Tragic History: The Massacres in Northern Transylvania (1940-1944)

The massacres in Northern Transylvania, 1940-1944, refer to the atrocities committed by the Horthys against Romanians and later Jews. In the fall of 1940, following the ceding of part of Transylvania to Miklós Horthy's Hungary, Hungarian troops massacred Romanians and Jews in several Transylvanian localities. These atrocities continued until the end of 1944.

Massacres in Northern Transylvania, 1940-1944

Among the most famous and well-documented such massacres are:
• The Treznea Massacre
• The Ip Massacre
• The Sărmaşu Massacre
• The Moisei

Massacre Massacres also took place in other localities such as: Nuşfalău, Cerişa, Marca, Breţcu, Mureşenii de Câmpie, Mihai Bravu, Ciumărna, Zalău, Huedin, Belin, Zăbala, Halmăşd, Sântion, Cosniciu de Sus, Camăr, Aghireş, Sucutard, Ditrău, Suciu de Sus, Tărian, Prundu Bârgăului, Cătina, Răchitiş, Şincai, Turda, Ozd, Gădălin.

• 1 General data and premises of these atrocities

• 2 Massacres against the Romanian population in the fall of 1940
o 2.1 Nuşfalău, September 8, 1940
o 2.2 Treznea, September 9, 1940
o 2.3 Ip, September 13/14, 1940 o
2.4 Cerişa, September 15, 1940
o 2.5 Marca, September 15-16, 1940
o 2.6 Breţcu, September 16, 1940
o 2.7 Mureşenii de Campie, September 20, 1940
o 2.8 Chronology of other massacres

• 3 Massacres against the Romanian population in the fall of 1944
o 3.1 Band, Grebeniş, Oroiu, September 1944
o 3.2 Sărmaşu, September 15, 1944
o 3.3 Tărian, September 29, 1944
o 3.4 Prundu Bârgăului, October 10, 1944
o 3.5 Moisei, October 14, 1944
o 3.6 Chronology of other massacres

• 4 The aftermath of the massacres in Northern Transylvania
o 4.1 Official data on the abuses committed by the Horthyists
o 4.2 Participating members
o 4.3 Hungarian reactions to the atrocities committed under the Horthyist occupation

General data and premises of these atrocities

After the Vienna Dictate of August 30, 1940, NW Transylvania came under Hungarian occupation. Throughout this article, we understand by Transylvania or Transylvania both the historical region of the same name as well as Crişana and Maramureş. An area of 43,492 square km was ceded, representing half of the territory of Transylvania with a population of 2,667,000 inhabitants, of whom:
• 50.2% Romanians
• 37.1% Hungarians and Szekler
• 12.7% Germans, Jews and other nationalities.

Vienna Dictate - area ceded to Hungary

The territory occupied by the Hungarians during World War II remained in history under the name of Northern Transylvania and included the northwest of the region of the same name as well as the Szekler lands. A total of 8 counties out of the total of 23 that made up Transylvania were alienated in their entirety, another 3 were split in two, thus creating an artificial border that reached the middle of Romanian land.
After the announcement of the Vienna decisions, the great drama for Romanians followed: the refuge from the occupier and the evacuation of Romanian institutions from the ceded area. Thousands of Romanians, especially intellectuals, left the ceded area. Among them was the teaching staff of the University of Cluj, formed by elite personalities such as: Sextil Puşcariu, Iuliu Haţeganu, Onisifor Ghibu or Emil Racoviţă.

Attempting to classify the massacres that took place in the territory occupied by the Hungarian authorities, it can be observed that the vast majority took place in the autumn of 1940, immediately after the establishment of the Hungarian regime, and in the autumn of 1944, after Romania sided with the Allies. The atrocities against Romanians and Jews that occurred between September and October of 1944 took place in the first phase in the Romanian territories located in the immediate vicinity of the border with occupied Transylvania, during the rapid Hungarian offensive against Romania, and later during the withdrawal of the Horthyist armies from the Transylvanian lands.

Thus, a first classification of the massacres in Transylvania can be the following:

• The massacres in the autumn of 1940 in the occupied territories
• The massacres in September and October 1944.
These atrocities can be divided according to the ethnicity of those targeted by the Horthyists into:
• Massacres directed against the Romanian population
• Massacres directed against the Jews.
The massacres against the Romanian population in the autumn of 1940

Miklós Horthy and his wife Magdolna Purgly received with ovations in occupied Transylvania, 1940

Five days after the Vienna Dictate, on September 5, 1940 at 7:00 AM, the first Hungarian unit crossed the border at Sighetul Marmaţiei. Two Hungarian armies entered the territory of annexed Transylvania:
• The First Army – with a strength of 208,000 soldiers, which operated in the north-eastern part of Transylvania
• The Second Army – with a strength of 102,000 soldiers, which operated in the Oradea-Cluj area.

