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July 24, 2009
Hungary's distinguished history
Exploring the richness of Jewish Budapest helps visitors connect to a broader story.
EVA COHEN
Modern Jewry's roots are found in countries all over Europe, including in Hungary. Jewish Hungary is alive in some of Hollywood's biggests stars, including Goldie Hawn, Jamie Lee Curtis and Zsa Zsa Gabor. The destruction of Jewish Hungary is retold in the Holocaust memoirs and literary masterpieces of Elie Wiesel, whose home town of Sieget sits at the Hungarian-Romanian border. Despite the great destruction of Europe's Jews, Hungary's rich Jewish history remains available to explore.
Prior to the Holocaust, the heart of Hungary's Jewish community was Budapest, where 240,000 Jews resided. Another 800,000 Jews lived in other parts of Hungary. Interestingly, unlike the Polish ghettos of Warsaw and Krakow, the Budapest ghetto was not completely liquidated during the Holocaust. The Pope, the King of Sweden and United States President Franklin Roosevelt urged that the deportations of the Jews of Budapest be halted. As a result, almost 100,000 Jews of Budapest survived.
However, Jews from rural areas were shipped directly to Auschwitz, resulting in the loss of the majority of Hungarian Jewry. The first transports to Auschwitz began on May 15, 1944, and, by July 8, 437,402 Jews had been deported, according to official Nazi reports. One hundred and thirty-six trains full of Jews were sent to Auschwitz from Hungary, where 90 percent of the Jews were exterminated upon arrival.
In present-day Hungary, only an echo of the vibrant Jewish community that used to reside there remains. Budapest, unlike many other eastern European cities, did not get carpet-bombed and the city as a whole was left intact, a veritable showcase of architecture from the prewar period.
The Dohány Street Synagogue, situated only a couple of blocks from Budapest's centre, stands as a testament to the vital and progressive community that existed before the war. The synagogue is the largest in Europe and the second largest in the world, after Temple Emanu-El in New York City. It is truly magnificent.
It is believed that the synagogue survived the war because a Nazi radio transmitter was stationed at the top of the entrance between the two towering front pillars and, in fact, that the building itself was used as a Nazi headquarters.
Today, the synagogue has been completely refurbished and tours in a variety of languages are led by the hour through the structure and its grounds. The sanctuary has separate seating for men and women and has a large space for a choir above the bimah (pulpit), as well as two organs. Before the war, the majority of Budapest's Jews practised what would be closer to a mix of today's Conservative and Reform Judaism.
A tour of the synagogue showcases the architectural beauty of the place but also bears witnesses to the sad history of Hungary's Jews. Outside the synagogue is a graveyard. The proximity of a cemetery to a place of worship is prohibited in Jewish law, however, at the end of the war, 4,000 Jews, who had died of cold and hunger, were buried there. The winter of 1944-'45 was the coldest on record in the 20th century at that point, and one gravestone records the death of a woman only nine days before the Red Army liberated the Budapest ghetto. Right at the front of the cemetery, there is a small remnant of the ghetto wall, left in place by the Red Army as a memorial.
A memorial has also been erected inside the synagogue to a man that many of us are familiar with: Raoul Wallenberg. The memorial consists of a tree with leaves that bear the names of the "Righteous Among the Nations" – Wallenberg's name is the most prominent, in the hope that his legacy will never be forgotten.
"It is very common here for people to have been saved by Raoul Wallenberg, he saved thousands," said Tamas Buchler of the Jewish Agency for Israel in Budapest. "Several of my friends had grandparents who were saved by him, and my grandmother also. She received from him more than one fake passport over the duration of the war, which saved her life."
Today, Budapest has an estimated Jewish population of 80,000. There are at least two successful kosher restaurants near the main synagogue and the city has more than one large university, which houses Jewish student groups on campus.
Hungary is also a popular destination for students from Israel, many coming to study medicine. There are some 1,000 Israeli students studying in Hungary, with approximately half of them located in Budapest. They have even formed an Israeli students' union.
"It's easier to come here, and it's a good program," says Itai Gueta, originally from Haifa, completing his final semester in Budapest at Semmelweis University. "I have three more weeks left here in Budapest and it has been an amazing time. I love the city and the social life is great."
A trip to Budapest is quite enjoyable, but perhaps most importantly, reveals a fascinating look at eastern Europe's Jews, past and present.
Eva Cohen recently visited Hungary and is a Canadian freelance writer currently based in England.
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