Cluj had 16,763 inhabitants of Jewish ancestry in 1941. After the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, the city's Jews were forced into ghettos under conditions of intense overcrowding and practically no facilities. Liquidation of the ghetto occurred through six deportations to Auschwitz between May and June 1944. Despite facing severe sanctions from the Horthy administration, many Jews escaped across the border to Romania with the assistance of Romanian peasants of neighboring villages. They were then able to flee Europe from the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanţa. Other Jews originating from East European countries were helped to escape from Europe by an Anti-Nazi group led by the Jewish Joint and Romanian politicians in Cluj and Bucharest. The leader of this network, between 1943 and 1944, was Raoul Şorban.