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Neolog (Reformed) Synagogue, Horea Street, Cluj. The last one that is still actively serving the tiny Jewish community (of about 400?) that is still left in Cluj, as of today.

It was built based on the plans of Izidor Hegner, an engineer, between 1886 and 1887. Seriously affected after attacks by the Romanian extreme-right Iron Guard "Legionaries" on September 13, 1927, it was soon rebuilt by the Romanian government.

In the period following the Second Vienna Award, when Northern Transylvania became part of Hungary, it witnessed the Jews' deportation to Nazi extermination camps, and was damaged by the bombardments of the railway station nearby, on June 2, 1944. In 1951 it was again restored. It is currently dedicated to the memory of those deported who were victims of The Holocaust.

Today, there are two plaques on the frontispice, one in Romanian and one in Hebrew. The Romanian one says: "Acest sfint locas Templul Memorial al Deportatilor este inchinat amintirii evreilor din nordul Transilvaniei deportati in anul 1944 si exterminati de fascisti in lagarele mortii. Nu vom uita niciodata martirajul lor."

My quick translation: "This Holy house, The Memorial Temple of The Deportees is dedicated to the memory of the Jews from Northern Transylvania deported in 1944 and exterminated by the fascists in death camps. We will never forget their martirage."

Historical records state that between the two world wars there used to be five synagogues and at least ten Jewish prayer houses in Cluj. With a communitiy of more than fifteen thousand, that's a quite possible figure, I reckon. I've photographed the only two that I know of, or possibly the last two standing? If anyone knows about other possible locations, I could go look them up, just let me know. To date, my only source of information is the Internet, where I find diverse but scattered pieces of information about the former Jewish community of Cluj.

Before World War II, there used to be a strong 13-15% Jewish minority in Cluj / Klausenburg / ?????????? / Kloiznburg / Kolozsvar / (etc.). After the Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944 and installed a puppet government under Dome Sztojay there, large-scale antisemitic measures were taken in the city. The headquarters of the local Gestapo were located in the New York Hotel (later renamed "Continental")

The Kolozsvar Ghetto was one of the lesser-known Jewish ghettos of the World War II era. The ghettoization of the Cluj Jews began on 3 May 1944. The ghettoization was completed within a week. This was less than two months after the Germans launched Operation Margarethe, on 19 March. Operation Margarethe was the operation by which the German Army (Wehrmacht) placed Hungary under a puppet government.

The Jews were concentrated in the Iris brickyard in the northern part of the city. This area consisted mostly of shacks used for drying bricks and tiles. The ghetto had practically no facilities for the approximately eighteen thousand Jews who were assembled there from Cluj and the surrounding Cluj County. The concentration of the Jews was carried out by the local administrative and police authorities with the cooperation of Protective Squadron (Schutzstaffel) advisers, including SS-Captain (SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer) Dieter Wisliceny.

The ghetto was under the command of Laszlo Urban, the police chief of Cluj. The ghetto's internal administration was entrusted to a Jewish Council (Judenrat). The members of this council included Fischer (as head), Rabbi Akiba Glasner, Rabbi Mozes Weinberger, and Erno Marton. As in all the other ghettos in Hungary, the local brickyard also had a "mint," a special building where the police tortured Jews into revealing where they had hidden their valuables.

Despite facing severe sanctions from Miklos Horthy's Hungarian administration, some Jews escaped across the border to Romania with the assistance of intellectuals like Emil Hatieganu, Raoul Sorban, Aurel Socol and Miskolczy Dezso, and various peasants from Manastur.

The Cluj Ghetto, counting 16.148 captured Jews, was liquidated in six transports to Auschwitz, between May 25 and June 9, 1944. About 85% of them have never returned.



Today, I was planning for something else, but a 20-25 minute walk outside in the cold (1 degree Centigrade, that's almost freezing point, not counting the windchill) have deterred me from my initial outdoors shooting plans. Therefore, I've switched to Plan B, drove by the synagogue to check how the scene is lighted at night. I've found a parking spot right across the street, and invented a new way of shooting: long exposure, right out the car window.

Heated seats are a very good addition when you try something like this in winter time. I had to stop the engine though, in order to eliminate vibrations, and propped the camera up a bit on one side, so it stood (more or less) leveled out. And there we go... 15 seconds exposure right off the car's window seal, that

On June 5, 1883 the first 'Express d'Orient' left Paris for Vienna. Vienna remained the terminus until October 4, 1883. The train was officially renamed Orient Express in 1891.

