Since 2004, a memorial has been dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust from Sopron.
Sopron, a city with a population of about 59,000, is located close to Lake Neusiedl in the north-west of Hungary. In 1921, it was decided in a referendum that the city would remain in Hungary and not be incorporated into Austria together with the Burgenland region.
Jews had lived in Sopron since the 14th Century. At the turn of the 17th Century, the Jews were expelled from the city; they resettled in the municipal area at the beginning of the 19th Century. As in all of Hungary there was a schism in the Jewish community of Sopron, after which followers of both the Neolog and the Orthodox movement maintained their own institutions in the city. In 1941, there were 1,860 Jews residing in Sopron, about 4.4 percent of the total population. In those years, anti-Jewish legislation increasingly constrained all spheres of life. The open persecution of Jews began with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht in March 1944. The Hungarian authorities cooperated closely with the SS and proceeded in Sopron in the same manner as in other Hungarian cities: Jewish property was expropriated, the Jewish communities were dissolved and a Judenrat was installed for the implementation of anti-Jewish measures. From the beginning of April on, Jews were forced to wear a yellow star; in mid-May, they had to move into ghettos. Several smaller ghettos were established in Sopron. In order to bar access to the city's characteristic narrow alleyways, the entrances to many through-houses, which allowed a public passage between streets, were bricked in. On June 29, Hungarian constabulary dissolved the ghettos and brought the Jews to an industrial area on the city outskirts. On July 5, the Jews of Sopron were deported: together with Jews from surrounding areas they were forcibly taken to the train station by the constabulary. From there the approximately 3,000 Jews were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in cattle cars.
Jews had lived in Sopron since the 14th Century. At the turn of the 17th Century, the Jews were expelled from the city; they resettled in the municipal area at the beginning of the 19th Century. As in all of Hungary there was a schism in the Jewish community of Sopron, after which followers of both the Neolog and the Orthodox movement maintained their own institutions in the city. In 1941, there were 1,860 Jews residing in Sopron, about 4.4 percent of the total population. In those years, anti-Jewish legislation increasingly constrained all spheres of life. The open persecution of Jews began with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht in March 1944. The Hungarian authorities cooperated closely with the SS and proceeded in Sopron in the same manner as in other Hungarian cities: Jewish property was expropriated, the Jewish communities were dissolved and a Judenrat was installed for the implementation of anti-Jewish measures. From the beginning of April on, Jews were forced to wear a yellow star; in mid-May, they had to move into ghettos. Several smaller ghettos were established in Sopron. In order to bar access to the city's characteristic narrow alleyways, the entrances to many through-houses, which allowed a public passage between streets, were bricked in. On June 29, Hungarian constabulary dissolved the ghettos and brought the Jews to an industrial area on the city outskirts. On July 5, the Jews of Sopron were deported: together with Jews from surrounding areas they were forcibly taken to the train station by the constabulary. From there the approximately 3,000 Jews were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in cattle cars.
The exact number of Jewish victims from Sopron is not known. At least 1,600 of them were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, including all of Sopron's Jewish children and youths under the age of 16.
About 400 Jews lived in Sopron directly after the war, including some who originally came from somewhere else. Until the end of the 1950s, the Jewish population decreased considerably, and the orthodox community was dissolved. Over time, numerous memorial plaques were set up as reminders of the persecution and murder of the Jews of Sopron. In July 2004, 60 years after the deportations, the Jewish community and the city jointly dedicated a monument on the square in front of the now derelict Orthodox synagogue. Designed by Hungarian sculptor László Kutas, the monument depicts a wall which symbolises the victims' last station before entering the gas chamber: hanging on numbered hooks are clothes, lying on the floor are shoes, glasses and children's toys.
- Name
- Emlékmű a Holokauszt soproni áldozatainak emlékére
- Address
-
Paprét
9400 Sopron - Open
- The memorial is always accessible.