Only 6,000 of 150,000 Jews in Hungarian-held Transylvania Survived, Red Cross Finds

Only 6,000 of the 150,000 Jews who lived in the section of Transylvania annexed by Hungary before the war survive, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was told today by Dr. Ernest Marton, head of an International Red Cross delegation which has just returned from a two-week visit to Transylvania.

The bulk of the 6,000 survivors, Dr. Marton said, were men between the ages of 20 and 40 who fled from forced labor camps to the Russian lines during the German retreat. A few others escaped by hiding in caves, or securing forged identity documents. Hardly any women and children are to be found among them. An indication of the extent to which the Transylvanian Jewish communities have been decimated, Dr. Marton said, is the fact that in the city of Grossewardien, where 25,000 Jews formerly lived, there are now 1,200.

The surviving Jews are in a desperate position, he said, since they lack homes, clothing and food. In most cases their families have been killed or have disappeared. Houses and synagogues have been razed. The large synagogue at Klausenberg was blown up just prior to the German retreat.

In an attempt to rehabilitate the remnants of the Jewish communities, Dr. Marton has suggested to Gen. Sergei Vinogradov of the Russian armistice commission that Jewish property remaining in the Transylvanian towns be turned over to the local Jewish community.