The Jews of Târgu Mureș: From the Villages to the Town, and to Auschwitz

Jews lived along the Mureș river as early as the 17th century, but in the town of Marosvásárhely itself they were allowed to settle only in the 19th. In less than a century a community of some 5,700 grew up here, most of whom were murdered in Auschwitz after being concentrated in the spring of 1944 in a ghetto at the town’s brickyard. Today about two hundred Jews live in Târgu Mureș, around the great synagogue and the cemetery.

From the villages to the town

Târgu Mureș — Marosvásárhely in Hungarian — was a principal town of the Székely Land in Transylvania. According to the Jewish community’s website, Jews are mentioned in the area as early as 1638, and in the 18th century theirs was the second-largest community in Transylvania after Alba Iulia. But these were Jews who lived in the villages and estates along the river: in the town itself they were not allowed to live. According to the YIVO Encyclopedia, the first to receive the right of residence in the town was the goldsmith Iosif Vojtitz in 1828. In 1830 two Jewish families lived there, in 1833 sixteen people, and in 1838 five families of 36 people. The community’s website states that free settlement in the town became possible only after 1850.

Growth in the 19th century

In 1850 the community numbered 202 souls and elected its first rabbi, Moses Fürst (1850–1870). According to YIVO a synagogue was founded in 1860 and two years later, in 1862, destroyed in violence that spread through the town and the surrounding villages. Growth continued nonetheless: in 1869–1870 there were 773 Jews in the town (6.1% of the population), in 1890 1,024, and in 1910 2,755 (10.8%). A Jewish elementary school was built in 1880, and a Talmud Torah was founded in 1907.

After the General Jewish Congress in Hungary in 1868–1869 the community divided. YIVO writes that it declared itself Neolog and that an Orthodox community arose alongside it after 1871; the community’s website describes the larger congregation as “Status Quo Ante”, having separated from the Orthodox. Either way, the town had two congregations, each with its own rabbis. The larger one was served by, among others, Joachim Willheim (1889–1903) and Ferenc Lővy (1903–1944), and the Orthodox by Aharon Moshe Mandelbaum (1898–1915) and Menahem Emanuel Sofer (1918–1944). In 1900 Jakob Gartner’s great synagogue was inaugurated, and in 1927 an Orthodox synagogue was built.

Between the wars

After the First World War Transylvania passed to Romania. In 1930, 5,193 Jews lived in the town, 13.5% of the population. According to community data for 1924–1928, some 60% of breadwinners were in trade, 22.5% in industry and crafts, and the rest were clerks, professionals and community employees. A burial society was founded in 1923 and a women’s association in 1934, and the town had a Zionist association, a Jewish club and several periodicals.

Under Hungarian rule

Under the Second Vienna Award of August 1940, northern Transylvania, Marosvásárhely included, was transferred to Hungary. Hungary’s racial laws were applied to the Jews: restrictions in trade, industry and the professions, and a numerus clausus for students. According to JewishGen, some 1,200 Jewish men from the town were drafted in 1941–1944 into the Hungarian army’s forced-labour companies, and more than half of them died in Hungary, Poland and Ukraine. In 1941, 5,693 Jews lived in the town.

1944: the ghetto at the brickyard

In March 1944 Germany occupied Hungary. In May 1944 the Jews of the town and its surroundings were concentrated in a ghetto set up at the town’s brickyard — one of thirteen central ghettos in northern Transylvania. According to YIVO it held 7,549 Jews; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum says “more than 7,000”. From there they were deported to Auschwitz in three transports — on 27 and 30 May and 8 June 1944. Other sources give slightly different figures for the number deported, and the community’s website estimates that of some 7,700 Jews deported from the town and its surroundings, about 5,900 did not return.

Lists from that time survive: rolls compiled by the Jewish council in the ghetto and a deportation list of some 4,600 of the town’s residents. Bernath Sauber, later president of the community, gave them in 1999 to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and they are now transcribed in the JewishGen databases — an important source for anyone tracing family roots.

After the war and today

The survivors who returned re-established the community under Rabbi Simon Herman. According to YIVO about 820 Jews lived in the town in 1947. Many emigrated to Israel in the following years, and by the early 21st century the community had about two hundred members. For decades a memorial gathering for the deportation was held in the cemetery every early May; in recent years, because of the members’ age, it has been held in the synagogue. On 4 May 2003 a bronze memorial to the Jews of the town and its surroundings was unveiled, and beside the Torah ark in the synagogue is a marble plaque giving the number of martyrs: 5,943.

The Jewish cemetery covers about three hectares. According to a JewishGen survey from the early 2000s, the oldest gravestone found there dates from 1854, some 2,300 stones remain in place and another 1,500 or so have fallen or broken. The cemetery has a memorial in the form of a mass grave, its walls engraved with the names of deportees who did not return from Auschwitz, and many families have carved the names of murdered relatives onto pre-war family graves.

Visiting

The community is based beside the synagogue at Strada Aurel Filimon 23. According to the community’s website, the synagogue is open to visitors Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 12:30, and groups are asked to give at least one day’s notice. Visits to the cemetery and to the community’s small museum are best arranged in advance; the website of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania lists the number +40 265 261 810, which the community’s website also gives for arranging visits. Those searching for relatives will find on JewishGen the ghetto list, the deportation list and the martyrs’ lists from the memorial book “History of the Jews in Marosvásárhely and Its Surroundings” (1977).

• The great synagogue and the memorial plaque beside the Torah ark
• The community’s museum, by arrangement
• The Jewish cemetery and the mass-grave memorial