Encyclopaedia Judaica
Jews in Slovakia:
Little towns
Dunajska Streda - Hermanuv Mestec - Novy Bydzov -
Zilina
from: CSSR; In: Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971)
presented by Michael Palomino (2008)
from: Dunajska Streda; In: Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971),
vol. 6 [[Germ. "Danube Street"]]
[Community rights since
1739]
DUNAJSKA STREDA (Hung. Dunaszerdahely), town in S.W.
Slovakia, near Bratislava, now Czechoslovakia.
While still within Hungary, its community was a center of
*Orthodoxy and had important yeshivot [[religious Torah
school]]. The rights of the community were based on a
charter granted in 1739 by Count Palffy, the local lord, but
16 families had already settled there by 1700. The number
increased to 19 families in 1728, 112 in 1770, 121 in 1774,
and 363 in 1848.
A new synagogue was built in 1780, and in 1865 another was
constructed to seat 800 persons.
In 1887 the Jewish quarter was set on fire by anti-Semites,
but was reconstructed shortly afterward. Celebrated rabbis
who officiated in Dunajska Streda include Alexander
Meislisch, David b. Menahem Mendel Deutsch, and Judah b.
Israel *Aszód.
[1915-1918: Jewish refugees
- numbers of 1921]
Many refugees from Poland settled there during World War I.
The Jewish population numbered 3,029 in 1921 (1,471 of whom
declared their nationality as Jewish), and 3,222 in 1930
(2,364 of declared Jewish nationality).
The Dunajska Streda community also had jurisdiction over the
Jews living in about 50 villages in the vicinity
(approximately 4,000 Jewish inhabitants) before World War
II, mainly consisting of traders, craftsmen, and
agriculturists.
The Jewish population formed over half the total population.
In the municipal elections of May 1938 seven representatives
of the Jewish party were returned on 556 votes.
[Holocaust period]
[[The collaboration of the local population and of the local
government with the Nazi authorities is never mentioned in
this article]].
Between 1938 and 1945 Dunajska Streda was again incorporated
in Hungary. The yeshivah was closed down 1940-41, and Jews
"without citizenship" were deported to Kamenets-Podolski
[[Ukraine]]. In 1942 Dunaj Streda became the regional
headquarters for Jewish labour battalions, and about 500
Jewish men were compelled to work in Hungarian labour corps.
Dunajska Streda served as a transit center for refugees from
Slovakia in 1942-43, and in 1944 the Germans established a
ghetto there where Jews from Samorin and Velky-Mager and the
vicinity were concentrated before deportation to the death
camps. Nearly 4,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz from
Dunajska Streda [[and it can be admitted from there mainly
to the tunnel systems]]. The large synagogue was partly
destroyed by the Nazis in 1944 and demolished by the local
authorities in the late 1950s.
[1945-1971]
About 600 survivors returned in 1945 and reconstituted the
community, which kept the 27th of Sivan as a remembrance day
for the martyrs. The majority soon (col. 269)
emigrated to [[racist Zionist Free Mason Herzl]] Israel and
a few to the [[criminal]] United States [[whose banks
financed all communism and a big part of the Third Reich]].
A few Jewish families were living there in the late 1960s. A
charitable foundation in memory of the martyrs of Dunajska,
Streda, and Magendorf was established in Tel Aviv.
Bibliography
-- Magyar Zsidó Lexikon (1929), 208
[AV.E.]> (col. 270)
Source
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Dunajska Streda, vol. 6,
col. 269-270
-----
Hermanuv Mestec
from: Hermanuv Mestec; In: Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 8
HERMANUV MESTEC (Czech Heřmanův Mĕstec, Ger. Hermann
Mestetz), town in Bohemia, Czechoslovakia:
Jews settled in Hermanuv Mestec at the end of the 15th
century and ten families are mentioned in a document of
1570. Statutes of the
hevra
kaddisha [[Jewish burial society]] exist from 1643
and an enlargement of the cemetery is recorded in 1667. In
1686 the local lord invited Jews to settle in houses
formerly belonging to Christians who had died of the plague.
At the end of the 19th century several Jewish firms made the
town a center of shoe manufacturing. Noteworthy rabbis
included Moses Simhah Bumsla (d. 1724) and Moses *Bloch
(1855-63). Sixty-three Jewish families lived in Hermanuv
Mestec in 1724; by 1826 there were 492 Jews in the town, 721
in 1859, and 434 (9.3% of the total population) in 1880. In
1893 the community numbered 1,085, including the Jews in in
40 surrounding villages.
The community declined to 87 in 1921 and 54 (1.3%) in 1930.
In 1942 the Jews were deported to the Nazi extermination
camps and the synagogue appurtenances [[accessories]] sent
to the Central Jewish Museum in Prague.
[[The collaboration of the local population and of the local
government with the Nazi authorities is never mentioned in
this article]].
Bibliography
-- Folkmann, in: H. Gold (ed.): Die Juden und Judengemeinden
Boehmens in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (1934), 170-3
-- Selbstwehr, no. 52 (Dec. 27, 1912), 7-8.
[J.HER.]> (col. 366)
Source
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Hermanuv Mestec, vol. 8,
col. 366
-----
Novy Bydzov
from: Novy Bydzov; In: Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971), vol. 12
NOVY BYDZOV (Czech Nový Byd¸ov; Ger. Neubitschow), town in
N.E. Bohemia, Czechoslovakia.
