During World War II, the Jews of Marmarosh also experienced their bitter share of torture, suffering, blood and tears, as the bestial Nazis spared no one — not men, women or children. They did this all with the active help of the local residents, who eagerly and sadistically aided the Nazis. In 1940, thousands of Jews were displaced from their homes. The Hungarian gendarmerie worked brutally, and they were assisted by the local population. The Jews were either taken to the Dneister River, where they were drowned, or were killed in other cruel ways in the forests of Galicia and Ukraine. Some were taken to Auschwitz and perished there. Reb Yitzchak Beirach Daskal was among the Jews of Massif whose life was taken in this way.
Marmarosh, in the chapter about Massif (p. 139), describes the termination of the town:
“The fate of the Jews of Massif was identical to that of all the towns of Marmarosh. At the end of April 1944, all the Jews of Massif were gathered and transferred to the Visheva ghetto. It is not possible to describe the suffering and the overcrowding that they endured there. The brutality and the humiliation that the Hungarian gendarmes inflicted upon them often superseded the bestiality of the Nazis.
“The transports, the infamous death trains from the Visheva ghetto to Auschwitz, departed from Erev Rosh Chodesh Sivan until after Shavous of 5704/1944, and that was the end of the town of Massif.”
