Užhorod Synagogue

Užhorod. Synagogue.

The Synagogue in Uzhhorod (Russian: Uzhgorod; Hungarian: Ungvár) with its emphatically neo-Moorish exterior cut an impressive figure in the city’s skyline. Built on the northern bank of the Uzh, just a block south of the Baroque cathedral, it was inaugurated in 1904. Uzhhorod is located in the Subcarpathian Rus’ (sometimes also referred to as Subcarpathian or Transcarpathian Ruthenia), a region that stretches across present-day Slovakia, Hungary and (mainly) Ukraine. Uzhhorod now lies in southwestern Ukraine on the border with Slovakia. At the time of the synagogue’s inauguration, the region was under Austro-Hungarian control. Almost all of the Jews who lived in Uzhhorod at the outset of the Second World War were murdered, and only a handful initially returned. Most of them soon realized that they were not welcome. The synagogue building was nationalized and since 1947, it has been the seat of the Uzhhorod Philharmonic. Užhorod is the Czech and Slovak spelling of the city’s name, hence the postcard is almost certainly from the interwar period, when the region was part of Czechoslovakia.