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[Page 163]
The Organization and Buildings
of the Jewish Community of Monor
It was located from 1900 until 1944 at 15 Verbőczy (now Dózsa György) Street. The synagogue was called “church,” as an example how the Hungarian Jews tried to show their similarity and not the difference from the general population. From the end of June 1944, the synagogue and the surrounding buildings were subject of robbery and devastation. In the summer of 1984, only the burned walls were visible. In 1985, it was demolished and now a high apartment building stands on its place. There is no commemorative table to mark its history.
The Community built a Council and Meeting Room on 17 Verbőczy Street on the lot connected to the Synagogue. The School and the living accommodation of the cantor, the teacher and the caretaker were located there. This Council room was demolished later with the Synagogue.
The School was on 19 Verbőczy Street, a large one room building where one teacher taught 4 classes from grade 1 to 4 simultaneously. The standard of education was so high, that many non-Jewish children were also enrolled there. The Jewish children were taught both religion and Hebrew after regular school hours. The school was demolished together with the synagogue.
The living accommodation of the teacher and his family of two children, the cantor's accommodation for his family of 4 children and his pregnant wife, also the accommodation of the caretaker and his family of 6 children. These accommodations were all demolished together with the other buildings surrounding the synagogue.
After 1956, the Central Organization of the Hungarian Jewish Communities, sold the ruined buildings with their surrounding land to private persons who built residential houses on the premises.
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The residence was a rental house on 12 Széchenyi Street, until the end of June 1944.
On the continuation of Kossuth Lajos Street, after the Mill, toward the road to Péteri was the old Jewish Cemetery, where the last funeral was in 1936 of the widow of Dávid Feuerman, so she could rest beside of her husband.
More than 312 people are buried there for eternal rest, because the Jewish religion does not permit to disturb the rest of the deceased. In 1960 the cemetery was nationalized and it was claimed that the departed were exhumed and reburied in the new cemetery. In 1995, The Center of the Hungarian Jewish Organization had no knowledge nor any document about this procedure. There are no monuments (marble, granite, basalt or other) in the Gőzmalom Street Cemetery, with the exception of the remains and the monument of Farkas Kugel which was transferred by his descendants.
The last and existing cemetery is at the end of Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Street, formerly Gőzmalom Street. This was established after 1900. For 50 years, except for a few graves, the cemetery was neglected.
According to the record of the Monor Town Council, No. 18/1989 of April 17, 1989: The Jewish Cemetery of Monor… / 2 property paper, topographical no. 11638 closed garden / 2421 m² / Owner: State of Hungary, caretaker: Council of Monor V.B.
In 1994, the wire fencing was practically non-existing; many monuments were stolen by unknown perpetrators, and the mortuary doors were missing. On November 2, 1994 the Major of Monor Dr. Aurél Marton wrote a letter (reg. no.: 182/1994) to Dr. Péter Feldmájer, the president of Hungarian Jewish Communities Confederation, as follows:
“The cemetery is the property of the Autonomy of the Town of Monor. Saying that due the condition of the mortuary, Town of Monor is planning to demolish the building and to put on a new fence on the street side. To proceed with the demolition of the building, asking for consent.”
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In the Spring of 1995, Town of Monor demolished the building and the front fence. A new fence was erected with concrete posts, only on the front. While the old damaged fence was removed also on the side of the Catholic cemetery, it was not replaced in the summer of 1995, some of the stones were replaced by former Jews of Monor, in the Fall. Town of Monor remounted the rest.
Chevra Kadisha
It is a voluntary charitable organization which prepares the deceased for the funeral according the Jewish custom. It is a great honour to help the deceased with the last rites.
Dr. Izsák Pfeiffer, Chief Rabbi of Monor
From 1923 until 1944, Dr. Izsák Pfeiffer the highly respected scholar and Chief Rabbi, conducted the religious life of the Jews of Monor and the surrounding districts in all the aspects of life, from the circumcision of the newborn boys, the naming of the newborn girls, through the bar mitzvah of the 13-year-old boys, the marriage ceremonies, visiting the sick, providing help to the poor and giving the final ritual to the departed. It was also the responsibility of the Rabbi to record the birth, marriage and death registration.
With his wide scholarly and religious knowledge, Rabbi Pfeiffer taught the heroic values of the Jewish history, the Hebrew language and the ideas of Zionism as the only solution to the horrors of the period. He organized valuable literary programs for the members, involving also the younger generation.
He was not only a rabbi and the leader of the community, Dr. Pfeiffer was a well known poet, writer, translator, theologian and educator in religious studies. He was well known in Hungary, especially his writings about the strengthening of the intellectual life of the communities and the ideas about the responsibilities of the rabbis. He was noted in the Hungarian Literary Encyclopedia as poet under the pen name Izsák Pap. There are about 300 articles under his name in different journals. In 1942, due to false accusations, he was taken to a work camp. After his release, he continued the education of the youth and talked about the future Jewish State. End of June, when he was already in the brick factory, before the train to Auschwitz, his only child, Dr. J. Marcell Pfeiffer, physician in Budapest, with the help of Ottó Komoly and Rezső Krasztner were successful in getting him to Budapest, to the intern camp of Kolumbusz Street, wich was arranged by the Germans.
In Budapest, in May and June, when already the big part of the Jews were deported, Dr. Rezső Kasztner and Ottó Komoly, representatives of the Zionist organization, saw a possibility to save Jewish life for 10,000 trucks. The Germans took 1660 Jews, but took them to Bergen-Belsen, and only transferred them to Switzerland when they needed the small amount of money that they could get for them in December.
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On July 5, Dr. Izsák Pfeiffer and his wife, after the departure of the above mentioned train, were taken from the brick factory to the Kolumbusz Street camp, which was arranged by the Germans as a transfer camp, following the bargain of Kasztner-Eichmann. In July, the Rosinger family was also able to get into that camp, where they met with the emotionally and physically exhausted Rabbi. Unfortunately, during the bargain, no more life saver train came into operation, but it saved more than 1000 lives before October 1944.
In early September 1944, when the fate of the German war machine was obvious, when Romania made peace with the Western Powers and let the Russians reach the Hungarian border in a day and when the Lakatos cabinet was in operation, Miklós Horthy Regent demanded the removal of Eichmann and the SS from Budapest. The SS disappeared and there was no more guarding of the camp.
Dr. Pfeiffer and his wife were able to leave the camp and move to their relatives. The Rabbi had such an extraordinary reputation, that he was invited to preach in the synagogue of the Kazinczy Street.
The escape from the deportation to Auschwitz was unfortunately, not final. In October, when the Arrow Cross Party became the ruler of Hungary, he was captured in the second wave and was forced on feet through Komárom to Austria and from there by train to Dachau. There in the utmost misery, he comforted the stricken and talked about the certainty of the liberation.
On 27th of April, 1945, the camp was liberated but the feeble and famished Rabbi died few days later from a wound which became infected before liberation.
Dr. Pfeiffer's wife and son, after the war, immigrated to Israel, to the country of the realization of his hopes. They settled in Tiberias, where they lived till the end of their days. In 1948, Dr. Sándor Schreiber edited a remarkable book about Dr. Pfeiffer, unfortunately, without contribution of anyone from Monor.
The scope of his printed work between 1901–1944, beyond the books was enormous, consisted nearly 300 studies, poems, book reviews, meditations, greetings, remembrances, necrologies, funeral orations, reports, letters, legends, sermons, translations and explanations of the Holy Books, Psalms, translations of studies, poetry. His articles were published in newspapers, Hungarian Jewish weeklies in the Twentieth Century or the Philological Journal. It remained as a manuscript of a study on the writing of Dr. Miklós Bernát.
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The afterlife in the Bible, written on April 6, 1944. Among his last work was the translation of the Psalms of King David in poetry.
Many of his unprinted work disappeared during the horrors of 1944. Only three manuscripts remained, which were published posthumously after WWII. More about his bibliography can be found in the Memorial Book of Izsák Pfeiffer, edited by Dr. Sándor Schreiber, Illés Newald printing shop, Budapest 64 1. 1949.
