Ghettos and Camps in northern Transylvania

Classification: ghettos and concentration camps

A conventional distinction can be made between ghettos and concentration camps according to the detention sites allocated to Transylvanian Jews.

The ghettos were established in towns, in strictly confined spaces, and were often fenced with barbed wire. Although these spaces were unsanitary and overcrowded, they provided basic living conditions, allowing the prisoners access to food and drinking water.

The concentration camps were established either at the edge of cities or at a distance of several kilometres from them, mostly in decommissioned factories, but sometimes under the open sky, or even in the woods. A relatively small portion of the Jews crammed into such spaces managed to find shelter in sheds or barracks, while most prisoners were left outside, under the open sky, with no water or food and deprived of basic sanitary conditions. The camps were separated by trenches, surrounded with barbed wire and guarded by the police and gendarmerie, leaving the prisoners completely isolated from the outside population.

Ghettos and concentration camps in northern Transylvania:

Before the Jews were interned into ghettos and concentration camps, the authorities searched their homes and confiscated their valuables. Forcibly removed from their homes (even children and the sick who were not fit for travel), the Jews were searched thoroughly. Midwives and gendarmes brutally carried out vaginal and anal searches on women and even young girls.

The rounding up and concentration in ghettos and camps began on 15-16 April 1944 in Sighetu Marmației and Vișeu de Sus (Gendarmerie District VIII of operational Zone I), and on 3 May 1944 in Satu Mare, Baia Mare, Oradea, Șimleu Silvaniei/Cehei, Cluj, Dej, Gherla, Bistrița, Târgu Mureș, Reghin, Sfântu Gheorghe (Gendarmerie Districts IX and X of Operational Zone II). Any baggage weighing more than 50 kilograms was forbidden, and only food, clothing and bedding were allowed.

Living conditions in the ghettos and camps were very poor. Food was cooked in bathtubs that had been taken from the homes of the interned Jews. Most of the time, there was no drinking water in the camps, causing the prisoners to suffer from thirst in the first days of detention. After a while, water was delivered in tank trucks, but in insufficient quantities. The sanitary conditions were miserable, with no spaces for physiological needs (for these four ditches were dug which served as latrines). Bad weather, insufficient food and dirty water caused many prisoners to become ill, and the lack of medicine and medical care resulted in numerous deaths.

There were investigative units in all ghettos and camps which subjected the Jews to unimaginable tortures: blows to the soles of their feet with canes or rubber truncheons, the placement of needles under the nails, tying and hanging from metal bars followed by beatings to loss of consciousness, electrification of the most sensitive parts of the body, or the pumping of large quantities of liquids into the stomach. Many girls and women were raped by gendarmes, some of them even becoming pregnant.

The deportation was carried out in unimaginable conditions, as well: 70-100 people were loaded into freight cars, with no food or water, and transported to Auschwitz almost without stopping. After the Jews boarded the trains, the cars were sealed off and locked with special chains. Hundreds of Jews died on the way to the death camps.

The Jewish population deported from northern Transylvania in each town: