History of Cluj-Napoca

y-nine delegates were elected from Cluj to attend the proclamation of the union of Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania in Alba-Iulia on December 1, 1918, later acknowledged internationally by the Treaty of Trianon. The interwar years saw the new authorities embark on a "Romanianisation" campaign: a Capitoline Wolf statue donated by Rome was set up in 1921; in 1932 a plaque written by historian Nicolae Iorga was placed on Matthias Corvinus' statue, emphasizing his Romanian (paternal) ancestry; and construction of an imposing Orthodox cathedral began in a city where only about a tenth of inhabitants belonged to the Orthodox state church. This endeavour had only mixed results: by 1939, Hungarians still dominated local economic (and to a certain extent) cultural life: for instance, Cluj had five Hungarian daily newspapers and just one in Romanian.

In 1940, Cluj, along with the rest of Northern Transylvania, became part of Miklós Horthy's Hungary through the Second Vienna Award imposed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. After the Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944 and installed a puppet government under Döme Sztójay, they forced large-scale antisemitic measures in the city. The headquarters of the local Gestapo were located in the New York Hotel. That May, the authorities began the relocation of the Jews to the Iris ghetto. Liquidation of the 16,148 captured Jews occurred through six deportations to Auschwitz in May–June 1944. Despite facing severe sanctions from the Hungarian administration, some Jews escaped across the border to Romania with the assistance of intellectuals such as Emil Haţieganu, Raoul Şorban, Aurel Socol and Miskolczy Dezső, and various peasants from Mănăştur.

On October 11, 1944 the city was captured by Romanian and Soviet troops. It was formally restored to the Kingdom of Romania by the Treaty of