Tracing Szentes‘ Jewish Deportees

Insights from Unprocessed Records and Digital Methods

Abstract

Szentes, a small town situated near Szeged in the southern region of Hungary, had a Jewish population of approximately 500 people in 1941. In May 1944, the Jews of Szentes first had to move to a ghetto, and a couple of weeks later, they were taken to Szeged. From there, some were deported to Auschwitz, and others to Strasshof near Vienna. Several documents were written from April to June 1944, and a part of them are unpublished and unprocessed. These include records of the quantity and type of food that the Szentes Jews were allowed to take to the ghetto, and a detailed list of the Jewish population of Szentes, their family trees and origins. Additionally, administrative documents authored by local authorities emerged, outlining the methodical reallocation of formerly Jewish-owned apartments to non-Jewish residents of Szentes, undertaken according to the recipients’ needs and preferences. By integrating underrepresented perspectives, the current study seeks to analyse the fates of the Jewish deportees of the Holocaust in Szentes. The fragmentation of the information and specific gaps can be filled in by processing partially newly discovered materials and utilising digital humanities technologies.