The deportations of 1941 and the beginning of the mass murder of the Jews of Carpatho-Rus
The year 1941 brought the beginning of the mass murder of the Jews of Carpatho-Rus. The invasion of Germany and its allies to the Soviet Union in June 1941 created the possibility for Hungary to try to eliminate, once and for all, the problem of the refugees and the “stateless people” within its borders. The presence of Hungarian occupation forces in eastern Galicia and the Ukraine served as a convenient excuse for planning the deportation of many thousands of Jews, most of them from Carpatho-Rus, to these areas in the summer of 1941. Many of the Jewish families in the region had lived there for over a hundred years and had never seen a need to formalize their citizenship. Therefore, many did not have any documents to prove their legal residence in the region – from the time of the Hungarian rule before World War I. They were, therefore, sentenced to deportation. The deportation of these Jews was carried out in July and August by the Hungarian gendarmerie under the direction of KEOKH (the Chief National Office of Alien Relations), headed by Kozma Miklós, who at that time served as governor of Carpatho-Rus (Kortányzói Biztos).
The deportees (16,000-18,000 people) were scattered throughout eastern Galicia and the Ukraine in an attempt to find shelter, mainly from the local population in these areas, which welcomed the deportees in a flood of violent acts and pogroms that took place during the early German occupation there. Very few of the deportees succeeded, with great difficulty, to find their way back to the Carpathians. When they returned, their bodies and souls were devastated by the anguish they had suffered. It is known that members of the community leadership were active in the attempt to assist the deportees, mainly through obtaining lists of candidates for deportation from Budapest, for example, to warn them in advance. There are no sources of similar organizations throughout the Carpathian region, but the return to Munkács of the city’s rabbi, Rabbi Baruch Yehoshua Rabinowitz, indicates the ability of certain elements in the community to act, if necessary, at least on a small scale. Most of the deportees of the summer of 1941 (except some 2,000) were murdered by the Germans at the end of August in Kamenets-Podolsk in the Ukraine and in several other locations throughout eastern Galicia – during the first major massacre of Jews during the Second World War. The deportations of the summer of 1941 were halted in August, at least to a certain extent, thanks to the pressure of the leaders of the Budapest Jewish community on moderate elements in the Hungarian leadership.