On the first day, the main cities occupied were Carei, Satu Mare, Sighetul Marmaţiei and Ocna Şugatag. 9 stages of advance were established, each of 40-80 km. The last localities taken under control on September 13, 1940 were Sfântu Gheorghe and Târgu Secuiesc.[2] The advance of the Hungarian troops took place in peaceful conditions, with only a few scattered incidents with the retreating Romanian soldiers in the territory of "southern" Transylvania. The Horthyist army was welcomed with joy by numerous Hungarian locals, and images of the Hungarian troops parading through the main cities of the ceded Transylvania have survived to this day.

Only 3 days after the Hungarian occupation army entered Romanian territory, a series of massacres against the Romanian civilian population began. These intensified in the first two weeks after the annexation of Northern Transylvania. Thus, in just 11 days, the Hungarian criminals killed approximately 1,000 Romanians. The most affected by the Horthyist terror was Sălaj County, where 477 Romanians were massacred.

Nuşfalău, September 8, 1940

Nuşfalău is a commune in Sălaj County, located 39 km from the city of Zalău. After the Hungarian army entered Şimleul Silvaniei on September 7, 1940, and occupied Zalău a day later, a new massacre against Romanian civilians took place in the commune. The victims were 11 people, two women and 9 men from the Bihor village of Almaşu Mare, who were on their way home to Nuşfalău.

The facts were established by the People's Tribunal of Cluj, by Decision No. 1, public sentence of March 13, 1946. On the morning of September 8, 1940, at the exit from Nuşfalău, the people were stopped on the road by the local resident Zoltan Szinkovitz from the commune and a Hungarian soldier who accompanied him. The court sentence shows that these two Hungarians brought the victims back to the center of the village, searched them, without finding anything compromising against them, took their personal belongings, systematically beat them and shot them with bayonets, after which the two women were released. The 9 men were loaded into a military cart, which was driven towards the commune of Zăuan and at a distance of approximately 500 meters from this last commune, where the Romanians were killed by bayoneting in the heart. At the same time, two other Hungarian locals, on their own initiative, caught the two women who had been released, taking them to the site of the massacre where they shared the same fate as the 9 men.

All the bodies were summarily buried and covered only with leaves, and their burial in the cemetery of the village of Nuşfalău took place only a few days later, at the insistence of the inhabitants, after the bodies had begun to decompose. The names of the ethnic Hungarians are known and they were punished by the People's Tribunal of Cluj, while the Hungarian soldiers remained unidentified.

Treznea, September 9, 1940

Among the greatest tragedies against Romanians committed by the Horthy army in its advance on the territory of annexed Transylvania is the massacre at Treznea, a commune located in Sălaj County, 15 km from the city of Zalău. Hungarian troops belonging to the 22nd Debreșin Border Guard Battalion under the command of Lieutenant Akosi entered the village on September 9. The first victims were children grazing with their cattle, their bodies being later discovered on the communal slope. After occupying the village, the Hungarian units unleashed the slaughter. Romanians and Jews were massacred with machine gun fire, pierced with swords and bayonets, and houses were attacked with grenades and set on fire. As a result of these incidents, 93 people died, of whom 87 were Romanians and 6 were Jews.[6]
The official version given in Budapest was that the Hungarian troops who entered the commune of Treznea were attacked with gunfire by the daughter of the local priest and other locals, a version that is false because there is evidence that the massacre was premeditated, the Horthyist army turning from its march to attack the Romanians in the village. The Hungarian version is refuted even by a Hungarian general, who intervened at the last moment, diminishing the size of the disaster and reprimanding Lieutenant Akosi, stating verbatim:

Ip, 13/14 September 1940

The greatest and most horrific atrocity committed by the Hungarian army in complicity with the local ethnic Hungarians, where the most innocent victims fell -157 dead[4]- during the occupation of Transylvania, was that of Ip, a town in Sălaj County, located 45 km from the city of Zalău. The manner in which this massacre took place was established by the People's Tribunal of Cluj on 13 March 1946.

