Budapest - part 2

photo by Richard Bogdán at Millenniumi emlékmű, Budapest

Millenniumi emlékmű (Millennium Monument) is to Andrássy Avenue as the Arc de Triumphe is to Champs-Élysées.

Museum of Fine Arts              Millennium Monument
Heroes' Square

Construction began in 1896 to commemorate 1,000 the year anniversaries of the 

Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin and the foundation of the Hungarian state in 896.

Behind us in the photograph, there are statues of 14 men. The man, second from the far right, is Lajos Kossuth, a famous Hungarian lawyer, journalist, politician and Regent-President of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1848-49. He was well known in the United States and - Cleveland, Ohio as a champion of democracy. 

                              Budapest                                                  Washington, D.C.

David E Davis Sculpture Garden

Euclid Avenue between Chester & MLK

Cleveland, Ohio

Buda
Our first day we began our exploration of Budapest, starting with Buda, the oldest part of the city, which was settled after the withdrawal of the Mongol invaders in 1242. Climbing to the top of Gellert Hill, we experienced a spectacular view of the entire city.

photo by Richard Bogdán

Perched at the top of Gellert Hill is the famous Liberty Statute (referred to by the locals as the world’s largest bottle opener). 

Behind this stature lies a remarkable back-story. After World War I ended, the Treaty of Versailles was signed five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Few would disagree that the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles contributed to the conditions that led to World War II. However, not just Germany was dealt with harshly. Hungary lost a large amount of land under the terms of the treaty.
    Miklós Horthy served as Regent of the Kingdon of Hungary between the World Wars. In the late 1930's, Horthy formed an alliance with Nazi Germany. With Hitler's support, Horthy was able to reclaim much of the Hungarian land lost after World War I. However, Horthy would neither contribute to the German war effort, nor participate in the deportation of Hungarian Jews, which ultimately led to the invasion of Hungary by Germany in March 1944.
   Early during the WW II effort, Miklós Horthy's son was killed in an aviation accident. A statue was commissioned in memory of Horthy's son, and the statue was begun but never completed. The statue was to become a figure, holding a broken propeller over his head while standing in the wreckage of the aircraft.
    Budapest was bombed by the allies at the start of WW II, and bombed by the Germans at the end of the war to destroy bridges and resources as a last stand against the Russian army that was advancing through Hungary toward Berlin. The Russians of course prevailed, and when the Russians "liberated" Hungary, they wanted a monument in Budapest to their "liberty" under Soviet style Communism. Thus, the Liberty Statue was transformed by the original sculptor from a figure holding a broken propeller to a woman (modeled after a Hungarian nurse) holding a palm frond to the sky. The aircraft wreckage disappeared from the plan.
     Interestingly, the statue does not face Budapest, but rather looks to the east toward its Soviet inspiration. After much struggle, Hungary did of course emerge from Soviet dominance. The Hungarians, an eminently practical people, did not take down the statue. Rather than removing the statue, the Hungarians decided to leave it where she stands to show the Russians what freedom really looks like.
    This back-story comes from Richard Bogdán, our Budapest guide and history buff.

Dohany Street Snyagogue

The Dohany street Synagogue was built in the middle of the 19^th century in Romantic style for the 30,000 members of the Jewish community of Pest. The onion domes are strikingly Oriental-Byzantine, as is the face; the patterns in the brickwork were inspired by ancient ruins in the Middle East. It was a architectural novelty in its day with some Christian touches like a pulpit and large organ.  

    The Jews of Budapest were largely assimilated and were well represented in the mercantile and professional  classes of the city. For that reason, the Hungarians, although allies with Germany in WWII, were reluctant to comply with Hitler’s orders to deport its Jewish citizens. However, when Hungary tried to exit the war after the writing was on the wall, a pro-Nazi government took over and in only 52 days with only 19 Nazi soldiers, they were able to deport about 600,000 Hungarian Jews, mostly from the countryside where the Orthodox Jews resided. Because the Nazis ran out of time, most of the Jews of Budapest were spared Auschwitz.

     The synagogue was spared as well.  As the tallest structure in Budapest, Nazis antennaes had been placed on the top of the domes and the Nazis headquartered themselves in the building.

The House of Terror Museum

This was the most reviled building in Budapest during the mid 20^th century. Converted to a museum, the House of Terror opened in 2002 amidst controversy. It is intended as a monument to the memory of those held captive, tortured and killed in this very building under the Arrow Cross Party (the Hungarian Nazi Party) between 1937-1945, and between 1945 and 1956 under the Stalinist-inspired AVO and its successor the AVH.

     The criticism is that it touches very lightly on the Nazis-era (one room) with numerous rooms dedicated to the abuses of the Stalinist Hungarian Communist Party. The museum opened shortly before an important national election to bolster the conservative right re-election. Fair or unfair, the museum serves as a powerful reminder of the barbarity and sadism of both the Nazis and the Communists. 

     At one point, we found ourselves packed into an elevator creeping lower into the depths of hell seemingly for eternity, trapped facing a video of a survivor describing in excruciating detail the methodology of executions performed in the basement dungeon. These two chapters of atrocity by the Nazis and subsequently by the Soviets are well captured by the design of the museum, assuring that the memory will not be lost by the Hungarian people or by the world.

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On a lighter note, a section of Pest referred to as Elizabeth City is undergoing tremendous renovation. This building on Kazinzy Street (now becoming Culture Street) was saved from destruction.

We stepped through that door, and this video shows what we found on the other side.