Vésztő is a
town in
Békés county, in the
Southern Great Plain region of south-east
Hungary.
Geography
It covers an area of 125.76 km² and has a population of 6855 people (2015).
The town is situated in the Tisza plain.
History
North of the modern town there is the archaeological site of a neolithic
tell. At its top the medieval Csolt monastery is located.
The jewish community
In the 19th century, a Jewish community lived in the village. Most of them worked as merchants and later became industrialists. Their non-Jewish neighbors trusted them and some Jews were even elected to the city council and were also active in the town's culture. Relationships with their neighbors were generally good.
The community had a Jewish school. The community
synagogue
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...
was built in
1934
Events
January–February
* January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established.
* January 15 – The 8.0 1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake, Nepal–Bihar earthquake strik ...
after the previous synagogue was destroyed in a flood.
In 1920, 181 Jews lived in the community.
In May 1944, after the German army entered Hungary, all the Jews were concentrated in a ghetto that included only two buildings in the city center, which were declared ghettos.
On June 21, all Jews were sent to the Solnok Ghetto, where the author, Ida Lang, was murdered as a result of torture. Most of the Jews were transferred from Solnok to the Auschwitz extermination camp.
After the war, 34 survivors returned to the city, erected a monument in memory of the murdered, and tried to rehabilitate the community without success.
The Jewish Community of Veszto
in The Museum of the Jewish People website
Twin towns – sister cities
Vésztő is twinned
Twinning (making a twin of) may refer to:
* In biology and agriculture, producing two offspring (i.e., twins) at a time, or having a tendency to do so;
* Twin towns and sister cities, towns and cities involved in town twinning
* Twinning inst ...
with:
* Dumbrava, Romania (1991)
* Brăduț, Romania (1991)
* Vârghiș
Vârghiș ( hu, Vargyas, Hungarian pronunciation: ) is a commune in Covasna County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of a single village, Vârghiș.
History
It formed part of the Székely Land region of the historical Transylvania provi ...
, Romania (1991)
Notable residents
* Menyhért Lakatos
Menyhért Lakatos (April 11, 1926, Vésztő — August 21, 2007, Budapest) was a Hungarian Romani writer (1926 — 2007), Hungarian Romani writer
* László Hajdu
László Hajdu (born August 23, 1947) is a Hungarian economist and politician, who has served as Mayor of the 15th district of Budapest from 2014 to 2018, a position which he also held between 1996 and 2010. He was replaced by Tamás László.
H ...
(1947-), Hungarian economist and politician
References
External links
* in Hungarian, English and German
Populated places in Békés County
Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust
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