Pinkas Hakehillot Hungary: Kunhegyes

“Kunhegyes” - Encyclopedia of Jewish
Communities in Hungary

47°22' / 20°38'

Translation of the “Kunhegyes” chapter from
Pinkas Hakehillot Hungary

Edited by: Theodore Lavi

Published by Yad Vashem

Published in Jerusalem, 1975

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This is a translation from: Pinkas Hakehillot Hungary: Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities, Hungary,
Edited by Theodore Lavi, published by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

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[Page 487]

Kunhegyes

A town in the district of Jasz-Nagykun-Szolnok, in the county of Tisza,
14 kilometers from Karcag. The population in 1941 was 10,769.

Jewish Population

Year	Number	% of Total Population
1869	160	2.2
1880	162	2.1
1890	226	2.6
1900	312	3.3
1910	304	3.1
1920	356	3.2
1930	273	2.5
1941	224	2.0
1946	126	1.2
1949	73	-

Until the Second World War

Until the Hungarian War of Independence in 1848, Jews were not permitted to settle in Kunhegyes, which had special permission to permit or forbid foreign inhabitants. In the middle of the nineteenth century, after these limits were abolished, Jews began to stream in from the nearby villages, and to populate it. The majority of Jews there were merchants, a minority were artisans, and independent farmers. There were there also four physicians and a lawyer. Also there were two flourmills that belonged to Jews. A short time after the settlement of the Jews was permitted their community was organized. In 1869 the community defined itself as Orthodox, and in 1885 it came under the supervision of Karcag. In Kunheyges there was a Hevra Kadisha, and a Women's Association. The synagogue was inaugurated in 1893, as was the school. The rabbis of Karcag used to come frequently to Kunhegyes, but afterwards the Shochet substituted for the rabbi.

In 1919 during the “White Terror” many of the local Jews were arrested under the suspicion that they assisted the Rightist revolutionaries, and many of them were tortured in the presence of their wives. Among the tortured were very old people. In 1922 the Jews were pestered again, licenses of saloons owners were confiscated, and young Jewish members of the Levente, a pre-army movement, were separated from their Christian counterparts, and were forced into humiliating work. The situation of the Jews of Kunhegyes worsened after the publication of Discriminatory Laws. In 1938 merchants' and artisans' licenses were confiscated. In 1941 the men were taken for forced labor.

The Holocaust

In the second half of April 1944, the Jews of Kunhegyes were concentrated in the Gypsy Quarter outside the city, which was fixed up as a ghetto, and they were forbidden to enter and leave, except for two individuals who were permitted to leave the ghetto from time to time to buy food. For a water supply, they were given an abandoned well, the use of which had been otherwise forbidden as a health hazard. To this place were brought the Jews of Tiszadersz, and Tiszaszentimre. There were humiliating searches in the bodies of women for hidden jewels, done with the assistance of midwives. Men and women who were arrested were taken to Szolnok's ghetto. At the end of June the Jews were trucked away, some to Auschwitz, and others to Austria. Those taken to Austria worked as agricultural laborers, and the majority of them remained alive.

126 men and women returned after the war from Austria. Those who returned reorganized the community. A memorial was dedicated (erected?) to the 131 victims. The enmity of the non-Jewish population caused the abandonment of the place by the majority of the Jews. 73 Jews remained in Kunhegyes in 1949. Since then their number is dropping.

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