e restricted, and in summer 1941, "foreign" Jews were
deported to Kamenets-Podolski, where they were murdered by Hungarian and German
troops. In 1944, the Jewish population was forced into a ghetto, the majority
of men were sent to forced labor battalions, and the others were deported to
the extermination camps in Poland, where the majority of them was murdered by
the Nazis. Six trains left Satu Mare for Auschwitz-Birkenau starting May 19,
1944, each carrying approximately 3300 persons. The trains passed through Kassa
(Košice) on May 19, 22, 26, 29, 30 and June 1. In total, 18,863 Jews were
deported from Satu Mare, Carei and the surrounding localities. Of these, 14,440
were killed. Only a small number of the survivors returned to Satu Mare after
the war, but a number of Jews belonging to linguistically and culturally
different groups from all parts of Romania settled in the city. The majority of
them later emigrated to Israel. By 1970 the town’s Jewish population numbered
500, and in 2011, only 34 Jews remained.
In 2004, a Holocaust memorial was dedicated
in the Decebal Street Synagogue's courtyard. Aside from the synagogues, two
Jewish cemeteries also remain.
Among the notable members of the local
Jewish community have been historian Ignác Acsády, parliamentary deputies
Ferenc Corin and Kelemen Samu, politician Oszkár Jászi, writers Gyula Csehi, Rodion
Markovits, Sándor Dénes and Ernő Szép, painter Pál Erdös, and director György
Harag