Under the pretext of revenge for the two Hungarian soldiers killed in an explosion in the commune of Ip on 7 September 1940, during the passage of troops through the town, Lieutenant Vasvári Zoltán of the Horthy army left the locality of Nuşfalău where he was stationed on 13 September 1940, heading with his company towards the commune of Ip. The motivation for the killing of the 157 locals is once again fictitious, as the explosion occurred due to a defect in the ammunition packaging, as evidenced by the fact that the four arrested Romanians were released after about a month.

On the night of September 13 to 14, around 11 o'clock at night, Lieutenant Vasvári Zoltán arrives in the Ip commune. Immediately, together with several ethnic Hungarians, he begins to hunt down the Romanian houses. They are awakened from their sleep and then brutally killed. The Hungarian locals were especially used to indicate the Romanian households. The next morning, by order of the lieutenant, several locals were ordered to dig a hole in the village cemetery, and other villagers were taken out with carts and went from house to house to pick up and transport the bodies to the cemetery.
Every year on September 14, the villagers of Ip commemorate the victims of this massacre at the monument in the village dedicated to them.

Cerişa, September 15, 1940

Without there being any reason for reprisals in this case either, a company of unidentified Hungarian soldiers, led by two officers, entered, on the morning of September 15, the village of Cerişa, Sălaj County. We learn about the massacre from the same sentence of the People's Tribunal of Cluj. These soldiers gather 64 Romanians from the village, whom they take to the hill near the commune. While gathering the villagers, the same soldiers shoot 7 people. Arriving at the mentioned place, one of the officers ordered the Jews to come forward and thus 5 people came out, who were guided, under guard, to the other side of the hill. Then the 59 remaining Romanians were ordered to flee down the hill, which the Transylvanians did, and the soldiers, on the officer's order, opened fire on them. The luck of those thus condemned to death was that they managed to hide in time through the ravines and folds of the hill, so that only a certain Herţa Gavril from the commune of Cosniciul de Jos was fatally shot.

At the same time as this terrible operation, on the other side the same procedure was carried out with the 5 Jews, 4 of whom were shot.

Marca, September 15-16, 1940

On the morning of the day following the massacres at Ip, a company of Hungarians who were part of the unit stationed at Şimleul Silvaniei appeared in the commune of Marca, in Sălaj County, 55km from the town of Zalău. This company was also accompanied by civilians from Ip, some of whom were dressed in military uniforms so as not to be recognized. On September 15 and 16, 1940, these soldiers, under the leadership of Ösz Arpad as their guide and Incze Ştefan, both from the commune of Ip, shot two Jews, 3 Slovaks and 6 Romanians in the fields and in the courtyards of the inhabitants. In Hungarian documents, the reason for the killing of the 11 people was military retaliation. The pretext is not a valid one here either, because in this commune not only did they have nothing to repress because nothing had happened to them, but the Hungarian troops had not even passed through the Marca.

Breţcu, September 16, 1940

On September 12, 1940, Boldea Niculae from Breţcu commune, Covasna county, and his older son with the same name, were imprisoned at the town hall, on the grounds that the father complained that his son had been beaten by a Hungarian local. The Hungarian army entered the commune on September 13, and the captain commanding that unit ordered the continued detention of the Romanians. On the night of September 13 to 14, 1940, the houses of approximately 20-30 Romanians were devastated by the villagers and soldiers. On September 14, Boldea's youngest son, aged 14, was also imprisoned.

On September 16, 1940, several Hungarian soldiers went to the Boldea family home, under the pretext of taking clothes and food necessary for the expulsion of the men to Romania. After taking the necessary things, the soldiers returned to the town hall, where they ordered the victims to be loaded into a truck, which then set off towards the border. However, the soldiers stopped on Măgheruş peak, where Boldea and his sons were shot and then buried.

Mureşenii de Campie, September 20, 1940

The tragedy of the family of the Romanian priest Andrei Bujor from the Cluj village of Mureşenii de Campie and other inhabitants of the commune took place after the official establishment of the Hungarian military administration in occupied Transylvania. Hungarian army soldiers were stationed in the town, led by Lieutenant Gergely Csordás, from the 19th Hungarian Regiment from Nyiregyhaza.

