Vasarosnameny Jewish Cemetery 2 in Vitka

There were three Jewish cemeteries in the modern territory of Vásárosnamény. This cemetery appears to have belonged to the Jewish community in the adjacent village of Vitka. It was established as early as 1817, since the oldest tombstone found in the cemetery dates to that year. The latest tombstone was erected in 1943. The cemetery has been fenced.

In 1840, 25 Jews lived in Vásárosnamény. The Jewish population later significantly increased to 239 in 1880, 460 in 1910, and 764 in 1930. The Jewish population peaked in 1941 when Jews accounted for 896 people of the village’s total population (3,755). Jews living in the surrounding villages were a part of the Vásárosnamény Jews community. The community was headed in 1905 by Rabbi Elias Kohn, who was born in Vásárosnamény in 1875. Before he was chosen as Rabbi of the community, he was the Assistant Rabbi in Beregszász, where he probably completed his rabbinical studies. He managed to keep the Orthodox community together, even during the Holocaust. He and his wife Chaja (bat Tova), who was born in Szilágydomoszló in 1883, had 15 children. On Passover in 1944, the Hungarian authorities gathered the Jews in the synagogue and deported them by cart to the Beregszász brick factory in Auschwitz. Rabbi Kohn and his wife were both murdered in Auschwitz.