History of the Jews in Békés (Hungary)

The history of the Jews in Békés County, Hungary, spans more than two centuries. Jewish settlement in the region began in the 18th century, with the population growing rapidly by the mid-19th century. Following World War I, rising antisemitism eventually let to the forced relocation of the Jewish population into ghettos and their deportation to concentration and death camps. While a few survivors returned after the war and founded a new synagogue in the county's capital, the community remains small.

History

Jews presence in Békés County dates back to the first half of the 1700s. In 1768, records show only 3 Jews living in the village of Vari (Gyulavari). By the end of the 18th century, the first Jewish communities were founded in Vari, Dévaványa, and Békésszentandrás.[1][2]

The population grew from 542 in 1836 to 6,255 by 1870.[1] Between the 1850s and the First World War, extensive communal infrastructure was developed, including synagogues, prayer-houses, mikvehs, schools, and Chevra Kadishas (burial services) in town such as Békéscsaba, Gyula, Orosháza, Szeghalom, Békés, Szarvas, Battonya and Sarkad.[3]

After the war, political instability contributed to a rise in antisemitism. New laws were implemented to dispossess Jewish citizens of their homes and property, accompanied by an increase in robberies, property destruction and violence.[4]

The Holocaust

Main article: History of the Jews in Hungary § Toward the Holocaust

Beginning in 1941, forced labour was imposed on the Jewish community. Eventually, the Jews of Békés County went moved to ghettos or sent to concentration camps of Békéscsaba and Szolnok. Others were deported via transports to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Strasshof approximately 15,000 Jews from four transit camp, Baja, Debrecen, Szeged, and Szolnok, were diverted in late June 1944 to the Strasshof transit camp near Vienna.[5][6][7] This group primarily comprised families from the settlements and small villages of southern Hungary.[7]

At the Strasshof transit camp, a "slave market" was operated where families from Békés and other southern regions were assigned to work for private and municipal employers. These deportees, often including children and the elderly as families were kept intact, performed forced labor on farms, in commerce, and within the war industry across Vienna and Lower Austria.[8]

Of the estimated 6,200 Jews who were deported from Békés County, approximately 5,000 were murdered in the Holocaust.[9] While about 2,000 survivors remained, many of whom survived due to the labor conditions in the Strasshof system rather than the extermination camps, very few returned to the area. Today, the Békés County Jewish community is concentrated in the capital, Békéscsaba, where a new synagogue has been built and handed over in 2004 near the Jewish cemetery.[10][11]

Holocaust memorial days

Memorial services are held every summer in Békéscsaba, Orosháza, Gyula, Szarvas, Tótkomlós and Doboz to honor the victims.

Memorials

References

  1. ^ a b "BEKES: Bekes | Hungary | International Jewish Cemetery Project". JewishGen’s Cemetery Discovery Project. Retrieved 2026-03-10.
  2. ^ "Congregation records 1715-1849". www.yerusha-search.eu. Retrieved 2026-03-10.
  3. ^ "Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities. Hungary". www.jewishgen.org. Retrieved 2026-03-10.
  4. ^ DeHuszar Allen, Marguerite (2014). "Review Article: The Saddest History Ever Written: On Randolph L. Braham's The Geographical Encyclopedia of the Holocaust in Hungary (2013)" (PDF). Hungarian Cultural Studies. 7: 396–404. doi:10.5195/ahea.2014.177. Retrieved March 10, 2026.
  5. ^ Yad Vashem. "September 1941, Jews in a Hungarian forced labor battalion". Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Retrieved March 10, 2026.
  6. ^ "Living and working conditions of the Hungarian Jewish Slave Laborers 1 ... - National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism". www.nationalfonds.org. Retrieved 2026-03-10.
  7. ^ a b "Diverted to Strasshof". www.vwi.ac.at. Retrieved 2026-03-10.
  8. ^ Lappin, Eleonore (2000). "The Death Marches of Hungarian Jews Through Austria in the Spring of 1945". Yad Vashem Studies. 28: 203–242. Retrieved March 10, 2026.
  9. ^ "New Monument in Békéscsaba, Hungary, Marks 72 Years Since Transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau". USC Shoah Foundation. Retrieved 2024-07-17.
  10. ^ Renck, Ellen. "GYULA: Bekes | Hungary | International Jewish Cemetery Project". IAJGS Cemetery Project. Retrieved 2024-07-17.
  11. ^ "Békéscsaba – Jewish Békéscsaba". Retrieved 2026-03-10.
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