Jewish Budapest
Hungary has the largest Jewish community in Eastern Europe, with the number of Jews around 80,000 – and majority of them living in Budapest.
In Budapest there are 22 active synagogues (and prayer houses), three kindergartens, three secondary schools, two colleges – with the only Rabbinical University of Eastern Europe -, a hospital and two nursing homes, and several cemeteries.
Here you can find a list of the most important Jewish sites in Budapest worth to visit:
Dohány Street Synagogue
Built between 1854-1859, the „Dohány” seat 3,000 people and thanks to this number, is the largest active synagogue in whole Europe and the second largest in the world (after Temple Emanuel in New York). Its congregation practices Neologue Judaism, a special Hungarian phenomenon of a reform, originating in mid-19th century.
The synagogue was built in Moorish-Byzantine style, yet the inside is more likely to be a basilica, including an organ as well, and two pulpits. Its huge, altar-looking ark contains 25 torah scrolls. During the Holocaust the “Dohány” Synagogue was used as a deportation center, and the German Army used it as a radio tower too. In the early-90s it was renovated, and opened again.
Hungary has the largest Jewish community in Eastern Europe, with the number of Jews around 80,000 – and majority of them living in Budapest.
In Budapest there are 22 active synagogues (and prayer houses), three kindergartens, three secondary schools, two colleges – with the only Rabbinical University of Eastern Europe -, a hospital and two nursing homes, and several cemeteries.
Here you can find a list of the most important Jewish sites in Budapest worth to visit:
Dohány Street Synagogue
Built between 1854-1859, the „Dohány” seat 3,000 people and thanks to this number, is the largest active synagogue in whole Europe and the second largest in the world (after Temple Emanuel in New York). Its congregation practices Neologue Judaism, a special Hungarian phenomenon of a reform, originating in mid-19th century.
The synagogue was built in Moorish-Byzantine style, yet the inside is more likely to be a basilica, including an organ as well, and two pulpits. Its huge, altar-looking ark contains 25 torah scrolls. During the Holocaust the “Dohány” Synagogue was used as a deportation center, and the German Army used it as a radio tower too. In the early-90s it was renovated, and opened again.
Jewish Museum
Located right next to the Dohány Synagogue, the Jewish Museum was built in 1932, but it got the same decoration of the synagogue outside. It was built on the same site where Theodor Herzl, the famous Zionist leader and novelist was born, and where he spent the first 18 years of his life. The Museum today gives home for religious objects and historical remembrance. It has a permanent and a temporary exhibition as well.
The permanent exhibition contains of 4 rooms.
In the 1st room – dedicated to the Sabbath – you can see objects used on Sabbath in Synagogues and Jewish homes (Torah scrolls, pair of rimons, Torah pointers, Sabbath table, candleholders, spice boxes, etc)
In the 2nd room – dedicated to the Jewish Holidays –, you can see objects related to other Jewish holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth, Pesach, Shavuot, Chanukah and Purim.
The 3rd room – dedicated to the Jewish Life Cycle – shows Jewish everyday life from birth to death.
The 4th room is dedicated to the Hungarian Holocaust, with archival objects and photographs. Here you can find a staircase leading downwards to the Memorial of Hiding.
ADDRESS: 1077-Budapest, Dohány u. 2.
Closed on Saturdays, Jewish and National Holidays.
www.bpjewmus.hu
Heroes' Cemetery
The one-time garden of the Dohány Synagogue today is a peaceful cemetery of those who died here, in the Budapest Ghetto (November, 1944 - January, 1945) from starvation, cold, illness or by other indescribable circumstances. No one knows the exact number of people, all sources mention somewhere around 3,000. 3,000 people, in mass graves, surrounded by memorial plagues of those who were lost, and no one knows where and how they perished.
Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Garden – Memorial to the Rightous Gentiles
This Memorial Garden was created to remind us of those non-Jews who risked their lives to save Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. Many of them had much to risk: those who were caught hiding a Jew were immediately shot on the spot by the SS or hanged in public. Thousands of stories will remain untold forever… but there are other stories that we should all know about…
Tree of Life
This whipping willow-like Memorial stands in memory of all those who perished during WWII. It is also a symbolic cemetery, with names on its leaves. Financed by the Emanuel Foundation (created and owned by Tony Curtis) and erected in 1991, it is the masterpiece of the sculptor, Imre Varga. An empty black frame, with the missing tabloids of the 10 commandments reminds us of not respecting the basic laws of life.
Heroes’ Temple
Heroes’ Temple was built in 1932 - together with the Jewish Museum - in ancient Babylonian style. It is dedicated to those heroes, to those Hungarian Jewish soldiers who fought for Hungary in World War I.
Carl Lutz Memorial
Carl Lutz worked in Budapest as the Swiss Vice-Consul from 1942 until the end of World War II. He is credited with saving the life of some 62,000 Hungarian Jews. In 1964 he was awarded the title „Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem. This memorial depicts him as an angel, offering help to those who lost everything.
Shoes Memorial on the Danube Promenade
60 pairs of iron shoes – designed in same style like in the 40s - on the Pest side of the Danube, right in front of the Parliament in memory of those Hungarian Jews who were shot to the Danube by the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party.
Holocaust Memorial Center
The permanent exhibition of the Memorial Center shows the history of the Holocaust in Hungary, presenting the sufferance and persecution of the Hungarian Jews and the Roma who were the main target of the Nazi racial ideology.
By getting from one room to the next, one can see how all the rights of these people were deprived by the state: first their rights, then property, freedom, human dignity, and in the end, their very existence.
The exhibition is not in a chronological order, it is based on units that show the different phases of the persecution using series of a real family and personal accounts – which can be found on a wall that runs through the exhibition. In the last room the lines that represent individuals run out… the wedding music from the first room still can be heard…and from here one is led to the synagogue, to the room of remembrance and mourning.
During the exhibition, visitors can view films, original documents, and photographs.
Often there are temporary exhibitions too.
ADDRESS: 1094-Budapest, Páva u. 39
Opening hours: Tue-Sun: 10-18, Closed on Monday.
Ticket: 1000 HUF, free to children, students (with ISC), teachers, museologists and senior citizens (65 and older)
Audio guide (in Hungarian and English): 500 HUF
www.hdke.hu
Glass House
The “Glass House” – originally belonging to a wholesale glass merchant - operated under the patronage of the Swiss consul Carl Lutz during WWII, was used as the headquarters of the Zionist youth underground movement to coordinate rescue and relief activities for the Jews of Budapest. It was even the “office” of Carl Lutz, namely the ‘Department of Emigration of the Swiss Legation’, and it was declared an annex of the Swiss legation, which meant a neutral area. At one time, about 3,000 Hungarian Jews found refuge here and in the neighboring buildings.
Today the Carl Lutz Memorial Room in the Glass House is open for visitors as a museum.
ADDRESS: 1054-Budapest, Vadász u. 29.
Opening hours: 13-16
No homepage.
House of Terror
Located in the former headquarters of the Arrow Cross Party, and later that of the Hungarian Nazi Party (1944-45) and during Communism of the Communist secret police, the Museum now is a peaceful place to commemorate the victims of the Nazi and Communist Era of Hungary. The museum is dedicated to those who were detained, tortured and killed here.
The exhibition is located on all the three floors of the building, including the infamous cellars, the staircase and the quadrangle too.The strange and bizarre look of the building with its black frames immediately catches one’s eye.
ADDRESS: 1062-Budapest, Andrássy út 60.
Opening hours: Tue-Fri 10-18, Sat-Sun 10-19.30
http://www.terrorhaza.hu/en/index_2.html