The manner in which this atrocity unfolded was established by the same Cluj court, the People's Court, on March 13, 1946. Several Hungarian soldiers were stationed in the house of the Romanian priest, who was married and had 3 children. Being disturbed by the aggressiveness of the soldiers, the priest left for Cluj to request the intervention of the military command, but returned on the evening of September 20, without obtaining anything. Lieutenant Gergely Csordás immediately sent a patrol of 12 armed soldiers to the house of priest Bujor with the precise order to exterminate him together with his entire family, as well as those arrested that same afternoon: the cantor Gurzău Ioan and his wife Valeria, the teacher Petrea Gheorghe together with his wife Natalia, the 5-year-old daughter Rodica and the mother-in-law Ana Miron. The soldiers sent comply with the order received and shoot everyone present in the parish house, namely the members of the Bujor family in the bedrooms, and the others in the courtyard. The priest's maid, the Hungarian Juhasz Sarolta, shared the same fate. All the victims, 11 in number, were buried the same night in the courtyard of the house. It was later proven before the Cluj court that the massacre was committed at the instigation of Count Wass Albert, who hated Father Bujor because of a hunting ground and because he saw in him a great Romanian.

Chronology of other massacres

• September 7, 1940, in the Bihor village of Mihai Bravu, the series of atrocities against ethnic Romanians begins. By September 7, 1940, Bihor County is completely occupied by the Hungarian army. In this context, the tragedy in the mentioned locality also takes place when 22 Romanian peasants, including two children, are gathered in the field and shot by Hungarian soldiers.
• September 8, 1940, in the village of Ciumărna in Sălaj County, Hungarian troops killed 11 people, in their advance towards the center of Transylvania.
• September 9, 1940, in Zalău, unidentified Hungarian soldiers entered the houses of Romanians Vicaş Grigore and Prunea Gheorghe. They shot and killed Vicaş Grigore along with his wife and brother, as well as Prunea Gheorghe's wife, who was pregnant in the last month. In the corner of Vicaş's house, these same soldiers also killed a peasant from the commune of Treznea, named Pop Nicolae, who had come to Zalău with milk.
• September 10, 1940, in Huedin, the Hungarian occupation troops, on their march towards Cluj-Napoca, mistreated and killed the Orthodox archpriest Aurel Munteanu and the policeman Gheorghe Nicula.
• September 13/14, 1940, in the communes of Belin and Zăbala in the interwar Trei Scaune county, today Covasna, the Hungarian troops arriving in these localities attacked and vandalized the homes of Romanians, the people being beaten and mistreated in the hope of determining them to cross the border into Romania. Several families left their homes, leaving for the Kingdom, and others were expelled by the Hungarian authorities, their properties being confiscated.
• September 16, 1940, Hungarian fascists, who remained unidentified, shot dead 3 Romanian residents in the commune of Halmăşd, Sălaj county, and on the morning of September 17, 1940, 7 members of the Maticec family were shot, including a boy of only 5 months. All these facts were included in the sentence of March 13, 1946 of the Cluj Tribunal.
• September 16/17, 1940, in the Bihor commune of Sântion, the family of the peasant Tipănuţ Gheorghe was mistreated by several Hungarian soldiers. His wife was hit with a revolver and kicked, and Tipănuţ together with his two sons were shot. Of the 3 men, only the youngest son escaped with his life.
• September 16, 1940, in the village of Cosniciu de Sus, Sălaj County, a group of Horthy soldiers took several Romanians out of their homes, 11 of whom were killed. On September 18, 1940, another group of soldiers caught and shot the resident Costelaş Dumitru. Throughout the massacres, the soldiers were accompanied by civilians from neighboring communes, who remained unidentified, who pointed out the houses of the Romanians.
• September 18, 1940, in the commune of Camăr, in Sălaj County, 4 Romanians were killed in the Zăuan forest, after they had previously been tortured and mutilated.
• around September 18-21, 1940, in the commune of Aghireş in Cluj, a new Romanian was killed and mistreated. In the fall of 1940, Kovacs Iosif, as mayor of the locality, carried out hostile activity against the Romanian and Jewish population, which he denounced to the military commander, drawing up lists of those who were to be mistreated. Thus, the villager Gheorghe Boc was taken from his home on the evening of September 18, 1940 by a Horthy patrol, and was subjected to terrible torture for several days. He was then forced to dig his own grave, was shot and his body cut with swords. He is later buried on the edge of a river, where the body was discovered by chance, shortly after the victim's murder.
• September 22, 1940, in the village of Sucutard, in Cluj County, 2 other Romanians and Jews are killed. At the instigation of the Hungarian Wass family of counts from the locality, Moldovan citizens Iosif and Câţ Ioan are arrested, who in 1938 initiated a criminal case against Count Wass Albert for bodily harm. Sisters Mihaly Estera and Rozalia were also detained, suspected by Wass of communist activity and denunciations of him to the Romanian authorities. On September 22, 1940, the 4 arrested were taken under military guard to the commune of Ţaga, where the next morning they were shot and thrown into a mass grave.
• October 1, 1940, in the commune of Ditrău in Harghita, the Romanian forester Ilie Ţepeş is killed.
• October 1943, in the commune of Suciu de Sus, interwar Someş county, today Maramures county, two Romanians are shot while trying to hide from the Hungarian military.

