GYÖR

GYÖR (Ger. Raab), city in northwest Hungary, near the Austrian border. The earliest information on Jewish settlement there dates from the last third of the 14th century, though it is probable that an organized community had existed earlier. A Jews' Street is recorded in the municipal land register of 1567, and a synagogue is mentioned in the municipality's accounts. The Church, which would permit only Catholics to reside in the city, compelled the Jews to settle on the nearby Györ-Sziget Island on the Danube River. A community was organized there in 1791 and a synagogue established in 1795. Jews did not settle in the city proper until 1840. In 1851 they formed a single community with the island Jews. A new synagogue was built in 1870. In 1871 a separate Orthodox community was organized. Noted rabbis of Györ were S. Ranschburg, J. Fischer, and E. Roth. The last stimulated the ideology of Jewish nationalism in the community; he was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. The Jews of Györ, mainly manufacturers, artisans, and merchants, numbered 5,904 in 1920, and 4,688 in 1941. Between 1942 and 1944 the majority of male Jews were sent to labor camps. The Nazis occupied Hungary in March 1944, and on June 11, they were deported to Auschwitz. After the war 700 survivors returned. In 1946 there were 950 Jews in Györ but in 1970 only 200 remained. The synagogue was sold in 1969. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Kemény, Vázlatok a györi zsidóság történetéböl (1930); A. Scheiber, Hebraeische Kódex-Ueberreste in ungarlaendischen Einbandstaefeln (1969), 95–99; MHJ, 12 (1969), 10 (1967); 9 (1966); 8 (1965); 7 (1963); 6 (1961); 5 (2 pts., 1959–60), index locorum, S.V.; 4 (1938), index locorum S.V. Rab; 3 (1937), index S.V. Györ megye, györi zsidók; R.L. Braham, The Hungarian Jewish Catastrophe; a selected and annotated bibliography (1962), geographic index, S.V. (Alexander Scheiber)