Budapest, Day 1, October 29,2017 28th day of the trip

October 29, 2017 Day 28 Budapest

It was uncharacteristic that we got up early, 6:00 am, until we realized that this weekend the Europeans switched off daylight savings time. Unfortunately, it was a gray and rainy day which remined unchanged throughout the day.

We read the papers on our computers for a while and then leaving our apartment about 9, with our umbrellas, we turned right headed for the #4 or 6 trams on Erzsebet Korut intending to go to the House of Terror, Terror Haza, with an initial stop at a café. We were unsuccessful in the latter, but it was easy to find the tram stop. We got off at Oktogon, a vast intersection whose corners are snipped off, hence the name. No café here either, but lots of American fast food outlets.

I got turned around, so we took a circuitous route to the House, but still arrived there before the 10:00 am opening. We recognized the building from its shape and very distinguishing overhang. I was surprised however to find a lengthy line, all in the rain, snaking around the corner. Maybe because it was Sunday, or maybe because of the rain, but a lot of Hungarians were coming to the museum. It took about 30 minutes to gain admission, mostly due to the slow ticket selling process. 2000 HUPs for admission and then we were required to check our coats and backpacks and wet umbrellas. That was a welcome benefit, but it entailed another line.

The building which houses the museum is located on Andrassy Ut, a major thoroughfare. It connects downtown Pest to City Park where the Hero’s Square is located. It is treelined and has nice shops, theaters and cafes and well-appointed apartment buildings. A nice place to stroll if it were not raining. It reminded me a bit of the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, before that area deteriorated.

The building itself has an interesting history. It was built in the late 19^th century when Budapest was enjoying a “Golden Age” as one of the dual capitals in the Austrian Hungarian empire and initially was a residence. At the beginning of WWII Hungary allied itself with Nazi Germany, in an effort to regain the lands and population that it had lost after WWI through the Treaty of Trianon. In early 1944, as it became clear that Germany was losing the war, the Hungarian government made a halfhearted attempt to seek a peace treaty with Russia. Germany learned of those efforts, invaded and occupied Hungary and installed the fascist Arrow Cross party as the new Hungarian government. These Nazi surrogates occupied the building and made it their headquarters for terror, torture and killings. (That party also facilitated in a few months the deportation of 440,000 Jews to Auschwitz where they were the second largest group to be killed.) After the Nazis were defeated and Hungary was occupied by the Russians, they installed the Hungarian secret police, the AVH in the building to continue the terror, torture and killings against the “enemies of the state”.

When we walked into the atrium we immediately saw a large Russian T-54 tank and walls covered with over 3,000 portraits of victims killed in the building. We were directed up to the second floor through a stairwell decorated with Soviet Realist statues. The first exhibit gave an overview of what the Hungarians call the Double Occupation. The Gulag exhibit featured stories of some of the Hungarians who survived the Soviet Gulag. Apparently over 700,000 Hungarians were sent there, and half did not return. The last Hungarian prisoner was released from the Gulag in 1981. The Changing Clothes exhibit satirized the willingness of many Hungarians to initially serve the Arrow Cross and then the Communists, easily changing uniforms depending upon those in power. The Fifties and the Resistance exhibits showed how the Communists came to dominate all aspects of Hungarian life and some people’s resistance to that, with very little success. There was an interesting portion of the exhibit in which several women attributed the severe shortages in the country on the actions of Tito, the Communist Yugoslavian leader who had taken Yugoslavia out of Soviet orbit. The Resettlement and Deportation exhibit described the ethnic cleansing that occurred in eastern and central Europe after WWII when ethnic Germans were forced out of Hungary and ethnic Hungarians were forcibly moved to Hungary from surrounding countries. The Communist government termed this “mutual population exchange”. There were exhibits on the secret police, which imprisoned, abused or murdered one person from every Hungarian family, the show trials which aped what was going on in Russia, the incredible Communist propaganda that painted a picture of a rosy life, slavishly honored Stalin and the Soviet leadership and state, and the sabotage of Hungarian agriculture by the beetle sent by the Americans. In fact, to impose collectivization on the farmers, the Communists cut the trees and hedge groves that separated the family farms That removed the birds which had kept the insects in check.  The Justice exhibit showed the show trials and in the 10 years after WWII 71,000 Hungarians were accused of political crimes.

