Sighet Marmatiei Question: What does sighet have to do with the holocaust? Harry W. Mazal OBE answers: One of my colleagues was kind enough to point me in the right direction regarding Sighet Marmatiei. I apologize for not having known the answer in my first response. From: Encyclopedia of the Holocaust Vol. 4 edited by Israel Gutman c. 1990, Macmillan Publishing Co., ISBN 0-02-896090 Page 1350: Sighet Marmatiei ... city in Maramures county, northern Transylvania that was under Hungarian rule from 1940 to 1944.; a center of Orthodoxy and Hasidim. In 1941 there were 10,144 Jews in the city, 39.1 percent of the total population. That same year a large number of 'alien' Jews were deported from Sightets to Kamenets-Podolsky where they were massacred in late August. Although the county belonged geographically to northern Transylvania, which Hungary acquired from Romania in September 1940, its Jews were liquidated together with those of Carpathian Ruthenia ... and northeastern Hungary. The Jews of Sighet were ordered to enter a ghetto in April and early May of 1944. Established in two peripheral sections of the city, which were inhabited primarily by the poorer strata of Jewry, the ghetto was eextremely crowded with approximately twenty people in almost every room. The ghetto contained close to thirteen thousand Jews, including those brought in from the rural communities in the neighboring districts. [...] It was guarded by the local police and fifty gendarmes brought in from Misolc. The commander of the gendarmes, a Colonel Sarvari, was among those who tortured the Jews into confessing where they had hidden their valuables. Internally the Ghetto was administered by a ... Jewish Council headed by Rabbi Samu Danzig. The ghetto was liquidated when the Jews were deported to Auschwitz in four transports between May 16 and 22, 1944. In 1947, Sighet still had 2,308 Jews, including not only survivors but also a considerable number of Jews who settled there from other parts of Romania, to which the city reverted after the war." I hope that the above information answers your question. Yours sincerely, Harry W. Mazal OBE back to the list of questions
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