History of the Jews in Carpathian Ruthenia

Jews settled in the region over time and established communities that built great synagogues, schools, printing houses, businesses, and vineyards.

[1] Interwar Subcarpathian Ruthenia was an important centre of Haredi ("Ultra-Orthodox") Judaism, including Hasidic groups.

Many outstanding rabbis lived here or found refuge from neighbouring countries, leading yeshivot (religious schools) and keeping a hatzer (court), specifically in Munkacs.

Counties of Kingdom of Hungary, Ugocsa and Máramaros were split between Czechoslovakia and Romania in 1920 by Treaty of Trianon after the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which lost the World War I.

In 1939, Hungary annexed back the northern parts of its former counties from the short lived Ruthenian state of Carpatho-Ukraine after the breakup of the Second Czechoslovak Republic.

[4] Memoirs and historical studies provide much evidence that in the 19th and early 20th centuries Rusyn-Jewish relations were generally peaceful and harmonious.

[5] The attitude of some Ruthenians to their Jewish neighbors is vividly represented in the play by Alexander Dukhnovych (1803–1865), Virtue is More Important than Riches briefed here as well as in short-story triptych Golet v údolí by Ivan Olbracht.

During World War II, once the legal government of Hungary was overthrown by the Germans, the "Final Solution" of the Holocaust was also extended to Carpathian Ruthenia.

Most of the deportees were immediately handed over to Nazi German Einsatzgruppen units at Kaminets Podolsk and machine-gunned over a three-day period in late 1941.

The vast majority of this group subsequently perished over the next two years in ghettos and death camps with other Jewish residents of the region.