The elevator that took us to the first floor played a 3-minute video of the execution process. It caused a delay getting to the first floor where we emerged into the Prison Cellar. Here were the holding and torture cells. They also had one of the gallows where people were hanged. The room commemorating the 1956 uprising showed the flag of the insurgents which had the Soviet emblem cut out, and the slogan, “Russians go Home”. The Emigration Room showed postcards and other items from the over 200,000 Hungarians who emigrated after the uprising failed. (Ironic that those emigrants were welcomed in other countries, but Hungary’s current government has closed its doors to any immigration.)

Finally, there was the disturbing Wall of the Victimizers, many of whom are still living and most of whom received no punishment. No explanation for that. Fascinating place, we were there for 4 hours.

We had a light lunch at the museum café and then headed out. There was a break in the rain and, so we decided to walk up Andrassy Ut to Hero’s Square. We should have taken the subway as it began to rain. We walked past a few embassies and the former Yugoslav embassy that is now Serbia’s. Hero’s Square was built in 1896 to commemorate the 1000-year anniversary of the Magyar’s arrival in Hungary. (They were off by one year.) There are lots of large monuments to Hungarian leaders, history and the 1956 uprising. We did not see the latter or City Park or the Szechenyi Baths due to the rain and time constraints.

We got on the M1 subway. This was the first subway built on the European Continent and it is very shallow, so you must go to the entrance corresponding to the direction you are going since there are no underpasses. I managed to do that correctly.

We took the subway to Deak ter. That is the main square in Budapest. We checked out the bus stop for the airport bus, times and fares and then walked over to the Great Synagogue. Cost to enter was 4,000 HUPs and included a tour. Neither on the outside, which is topped by two tall towers, nor the inside (which includes a pipe organ and two side pulpits) does this beautiful building look like a traditional synagogue. Completed in 1859 in what was then just outside the city limits, the very prosperous Jewish community really wanted to fit in and demonstrate how well they had integrated. So, the building and the interior look very much like a church. It also has many Moorish influences reflecting the fact that many members of the community descended from the group who fled Spain in 1492.

This synagogue is still active and continues to follow the Neolog branch of Judaism, which is somewhere in the middle of Orthodox and Conservative. That branch is found only in Hungary. After WWI the Jewish population of the truncated Hungary held disproportionately large shares of the professional classes and ownership of industry. That, plus the fact that the Jews were the only significant minority left in Hungary, lead to widespread discrimination against the Jews in the inter-war period and immediately prior to WWII, and killings of Jews by the Hungarian authorities. The building nevertheless survived WWII but fell into disrepair during the Communist era. It was rebuilt in 1990.

Our tour guide then lead us to the Memorial Garden and Tree of Life. The former is a memorial for over 2000 Jews from the Budapest Ghetto who died after the Soviet liberation and were buried in a mass grave. The latter is a metal weeping willow tree with the names of Holocaust victims etched on the leaves. We then went to the Hungarian Jewish museum which had an exhibit on Jewish life, holidays and rituals in Hungary.

We then walked into and around the Jewish Quarter while waiting for a table at the Blue Rose restaurant. We got in there about 7:00 and had a nice, reasonably priced meal, even though the waitress mixed up our orders. We walked back into the Jewish Quarter and returned to the Szimpla Kert ruin bar. No line tonight so we went in.  Off the halls and courtyard were small rooms, each one set up as a different bar. There was a wine bar, a whiskey bar, several beer bars and others. It was eclectically decorated, but cold. The young patrons had the ability to sit in the outdoors and drink comfortably, albeit with their coats on.  After a drink we walked back to the apartment.       

House of Terror

Hero's Square

Exterior of Great Synagogue

Interior of Great Synagogue

Tree of Life