Jews and Christian Churches in Northern Transylvania during the Holocaust.

This study is an attempt to fill some of the historiographical gaps regarding the attitude of the Hungarian-linked Christian churches of Northern Transylvania towards the Jewish question between 1940 and 1944. According to the Hungarian census of 1941, members of the Roman Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist) and Unitarian churches made up almost the entire Hungarian population of Northern Transylvania and almost half of the total population. My analysis is based on documents found in some of the regional archives of these churches. This is a preliminary sketch which, although it brings new insights into the subject, can and should be expanded by further research. I will show that the Christian churches had a differentiated policy towards baptized Jews and towards the Jewish population as a whole. In general, they supported the anti-Jewish Hungarian laws and profited economically from the expropriation of Jewish property. During the ghettoization and deportations of 1944, the churches' attitude towards Jews changed slightly. This can be seen in the increased number of baptisms. The conclusion of the paper is that there were personal cases where priests or church leaders tried to help and save Jewish people, but the Christian churches in Northern Transylvania as institutions had an ambiguous policy towards the persecuted Jewish population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]