Battonya, Békés County, Southern Great Plain Region, Hungary

🇭🇺 Battonya (Bătania; Батања,  Batanja) is a town in Békés County, in the Southern Great Plain region of south-east Hungary. Residents are Hungarians, with minority of Serbs and Romanians.

Geography It covers an area of 145.77 km².

Battonya gas field The Battonya gas field is a natural gas field located in Battonya, Békés County. It was discovered in 1962 and developed by and MOL Group. It began production in 1965 and produces natural gas and condensates. The total proven reserves of the Battonya gas field are around 150 billion cubic feet (4.2×109m³), and production was slated to be around 17.8 million cubic feet/day (0.5×105m³) in 2010.

History After the Ottoman occupation until 1918, BATTONYA was part of the Austrian monarchy, province of Hungary; in Transleithania after the compromise of 1867 in the Kingdom of Hungary.

The Jews in the city The Jewish community in the city was established in the second half of the 19th century and most of the Jews in the settlement were merchants and industrialists.

The synagogue was built in 1896 and the community had a Jewish school.

In 1942, young Jews from the city were sent to forced labor.

In 1944, after the Germans entered Hungary, the head of the congregation and some of the community's dignitaries were arrested, and on May 13, all the local Jews were rounded up and finally transferred to Békéscsaba. Most of them were taken to the Auschwitz extermination camp.

After the war, three survivors returned from Auschwitz, six from forced labor and eighty from Austria. The community was reorganized, but many dispersed within a short time. In the 1970s, only a few Jews lived there.