From the Opera we headed east and walked through the Jewish quarter. Though at one point there was (sadly) a ghetto with walls, today’s walkers would not know when they are in the Jewish quarter unless they looked closely. Take this building, for instance…
Looks just like yet any other ornamented Budapest building, right? With typically charming details? Such as this creature atop the roof at the corner…
And these figures flanking the balcony…
But wait… Do you see the Jewish stars worked into the column capital holding up the balcony? And look at this fellow! I’d bet my beard he’s an orthodox rabbi!
One of the interesting things about architecture in Budapest in general, and the Dohany Street synagogue in particular is the Islamic influence often visible–the “Moorish Byzantine” style. Here we see it in the main facade with its minaret-like towers and the eight-pointed star over the doorway.
Before we go inside, perhaps a word about the Jews of Hungary and in particular, Budapest. Over the centuries, there were ups and downs in the repression of the Jewish people and restrictions in where they were allowed to live. Both Buda and Pest were for a long time off limits to Jews, whose main community was in the Obuda (Old Buda) area. But in the 19th century, these restrictions were lifted, and Jews were given equal rights with all other people.
Before World War II, over 200,000 Jews lived in Budapest. This population swelled with the influx of refugees just before and in the early part of the war. Even though Hungary was allied with Germany, it did not enforce anti-Jewish legislation until German Nazi occupation of Hungary in March 1944. Many thousands of Jews were transported to concentration camps or forced into slave labor. A ghetto was established. Thousands were then taken from the ghetto and shot, and their bodies dumped into the river.
When the Soviets liberated Budapest in March, 1945, fewer than 100,000 Jews remained in the ghetto.
The Jewish population of Hungary, which was over 440,000 in 1930, and 165,000 in 1945, has today shrunk to fewer than 50,000 people.
The Dohany Street synagogue is one of the few still in use. Seating some 6,000 people, it is the largest synagogue in Europe and the third largest in the world. It was built from 1854-59, during the heyday of the Hungarian enlightenment, and served a branch of Judaism that reflected this enlightened attitude. And look at the beautiful interior!
In the courtyard of the synagogue is a solemn and shady garden where over 2,000 Jews who died in the ghetto in the winter of 1944-45 are buried.
Behind the synagogue is the Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park, which contains the “Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs,” commemorating the more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews who died in the concentration camps. The memorial is a tremendously moving metal weeping willow tree whose every metal leaf contains the name of a person who died.
