Historia Sellye Synagogue
Sellye lies in the south-west of Baranya county and is today the seat of the Sellye district. The historian László Szita describes the settlement as entirely Hungarian in the eighteenth century; no source read gives a date for the arrival of its first Jewish families.
The synagogue is known almost only from the gazetteer of Hungarian synagogues compiled by Anikó Gazda and published in 1991. Gazda's survey of 1980-87 records a synagogue at Sellye built in 1909, standing at what was then Mező Imre utca 63, and gives the town's Jewish population in 1941 as 46; it gives no figures for 1828, 1851 or 1910. Her field survey marks the building as demolished. She gives no date for the demolition and names nobody responsible, and she rates the accuracy of her own data at about 80 to 90 per cent.
No photograph, plan, description, list of rabbis or community officers of the building has been found, and the Magyar Zsidó Lexikon of 1929 has no entry for Sellye. No street of that name was found on a current map of Sellye, so the plot cannot yet be placed. This entry records what is known and sets out the gaps for further research.
Where it stood for 78 years
Historic: Sellye, Baranya county; Mező Imre utca 63 (street name of the 1980s, per Gazda). Today: present street name unknown; placeholder pin at the centre of 7960 Sellye, Baranya county (approximate).
Otwórz większą mapę →Społeczność żydowska
Very little about the Jews of Sellye has been found. Anikó Gazda's gazetteer, which tabulates the Jewish population of each Hungarian settlement at four census dates, gives a figure for Sellye only for 1941, when 46 Jews lived in the town; the columns for 1828, 1851 and 1910 are blank. László Szita's statement that Sellye was a wholly Hungarian village in the eighteenth century means that any Jewish families came later, but when they came, where from and how they made their living is not recorded in any source read. The occupations, family names and numbers of the Jewish households in the town are unknown. The Magyar Zsidó Lexikon of 1929, which describes many small Hungarian congregations, has no entry for Sellye. Whether the Jews of Sellye formed an independent community or a branch of a larger one, which religious trend they followed, and who led them are all unknown.
Architektura i projekt
No photograph, drawing, plan or written description of the Sellye synagogue has been found, so its appearance is unknown. The only facts recorded are Gazda's date of 1909, her address of Mező Imre utca 63, and her classification of the building as a synagogue rather than a prayer house. Nothing confirms the size, materials, style, seating, gallery or interior arrangement of the building, and the architect and builder are unknown. Postcards of Sellye from the early twentieth century exist, including views of the main street and the Catholic church held in the Szerencs postcard collection, and one of these may show the synagogue in the background, but none captioned as the synagogue was found in this run. No street of that name was found on a current map, so the plot has not been located.
Życie w synagodze
Nothing is known about religious life in the Sellye synagogue. No source found names a rabbi, cantor, ritual slaughterer, teacher or lay leader of the congregation, and there is no record of a Jewish school, burial society or cemetery in the sources read. The building was put up in 1909, and the community still numbered 46 people in 1941, but no account of services, festivals, communal events or the people who attended them has been found for any part of that period. How the First World War and the anti-Jewish laws of the interwar years affected the Sellye congregation has not been documented. Its religious affiliation, Neolog, Orthodox or Status Quo, is also unknown, and the Magyar Zsidó Lexikon of 1929, which often supplies such details, has no entry for the town.
Zniszczenie
No source found records damage to the Sellye synagogue during the Second World War, and none records what became of the building after 1941, when Gazda's figures last count Jews in the town. No document of a sale, conversion or demolition at Sellye has been found. The only firm evidence is negative: Anikó Gazda, who surveyed the sites of Hungarian synagogues between 1980 and 1987, recorded the Sellye synagogue as demolished. The building therefore disappeared at some time before the mid-1980s; it is not even known whether it survived the war. Who ordered or carried out the demolition, and whether it happened before or after the Communist takeover of 1948, is not recorded in any source consulted.
Los społeczności
The fate of the Jews of Sellye has not been documented in any source read for this entry. Gazda's survey records 46 Jews in the town in 1941, but the sources found do not say what happened to them in 1944: when they were removed from the town, which ghetto or collection centre held them, from where and when they were deported, or how many were killed. Randolph Braham's study of the Holocaust in Hungary was consulted, but the section read does not mention Sellye or name the ghetto for this part of Baranya county. How many Sellye Jews survived, whether any returned after the war, and whether a community was re-formed are also unknown. No Jewish community is recorded in Sellye today, and Gazda's survey of the 1980s found the synagogue already gone. Holocaust victim databases and the Baranya County Archives in Pécs are the most likely places to recover the names of the Sellye victims.
Miejsce dzisiaj
Gazda's survey of the 1980s places the Sellye synagogue at Mező Imre utca 63, but no street of that name was found on a current map of the town, so it is not possible to say what occupies the plot today. No surviving fragment of the building is recorded, and no marker on the site was found. The map pin for this entry is a placeholder at the centre of Sellye and should not be read as the synagogue's location. Locating the site will need a concordance of the town's street names, cadastral maps of the early twentieth century, the Baranya County Archives in Pécs, or local memory in the town.
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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