The original route, which first ran on October 4, 1883, was from Paris, Gare de l'Est, to Giurgiu in Romania via Munich and Vienna. At Giurgiu, passengers were ferried across the Danube to Rousse in Bulgaria to pick up another train to Varna, from where they completed their journey to Istanbul (then called Constantinople) by ferry. In 1885, another route began operations, this time reaching Istanbul via rail from Vienna to Belgrade and Nis, carriage to Plovdiv and rail again to Istanbul.

In 1889, the train's eastern terminus became Varna in Bulgaria, where passengers could take a ship to Istanbul. On June 1, 1889, the first non-stop train to Istanbul left Paris (Gare de l'Est). Istanbul remained its easternmost stop until May 19, 1977. The eastern terminus was the Sirkeci Terminal by the Golden Horn. Ferry service from piers next to the terminal would take passengers across the Bosporus Strait to Haydarpasa Terminal, the terminus of the Asian lines of the Ottoman railways.

The onset of World War I in 1914 saw Orient Express services suspended. They resumed at the end of hostilities in 1918, and in 1919 the opening of the Simplon Tunnel allowed the introduction of a more southerly route via Milan, Venice and Trieste. The service on this route was known as the Simplon Orient Express, and it ran in addition to continuing services on the old route. The Treaty of Saint-Germain contained a clause requiring Austria to accept this train: formerly, Austria allowed international services to pass through Austrian territory (which included Trieste at the time) only if they ran via Vienna. The Simplon Orient Express soon became the most important rail route between Paris and Istanbul.

The 1930s saw the zenith of Orient Express services, with three parallel services running: the Orient Express, the Simplon Orient Express, and also the Arlberg Orient Express, which ran via Zurich and Innsbruck to Budapest, with sleeper cars running onwards from there to Bucharest and Athens. During this time, the Orient Express acquired its reputation for comfort and luxury, carrying sleeping-cars with permanent service and restaurant cars known for the quality of their cuisine. Royalty, nobles, diplomats, business people and the bourgeoisie in general patronized it. Each of the Orient Express services also incorporated sleeping cars which had run from Calais to Paris, thus extending the service right from one edge of continental Europe to the other.

The start of the Second World War in 1939 again interrupted the service, which did not resume until 1945. During the war, the German Mitropa company had run some services on the route through the Balkans, but partisans frequently sabotaged the track, forcing a stop to this service.

Following the end of the war, normal services resumed except on the Athens leg, where the closure of the border between Yugoslavia and Greece prevented services from running. That border re-opened in 1951, but the closure of the Bulgaria-Turkey border from 1951 to 1952 prevented services running to Istanbul during that time. As the Iron Curtain fell across Europe, the service continued to run, but the Communist nations increasingly replaced the Wagon-Lits cars with carriages run by their own railway services.

By 1962, the Orient Express and Arlberg Orient Express had stopped running, leaving only the Simplon Orient Express. This was replaced in 1962 by a slower service called the Direct Orient Express, which ran daily cars from Paris to Belgrade, and twice weekly services from Paris to Istanbul and Athens.

In 1971, the Wagon-Lits company stopped running carriages itself and making revenues from a ticket supplement. Instead, it sold or leased all its carriages to the various national railway companies, but continued to provide staff for the carriages. 1976 saw the withdrawal of the Paris-Athens direct service, and in 1977, the Direct Orient Express was withdrawn completely, with the last Paris-Istanbul service running on May 19 of that year.

The withdrawal of the Direct Orient Express was thought by many to signal the end of Orient Express as a whole, but in fact a service under this name continued to run from Paris to Budapest and Bucharest as before (via Strasbourg, Munich, and Budapest). This continued until 2001, when the service was cut back to just Paris-Vienna, the coaches for which were attached to the Paris-Strasbourg express. This service continued daily, listed in the timetables under the name Orient Express, until June 8, 2007. However, with the opening of the Paris-Strasbourg high speed rail line on June 10, 2007, the Orient Express service was further cut back to Strasbourg-Vienna, departing nightly at 22:20 from Strasbourg, and still bearing the name.