This memorial book is not included in the catalogue of the Országos Széchenyi Library but in 1994, the National Rabbi Seminarium published a 2 volume Bible, based mainly on the translation of the former teachers and students.
Miklós Bokor Painter and Graphic Artist
He was born in Budapest in 1927, but lived in Monor till the deportation of 1944. His father, one of the Founders and Manager of the Credit Bank of the District of Monor.
After 4 elementary school years, he commuted daily to the Berzsenyi high school in Budapest by train. He liked to draw and paint, but originally he wanted to be a biologist and the scientific papers already accepted his articles for contributions, while he was 16 years old and in high school.
In 1944, when the family was deported to Auschwitz, at the beginning, he was with his father, whose loss deeply contributed to his own health too. After series of horrors, he was liberated in Theresienstadt, with advanced tuberculosis. After a long stay in hospitals, he decided that he would be a painter. He could not enroll to the Academy. In 1949, with special permit (what he needed because due to the deportation he could not get a high school diploma), he obtained the diploma of Graphic Art Teacher on the Academy.
During that time, he became friends with Jenő Barcsay, whose art effected his development. From 1951 he travelled around the country, to learn from the folk art, similarly what Bartók achieved in music.
In 1954, he received his first Munkácsy Prize, the second was awarded to him for his exhibition in Túrkeve. End of October 1956, he was in the Netherlands and later in Paris.
Due to the news of the political situation after the Revolution and the strong attraction of the artistic milieu, he decided to stay and have his family to come after him. Since his wife and newborn son could not come, he returned to Hungary in October 1957. On the end of summer in 1960, he returned and settled in France. The first years were spent in great privation. In 1962, during his exhibition in the Galerie Janine Hao, he met with André Leve, who extended to him a friendly help during those hard times.
With the passing years he became more and more appreciated for his artistry. In 1966 he was considered among the best French painters. He was decorated with the Honour of Legion for the French Artists and in the USA he received twice the Rothschild Prize.
The Bookprinting of Ernő Popper
In 1907 Ernő Popper started to work as bookbinder in the family workshop, the same way that his grandfather and father did from around 1850, in Monor. However, Ernő was more ambitious and in a few years he purchased printing machines and started to work as printer.
In 1917, he introduced electric printing machines. From that time on, he started to print, wherever the request came up, like advertising country news, office and school supply and more and more labour consuming books. His family joined the business: his son László, his daughter Tercsi, her husband Dezső Grosz, then Dezső's brother Ferenc Grosz then a cousin of Ernő, Elemér Popper. The shop employed many workers from Monor: typographers, proofreaders, printers, bookbinders, buyers, and salesmen in the papers store, where his wife Laura gave to every student who went to purchase school supply, beautiful printed pictures what we called Popper pictures.
The Popper family sold their property, bordered by Pesti Street, Kossuth Lajos Street and Bajza Streets in 1924 to the Evangelical Community, where a church was built in 1939. In 1936 they purchased the former Korona Inn's building from the Szigeti and Balla families. On the frontal part on the Kossuth Lajos Street was the paper and book store; in the large back property the Popper Printing Company.
They printed newspapers, school/education materials, religious and office supplies, different administrative forms, for the entire country. Between the two World Wars, they became popular also as book printer. They printed among others, the books of Lajos Kassák, Dezső Szabó, Péter Veres, Zoltán Zelk and other antifascist writer's books. Many translated books of world famous writers were printed in Hungarian in their shops.
Between 1942 and 1944, all the male members of the Popper and Grosz family, who were under 50 were drafted to forced labor battalions. On July 8, 1944 Ernő Popper, his wife, their daughter Teréz (Tercsi) and her son György Grosz were deported to Auschwitz and killed. László Popper after forced labor camps in Ukraine and Bor, returned to Monor in 1945. His family was murdered, he was both physically and emotionally broken, started to re-establish the printing shop, which was nationalized (taken away without remuneration) in December 1949.
