Búcsú, Budapest

Interior of Synagogue

I have officially said goodbye to Budapest.  My last day on the Danube was Wednesday.  I spent most of it exploring the Great Market Hall and the Dohany Street Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in the world.  Both were quite impressive sights though for entirely different reasons.

Naturally, the market was bustling with Hungarians and tourists alike.  I bought some questionable palinka (Hungarian fruit brandy), two thick links of paprika sausage, and a roll (portions of the latter two I later ate on a sun-drenched bench for lunch).  Although the synagogue too was busy with visitors, it was a sobering alternative experience to the market.   Designed in a Moorish Revival style, the synagogue in many ways looks quite like a church, though obviously festooned with Stars of David.

As a lover of churches and one who is generally fascinated by religion, the interior was a spectacle to behold.  However, the arcaded expanses of the rear exterior and to a lesser extent, the Jewish museum, stole the show in a sense.  The latter displayed a wide range of religious tools and accouterments with quite helpful explanations for each.  This certainly helped shed needed light on a subject in which I felt I was less than well-versed.  In a rear courtyard on the synagogue grounds there is an interesting history.  Amongst other things, it details the creation of the synagogue–a less than lucrative real estate swap with the city that established the land for the community in perpetuity–as well as the history of the courtyard itself (interestingly enough, the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl was born in a building next to the synagogue which was later destroyed as a part of the renovations to create the public space).  Originally, the middle of the space housed a reflection pool, but this was filled in and became a mass grave after the liberation of the Budapest Ghetto by the Red Army revealed the thousands of dead in the synagogue garden.

In addition to the grave, a monument to the 400,000 Hungarian Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis was created in 1989 by Imre Varga.  This monument resembles a weeping willow and, when viewed upside down, a Menorah.  On the leaves of the willow are inscriptions with the names of  the victims.

After being so thoroughly affected by the Terror Museum and these relatively small tributes on Dohany street, the prospect of Auschwitz-Birkenau leaves me slightly uncertain.  Not uncertain about visiting, there is nothing of which I am more certain.  Rather, uncertain about my ability to hold together in the face of such monstrosity…to see with such unflinching certitude the horrifying depths of humanity.

Because I don’t wish to end the post on such a depressed note, I shall continue with a recap of the events following my visit to Dohany Street.

Hooray for Sausage + Bread

After having my simple lunch on a sunny park bench in front of the museum, I went off to find the Magyar Palinka Haza to buy a bottle for Dani as a thank you and one more for myself to take home with me.  Mission accomplished, I set out to Dani’s flat to gather my things and sort out my life before departure.  Meetesh, Barbara, and Danny were meeting me at Szeraj, a Turkish buffet on St. Istvan’s Street just over the Margret Bridge from the flat.  Quick and tasty, it was a great ending meal to my time in Budapest.  Not only that, Barbara loaded me down with a bag full of Hungarian pastries (both sweet and savory) for the long train ride to Krakow (the odd details of which will come in a later post).  Though I have intimated as much in previous posts, I truly cannot sing the praises of my hosts in Budapest enough.  From the first night through the last, I felt warmly welcomed…and yet, that doesn’t really capture the nature of it.  My time in Budapest was wonderful and unbelievably well spent, so once again I must simply thank those that made it so.