The Jewish heritage in Budapest and Cracow.

  By Lucía Loureiro Cela, 4th year ESO, IES de Catabois, Ferrol.

The Jewish heritage in Budapest:

The Jewish district of Budapest is exciting and tragic too. It has got the second biggest synagogue in the world but, as well, it was a guetto where the Nazis forced the Jews to live, in times of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The Jewish district is on the bank of the east bank of the Danube river.

The Synagogue:

The Great Synagogue of Budapest (The Dohány Street Synagogue) is the second biggest synagogue in the world behind that of Jerusalem. The Nazis transformed the surroundings of the synagogue in a Jewish ghetto that later turned into a concentration camp.

The original synagogue was bombarded by the Nazis. The building was damaged by air raids during the Nazi occupation.

During the communist age, the structure was seriously damaged, but it became the house of worship for the very diminished Jewish community after that period. Its restoration began in 1991 and finished in 1998.

The complex of the Synagogue is formed by the synagogue itself, the Jewish Museum, the Heroes' Temple, the Jewish cemetery and a Memorial dedicated to the Holocaust. In the outskirts of the Synagogue, you can find the Jewish Cemetery and the Tree of Life is located at the Memorial. This sculpture was built in 1991.

 

The shoes:

The Monument Of The Shoes in Budapest is on a bank of the Danube river. The idea belongs to the director Can Togay and the sculptor was Gyula Pauer. It was an artistic work that tries to remember the barbarism that took place in the city during the Second World War.

People (most of them Jews from Budapest) were killed on the river bank by the Arrow Cross men. There are several versions of the executions. One version is they were tied to one another, and after one of them was shot, he fell into the river, carrying the others behind him. Another version is they were forced to walk to the river, naked, and, then they were lined and shot. They fell into the river to wash their dirt away. Never mind what the right version is, the row of shoes was made to remember those persons, as if they had not disappeared. Their shoes are waiting still that their owners return, coming out of the water, after having a swim.

If you want to read a bit more about the topic, you can visit: 

http://visitbudapest.travel/articles/one-of-budapests-most-moving-memorials-shoes-on-the-danube/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoes_on_the_Danube_Bank

   The Tree of Life:

The Heroes' Memorial Temple is a place destined to honor the Jewish who died in the First World War. The Tree of the Life, is a metal weeping willow that has the names of many Jewish murdered in the Second World War carved on its branches.

Also there is a cemetery brief for the victims of the Holocaust. Among the Jews buried there is Miklós Radnóti, one of the best Hungarian poets, who was murdered in spite of not practising their religion and having married a Christian girl.

          

The Jewish heritage in Cracow:

The Jewish district in Cracow is Kazimierz, which you can find out of the great circular ring Planty Garden Ring that surrounds the whole enclosure of the walled medieval city, shows you the typical environment of a Jewish district, with its narrow streets and synagogues, and with the reminiscences of the Second World war, when the population suffered the consequences of the Nazi extermination.

Ghetto Heroes Square: (Plac Bohaterów Getta)

During the Second World War, this square in the Podgorze district was the departure point for thousands of Jewish from the ghetto of Cracow to several camps. It was a silent witness of the Jewish extermination and now it constitutes a monument, a work of art and a public live space.

      

The central feature of the space consists of 70 empty chairs made of bronze. They represent possessions rejected by the deported persons and it is a reminder for nowadays tourists of the displacement of the Jewish, which took place in 1943. In the south of the square, in Lwowska street, you can find a fragment of the ghetto wall with a commemorative plate.

My opinion: 

I think both capitals are quite similar regarding the Jewish history. 

We know that Cracow is one of the places most affected by the Nazi extermination, since there you can find one of the most important concentration camps, Auschwitz. Travelling  to Hungary, I could find out about the life and culture in Budapest that I had never heard of. 

In Cracow, as much as in Budapest, there are pieces of art honouring the Jewish suffering. Both capitals have a Jewish district, where it is possible to perceive their distress and pain through the architecture and buildings. But you can also feel this happier part in the cities that they have created, making a nice tourist place of it. 

Fonts:

The wikipedia and a few other sources have been used to get a little information.

https://www.getyouguide.com

https://www.bookinbudapest.com
https://www.krakowtravelstours.com
https://www.cracovia.net/podgore
https://www.diariodelviajero.com
https://www.elobservador.com