur forest. According to Stiftung Denkmal, about 3,700 Jews of Dej and some 4,000 from the surrounding area were concentrated in the forest and, between 28 May and 8 June 1944, sent in three trains to Auschwitz-Birkenau. According to the final report of the Wiesel Commission, about 132,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz in May–June 1944 from Hungarian-ruled Northern Transylvania. Few of the Jews of Târgu Lăpuș returned.

The Plaque at the Synagogue Site

On 4 May 2018, the anniversary of the round-up, a memorial plaque was unveiled in the town to the 717 Jews of Târgu Lăpuș and the surrounding area who were deported in May 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau and murdered there. According to Southern Jewish Life, the plaque was fixed to the wall of a building next to the empty lot where the synagogue stood. The initiative came from Amy McDonald, a teacher from Birmingham, Alabama, who co-wrote the memoir of the survivor Max Steinmetz, a native of the town. The Birmingham Holocaust Education Center paid for the plaque, and the mayor approved it.

The Cemetery and the Ohel

The Federation’s 2007 list of Jewish cemeteries records the Târgu Lăpuș cemetery under the Baia Mare community. A survey for the US Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, carried out in April 2000 and published by JewishGen, describes it in detail:

• The stones: 470 gravestones, 439 of them in their original place, of marble, granite, limestone and sandstone. Many lean, and 31 are broken or toppled.
• The ohel: rebuilt in 1999 by visitors from Israel, it holds the headstones of two rabbis. The survey does not name them.
• Care: a fence and a locked gate were put up in 1990. The caretaker, Anna Pohlman, whose family looked after the cemetery before the war, was paid from donations, had repainted the lettering and was seeking funds to stabilise the stones.
• Size: about 2,500 square metres. According to the survey, about 300 square metres were annexed to a neighbouring garden, probably in 1944.
• Last burial: in 1972.

JewishGen’s JOWBR database lists 162 burials from the cemetery.

Visiting

• Cemetery: in Târgu Lăpuș, according to the Federation’s list (no address). The gate is locked; no visiting hours are published.
• Memorial plaque: on the wall of a building next to the lot where the synagogue stood. Confirm the exact location in advance.
• Arrangements: Jewish Community of Baia Mare, Strada Someșului 3, according to the Federation.
• On the way: Târgu Lăpuș lies between Baia Mare and Dej, and can be combined with the ghetto site in the Bungur forest and the memorial in Dej.