Massacres against the Romanian population in autumn 1944

The series of crimes against the Romanian population in occupied Transylvania was resumed in autumn 1944, immediately after the conclusion of the armistice between Romania and the Allies. Atrocities were also committed in several localities in Transylvania belonging to Romania, these settlements being in the immediate vicinity of the border.

Band, Grebeniş, Oroiu, September 1944

Immediately after Romania concluded the armistice with the Allies, armed ethnic Hungarian locals in collaboration with the border guards from the Hungarian picket in the commune of Band, Mureş county, attacked the Romanian border by surprise, killing Sergeant Predescu. Dozens of Romanians from the village of Mărăşeşti were taken from their homes and locked in handcuffs in a cellar, their homes also being vandalized.

Then, crossing the border, the same gang looted the commune of Grebeniş, shooting 3 locals and picking up the Romanians who had not managed to take refuge. Taking them to the border, the Hungarians made them kiss the boundary stones and give thanks for arriving on the holy territory of Hungary. Two other Romanians from the village of Oroiu were then beaten and later killed.

Sărmaşu, September 15, 1944

The cemetery on Suscut hill on the edge of the Cămăraşu commune in Cluj, of the 126 Jews from Sărmaşu killed by the Horthys

After the Vienna Dictate of August 30, 1940, Sărmaşu remained within Romania, being less than an hour's walk from the Hungarian border.[17] At the beginning of the war, the town had a population of approximately 3,200 people, divided by ethnic group almost equally between Romanians and Hungarians, with about 200 Jews.[18] On August 23, 1944, Romania switched sides to the Allies, with the German and Hungarian armies launching a powerful offensive against the new enemy and penetrating the Transylvanian Plain to a depth of about 30–60 km beyond the then existing border line. On September 5, 1944, the Hungarian army occupied the commune. From this moment on, oppression against the Jews and Romanians here began. The Hungarian population in the area who supported the Hungarian cause, in their desire to regain all of Transylvania, together with the Hungarian Guard, began to loot the homes of Jews and Romanians.[19] On September 9, 1944, the team of Hungarian gendarmes removed from their homes several Romanians who had held important positions in the administration of the commune, and they were taken to an improvised camp in the locality. For several days, they were all subjected to hostile treatment by the occupiers. From the sentence given on June 28, 1946 by the People's Tribunal of Cluj we also learn the following: "In the camp, they were subjected to the most inhumane treatment possible, consisting of beatings, mistreatment and staged executions during the night. For example, once all the Romanians in the camp were taken out into the yard, made to kneel ("At the church"), and after this exercise, everyone, regardless of age, was made to turn their heads until they were exhausted."

Sarmasu, between September 5 and October 10, 1944 (for 35 days) was under the occupation of the Hungarian Horthyist invasion. During these days and nights, the Hungarian gendarmes with their cocked feathers and the Hungarian National Guards, under the command of Gendarme Captain Laszlo Lancz, shot or took away over 126 Jews and 39 Romanians from the area, soldiers taken prisoners of war from the fierce battles of Oarba de Mures _ Ludus _ Chetani. The Jews shot by the Horthyist gendarmes in the Plasei Sarmasu area are mentioned by Matatias Carp in the volume SARMASU, ONE OF THE MOST HORRIBLE FASCIST CRIME (Publishing House Atelierele grăfice SOCEC, SAR, Bucharest, 1945) and Vasile T. Suciu in the volume WHERE DOES THIS HATE COME FROM?

