History of the Jews in Carpathian Ruthenia

History of the Jews in Carpathian Ruthenia.

Beginning of Jewish settlement in Upper Hungary

Turkish occupation

Data from the censuses of 1910, 1921, 1941

The last antebellum census in Hungary, 1910.

The four counties of Hungary that coveredthe territory what we now call Carpathian Rutheniawere 1. Ung, 2. Bereg, 3. Ugocsa and 4. Máramaros. Southern Máramaros laterbecame part of Rumania, so it should be excluded here, but that would makethe calculation much harder.

The %s refer to the Jewish population, the numbers to the total numberof inhabitants.

1.Ungvár - 31.4% (16,919),the rest of the county - 8.5% (145,170).2.Beregszász - 30.2% (12,933),Munkács - 44.4% (17,275),the rest of the county - 10.7% (206,403).3.Ugocsa - 12.9% (91,755).4.Máramarossziget - 37.4% (21,370),The rest of the county - 17.2% (336,335).

Therefore there were 129,000 Jews on the territory of these fourcounties, 15.21% of the total population of 848,000.

The 1921 Czechoslovak census found 93,023 Jews in Rusinsko (15.28%), whilethe January 1941 Hungarian census 146,199 Jews in Kárpátalja (14.2%).

Czechoslovakia

Jewish-local relations in the eve of World War II

Memoirs and historical studies provide much evidence that in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Rusyn-Jewish relations were generally peaceful and harmonious. In 1939, census records showed that 80,000 Jews lived in the autonomous province of Ruthenia.

The attitude of some Ruthenians to their Jewish neighbors is vividly represented in the play by Oleksandr Dukhnovych (1803-1865), "Virtue is More Important than Riches" [http://www.legacyrus.com/RuthHolocaust1.htm, briefed here] . In opposite to other areas of Ukraine, the Ruthenia never experienced the times of chaos and riots that elsewhere usually were followed by pogroms.

Final solution

During World War II, once the legal government of Hungary was overthrown by the Germans, the "Final Solution" of the Holocaust was also extended to Carpathian Ruthenia.

In April 1944, 17 main ghettos were set up in cities in Ruthenia. 144,000 Jews were rounded up and held there. Starting on May 15, 1944: 14,000 Jews were taken out of these sites to Auschwitz "every day" until the last deportation on June 7, 1944.

By June 1944 all the Jews from ghettos of Carpathian Ruthenia had been exterminated, together with other Hungarian Jews. Of more than 100,000 Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia, around 90,000 were murdered. Except for those who managed to flee, only small number of Jews were saved by Rusyns who hid them.

Since the fall of Communism, archives have recently been opened to allow study of the facts about the implementation of the Final Solution in the province. The most discussed issue is whether, and to what extent, local collaborators helped the Nazis in performing the tasks and to what extent such collaboration was forced upon those collaborators by the threat or actuality of brutal violence against themselves.

References

*Alexander Duchnovič, "Virtue Is More Important Than Riches" (translated by Elaine Rusinko), East European Monographs, 1995, 85pp., ISBN 0-88033-290-5.
*Henry Abramson, "Collective Memory and Collective Identity: Jews, Rusyns, and the Holocaust", Carpatho-Rusyn American, vol. 17 (1994), no. 3.
*Agnes Sagvari,
**"Studies on the History of Hungarian Holocaust", Budapest, Napvilag, 2002. ISBN 963-9350-10-9, 151pp. (in English)
**"Tanulmanyok a magyarorszagi holokauszt törteneteböl", Budapest, Napvilag, 2002. ISBN 963-9350-01-X, 132pp. (in Hungarian)

External links

* [http://www.legacyrus.com/RuthHolocaust2.htm Ruthenian Holocaust]
* [http://www.zsido.hu/tortenelem/holocaust.htm Dr. Agnes Sagvari, "The Holocaust in Carpatho-Ruthenia"] A historian analyzes the place of Carpathian Ruthenia in Hungarian irredentism, the scientific falsification of census records, the impact of the Hungarian administration, an archival review with full documentation.
* [http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/ Carpatho-Rusyn Knowledge Base]

ee also

*History of the Jews in Belarus
*History of the Jews in Hungary
*History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union
*History of the Jews in Ukraine
*List of Jews from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus