Cehei ghetto

The Cehei ghetto, also known as the Șimleu Silvaniei ghetto, was one of the Nazi-era ghettos for European Jews during World War II. It was located in Cehei village (Hungarian: Somlyócsehi), within Șimleu Silvaniei (Szilágysomlyó) town in Sălaj County, Transylvania, now part of Romania but administered as Szilágy County by the Kingdom of Hungary from the 1940 Second Vienna Award's grant of Northern Transylvania until late 1944. It was active in the spring of 1944, following Operation Margarethe.

Romania's 1930 census found some 14,000 Jews living in Sălaj County, but this number had fallen to 8,000 by 1944. In 1942 and 1943, the county's male Jews aged 16 to 60 had been sent to perform forced labor on the Eastern Front, on the Ukrainian border, accounting for the fall in population. Thus, those sent to the ghetto were women, children, the elderly and the sick. The decision to set it up was taken at a conference held in Satu Mare on April 26, attended by András Gazda, assistant to the county prefect; János Sréter, mayor of Zalău; József Udvari, mayor of Șimleu Silvaniei; lieutenant colonel György Mariska, commander of the county's gendarmerie unit; Ferenc Elekes, Zalău's chief of police; and István Pethes, his counterpart in Șimleu Silvaniei. The county prefect, Baron János Jósika, immediately resigned upon being informed of the conference's decisions by his assistance, holding the planned course of action to be immoral and illegal. His successor László Szlávi, sent by the Döme Sztójay, fully cooperated with the program. Following the officials' return from Satu Mare, discussions took place in the prefect's office among local officials regarding the ghetto's physical location.

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