From Moscow to Mexico

As noted below I returned to Hungary on Saturday, July 10. My friends and I took the Metro to Moskova Ter to have dinner at a favorite restaurant. We returned to the hotel early for all of us had been up since 5:30 AM with our various travel routes back to Budapest.

My goal on Sunday was to the visit the Dohany Synagogue in Budapest. I slept in until 8:45, obviously tired. I walked to the synagogue and got a ticket for the tour. The first stop was in the synogogue itself. I joined one English tour in progress and then gradually worked my way back through the seating joining others. Each was different due to the questions asked by the participants. This synagogue was built in the middle of the 19th century. Many on the tours were puzzled by two pulpits. This is explained by the fact that language to be used wasn't determined at the time of its building. Hungary, at that time, had not settled on Hungarian. One guide pointed out for example that everyone around Pecs spoke German, and of course many Central European Jews spoke Yiddish.

One can see above that this a beautiful building. It was severely damaged, but not actively destroyed, during WWII. It was restored in the early 1990s. It is used for worship services during the warm months of the year. Another smaller one is used during the cold winter months to save on heating this very large building.

Outside is an area of mass graves. This area was originally given to the city of Budapest as park in the 1920s. During WWII this area was part of the ghetto, and became the gravesites for many who died in the ghetto. The stones around the grave sites hold the names of those believed to be buried in this area.

One walks from this area it yet a newer garden. There one finds a weeping willow tree sculpture.

The tree contains thousands of "leaves," each holding the name of someone who died in the ghetto or was deported.

In another area one finds a monument to the "just," those who worked to save Jews during this time.

One of the guides said that before WWII there were 5000 synogogues in Hungary, now there are 15.

Visiting this area was an incredible experience, part of the story I learned from visiting the concentration camps in Poland and part of the story of the foundation of the synogogue in L'viv.

I was glad there were no airline snafus from the day before and that I arrived back in Budapest as planned to do this final piece of sight-seeing.

When I was done I decided to ride the Metro to Mexico. I've always wondered about the location at the end of the yellow line. I found a working class neighborhood. I took the yellow line to the other end, Vorosmarty Ter, and found the place hopping with tourists. I had a ice cream sundae and watched in amazement the arrival of a Hare Krishna group. People were treating this like a cultural festival. I wondered, frankly, what would have been the reception had a group of Roma tried the same thing. The money collection by the Hare Krishna group was subtle, but it was there.

A couple hours later I rode the 4/6 tram back to Moskova Ter, then back to Blaha Luz Ter and then took a cab to the train station and got myself back to Pecs. So that the story of story of Moscow to Mexico in one day in Budapest.