US Commission No. ROCE-0363
Also see TIRGU LAPUS.
Alternate names of town or village: Hungarian: Macskamezo. Located in Maramures County at 47°27' 23°47', 28.4 kilometers SSE of Baia Mare and approximately 6 km. south of Tirgu Lapus, on the left hand side of the main road, heading north, in the center of town. It is on the flat lawn between the school (grades I-VIII) and the main road.
Although no physical trace of this cemetery currently is visible in Razoare (Macskamezo), we learned from Ioan Corabian (77) and several other elderly residents that a Jewish cemetery indeed once existed on what is now the front lawn of a public school. Before construction of the school, at an unconfirmed date during the time of Ceaucescu, there were six stones standing. No one was sure what happened to the stones at the time of construction, although one informant believed that the stones had been removed to the cemetery in Tirgu Lapus. According to the informants, the school is not within the boundaries of the former graveyard but it is impossible to determine. Mr. Corabian said that the cemetery was very old. Therefore, he did not know which families the graves belonged to, though he is fairly certain that they were not any of the two Jewish families, who lived in town prior to deportation during the Second World War. The two families that he recalls being deported were TIRPRA and SURSA. For this reason, it is possible that the graves belonged to families who left around 1918 (the Bela Kun uprising). Mrs. Pohlman, caretaker of the cemetery in Tirgu Lapus, was unable to confirm or deny that there was ever a cemetery in Razoare, but she did say that two people from there were buried in Tirgu Lapus.
The Jewish Community in Baia Mare was unaware of this site at the time of the survey. It is not known whether the Jewish Community in Bucuresti is aware of this site. A masonry wall and a locking gate surround the schoolyard. Approximate size of cemetery before WWII was 24 square meters. Currently, the size is impossible to determine, though the size indicated was approximately 6x6 m. The current owner is the school. The property is used as a school playground. The primary threat is that the location will be completely forgotten when the elderly villagers die.
John DeMetrick and Christina Crowder, (formerly of Cluj, they have no further information) , completed this survey in April 2000 using a list of cemeteries known by the Jewish Community in Baia Mare. They visited the site on 10 April 2000 and interviewed local residents, primarily Ioan Corabian.