One of the First Victims – Lea Ráchel Moskovics

(1859-1944)

The majority of Hungarian Jews killed in 1944-45 did not die in Hungary, and their (direct) murderers were mostly non-Hungarians. The majority of the victims of the mass deportations in the spring and summer of 1944 died in the gas chambers of Birkenau or in other camps of the German Nazi camp system. However, hundreds, if not thousands, died before Auschwitz, during the ghettoization-deportation period, due to the brutality of the Hungarian authorities and the terrible conditions in the ghettos and collection camps. Many of them were elderly and sick, and among them were the first victims of 1944/45 - for example, Lea Ráchel Moskovics.

She is also one of the victims who have so far been invisible to historical memory. Her biographical details are scarcely known, as no registers of her birth and (possible) marriage have survived. Nor does her name appear in any other document before 1944. From the available records, we know that he was 85 years old in 1944 and lived in Dédabisztra (today: Bistra Mureșului, Romania), Maros-Torda County, before the ghettoization. It is assumed that after 3 May 1944 he was taken by the Hungarian authorities to the collection camp in Szászrégen (Reghin), where he was put on a deportation train carrying sick people from ghettos and collections camps to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The train passed through several towns between Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș) and Szatmárnémeti (Satu Mare) towards the Slovakian border. It reached the latter city on 8 June.

The elderly woman would have had no chance of survival in Auschwitz, as she would have been murdered by the Nazis immediately on arrival. Her elderly body, however, could no longer cope with the journey and she died somewhere on the road between Szászrégen (Reghin) and Zsibó (Jibou). The doctors at Zilah (Zalău) and Zsibó refused to accept the body, so she and two other victims (Róza Schönfeld and Emil Diesel) were finally buried in Nagybánya (Baia Mare) with a "simple, poor" funeral by the local town doctor.

Correspondence of the municipal authorities of Nagybánya concerning the burial of Lea Ráhel Moskovics and two other victims (Source: Romanian National Archives, Maramures County Branch (Nagybánya), fonds 1 (Nagybánya City Records), Administrative Records, file 1168/1944.)

Cover image: The synagogue in Szászrégen - Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives)