The Maramureș Jewish Heritage Route: From Sighet to the Iza Valley

A two- or three-day route through the heart of Maramureș: from Baia Mare over the Gutâi pass to Sighet, the town of the Teitelbaums and of Elie Wiesel, and from there up the Iza valley to Dragomirești, Borșa and Vișeu de Sus — timber towns where thousands of Hasidim lived until 1944. Most places no longer have a community; what remains is mainly cemeteries, a few buildings and memory.

Before You Set Out

Maramureș is remote: about 130 km from Cluj to Baia Mare, and another 65 km or so of mountain road to Sighet. Trains in the region are slow and require changes, so a car is the only practical way to do the route. Distances in this article are estimates from Rome2Rio and from the Maramureș memorial book. Synagogues and cemeteries are mostly locked; arrange visits in advance with the communities in Sighet and Baia Mare or through the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania (FCER). There is no verified kosher restaurant in the region, so bring supplies.

Day One: Sighet

In 1941 Sighetu Marmației had 10,144 Jews, about 39% of the population. From 1858 it was the seat of Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda Teitelbaum, the Yetev Lev, who founded the first Hasidic yeshiva in Hungary here; he was followed by his son, the Kedushat Yom Tov, his grandson Rabbi Hayim Tzvi, and finally his great-grandson Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda, murdered at Auschwitz in 1944. In May 1944 four trains left Sighet carrying nearly 13,000 Jews. The town, the Wiesel house, the synagogue and the cemetery each have their own article, so here are only the essentials:

• The Elie Wiesel House — Strada Tudor Vladimirescu 1. The childhood home of Wiesel, born in Sighet in 1928, is now a museum of the Jewish culture of Maramureș, part of the Maramureș Museum.
• The Vizhnitz synagogue — Strada Basarabia. The only survivor of more than a dozen synagogues and study houses that once served the town.
• The Jewish cemetery — with the graves of the town’s rabbis. Visits by arrangement with the community.
• The railway station — a memorial plaque to the deportations of May 1944.

Stay the night in Sighet: it is the most convenient base for the Iza and Vișeu valleys.

Dragomirești: The Village of the Stern Family

Dragomirești lies about 45 km south-east of Sighet, up the Iza valley. According to the Maramureș memorial book, a first Jew appears in the census of 1746, and around 1780 Rabbi Shmuel Stern settled here — a large-scale merchant who employed many Jews and the father of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Stern, later rabbi of Sighet. By the end of the 18th century the community had a synagogue, a mikveh and a cemetery. In 1920 the village had 756 Jews, 28% of its population, and in 1921 Rabbi Moshe Yisrael Feldman founded a yeshiva here, Daat Torah, with about 50 students.

On 15 April 1944, the last day of Passover, a ghetto was set up in the village centre, and the Jews of the neighbouring villages were brought into it. In mid-May the men were marched to the railway station at Vișeu de Sus, followed by the women, children and elderly; the trains reached Auschwitz around 18 May. Rabbi Feldman was murdered there. About 50 survivors returned, most of whom left for Israel.

It is sometimes said that the interior of Dragomirești’s wooden synagogue was taken to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. We found no confirmation of this in any authoritative source — not in the memorial book, not in the lists of wooden synagogues, and not from the museum itself. What is documented is something else: Dragomirești’s wooden Orthodox church, built in 1722, was donated in 1936 to the “Dimitrie Gusti” Village Museum in Bucharest, where it still stands. The two stories may have become confused.

Borșa: At the Foot of the Rodna Mountains

Borșa, at the head of the Vișeu valley, is the furthest point on the route, about 80 km from Sighet. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, there was Jewish communal life here by 1751, and a local Hasidic legend holds that the Baal Shem Tov visited. Hasidism was strong, and many Jews worked in agriculture, forestry and logging; some owned sawmills and woodworking plants. In 1930 Borșa had 2,486 Jews out of 11,230 inhabitants. On 4 July 1930 the Jewish quarter was burned down in an arson attack that the encyclopaedia links to the Iron Guard.

In the spring of 1944 the Jews of Borșa were held in a local ghetto and then moved to the ghetto at Vișeu de Sus. In 1947, 395 returnees were living in the town; by the 1970s two or three families remained. According to lists of the Vizhnitz dynasty, Rabbi Pinchas, one of the sons of Rabbi Baruch Hager, served as rebbe in Borșa.

Vișeu de Sus: Timber and Printing

On the way back from Borșa to Sighet you pass through Vișeu de Sus (Yiddish: Oybervisheve), about 60 km from Sighet. The community was organised in 1877, and in 1885 it became the centre for the three villages of Upper, Middle and Lower Vișeu, and later for others too. It had four synagogues, several prayer houses and a yeshiva, and most Jews worked in the timber industry, many as ordinary labourers. A Hebrew press was founded here in 1896, and from 1922 it printed the religious journal Degel HaTorah. In 1930 the town had 3,734 Jews, 33.7% of its population. According to lists of the Vizhnitz dynasty, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, son of Rabbi Yisrael Hager, served as rebbe in Vișeu.

In the spring of 1944 the town became the central ghetto for the Jews of the Vișeu and upper Iza valleys. Sources differ on its size: one Encyclopaedia Judaica entry says some 35,000 Jews passed through it on their way to Auschwitz, while another entry in the same encyclopaedia says about 9,100 were deported from it in three transports, on 19, 21 and 25 May. About 700 returned after the war, and by 1971 there was no longer a community. We do not know the present state of the synagogues; Jewish cemeteries survive in the town and in neighbouring Vișeu de Mijloc, photographed in 2016. Ask the Sighet community in advance who holds the keys.

Baia Mare: The Last Stop

Baia Mare, about an hour’s drive from Sighet, was closed to Jews until 1848, yet by 1941 it had an Orthodox community of 3,623. The 1885 synagogue at Strada Someșului 3 is the only one on the route still serving a community. In May 1944 a ghetto was set up on the grounds of the König glass factory, and the Jews of the surrounding district were locked in barns at Valea Borcutului; on 31 May and 5 June, 5,917 Jews from the two ghettos were deported to Auschwitz. The community’s history has its own article.

Visiting

• Two days: Day one — Baia Mare → Sighet (about 65 km), the town, overnight. Day two — Sighet → Dragomirești (about 45 km) → Borșa → Vișeu de Sus → Sighet (Borșa–Sighet about 80 km).
• Three days: as above, then on day three back to Baia Mare for the synagogue and the ghetto site, continuing to Cluj or Maramureș Airport.
• Arrangements: no current source publishes opening hours; check the Elie Wiesel House with the Maramureș Museum, and arrange synagogues and cemeteries with the communities in Sighet and Baia Mare or through FCER.
• Kosher food: no verified kosher restaurant in the region; bring supplies.

See also our articles on the Jews of Sighet, the Elie Wiesel House, the Vizhnitz synagogue, the Sighet Jewish cemetery and the Holocaust in Maramureș in 1944.