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The nationalized Popper Printing company ceased operation in 1953. Since that time all the buildings were demolished. On its place in 1993 a memorial plaque was erected, for the victims of the Second World War, without mentioning the persecution of the Jews. László Popper retired in 1969 from state employment.
In March 1993, the then 85-year-old László Popper was elected as an Honorary Citizen of Monor. During the May days of Monor in 1994 an exhibition was organized by the Local Historical Circle of Monor, as The History of the Popper Printing Shop. In the local paper, in the Monori Strázsa of June, 1994 there is a report about the exhibition. The article mentions the deportation and the martyrdom in Auschwitz, but there is no mention of the reason. There was an appreciation of the book printing and other printing products, as said: “The residents of Monor in their everyday life used the products of the Printing Shop of the Poppers, from the cradle to the coffin (sometime for credit). Birth registration, school books, writing paper, picture postcards. Since those days, we have not had that quality or variety. Newspaper, invitation, advertising, invoice, official summons, death registration, obituaries, all this is the product of their shop, of the diligence, enthusiasm and care of this printer merchant family.”
Unfortunately, the Library of the Town of Monor, does not have a collection of the books, leaflets and different municipal printings which were produced by the Popper Printing.
Partial List of the Leaders of the Jewish Community of Monor
| Rabbi | ||
| Eliezer HIRSCH | 1850–1858 | District of Pécel |
| Mózes KOHN | 1859–1871 | District of Pécel |
| Dávid LINDENFELD | 1870–1872 | Assistant Rabbi |
| Dávid POPPER | 1873–1874 | Assistant Rabbi District of Pécel |
| Zsigmond DRESCHLER | 1875–1885 | District of Pécel |
| Mihály KOHN | 1890–1908 | District of Pécel |
| Ignác KOHN | 1908–1912 | |
| 1912–1914 | There was no rabbi in this time period | |
| Dr. Sámuel SCHLESINGER | 1914–1922 | Also served as Army Chaplain during WWI |
| Dr. Izsák PFEIFFER | 1923–1944 | Also served as Registrar |
| Cantor | ||
| Izrael GOLDSTEIN | 1870–1872 | Also performed circumcision |
| Bernát WEIL | 1870–1885 | Also performed circumcision |
| Mendel WACHS | 1886–1932 | |
| Sámuel KLEIN | 1933–1946 | |
| Samesz (Verger) | ||
| Simon GRÜNFELD | 1925–1944 | |
| Teacher | ||
| Izrael KRAUSZ | 1886–1922 | |
| Henrik FRIEDLANDER | 1922–1944 | |
| Head of the Jewish Schoolboard | ||
| Dr. Zoltán SZŐLLŐSI | 1928–1934 | |
| Izidor RÉVÉSZ | 1934–1944 | |
| Registrar | ||
| David FEUERMAN | 1875 | |
| Bernét WEIL | 1875–1884 | On the Seal “Israelitische Gemeinde Monor” |
| Izsó LINDENFELD | 1885 | |
| Israel KRAUSZ | 1912–1922 | Deputy Registrar |
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| Chairman of the Jewish Community | |||||
| Mór LőWY | 1857 | ||||
| Mór FEUERMAN | 1880 | ||||
| Dr. Jakab HUPPERT | |||||
| Dr. Ferenc SZILÁGYI | |||||
| Gyula HUPPERT | |||||
| Adolf SZÁNTÓ | |||||
| Dr. Jenő KLEIN | 1940 | ||||
| Dr. Imre ROSINGER | 1942–1944 | ||||
| Founder and Leader of the Youth Group | |||||
| Dr. Izsák PFEIFFER | 1922–1944 | ||||
| Founder and Leader of the Jewish Girl Group | |||||
| Dr. Helén POPPER | |||||
| Jewish Ladies Association | |||||
| Mrs. Ferenc SZILÁGYI (née Adél Benjáts) | |||||
| Mrs. Imre ROSINGER | |||||
| Hevra Kadisha | |||||
| Gyula HUPPERT | Member of the Committee | ||||
Extract From the Hungarian Jewish Lexicon, 1929 Related to Monor
Monor is a large village in the county of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun with 12,347 inhabitants. The Hungarian Jewish community was established in 1862; however, there were Jewish inhabitants as early as 1845, including Mór Lőwy and Antal Feuermann who served as leaders and organizers of the barely 25 individuals. Within a year, the handful of Jewish families had erected a synagogue with the help of a donation of 100 Korona from King Franz Joseph and the generosity of the town and its officials.
