Standing in front of 14 Madách Street you can no longer see that it was semi-detached with no. 12 on the corner, making it three homes opening to two streets. Madách Street is quiet and narrow, with a few, dilapidated old buildings and another handful of newly built ones. The dilapidated buildings still reveal that this street used to be inhabited by well-off, middle class citizens in the old days of Baja.
According to several accounts, Sándor Bernhart, mayor of the city back then was one of the fair, humane principals of the city, who in this capacity did only the bare minimum of the measures expected by the higher commands. Acknowledged as “Righteous among the Nations” he has a memorial plaque in Yad Vashem, Israel. Although the ghetto boundaries were formally laid down, the exit was not controlled, and although some of the shops displayed “We don’t serve Jews” in their windows, only a few owners followed suit.
The transit camp for the Jews of the region (e.g. from Bácsalmás and Bácsbokod) was set up at 1 Gyalog St, which formerly operated as a granary, while the Jewry of Baja were squeezed into the streets which had always been inhabited by Jews. This was largely in the following area: Telcs Ede, Munkácsy, Kölcsey, Kádár, Madách and Szent László Streets (this latter was also called Zsidó, i.e. Jewish Street by the people, without any negative connotation), which used to be the lower end of the city where the Jews were allowed to purchase land upon their arrival in the 18th century, extending their constructions westwards from here.