Mediaş Jewish Community Collection

This collection contains select pre-World War II and war-time documents from the archives of the Mediaş community. The documents primarily comprise membership lists, other personal registration forms, and photographs.

The membership lists in folder 1 are typed and arranged alphabetically by family, they include birth years, addresses, and sometimes additional information. The registration forms in folder 3 were distributed by the central offices of the Jewish community of Romania. They include a picture of the person, birthplace and date, education level, military service, and position held in the community structure.

The following names are included in the registration forms in folder 3:

The handwritten chart in folder 4, entitled "Chart of Deportees Settled in Mediaş," includes first and last names, place and date of birth, marriage status, and occupation. Most individuals are from Bukovina or northern Transylvania. It is not clear whether the chart was made after 1945 and refers to deportees returning from both Transnistria and Auschwitz (where most northern Transylvanians were deported) or whether it was created during the war and refers only to deportees to Transnistria, some of which were permitted to return to Romania prior to 1945 and were frequently placed with existing Jewish communities throughout the country.

The photographs in folder 5 include images of the Jewish school, which was built in 1928 adjacent to the synagogue and other photographs of the synagogue and rabbi's house, probably dating to the 1950s or 1960s. There are also photographs of a ceremony held in Mediaş in 1945 for the Jews of Europe murdered during the Holocaust. These photographs include pictures of a march through the town of Mediaş to the cemetery and various men speaking at a new monument. The additional photographs of tombstones are unidentified but may be of the Kappel family cemetery, not the main Jewish cemetery. The architectural plans in OS folder 146 include drawings for workers residences which factory owner, Benjamin Citron, constructed. Citron was also president of the community at the time and instigated the construction of a Jewish school, new mikvah, and additional decorative elements for the synagoge.