Jews are first mentioned in town records of 1514; they
acquired a cemetery in 1520, the oldest tombstones dating
from the mid-17th century. A synagogue was mentioned in 1559
(renovated in 1660 and 1838) and ten Jewish families were
recorded in 1570.
Between 1656 and 1670 Jews sold salt. After a case of
plague, the community was temporarily expelled, some of its
member founding communities in surrounding villages. There
were 90 Jewish families in Novy Bydzov in 1724. Three years
later they were segregated from Christians in a special
quarter. Expellees from Prague in 1744 reinforced the
community. In 1750 Mendel of Novy Bydzov was burnt at the
stake in connection with the emergence of the sect of the
"Abrahamites".
There were 37 Jewish houses in 1786. A new cemetery was
consecrated in 1885 (still in existence). Some of the 838
members of the community in 1893 lived in the 35 surrounding
villages. The old Jewish quarter burned down in 1903.
In 1930 the community numbered 148 (2.1% of the total
population). [[Probably there was an emigration wave]].
During the Holocaust 98 Jews were deported to
*Theresienstadt and from there to the death camps in 1942;
one only (col. 1241)
returned.
[[There can be admitted that more survivors have taken
directly the way to western Europe to the DP camps for
emigration]].
[[The collaboration of the local population and of the local
government with the Nazi authorities is never mentioned in
this article]].
Synagogue equipment and documents were transferred to the
Central Jewish Museum in Prague (see *Museum, Jewish). No
congregation was reestablished after the Holocaust.
Bibliography
-- J. Koudelka, in: H. Gold (ed.): Juden und Judengemeinden
Boehmens (1934), 416-9
-- J. Proke¨, in: JGGJČ, 8 (1936), 147-308
-- J. Hráský, ibid., 9 (1938), 246, 259
-- AZDJ, 2 (1838), 562, 600
-- Bondy-Dworský, 299
[J.HER.]> (col. 1242)
Source
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Novy Bydzov, vol.12, col.
1241-1242
-----
Zilina
from: Zilina; In: Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971), vol. 16
ZILINA (Slovak. ´ilina; Hung. Zsolna; Gerl. Sillein), town
in N.W. Slovakia, Czechoslovakia.
[Jews and Germans invited
after the exodus of the Tatars - Toleranzpatent -
community life since 1852]
After the repulsion of the Tatar invasion in the 13th
century, King Béla IV of Hungary elevated Zilina to the
status of a royal city and invited Jews and Germans to the
abandoned and depopulated town, granting them certain
important privileges. The town later suffered severely from
various vicissitudes [[ups and downs]] and was repeatedly
burned down;
the town archives therefore retain no documents concerning
Jewish life there in this period. Despite the
*Toleranzpatent [["law
of tolerance"]] issued by [[Emperor of Vienna]] *Joseph II
the municipality gave no permission to Jews to settle in
Zilina in the early 19th century, and they were only allowed
to visit markets and fairs. Nevertheless, some Jewish
families were living in Zilina in 1840.
An organized community was formed in 1852, with 52 members.
A synagogue was opened in 1861, a school in 1860, and a
hevra kaddisha [[Jewish burial society]] in 1865. After
Zilina became an important railway center an increasing
number of Jewish families settled there. Jews took a major
role in the rapid development of business and industry,
establishing, among other enterprises, a factory for
cellulose and textile factories. Through Jewish initiative
Zilina became the center of the timber trade in Slovakia.
Arnold *Kiss, the noted rabbi of Buda, officiated for a
short while in Zilina. The community was *neologist [[reform
Jewry]]. David *Friedmann served as rabbi from 1902. After
his death in 1934 he was replaced by Hugo Stránsky, who let
for London 1938. His successor, E. Lichtenstein, perished in
the Holocaust. A new synagogue, one of the most beautiful in
Czechoslovakia, was built in 1934.
In 1929 the Orthodox minority seceded from the community and
established a separate congregation. The last rabbi was
Martin (Mordechai) Klein, a noted talmudist. He returned to
Zilina after the Holocaust, and died soon afterward. Zilina
was one of the centers of Zionist activity in Slovakia after
World War I.
[[3,500 Jews were living there in 1940]].
Holocaust and Contemporary
Periods.
During World War II, in 1942, the Slovak Fascist government
[[with the local population mostly in collaboration]]
established a transit concentration camp at Zilina; many
thousands of Jews passed through this "anteroom to hell" to
death camps in Poland [[and probably to the tunnel
systems]].
After the war some 700 Jewish survivors returned to Zilina,
out of the 3,500 living there before World War II. About 400
of them left for Israel or other countries before 1950;
others moved to the capital or crossed the borders in 1968
after the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.
In 1971 only some dozens of Jews, mostly of advanced age,
were living in Zilina. Although the community was officially
recorded as the main Jewish center for northern Slovakia,
there was little congregational life there.
Bibliography
-- M. Lányi and H. Propper: A szlovenszkói zsidó hitközségek
torténete 81933)
-- Z. Lippa and I. Halpert, in: Die aussäen unter Tränen mit
Jubel werden sie ernten, e. by R. Iltis (1959), 206-11
[E.BE.]> (col. 1022)
Source
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Zilina, vol.16, col. 1022
