After the Roman legions withdrew in 271 AD, it was overrun by a succession of various tribes, bringing it under the control of the Carpi, Visigoths, Huns, Gepids, Avars, and Slavs.

The Magyars conquered much of Central Europe at the end of the 9th century and for almost six hundred years, Transylvania was a voivodeship in the Kingdom of Hungary.

It then became a province of the Habsburg monarchy as the Lands of the Hungarian Crown, and after 1848, and again from 1867 to 1918 it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The ethnic Romanians, who formed the majority population of Transylvania, elected representatives who proclaimed the Union with Romania on 1 December 1918.

In June 1940, Romania was forced (as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) to submit to a Soviet ultimatum and accept the annexation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.

To impede a Hungarian-Romanian war in their "hinterland", the Axis powers pressured both governments to accept their arbitration: the Second Vienna Award, signed on 30 August 1940.

After the occupation of Northern Transylvania in the autumn of 1940, the Romanian population was targeted for reprisal actions by Hungarian nationalists.

Military abuses, illegal arrests, torture, lynchings, summary executions, and the aggressive arrogance of the representatives of the new administrative structures occurred.

[11]In a statistical report of the State Secretariat for Nationalities, from Bucharest, on the situation in Northern Transylvania from 30 August 1940 to 1 November 1941, 919 murders, 1,126 maimings, 4,126 beatings, 15,893 arrests, 124 desecrations, 78 and 447 collective and individual devastations are mentioned.

[12] There were also mass expulsions of ethnic Romanians across the new border imposed by the Second Vienna Award, especially of those considered dangerous or presumably hostile to the new regime.

Beginning in 1940, the expulsions were practiced until 1944, when, in September and October, the Hungarian authorities were expelled by the Soviet and Romanian military units.

A testimony in this regard is that of Gavril Butcovan, one of the survivors of the drama in Ip commune, Sălaj:[16] I have to tell you the truth to the end.

Among them was the maid Sarolta Juhász from Mureșenii de Câmpie, who was killed along with the entire family of the town's Romanian priest Bujor while trying to protect them from the Hungarian army.

[19] The advance of Hungarian units took place in peaceful conditions, with only a few scattered incidents with Romanian soldiers retreating to southern Transylvania.

Following several decrees of the Hungarian government and high-level consultations at a meeting on 26 April with László Endre in Szatmárnémeti (now Satu Mare), the deportation of the Jews was decided.

The Second Vienna Award was voided by the Allied Commission through the Armistice Agreement with Romania (12 September 1944) whose Article 19 stipulated the following: "The Allied Governments regard the decision of the Vienna award regarding Transylvania as null and void and are agreed that Transylvania (or the greater part thereof) should be returned to Romania, subject to confirmation at the peace settlement, and the Soviet Government agrees that Soviet forces shall take part for this purpose in joint military operations with Romania against Germany and Hungary.

[27] On 25 October, at the Battle of Carei, units of the Romanian 4th Army under the command of General Gheorghe Avramescu defeated the last remaining Hungarian and German troops in the area and took control of the last piece of the territory ceded in 1940 to Hungary.