Holocaust

Before the Holocaust, Subotica was home to about 6,000 Jews. With the Nazi conquest of Yugoslavia, the town and its surrounding territory were annexed to Hungary, and the fate of local Jews mirrored that of Jews in other provincial Hungarian towns.

Hungarian troops entered Subotica on April 11, 1941. Soon afterward, a number members of a Jewish youth movement who had carried out acts of sabotage against occupation forces were executed. The first deportation of Jewish men took place in 1942.

The dedication of a Holocaust Memorial outside the Synagogue
in 1994 on the 50th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from Subotica

In April 1944, after the German occupation of Hungary, Subotica's Jews were arrested en masse and confined to an improvised ghetto, from which they were deported to Auschwitz. About 1,000 Subotica Jews survived the war.

A Holocaust memorial was dedicated in front of the Synagogue in 1994, on the 50th anniversary of the main deportation. There is also an impressive Holocaust memorial in the Jewish cemetery.