particularly harsh treatment. These individuals had their citizenship status reviewed, many of them being detained. In Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc), dozens of families were rounded up and expelled. The men in the area were drafted into forced labor battalions. For example, 1,200 Jewish males of Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș) were conscripted between 1941 and 1944; over half died in Ukraine, Poland and Hungary. However, despite discrimination and many casualties, most of the community lived in relative safety until the March 1944 occupation of Hungary by Nazi Germany. A conference devoted to the concentration of Jews in the Székely Land was held on 28 April 1944; it covered the counties of Csík, Háromszék, Maros-Torda and Udvarhely. The area's Jews were ghettoized in Szászrégen (Reghin), Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfântu Gheorghe) and Marosvásárhely. Roundups began on 3 May 1944 and were completed within a week. The Hungarian authorities actively participated in the crimes of the Nazis. The Jews ghettoized at Sepsiszentgyörgy were later sent to Szászrégen, whence on 4 June 1944, 3,149 were boarded on a train bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp. Three transports left Marosvásáhely for Auschwitz: on 27 May, 30 May and 8 June 1944; altogether, they carried 7,549 Jews. On 12 September 1944, the Second Vienna Award was voided by the Allied Commission through the Armistice Agreement with Romania, and the Romanian-Soviet forces seized the area in Autumn 1944; however, the Romanian administration was expelled from these territories in October due to the activities of the Romanian paramilitary groups created in the area to avenge the atrocities committed by the Hungarians against the Romanians during the Hungarian rule in Northern Transylvania. For instance, the so-called Iuliu Maniu Guards terrorized the Székely villages, butchered the local Hungarians by axe and hatchet and operated a death camp in Feldioara. This paramilitary group was described as "a band of terrorist-chauvinistic criminals" by the Soviets. The USSR let the Romanian authorities back to the area in March 1945, and the Paris Peace Treaties officially returned Northern Transylvania to Romania. Following the Northern Transylvania's return to Romania after World War II, a Magyar Autonomous Region was created in 1952 under the Soviets' pressure, which encompassed most of the land inhabited by the Székelys. In 1960, the region was renamed to Mureș-Magyar Autonomous Region. It was abolished in 1968, when Romania, following an administrative reform, returned to its traditional local administrative system based on counties. Roughly speaking, present-day Harghita