Békéscsaba Holocaust Memorial

Holokauszt emlékmű

In 2004, a Holocaust memorial was dedicated on the Jewish cemetery in Békéscsaba. Hungary's newest synagogue is located in close vicinity. In 2016, it was complemented by a memorial wall.

History

Békéscsaba is a city situated in the south-east of Hungary. Jews first settled here in the 18th century; the first synagogue was erected in 1846. In the 1890s, two larger synagogues were built: one for the Orthodox community, and one for the Neolog community. Békéscsaba developed rapidly during the inter-war period: After the cities of Oradea (Hungarian: Nagyvárad), Timișoara (Temesvár) and Arad had to be ceded to Romania, Békéscsaba became an important centre in the region. This development was also felt by the 2,433 Jews of Békéscsaba (population of 1941), making up 4.6 percent of the total population - many of the new businesses and industrial firms were owned by Jews.
In 1941, Hungary joined the war and hundreds of Jewish men were drafted for labour service in the Hungarian army. Many lost their lives on the eastern front or were murdered by Hungarian soldiers. Soon after the invasion of the German Wehrmacht in March 1944, all 226 Jewish businesses and 137 factories in Békéscsaba were shut down. In May, a ghetto was established. Békéscsaba was an important transport hub, so in June 1944, Jews from the surrounding areas were brought here. Together with the Jews from the ghetto they were later deported to a collection camp, guarded by the SS. 13 of the 3,840 prisoners died of the effects of abuse or due to the horrific conditions at the camp. At the end of July, the Jews were deported in two transports. The first departed on July 25 for Strasshof near Vienna, where the prisoners were to be deployed in forced labour. The second left for the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp on July 26, 1944.

Békéscsaba, undated, Historical postcard of the Neolog synagogue, public domain

Békéscsaba, 2008, Memorial plaque on the site of the former Neolog synagogue, Holocaust Memorials Album of alexandria42 alias Celia Male on Flickr.com, Frank Feiner

Victims

It is estimated that 80 to 85 percent of the Jews deported from Békéscsaba to Auschwitz were murdered in the gas chambers by the SS. However, the majority of those deported to Strasshof survived.

Following defeat in the First World War and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hungary had to surrender two thirds of its territory and sixty percent of its population to its neighbours in 1920. The trauma caused by these losses led Hungary, under the leadership of Miklós Horthy (1868–1957), to gradually ally itself with Nazi Germany from 1937 onwards. Between 1938 and 1941 Hungary managed to almost double its territory in several stages of border revisions. Faced with the advance of the Red Army the country began to distanc itself from Nazi Germany and was therefore occupied by the Wehrmacht in March 1944. Miklós Horthy retained his position as head of state. Almost immediately after the invasion and with the assistance of Hungarian authorities, the SS began to deport Jews to the Auschwitz extermination camp, something that Hungary had refused to do up to then, despite having introduced anti-Jewish legislation. Of the 825,000 Jews from »Greater Hungary« the number murdered in Auschwitz stands at way over half a million. Up to 300,000 of these Jews came from the regions of what is today’s Hungary. In addition, around 140,000 soldiers along with some 170,000 non-Jewish civilians perished during the Second World War. After 1945 Hungary was in the Soviet sphere of influence. Up to 1989, official commemorations in Hungary did not remember the war but rather its end as the »liberation from fascism«. However, for the majority of the population 1945 was the start of a long period of repression. For many Hungarians, memory of the national uprising in 1956 that was crushed by the Soviets overshadows that of the Second World War. Following the uprising the war was viewed as the inglorious prelude to the suffering under communist rule. At the same time, there were many state monuments celebrating »Hungarian-Soviet friendship«. During the communist period there was no official remembrance of those who had died during the war on the front, at home and during the genocide, nor were there any Holocaust memorial sites outside of Jewish institutions. The only related site was the Jewish Museum in Budapest, founded in 1932 and reopened in 1947. In 1985 the Jewish community in Budapest opened a »Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park« alongside the large synagogue located on the edge of the former ghetto. A state monument to Raoul Wallenberg (*1912–?) was inaugurated in 1987 in connection with a visit by the communist head of state János Kádár (1912–1989) to Sweden. Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, saved thousands of Budapest Jews. He was deported by the Soviet occupation force in 1945 and since then has been missing, presumed dead. This monument marked a turnaround in the decades of silence regarding the Holocaust. Only since the new millennium have numerous Holocaust memorials and memorial sites emerged in Hungary. These include the »Shoes on the Danube Promenade« in Budapest, inaugurated on 16 April 2005, the date of the Hungarian Holocaust Remembrance Day introduced in 2000. This memorial remembers the murder of up to 20,000 Jews from the Budapest ghetto in January 1945 by the »Arrow Cross«, a right-wing extremist party that had assumed power in Hungary on 15 October 1944. A national Holocaust Museum was opened in the capital in 2004. However, there are still very few memorials to other victims. Symptomatic of the way in which post-communist Hungary has dealt with its 20th century past is the fiercely debated »House of Terror«, opened in the centre of Budapest in 2002, which deals with the history of »both totalitarian dictatorships«. The involvement of Hungarians in the deportation of their fellow Jewish citizens often recedes into the background.

Remembrance

Several hundred survivors returned to Békéscsaba after the war, and Jewish life could be organised anew. In the following years, however, many turned their backs on the city. In November 1946, there were anti-Semitic riots in Békéscsaba. An even stronger blow was the establishment of the communist dictatorship in 1948/49, which nationalised businesses and factories, depriving many Jews of their means of existence. Religious life too was restricted. In 1949 there were nearly 500 religious Jews in Békéscsaba; in 1965, there were only 147. What's more, many Jews denied or neglected their Jewish background.
After the fall of communism, many returned to their Jewish roots. At the same time, Jewish emigrants could become more involved - for example, a Jew from Békéscsaba, who had emigrated to Canada, funded a memorial plaque on the site of the former Neolog synagogue in Luther street.
Next to the Békéscsaba Jewish cemetery stands Hungary's most recently built synagogue, completed in 2004. That same year, a Holocaust memorial was dedicated there. Behind a menorah is a wall bearing a quote from the Bible in Hebrew and in Hungarian, which reads: »Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow«. The wall is flanked by two symbolic grave stones. One of them commemorates the men who died while conducting labour service; the other is dedicated to those who perished in Auschwitz.
In 2016, a new element was added to the Jewish cemetery. Adjecent to the Holocaust memorial, a memorial wall of about 50 meters length was erected with the names of Holocaust victims from Békéscsaba and surrounding communities engraved on black bricks. One of the initiators of the new memorial was Holocaust survivor Gábor Hirsch (*1929) whose family story is shown in the Information Centre of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

Békéscsaba, 2009, Detailed view of the Holocaust memorial on the Jewish cemetery, Tünde Kotricz

Contact

Izraelita temető
5600 Békéscsaba

Békéscsaba, 2009, The 2004 synagogue, Tünde Kotricz

Békéscsaba, 2017, The memorial wall, inaugurated in 2016, jewish-bekescsaba.com

Békéscsaba, 2005, Gravestones in the Jewish cemetery, jewish-bekescsaba.com

Békéscsaba, 2016, Holocaust memorial in the Jewish cemetery, jewish-bekescsaba.com

Békéscsaba, 2017, Names of Holocaust victims on the memorial wall, jewish-bekescsaba.com

Békéscsaba, 2009, Holocaust memorial on the Jewish cemetery, Tünde Kotricz

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