We will only mention the Romanian martyrs, for whom no research and investigations were carried out by the authorities. Here are the Romanian martyrs and heroes identified by us, in the Plasei Sarmasu area; Dr. Banu Vasile (b. 1918, commune of Mociu/Cluj, the first praetor of Plasei Sarmasu, shot on the outskirts of the town); Plut. Maj. Teodor Jucan (b. 1882 Buza/Cluj, former head of the gendarmerie post in Sarmasu/Mures, shot on the edge of the forest of the commune of Camarasu/Cluj); IULIU MOLDOVAN (Ovidiu's father) (b. 1916, commune of Catina/Cluj, the accountant/collector of Plasei Sarmasu/Mures); Ioan Moldovan (b. 1906, mayor of commune of Gabud/Alba); Alexandru Fizesean (b. 1896, com. Catina/Cluj, shot at the corner of the Camarasu/Cluj forest; he left behind 5 orphaned children); Vasile Micu (71 years old, priest, com. Sarmasu/Mures, participant in the Great Union of December 1, 1918 from Alba Iulia); Petru Cadar (61 years old, Romanian peasant from Sarmasu/Mures); Letitia Rusu (17 years old, shot at the fountain in Catina/Cluj); Solomon Istoc (18 years old, from Grebenisu de Campie/Mures); sergeant Iulian Predescu (head of the Marasesti/Band Border Guard Picket); Zachei Seulean (71 years old, peasant from Grebenisu de Campie/Mures); private Barbu Radu (22 years old, border guard, born in the commune of Petresti/Dambovita, shot at the Visuia picket); Ioan Gorea (b. 1925, in Visuia); Maria Gorea (mother, Visuia village/Bistrita-Nasaud); Sofia Harsan (b. 1874, mother, Visuia village/Bistrita-Nasaud); Eugen Harsan (b. 1925, son, Visuia village/Bistrita-Nasaud); Ioan Loga (70 years old, from Geaca/Cluj); Ioan Miron (71 years old, from Geaca/Cluj); Ilonka Takacs (27 years old, from Geaca, Hungarian, married to a Romanian, she left behind 5 orphaned children); Maria Rusu (2 years old, Hungarian mother); Ioan Teglas (20 years old), Vasile Suciu (52 years old); Ilisie Suciu (42 years old); Cioba Viorel (3 years old); Maria Catinean (49 years old); Tanasie Baciu (23 years old, soldier from the 83rd Infantry Regiment _ Turda, arrived home that day on leave); Ioan Lucaciu (40 years old); Miron Filip (67 years old), all from Geaca/Cluj; Mihaly Estera (19 years old, Jewish); Mihaly Rozalia (Jewish, 17 years old); Iosif Moldovan (peasant); Ioan Cat (peasant), all from Sucutard/Cluj; Private Ioan Gainusa, (22 years old, born in Magureni/Prahova); Private Gheorghe Pana (22 years old, border guard, shot at Sarmasel/Mures); Private Nicolae C. Nicolae (22 years old, born in Hotcarau/Prahova, shot at Pogaceaua); Private Florian Popa (border guard, 22 years old, born in Corbesti/Bihor, shot at Pogaceaua); Private. Gheorghe Ciulei (23 years old, born in Ramnicu Valcea/Valcea, shot in Iclandu Mare/Mures); Ioan Craifalean (born in 1888, former mayor, shot in Iclanzel/Mures); Vasile Padurean (54 years old, peasant from Valea Larga/Mures); Private Alexandru Bexa (border guard, born in Cacuciu/Mures), Private Gheorghe Florea (from the 7th Alba Iulia Border Guard Regiment, killed in Valea Larga/Mures).

From the archival documents studied and from the statements of witnesses given at the People's Tribunal in Cluj, it results that the crimes and massacres were committed on their own initiative on a local level, without having had an order or official directive from above. The proof in this regard is the fact that when the gang of Captain Lancz Laszlo, the commander of the gendarmerie in Plasa Sarmasu/Mures, was preparing to repeat the massacre of the night of September 16/17, 1944, having "prepared" another 45 Jews and Romanians arrested from their hiding places, with the humanitarian intervention of the Hungarian lieutenant colonel Ujhazi, the massacre did not take place, freeing them from the Camp at the house of the piker Ioan Pop in Sarmasu/Mures, restoring their life and freedom.

In memory of the 126 Jews massacred by the Hungarian gendarmes, a cemetery was arranged and a monument was erected, and research was carried out. For the Romanians shot or disappeared from the face of the earth, nothing has been done so far.


Tărian, September 29, 1944

In the conditions of the fluctuations of the advance and retreat of the front in September 1944, the village of Tărian in Bihor County was reoccupied by German-Hungarian troops on September 29, 1944 and since this settlement had been in the part of Transylvania ceded, by the Vienna Dictate, the Hungarian gendarmes who made up the public guard also returned to the locality. Two guard teams were formed, both for the village of Tărian and for the neighboring settlement, Girişu de Criş.

