Budapest Day 22

This is my last posting until my next trip somewhere. I can hear the collective sigh of relief. And just to sweeten the pot, it will be quite some time before I take another trip. I know it is a long report but it was probably the most significant day of our trip and even if it is only for my sake, I need to record as much of it as I can remember. I promise, no more long torturous e-mails anytime in the foreseeable future.

I think our last day in Budapest was one of the best days of our trip. After breakfast in a cafe, our guide Kate and her driver Frank picked us up for a tour of the Jewish Budapest that is well off the beaten track.

Did I mention that Kate is a Jewish mother? She was concerned about the cold I obviously have and the first stop was to a drugstore to pick up some cold pills. They actually worked! Within an hour or so I had stopped coughing and was feeling a little more alive.

Our next stop was a little obscure park in a Buda residential area. It was the monument to Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat we remember as being responsible for saving thousands of Hungarian Jews by giving them Swedish citizenship. The interesting fact is that Wallenberg was not the only diplomat to help the Jews. He was the leader of a group of foreign diplomats who all saved Jews in the same way. The reason that Wallenberg is the only one known by most of the public is because of his disappearance at the hands of the Soviets and the Soviet denial that they even knew who Wallenberg was. When he disappeared, there was considerable global demand that he be released. Although the documents in the Lubliyana prison indicate that he died there in 1949 of 'heart failure', people claimed to have seen him in a Siberian gulag well after that. Why such an obscure placement for the statue? During the Soviet rule of Hungary, the Soviets consistently denied any knowledge of the diplomat. They would not allow the memorial to be erected in a well-traveled and well visited area in the city because of the negative reaction it would arouse among the Hungarians.

The memorial is a statue by Varga, the same artist who created the Tree of Life memorial. It portrays Wallenberg bare-headed, appearing to pat the head of a child who is not there. It is surrounded by two large blocks of Swedish granite donated by his family. On the back of one of the granite stones, there is an etching of a man, supposedly Wallenberg, wrestling with a snake, with swastikas all along its back. This was the image of a statue that had disappeared from another site. Again this was evidence about the constant denial of Jewish history by the Soviets. The engraving stone dedicated the statue to the citizens of Hungary who had been arrested and murdered during the world war. It obviously referred to the Jews without using the word Jew. According to Kate, this was more evidence of the current right wing swing of the Hungarians and their refusal to accept responsibility for the fate of the Jewish population.

                                     

 As we were in Buda, we got driven through the very posh residential area. The streets were all up on a hill and were lined with gated villas. Before the war, this would have been where the very wealthy Jewish captains of industry would have lived. We also drove past a Jewish private school, one of four that exist in Budapest. It was established by the son of the Estée Lauder of the cosmetic empire and called the Lauder School. This was not the first time we have heard the name Lauder. He was also responsible for the revitalization of Josefov in Prague.

The car then took us into Obuda, the third town that amalgamated with Buda and Pest to form the capital city of Hungary. As we drove, Kate pointed out where some of the factories once established and owned by Jews had stood. Most of the area consisted of dull grey rectangular apartment blocks that had been erected during the sixties, but we parked at the edge of the old central town square of Obuda. It was one of the few places where the original buildings still stood. On one side, there was a long building that had once been a royal palace and later converted into army barracks. The smaller cottages around what used to be the barracks were used by the prostitutes that serviced the army. Beside the barracks was another installation by Varga. It consisted of a series of women holding open umbrellas as protection against the rain. It was encircled by beds of flowers still in bloom during November. A tribute to the prostitutes.

                                    

The actual town square was dominated by the town hall. In front of it was yet another installation of a man sitting at a covered table with his book and wine. Unfortunately I did not take notes and I no longer recall the significance of the sculpture. I believe it may have been melancholy over the things and way of life that had been lost under the Soviets. On the wall was a plaque that had been installed just earlier this year. Like the Wallenberg statue, it was dedicated to the Hungarians who had died for their beliefs during the war. Again no mention of Jews.

The main reason for the visit to Obuda, however, was to view the small gallery of Varga's work. Varga is not a Jew although he is married to one. At the age of ninety he is still alive and comes to the gallery each weekend. His work always seems to pack a wallop. The museum consists mostly of maquettes of work he had been commissioned to do. His own beliefs come across very strongly in his work and often it is not the exactly the message intended by the sponsors of the work. He designed the Hungarian House in the Vatican with a very dramatic statue of King Stephen holding the royal crown. There were statues of victims of the war, like that of Randotti. He was a young man who wrote poetry. He died during a mass shooting of Jews. In his coat was a bloodied notebook with all his poetry, influenced by the trials of the Jews during the war. It had instructions as to who should receive the work in case of his death. Thus the journal found its way to being published.

Another statue entitled the passage of time was of a young woman standing, the same woman lying down but now more middle aged and the same woman again, elderly and close to death. I think of the most powerful pieces was of three wounded veterans, all wearing medals from the first world war. I had never heard of this sculptor and yet his work has an enormous emotional impact. Only photographs, of which I have many, can do justice to his work.