The synagogue was soon too small for Monor's burgeoning Jewish population and an extension was built under the direction of Jakab Huppert in 1899. Congressional activities had a significant impact on the lives of Monor's Jewry. Mór Lőwy is credited with giving the community a voice by petitioning for its inclusion in the universal congress.
The school established in 1866 had to be closed in 1903 due to administration costs that proved beyond the struggling community's means.
Izrael Krausz opened the doors of a private school around the same time and this was purchased by the community after his demise in 1921. The school obtained official status and it still operating today, the school is a recognized educational institution with two instructors. At the time of its establishment, the Jewish community of Monor belonged to the rabbinate of Pécel, but it became an independent registry district in 1885 and encompassed the settlements of Monor, Gyömrő, Kispest and Pestszentlőrinc. The first rabbi of this new independent community was Mihály Kohn, who developed the community into one of the leaders of its kind in the country during his 26 years of leadership.
Mihály Kohn was the victim of a railway accident in 1912 and shortly after his death, Kispest segregated and formed its own independent Jewish community. After 2 years of interregnum, Sámuel Schlesinger was chosen to be rabbi. He left a deep mark on the community during the 8 years of his duty. He established Talmud Torah youth associations and a library and he also orchestrated the reopening of the school. He moved to Debrecen in 1922. The Jewish community of Monor named the library after him and had his portrait painted for their meeting room.
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The current rabbi, Izsák Pfeiffer (Pap), is a worthy follower of Sámuel Schlesinger in every sense. The economic hardships and turmoil of the recent years affected the Jewish community adversely, which managed to develop nonetheless and was able to establish new institutions thanks to the excellent leadership of Márton Rosenberg, Jakab Huppert and Ferenc Szilágyi. The recently established Jewish youth association greatly advanced religious education, and the library established by Adolf Szántó vice-president and his wife in memory of their late daughter promoted cultural development.
Today the Jewish community is a significant contributor to the economic life of Monor. Béla Fried's mill and the brickyard employ 80 people, Ignác Polacsek's lumberyard 42, Gyula and Sándor Huppert's distribution company 48 and Bernát Huppert's companies have staff members in total 20 individuals. Monor's violinists Adolf Wilheim and Sándor Kőszegi emigrated and achieved recognition in the United States. This is where Schlesinger was rabbi for 8 years followed by Izsák Pfeiffer (Pap) current rabbi, both of whom are valuable members and contributors to the Jewish culture.
The annual budget of the community amounts to 22,000 Pengő, out of which 8,500 Pengő is spent on social and philanthropic purposes. The community boasts 850 individuals, 320 families and 295 taxpayers. Of these, 4 are wholesalers, 8 are farmers, 2 are teachers, there are 10 soldiers and railway staff, 106 merchants, 7 lawyers, 7 civil servants, 64 labourers, 2 industrial workers,
5 physicians, 45 private officers, 6 contractors, 42 skilled labourers, 1 architect and 20 entrepreneurs. Social institutions include a hospital established during the war that has since closed its doors and the Jewish Patronage Children's Shelter that is still operational. 116 members of the Jewish community fought in World War I and 9 died heroic deaths there. One person fell victim to the counterrevolution.
A number of smaller Jewish communities belonged to that of Monor, such as the communities of Vecsés, Gyömrő, Tápiósüly, Tápiósáp, Maglód, Üllő, Mende, Ecser, Úri and Gomba. The leaders of the Jewish community today are Rabbi Izsák Pfeiffer (Pap), Ferenc Szilágyi president, Adolf Szántó vice-president, József Goldstein treasurer, Izidor Révész inspector, Gyula Nemes, Ignác Deutsch and Márton Rosenberg caretakers, Henrik Friedlander teacher-clerk, Zoltán Szöllősi president of the school and Mendel Wachs choir master.
