A zsidó népesseg száma településenként 1840–1941 (1993)

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION Somé years ago a possibility appeared to conduct such researches and to compile such data with regard to the national minority and ethnic groups which could not be conducted and, respectively, compiled for the past 45 years. Owing to this possibility publications on national minority groups in the present area of the so-called historical Hungary and alsó in the latt ter s areas belonging now to other states have been and are prepared on the basis of the régiónál division of 1910, containing practically the data from 1869 to 1941. Within the framework of this series the volume "The distribution of the nationality (mother tongue) groups in the localities of Transylvania (1850-1941)" has already appeared and respective volumes on the Highlands, Sub-Carpathia and the Voivodeship (Southland) are alsó planned to be published. Besides that, our plans include alsó the publication of a similar series containing the data by religions. These data have already been published but the type of summarization planned in this series has not yet appeared. By the compilation of the present volume a former debt of demography is settled. The Hungárián Central Statistical Office — within the framework of the program of the National Social Research Fund — tries to present — in a régiónál breakdown — the changes in the size of the Jewish (Israelite)

1/ population from the 1830s until 1941. The present volume may be regarded as the first publication of a series which however — on the basis of the historical past — significantly differs from the other publications and, consequently, may be regarded alsó as an independent volume. The difference has many aspects. In view of the fact that the greater part of the Jewry of Hungary alsó feli victim to the Holocaust the volume is alsó memóriái. It contains the data of the years when, on the one hand, in historical Hungary (for example in 1910) there lived 910,000 persons of the Israelite religion and, on the other hand, when (in 1930) in the area of Trianon Hungary there lived 445,000 or (in 1941) when in the Trianon area and in the enlarged area of the country there lived, respectively, 404,000 and 725,000 persons of the Israelite religion. Alsó in view of the historical character, the régiónál division in this volume had to be established in a way different from the usual. It was concluded that in the case of the present communication a departure from the régiónál breakdown regarding exclusively the present area of Hungary must be made since in the period between 1938 and 1941 numerous areas with significant Israelite populations such as the Sub-Carpathia, Máramaros, Nagyvárad, Szatmárnémeti, Kolozsvár etc. came under Hungárián administration. To establish the changes in the size and the losses of the Israelite population, to prepare a historical analysis is possible only by presenting the data in a breakdown corresponding to the country's area in 1941. As it was mentioned formerly, in Trianon Hungary and in the areas returned there lived 404,000 and, respectively, 321,000 persons of the Israelite religion. However the number of people affected by the Holocaust was significantly higher. On the basis of the Law N° XV of 1941 further 62,000 persons of the Christian religions had to be alsó regarded as Jews. It 1/ The word "Israelite" is used throughout the present publication to designate the Jewish religion. In Hungary, as alsó in many other countries and languages, this euphemism was thought to be free of all the negative connotations the word "Jew" had in most non-Jewish surroundings and, consequently, used in the civil administration (alsó in statistics) and in the official names of Jewish community institutions. 13