In the evening, the team responsible for the locality in question, led by Vitéz Harmathi Alexandru junior, began harassing Romanian households. Thus, 15 people were killed, and several were seriously injured. After committing these crimes, the guard moved to the neighboring village of Girişu de Criş, with the aim of committing identical acts there. However, they were stopped by the guard team there, under the command of the resident Vagaszki Alexandru, who disarmed Harmathi.

Prundu Bârgăului, October 10, 1944

On October 10, 1944, when battles were being fought in the Bârgăului area by Romanian and Soviet troops against the occupier, another moment of repression against the Romanian civilian population was recorded. In the autumn of 1944, the 27th Szekler Border Guard Division and the 33rd Hungarian Mountain Hunters Regiment were stationed here, in retreat.

Several military commanders picked up approximately 20 Romanian residents of the Bistrița commune of Prundu Bârgăului, who were sent to Bistrița, but were released after 2 days. However, 7 of them were arrested again and imprisoned in a cellar. On the night of October 10, the Romanians were taken out and led to the edge of an anti-aircraft defense ditch, where they were shot and thrown into the ditch. One of the victims, priest Pop Augustin, was slightly wounded, managing to escape and escape with his life. At the same time, the civil servant Popovici was picked up from his home and taken to an unknown destination, never to return.

Moisei, October 14, 1944

The series of atrocities directed against the Romanian civilian population also includes the massacre in the commune of Moisei, Maramures County. A total of 31 Transylvanian peasants were gathered in a house and killed by retreating Hungarian soldiers, leaving only two people alive. They were interned in labor camps in the Maramureș town of Vișeu de Sus, accused of "treason". From here, the 31 Romanians were taken by truck to Moisei, the village being completely evacuated of its inhabitants. 12 of them were locked in a wooden house, being shot by Hungarian soldiers, who fired through the windows and door. The other Romanians were then killed. The massacre happened around 3 pm, that same night, with the soldiers setting fire to the village and burning about 300 houses. The bodies, already rotting, were buried two weeks after the crimes were committed, when the locals, evacuated by the authorities, returned to their homes.

Chronology of other massacres

• early September 1944, in the Cluj commune of Cătina, located on the border ceded by the Vienna Dictate, several local ethnic Hungarians looted the Romanian houses in the village, killing a 16-year-old girl and wounding two other people.
• autumn 1944, in the village of Răchitiş, Harghita County, 7 Romanians were killed by an officer from the Hungarian army, in charge of supplying the 5th Szekler Border Battalion. Under suspicion of partisanship with the Romanian side, the soldier arrested seven shepherds who were hiding in the village forest. On the officer's orders, an execution squad is formed, but they refuse to commit the crimes. Other soldiers are chosen who ultimately shoot the 7 Romanians.
• September 5-7, 1944, Hungarian border guards, staffed by civilians from the Mureș commune of Şincai, crossed the border into the village of Fânaţe, where they killed 3 Romanian locals. Fearing mistreatment, upon learning that he was being sought by Hungarian teams, Ursuţ Gheorghe hanged himself in the yard of his house. The same gangs looted and burned down Romanian households.
• September 8, 1944, the village of Ozd, Târnava Mică interwar county, today Mureş county, located on the territory of Free Transylvania, is occupied by Horthy troops, the Hungarian priest from the locality surrenders two Romanian shepherds to the Hungarian authorities. They were taken under escort to the town of Luduş, where they were later executed by shooting and buried.
• September 23/24, 1944, in the Cluj village of Gădălin, soldiers from the Hungarian occupation army shot 2 Romanian inhabitants. Their bodies were discovered by the Romanian army, stripped and buried in the communal cemetery.
• September 24, 1944, in the conditions of fighting between the Hungarian and Romanian and Soviet armies, in Turda, Cluj county, another 18 Romanians are killed. They, especially women and children, were taking shelter from artillery fire under a railway bridge when they were shot by the Hungarians.

The aftermath of the massacres in Northern Transylvania

After the occupation of Northern Transylvania by Hungarian troops in the autumn of 1940, one of the darkest chapters of recent history began for the Romanian population. To the acts of revenge of some Hungarian nationalists from Transylvania against Romanians, we must add the abuses of the military, the terror measures of the police installed by the new authorities, illegal arrests, summary executions and the aggressive arrogance of the representatives of the new administrative-public structures and the civil service. During some detection actions, Romanian nationalists were targeted first of all, that is, priests and teachers. They became victims of overzealous Hungarian citizens, Hungarian troops and paramilitary gangs, being mocked, mistreated or even lynched.

