Budapest Guide
Terézváros and Erzsébetváros
The Jewish Museum
Opening time: April– Oct Mon– Thurs 10am–5pm, Fri 10am–3pm, Sun 10am–6pm; Nov– March Mon– Thurs 10am–3pm, Fri & Sun 10am–2pm
Price: 1600Ft, includes admission to the Dohány utca Synagogue
Address: Dohány utca, to the left of the main synagogue entrance
Before entering the Jewish Museum (Zsidó Múzeum), note a relief of Tivadar (Theodor) Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, who was born and taught on this site. In the foyer is a gravestone inscribed with a menorah (seven-branched candlestick) from the third century AD – proof that there were Jews living in Hungary six hundred years before the Magyars arrived. The first three rooms are devoted to Jewish festivals, with beautifully crafted objects such as Sabbath lamps and bowls for the Seder festival, some from medieval times. The final room covers the Holocaust in Hungary, with chilling photos and examples of anti-Semitic propaganda. Oddly, the museum says nothing about the huge contribution that Jews have made to Hungarian society, in every field from medicine to poetry.
Upon leaving, turn the corner on to Wesselényi utca and enter the Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Garden, named after the Swedish consul who saved 20,000 Jews during World War II. Armed with diplomatic status and money for bribing officials, Wallenberg and his assistants plucked thousands from the cattle trucks and lodged them in "safe houses", manoeuvring to buy time until the Russians arrived. He was last seen alive the day before the Red Army liberated the ghetto; arrested by the Soviets on suspicion of espionage, he died in the Gulag. The park's centrepiece is a Holocaust Memorial by Imre Varga, shaped like a weeping willow, each leaf engraved with the names of a family killed by the Nazis. On the plinth are testimonials from their relatives living in Israel, America and Russia. Behind it, glass panels by the artist Klára Szilárd commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Goldmark Hall, named after Károly Goldmark, the composer of the opera The Queen of Sheba.