[Page 143]

Year	Population
1727	1 (family)
1735	31 (individuals)
1747	42
1830	72
1880	159
1930	184

At the foot of the wall of the old palace of the estate owner Rákóczi, there is a monument with a Hebrew inscription, dated from the middle of the 18^th century. From this, we see that there was already a community at that time in the place or close by.

[Page 144]

The synagogue

The community was dependent on Nemesbükk until 1860, when it became independent. From 1885, the following communities became dependent on it: Nyék, Ládházá, Belsõbõcs, Külsõbõcs, Sajólád, Sajópetri, Alsó-zsolca, Felsõzsolca, and later also the communities: Mohi, Sajószeged, Tizapalkonya, Tiszakürt, Hejõbaba, Nemesbükk, Parasztbükk, Hejõszakáld, Hejõszalonta, Hejõkeresztúr, and others.

There was a house of worship there already in 1830. The splendid synagogue was built in 1883. There was also a school there (liquidated in 1923, when the government support was canceled).

There were also several social institutions in Ónod. The most important of them were the Keren Kayemet (Jewish National Fund), and Ezrat Dalim (assistance for the poor).

From among the rabbis of Ónod, it is fitting to note: Rabbi Meir Schick (1892-1942), who founded an educational institution called “Talmud Torah Umelacha” [Study of Torah and Trade] in 1910 – a yeshiva in which they also studied tailoring, carpentry, and shoemaking; his son-in-law Rabbi Feivel Fülõp Donáth (1942-1944) who served as a military rabbi at the rank of high captain already years prior to that. He perished in the Holocaust.

Thirty-one Jews of Ónod participated in the First World War, five of whom fell on the front.

In 1919, during the “White Terror”, the Jews of Ónod suffered from harsh anti-Semitic action. The son of rabbi Schick, who was 21 years old at the time (and who served as the chairman of the Orthodox rabbinate of Hungary after the Second World War), was imprisoned on a false libel. He was exonerated through the testimony of local Christian notables.

In 1938, with the proclamation of the separation laws, many Jews of Ónod were displaced from their livelihoods. In 1941, the youth were sent to various forced labor camps. Most of them perished in Ukraine and other places.

With the Nazi conquest in 1944, the communal leaders were arrested sand beaten cruelly. In the middle of May, all the Jews of Ónod were transferred to the Diósgyõr Ghetto. Most of the men up to the age of 48 who still remained there were sent to forced labor camps, where they all perished. The rest of the Jews of Ónod were loaded onto wagons on June 10, and brought to Auschwitz on June 14. Some of them were murdered immediately, and the rest were transferred to Ellendorf, where they were put to work in the ammunition factory. Others were transferred to Bergen-Belsen.

After the war, about ten men returned, most of them from forced labor camps, and 10 young women returned from Auschwitz. The community was not reconstituted. The synagogue was destroyed, and a Protestant church was built on its ruins.

Y.K.

Yad Vashem Archives E 7-4/174
Mon. Hun. Jud., VII, pp. 125, 260, 734.
Magyar Zsidó Almanach, 1911, p. 267.
Zsidó Lexikon, pp. 662-663.
Jungreisz, E.: Egy Magyar ortodox rabbi életmüve.
… Uj Kelet, 1963, no. 27, p. 17.

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