Official data on the abuses committed by the Horthyists

In a statistical report of the State Secretariat for Nationalities in Bucharest on the situation in Northern Transylvania between August 30, 1940 and November 1, 1941, 919 murders, 1,126 tortures, 4,126 beatings, 15,893 arrests, 124 desecrations, 78 and 447 collective and individual devastations are mentioned.

A few days after the installation, the occupation authorities began deporting Romanians to camps. According to a report by the commander of the Püspökladány camp, it results that in that camp alone, 1,315 Romanians were interned in September 1940, far above its maximum capacity. Consequently, as early as the same month, new camps were established in Someşeni and Floreşti, near Cluj Napoca.

There were also mass expulsions of Transylvanians across the demarcation line imposed by the Vienna Dictate, especially of those considered dangerous or hostile to the new regime. Begun in 1940, the expulsions were practiced until 1944, when the occupiers were driven out by Romanian troops in cooperation with Soviet troops. Thus, by 1 January 1941, the total number of Romanian refugees was 109,532 souls, to which must be added the 11,957 Transylvanians expelled by the Hungarian authorities. A statistic covering the period 1 September 1940 – 1 December 1943 indicates a total of 218,919 expelled persons.[29] To these were added the numerous refugees, who left their homes for fear of the new Hungarian administration. Documents from the time show that on August 23, 1944, when the fight for the liberation of Northern Transylvania began, there were over 500,000 people in Romania from the territories occupied by the Horthys.[30] During this period, Romanian schools and churches also suffered. On the territory of Transylvania ceded on August 30, 1940, there were 1,666 elementary schools with teaching in Romanian and 67 high school, vocational and higher education institutions. At the beginning of the 1941/1942 school year, the number of primary schools was reduced by 792 units, and in 1940/1941, there was only one high school - the one in Năsăud - and 7 Romanian sections in addition to various other high schools.

Participating members

Albert Wass

The three organs of repression of the Horthy regime were the army, the police and the gendarmerie, complemented by the multitude of nationalist-chauvinist organizations, militarized or paramilitary institutions. The most famous irredentist paramilitary organizations involved were:
• The Ragged Guard (Rongyos Gárda) - distinguished themselves in actions of persecution of Romanians;
• The Turanian Hunters (Turáni Vadászok), a terrorist-information organization with county, network and city centers;
• The Comradely Union – Turul (Turul Bajtarsi Szovetseg);
• The General Szekler Border Association (Orszagos Maghyar Lovesz Egyvesulet)
• The Szekler Border Division (Szekely Hatarok Hadosztaly);
• The Organization of Ten (Tizes Szervezet).

After the end of the conflict, on July 10, 1945, a People's Tribunal was established in Cluj Napoca to try war criminals. He collected data, evidence, and testimonies regarding the massacres committed in the northwestern territory of Romania. The People's Tribunal of Cluj issued 9 sentences or decisions between March 13 and June 28, 1946. After its dissolution, the act of justice regarding the punishment of war criminals was taken over by the Cluj Court of Appeal, between 1946 and 1952. Most of the accused were tried in absentia and never served their sentence. It is instructive that out of the total of 72 Hungarian criminals (52 from Hungary and 20 from Romania) sentenced to death by the People's Tribunal of Cluj, absolutely all of them were tried in absentia. Among the Transylvanian Hungarian personalities involved in actions against Romanians is the Hungarian count and writer Albert Wass. He and his father Andrei Wass were found guilty of war crimes in 1946 and sentenced to death by the People's Tribunal of Cluj. According to prosecutors, they ordered the murders of ethnic Romanians and Jews from Mureşenii de Câmpie and Sucutard.

Hungarian reactions to the atrocities committed under the Horthy occupation

The Hungarians in Transylvania, which had come under Hungarian rule, welcomed the decisions of the Vienna Dictate with satisfaction, hoping that at the end of the war Hitler would grant Horthy the whole of Transylvania. Many ethnic Hungarians participated alongside the military in the massacres against the Romanian population. They devastated, desecrated and demolished Romanian churches - especially in Székely - they looted and burned down Romanian houses or mistreated and killed "Vlachs". However, there were also, albeit in a few cases, Hungarian locals who got involved in saving Romanian families. Among them is the well-known case of Gall Iosif, who saved several Transylvanians from death during the Treznea massacre. Another testimony in this regard is that of Gavril Butcovan, one of the survivors of the drama in the Ip commune, Sălaj.

There were cases in which Hungarian locals fell victim alongside the Romanians. One of these is that of the maid Juhasz Sarolta from Mureşenii de Câmpie, who was killed along with the entire family of priest Bujor.