Historia Kistelek Synagogue
Kistelek lies on the main road between Szeged and Kecskemét in present-day Csongrád-Csanád county. Its Jewish community built a synagogue that Anikó Gazda, in her gazetteer of Hungarian synagogues and Jewish communities based on a site survey of 1980 to 1987, dates to 1862. Gazda classed the building as a synagogue and marked it as demolished. Gazda's survey of 1980-87 records 179 Jews in Kistelek in 1910 and 178 in 1941; she took the building date from the Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities (Pinkas Hakehillot). The Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives (MILEV) holds one photograph of its interior, catalogued as 'Emléktáblák a kisteleki zsinagógában' (memorial tablets in the Kistelek synagogue). It shows the eastern wall with the Torah ark, its embroidered curtain, a railed reader's platform, rows of wooden pews and a crystal chandelier, flanked by two large tablets listing names under a heading that appears to read 'Mártírjaink 1940-1945' (our martyrs, 1940-1945). The photograph therefore shows that the synagogue survived the war and was still kept as a place of worship and remembrance for some time after 1945. The museum also holds an embroidered challah cover from Kistelek. No source found gives the date of the demolition, the people responsible, or the address of the building, and beyond Gazda's figures little is known of the congregation.
Where it stood for 83 years
Historic: Kistelek, Csongrád county; street and house number unknown. Today: unknown; placeholder pin at the centre of 6760 Kistelek, Csongrád-Csanád county (approximate).
Otwórz większą mapę →Społeczność żydowska
Little of the history of the Kistelek Jewish community has been traced. Gazda's survey of 1980-87 records 179 Jews in Kistelek in 1910 and 178 in 1941, a small community whose numbers held steady into the war years; she gives no figures for 1828 or 1851. The community was large enough by 1862 to build its own synagogue. A photograph of 1940 in the MILEV collection shows labour servicemen from Szeged, Makó and Kistelek at Abony, which indicates that Jewish men of military age from Kistelek were called up to the Hungarian army's forced labour service in the early years of the war. MILEV also preserves a round challah cover from Kistelek, embroidered with grapes and a wine cup and with the opening words of a Hebrew blessing, left unfinished. The names of rabbis and lay leaders, the community's religious affiliation (Neolog, Orthodox or status quo) and its institutions are all unknown at present.
Architektura i projekt
No exterior view of the synagogue was found, so its outward form, size and style are unknown. The only image found is a postwar interior photograph in the MILEV collection, which shows the eastern end of the prayer hall. The walls were papered or painted with a pattern of small stars, and the ark stood in a recess framed by heavy drapery, closed by a white curtain embroidered with a crown, lions and a Hebrew inscription in a medallion. In front of it stood a reader's desk with turned wooden balusters, covered with a white cloth, with tall candlesticks at its corners and a pair of branched candelabra behind. Simple wooden pews with shaped ends faced the ark, and a large crystal chandelier and two lanterns hung from the ceiling. To either side of the ark hung two large framed tablets lettered with names in columns. The furnishings suggest a modest provincial synagogue. The architect, builder, seating capacity and whether there was a women's gallery are unknown.
Życie w synagodze
Almost nothing about religious life in the Kistelek synagogue is documented in the sources found. The interior photograph shows a building that was furnished and cared for: an embroidered ark curtain, a cloth-covered reader's desk with candlesticks, a prayer shawl laid over the desk, and pews arranged for a congregation. The two large tablets beside the ark, headed with what appears to read 'Mártírjaink 1940-1945', list well over a hundred names; surnames legible in the museum scan appear to include Ausländer, Beck, Deutsch and Krausz. They show that after the war the surviving members turned their synagogue into a place of remembrance for those who had been killed. Whether a rabbi served Kistelek, which district rabbinate it belonged to, whether it kept a school, burial society or ritual bath, and how long services continued after 1945 are unknown. The museum's challah cover from Kistelek is a reminder of Sabbath observance in local Jewish homes.
Zniszczenie
No source found records damage to the synagogue during the Second World War, and the postwar interior photograph shows it intact, furnished and fitted with tablets commemorating the victims of 1940 to 1945, so the building was still in use for some time after 1945. When it ceased to be used, and when and by whom it was pulled down, is not recorded in any source found. Anikó Gazda's survey, carried out between 1980 and 1987, lists the Kistelek synagogue as demolished, which gives the latest possible date. Whether the building was first sold, or what became of the ark, the curtain and the memorial tablets, is unknown.
Los społeczności
The fate of the Kistelek Jews in 1944 is not described in the sources found, and what is documented is indirect. A MILEV photograph dated 1940 shows Jewish labour servicemen from Szeged, Makó and Kistelek at Abony, so men from the town were drafted into forced labour service during the war. The tablets that hung in the synagogue after the war, headed with what appears to read 'Mártírjaink 1940-1945', list well over a hundred names, which indicates the scale of the losses suffered by this small community between the beginning of labour service and the end of the war. Gazda records 178 Jews in Kistelek in 1941. Where they were concentrated after the Nazi German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, by which route they were deported, and how many survived and returned are all unknown. No organised community is known to exist in Kistelek today.
Miejsce dzisiaj
The address of the synagogue was not found in any source read, so the plot it occupied and its present use cannot be identified. No surviving fragment and no marker on the site is recorded in the sources consulted. The map pin for this entry is a placeholder at the centre of Kistelek, taken from OpenStreetMap, and should not be read as the location of the building. Locating the site will need old cadastral maps of Kistelek, the local-history collection of the town, or the archives of the Szeged Jewish community, which may hold records of the Kistelek congregation after 1945.
Czy masz coś do przekazania?
Zdjęcia, dokumenty, historie rodzinne lub wspomnienia o tej synagodze i jej społeczności pomagają zachować jej historię.
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