Jewish community members from Oradea, Romania celebrates the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs of five young members of their community during the Oneg Shabbat service held at the community center on January 16, 2015. The Bar and Bat Mitzvahs were the first celebrated in several years.

The Zion Neologic Synagogue sets empty beside the Crisul Repede River, in Oradea, Romania on March 13, 2013. Built in 1878, the one-thousand-seat Synagogue was the hub of the Neologic Jewish population of Oradea. During the Holocaust, much of the over thirty thousand Jews from Oradea and its surrounding areas were sent to either forced labor camps or death camps. The city recently began renovations to turn the synagogue into a museum and concert hall.

Alexandru Kepes, 79, a survivor of the Holocaust and guardian of the Zion Neologic Synagogue, often sleeps in his one-room apartment in the back of the sanctuary; August 19, 2013. Having escaped deportation as a child, Kepes has spent the past fifteen years as a volunteer, protecting the synagogue from any would-be vandals and taking care of the small garden.

During the weekly Torah reading in Oradea, Romania's last functioning synagogue, reflections fill the empty Sas Chevra Synagogue sanctuary like reminders of a former community on April 11, 2013. Most members of the Jewish community in Oradea at the time of the Second World War were deported to Nazi camps across Europe.

Elisabeta Steuer, 91, cares for her husband Ladislau, 94, at their home in downtown Oradea, Romania on January 16, 2015. Both survivors of the Holocaust, Ladislau was deported to a labor camp in Hungary while Elisabeta survived in a ghetto in the Romanian village of Ginta. They have been married for 66 years.

The menorah stands on a crowded shelf in the home of Paul Spitzer (not pictured), the son of Holocaust survivor Amram Yehekztel on January 7, 2015 in Oradea, Romania. Though now a regular member at the community center in Oradea, Spitzer grew up without practicing the many religious traditions of Judaism, but credits his daughter with bringing him back to his roots. "I believe the community has a future. I don't know how it will happen, but it's like a branch that has been broken, but the seed has survived." explains Spitzer.

Tomer Corinaldi watches as the sun sets over the Great Synagogue in Oradea, Romania on the final day of Hanukkah on December 23, 2014. Corinaldi visits from Israel to celebrate Hanukkah with the Jewish community and teach lessons from the Torah, while the long-term acting Rabbi from Tel Aviv, Shraia Kav (not pictured) returns to Israel for a week to visit with family.

Gabriella Bóné (Hamlet), 87, an Auschwitz survivor and retired children's theater manager living in Oradea, Romania, poses for a portrait in her home on August 24, 2013. Sitting on her bed in her first floor apartment, Bóné shares her story of survival from Auschwitz to honor those who perished and to discourage the kind of hatred that led to the Holocaust.

Male members of the Jewish Community Center in Oradea, Romania meet on April 11, 2013, for their weekly reading of the Torah, the Jewish holy book. Though the once thriving community of thirty thousand was devastated by the Holocaust, some of the few remaining members continue to carry on the ancient Jewish religious traditions.

The Jewish Orthodox Cemetery in Velenta, in eastern Oradea, sets inactive since 1952 and holds around four thousand graves on January 13, 2015. Some of the tombstones predate the 19th century and many are showing signs of severe neglect.

Renovations begin on the Zion Neologic Synagogue in downtown Oradea, Romania to transform the massive structure that was once empty and falling into disrepair into a museum and concert hall.

The Zion Neologic Synagogue of Oradea, Romania shows its age as cracks emerge all across the sanctuary walls; August 19, 2013. Though neglected for decades and nearly crumbling, the Star of David still speaks as a vibrant reminder of the community that once thrived in this small city in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania. © DANIEL OWEN