Joe’s May 2008 Trek Thru Israel, Eastern Europe & The Balkans En Route to Auschwitz Along the Same Rail Transport Lines my Ancestors Rode to the Death Camps

After an 18 hour train trip to Budapest in normal sleeping cars of two to a cabin, we arrive in Budapest at 7am.  Our arrival in Budapest once again shows the signs of an abandoned communist system but this country has had a lot of money poured into the country to rebuild it.  We visited at the Main Synagogue known as the Dohany Street Synagogue.  It is a very glamorous building constructed in the Byzantine-Moorish style.  It is one of Europe’s largest synagogues.  Interestingly, it was designed by a Viennese architect in the middle of the 19^th century.  The building has an incredible level of decorative elements and two domed towers which makes it very unique among synagogues.  It has incredible detail work and three levels of balconies.  Truly looks more like a church than a synagogue.  Next door in the courtyard is located the cemetery.  It was a rather impromptu cemetery created during the Nazi occupation. The Jews were forced to live in a small part of the city and they were subjected to incredible cruelties that resulted in the deaths of so many while in the ghetto.  Accordingly, the courtyard is the cemetery for 3,000 Jews during the war that perished under the terrible conditions.  There is also a Jewish museum next to the same synagogue and the last room is a holocaust museum about Budapest.  There were photos on the walls showing the massacres by the Hungarians who carried out the work of the Nazis, including a massacre of the local Jewish hospital where the Jewish Doctors, nurses, patients and all were massacred by the Hungarian locals.  The photos show the criminals standing before the bodies that were exhumed and the killers were all hung for their crimes after the war. In total, 600,000 Jews were massacred in Hungary either by the Hungarians, or sent to the Nazi concentration camps where they perished.

In the afternoon, we went to the Chinese Markets which are supposed to be a shoppers paradise, but was a real bust to me as it was the entire export of China-clothes, kitchen tools, fabrics, cell phones, bb guns and an assortment of awful junk.

Budapest is a very beautiful city.  It combines a centuries-old architectural and cultural heritage with the features of a modern world.  From the top of a hill we were at the Citadel, formerly a fortress, it is now a museum is the most important lookout point of the City provides the most incredible panorama of World Heritage Budapest, including the Buda Castle district and both sides of the Danube embankment.  Budapest has been very seriously damaged during World War II when the Nazi invaders damaged 98% of all the buildings in the City.  The Defense Ministry building in the City remains un-repaired as a reminder with the bullet and mortar holes in the façade of the building as a reminder.

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