Zalaszentgrót
According to a record from Rohonc of 1711 Jews went to from there to settle in
Zalaszentgrót. In 1735 there were 25 Jewish inhabitants in Zalaszentgrót, they
founded a community and traded rawhide, cloth and gauze. At the end of the 18th
century the Jewish population of the town had grown to three times its former
size. In 1870 424 Jews lived there. In the 20th century the number and
proportion of the Jews in the district and Zalaszentgrót continuously decreased.
In 1809 Count Ferenc Batthyány gave to the community a building for a synagogue
and the right to sell kosher wine and other rituals for an eternally fixed price.
The contract was signed by Salamo Pulitzer. The synagogue was constructed in
1796 and enlarged in 1809. A famous religious teacher in the beginning of the
19th century was Reb Maglid Hirsch, Farkas Süssmann followed who was rabbi
until 1868. The community’s school was closed in 1899 after half a century. In
1885 already one estate district was part of the congressional community. In
1929 the Jewish community, 113 families, a total of 315 persons, had 127
taxpaying members, most of them did business in trade.
The data from the census of 1941 shows that 292 Jews were living in 17 towns in
Zalaszentgrót district. According to a report to the Central Council of
Hungarian Jews the Jewish community had 230 members, its president was Jenő
Korein and rabbi Adolf Hirtenstein kept the register. The Jews from this
district were deported to the ghetto constructed in Zalaszentgrót on May 15,
1944, together with around 130 Jews from some of the towns of Pacsa district.
The June 9 report to the Central Council of Hungarian Jews estimated that around
400 people were staying in the ghetto, they were from the districts
Zalaszentgrót, Lenti and parts of Pacsa. The Jews driven together in the
Zalaszentgrót ghetto were deported to Zalaegerszeg on June 16. Though several
survived the hard labour, almost none of them survived the deportations. With
the help of the joint the survivors managed to reorganise the Jewish community
which back then was part of the Kaposvár community. On April 19, 1945 the Jews
founded a Jewish Council for the protection of their interests, its members were
Imre Nagy, László Fischer, Andor Hirtenschein, István Singer and István
Stern. In 1949 the congressional community shrank to 41 members, István Stern
was the president and Andor Hirtenstein the managing director. 10 towns were
part of the Jewish community, religious services were held by the Kaposvár
rabbi Henrik Krausz. In 1956 only 19 Jews lived in Zalaszentgrót. In the lea
outside of the town a nicely kept Jewish cemetery with many graves guards the
memory of the Israelites that once lived here. Many of the tombstones are in
very good condition. In 1948 a memorial carrying the names of the victims of the
Holocaust was built at the cemetery. The writing behind the Tables of the Law of
Moses says: “The chimney next to the memorial points to the cruelties of
Auschwitz. The inside of the morgue preserves the old condition.”
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