Proposal
Des, Hungary Yizkor Book

Project Name. Translation of Des and surrounding areas Yizkor Book

Project Leader
Martha Sampson


JewishGen Yizkor Book Project Manager: Lance Ackerfeld

Project Synopsis

This project is being initiated in order to fund the translation of the 684 pages, two volume set, yizkor books. This set has the Hungarian title “Dés..., Bethlen, Magyarlápos, Retteg, Nagyilonda és környéke”, which translates to “Des..., Bethlen, Magyarlapos, Retteg, Nagyilonda and vicinity” It was published in Tel Aviv in 1970. Des, or Dej as it is known in Romanian, is part of the community that is currently part of the Transylvanian region of Romania.

Key Audiences

Jewish genealogists seeking to trace their roots in Des or the vicinity constitute the primary audience for the material. However, the material has the potential to be of broader appeal to scholars interested in the region or specializing in Jewish history and society.

Project Importance

Yizkor books are unique sources of information on once vibrant towns, primarily in central and Eastern Europe, whose Jewish populations were destroyed in the Holocaust. Written after World War II by émigrés and Holocaust survivors, yizkor books contain narratives of the history of the town, details of daily life, religious and political figures and movements, religious and secular education, and gripping stories of the major intellectual and Zionist movements of the 20th century. The necrologies and lists of residents are of tremendous genealogical value, as often the names of individuals who were taken to extermination camps or died in the forests are not recorded elsewhere.

The Jews of Des and the surrounding area reflected the rise and decline of Hungarian Jewry, as a whole. In 1944 the Jewish population accounted for almost 25% of the entire city. In 2008, there were a handful of Jews living in Dej, Romania. Currently, there is little information available to the English speaking world regarding Des or its surrounding Jewish community. With the destruction of the Jewish community in 1944, the information in this yizkor book constitutes much of its documented history. This project will result in the creation of the primary English language source of information for anyone doing research on the town and its Jewish community.

Project Description

As funds become available, all Hungarian and Hebrew pages will be translated into English. To accomplish that JewishGen will hire a professional translator. The project coordinator will select the order in which the chapters will be translated and will work closely with the translator to ensure a grammatically correct and idiomatic translation. Specific tasks the project coordinator will perform include proofreading, editing, and preparing the work for submission to the Yizkor Book Project. The resulting translation will be posted on the Yizkor Book Translations site at: http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/dej/dej.html

Estimated Cost. $15,000

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Updated 21 Jun 2011 by LA