Most of the collected material is based on personal memories. The names of the contributors are not listed, but without them, this collection would not possible. The list of contributions is incomplete.
There is no plaque in Monor in remembrance of the late Jewish community and the place of the synagogue and Jewish school are not marked by historical plaques either. There is nothing to show in which houses the Jews of Monor lived and worked.
From 1939 to 1945 approximately 400 Jewish inhabitants were displaced from Monor during the Holocaust and approximately 300 of those were murdered. We were unable to honour every individual member of the Jewish community of Monor by name in this book of commemoration. The archives of the Jewish community were destroyed after the deportations of 1944. Every relevant document and record was deemed to have been lost in the war as reported by the gendarmerie of Monor, the police, the town, the Institute of Military History and the Hungarian State Railway, (Magyar Államvasutak “MÁV”). The collection of records of the Jewish community and the collection of remembrances represented in this book of commemoration was initiated a little more than half a century after the deportations.
The main sources of information were accounts of the elderly survivors of the holocaust of Monor, who are few and far between. An incomplete list of sources and data collectors can be found in the Bibliography and wherever possible and within reach, written sources pertaining to Monor were included. (Please see Bibliography). It was beyond our reach to provide a complete list.
The fate and sufferings of the Jews of Monor was in great part similar to that of the Hungarian rural Jewish communities. The drafting of able Jewish men into forced labour battalions countrywide and from Monor aged between 18 and 50 is especially worth highlighting. The Government and the House of Representatives approved and begun the use of Jews for forced or slave labour under armed supervision as early as the beginning of the war. Jewish men would work in minefields in freezing cold, undernourished and subject to untreated illnesses, be it typhoid or frostbites, with little chances of staying alive. The forced labourers often died due to “natural causes” or were shot without reason by the cruel “keret” who were responsible for their supervision. Meanwhile, multitudes of Jewish families were left without a breadwinner. This contributed to the fact that during the period before the deportations of 1944, families without men did not try to escape, resist or perform other life saving acts.
In 1943, SS leader Heinrich Himmler announced that in 500 years, no one would
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remember the Jews. They would disappear like dinosaurs. He added that “we are writing an honourable page in history that we will have to keep a secret.” This book brings to light many of the gruesome and ghastly secrets that happened to the Jews of Monor.
The Jews did not disappear but became victims of inhuman German Nazi anti-Semites and likeminded local Hungarian collaborators. Unfortunately, the German Nazis found many panders or partners in crime who voluntarily persecuted the Jewish people. A whole list of horrific acts against the Jews were the doings of Hungarian gendarmes and police, administrative bodies and these were witnessed by the inhabitants of Monor. Such was the identification of Jewish family members who stayed in Monor and the legal deprivation of all their rights and belongings, confining them into ghettoes, forcing them into the brickyard on June 30, 1944, and the inhuman cruel treatment that awaited them there, robbing them of all their belongings, driving them to the railway station and loading them into cattle cars on the 8th of July, without food and water under extremely unsanitary and inhuman conditions.
Few had the courage to offer unselfish and brave help. The law abiding citizens of Monor, suffered a cruel and heinous fate with, 80% of them killed.
All efforts have been made for the accuracy and authenticity of the data presented in this book; however, the data collectors cannot assume responsibility for them.
The copyright of the compiled information, as it is set forth in its entirety, is reserved for the data collectors. It does not extend to the separate individual data and remembrances narrative which form part of the book.
The separate individual data and the remembrances may be utilized and reproduced at the sole responsibility of the utiliser on the condition that the individual intellectual rights are fully complied with and are used within the context of the book and the tragic events of the Holocaust. Establishing and complying with the individual intellectual rights is the responsibility of utiliser.
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| Porras: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |
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