                                        

 On our trip to Szentendre, Kate had pointed out the synagogue built in the courtyard of a building. Today we visited that synagogue. It was built entirely on donations in 1926, the heyday of Jewish influence in Hungary. From the outside the only evidence of its existence are the Jewish stars etched on to some of the lower areas of the building. Inside the courtyard, it stands like a small jewel. It is still in use today and there are many Jews residing in this building that is also the site of the Jewish community centre. The bimah is in the centre with the seats in an almost circular formation around it. It is an inclusive effect. One interesting point was that the blessing before reading the Torah was on the bimah in transliterated Hungarian, the only Hungarian we could figure out how to read.

We also visited another large building still being used as a synagogue. The original was built in 1775. The present structure was from the nineteenth century. There was little to indicate that it was a synagogue and I commented that the Jews who had it built must have been very prosperous. Kate explained that the grandeur of a synagogue was dependent on the level of acceptance of the Jews at the time and not on economic circumstances. Today, it has been taken over by the Lubavitch movement. Unfortunately, we could not enter because no one was there at the time.

       

                                                                      Another memorial but this time in Budapest

 Back in Pest, we were shown the shoes memorial. This installation was also placed in a very inaccessible spot. Because of guardrails, it cannot be viewed as you drive by. There is no break in the guardrails nor a crosswalk to provide access to it. The only way to see it is to walk to the installation from a parking area a distance away. All the factors preventing the public from readily seeing this memorial are not coincidental. The Hungarians are keeping it as hidden as possible in an effort to deny their responsibility. The installation of bronzed shoes carelessly scattered at the edge of the river recalls the women and children who were brought to the Danube, told to disrobe or at the very least remove their coats and shoes and then were shot, falling into the Danube. I was curious about why the shoes were removed. Often a gold watch, a diamond ring or even some money was hidden in the heel of a shoe as a last resort. The most heartbreaking part were the shoes of a young child. They were filled with stones and a single candy. Flowers that had been placed there as a memorial were not removed though they were long dead.

                                               

 We were then taken to see the statue of the Prime Minister during the war. Kate claimed that he was more bloodthirsty than even Stalin. This statue had been in a very public place but was the site of many protests and so it was moved into a small gated niche in front of a church among the government buildings.

This is where our tour ended but not our time with Kate and Frank. She invited us to her apartment for tea and canapés and conversation. She told us about her fears that the Nazi Party would have a better showing in the next election because of the discontent about Hungary's poor economic status. She spoke about the rise of anti semitism and the hatred of all things communist, with communist being a code word for Jewish. Her apartment itself was a wonder. Filled with art and an eclectic collection of antiques and tchachkes. It was also huge, many rooms with twelve foot ceilings. It was an appropriate way to end the tour. I asked Kate to arrange a taxi to take us to the airport. Instead, Frank offered to pick us up the next morning, of course for a fee, but with someone who also spoke to us about the current conditions in Hungary. Without Kate and Frank, we would have had a totally unrealistic view of what living in Budapest is for a Jew today.

Time was flying and we had plans to go to see Madame Butterfly at the Opera House at seven. In the meantime, Gila wanted to fit in the Chagall exhibit in the National Museum in the Buda palace. By the time we arrived, it was after four and the gallery closed at 5:30. Traffic across the bridges of the Danube are very congested at that hour of the day as well so we already knew that we would have to get a taxi to the Opera House and keep our fingers crossed that we would make it in time. At that point we did not realize how the Chagall exhibit would affect us. The exhibit also displayed the work of an artist Imre Amos, a young Hungarian contemporary of Chagall who was greatly influenced by his meeting with Chagall. Nowhere in the copious notes about the second painter does it mention that he was a Jew. However, he was presumed to be shot in a concentration camp and somewhat like the poet Randotti, had given the last sketchbook he used to his wife. These stark and moving images were projected on a wall in sequence including the front and back covers.

With ten minutes before closing we rushed through the Hungarian impressionists, impressive at the very least and tried to see the French impressionist exhibit. Our ticket did not include this show. I had dissuaded Gila from buying the combination ticket because of time restraints. The security also told us that that part of the gallery was closing in twenty minutes. Gila offered to buy the additional ticket at the cash, but it was already closed. She somehow talked him into allowing us in for a marathon dash through an unbelievable rich collection of Monets, Cezannes, Renoirs, Gaugins and Van Goghs. The thought of rushing to the Opera was less than appealing and happily, Gila concurred. We had too much to think about and talk about to just rush off to another event. With some difficulty, we found a taxi and rode back to the Oktagon. In a very rare occurrence, Gila wanted to return to a restaurant we had already been to, the seafood place. Over a relaxed dinner with wine, we were able to decompress somewhat and review what had been especially noteworthy on our trip. The residents' views on present Hungary were frightening and disheartening, but they gave us a glimpse of the real world that is seldom easily open for tourists.

A short stroll, (short because we went in the right direction the first time) brought us back to the apartment to pack and get to bed early enough to be ready for a 5:45 pick up. Fortunately, no lost Hungarians approached me for directions or names of streets. Gila is worried that the guy I directed yesterday may be in Prague.

In summary, WHAT A TRIP!!!