12 Holocaust Memorials In Budapest

Before the Holocaust, Hungary had a big Jewish community that accounted for six percent of the population. Estimates on the total number of Hungarian Jews killed vary because of changes in Hungary’s borders before, during, and after World War II, and because many survivors remained abroad. There were 825,000 Jewish people in so-called Greater Hungary before the deportations began in March 1944, and the consensus is that more than 500,000 were murdered, most of them in Auschwitz.

In Budapest, despite horrific persecutions and murder, the Jewish community escaped the deportations and Budapest remains the largest Ashkenazi city in continental Europe.

#1 - Shoes on the Danube Bank (location; accessible at all times, no admission fee): While Budapest's Jewish community escaped the mass deportations, people weren't safe from raids by the Arrow Cross Party. Made in 2005, the sixty pairs of cast-iron shoes placed on the edge of the Danube's bank remember the victims who were lined up on the river bank, ordered to remove their shoes (shoes were valuable), and shot into the river. The memorial has shoes of all sizes, including children’s shoes. The simple elements and the dramatic backdrop intensify its emotional grasp.

#2 - Emanuel Tree (location; opening hours vary; closed on Saturday; HUF 13,000 admission): Made in 1990, the Emanuel Tree resembles a weeping willow – a sign of grief and mourning – with the names of Hungarian Holocaust victims inscribed in the tree's metal leaves. Relatives can still purchase a name tag the price of which goes to the maintenance of the Dohány synagogue.

The stone slab before the tree shows the Tablets of Stone stripped of their content to symbolize that the Ten Commandments were suspended during the Holocaust. Similar to the Shoes on the Danube, I find this subtle and thoughtful and moving. The Emanuel Tree is part of the Dohány complex and the steep admission ticket provides access also to the synagogue and the Jewish Museum.

#3 - Counter memorial at the memorial for the victims of the German occupation (location; accessible at all times, no admission fee): In 2014, a controversial WWII memorial appeared on Budapest's Liberty Square. The composition shows the allegorical figure of Hungary being attacked by a ferocious eagle who leaves broken ruins in its wake. The symbolic message: Nazi Germany, which occupied Hungary in March 1944, is only to blame for the Holocaust in Hungary. The facts, of course, are more complex. Distraught local civilians made a protest memorial right before it.

#4 - Holocaust Memorial Center (location; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed on Monday; HUF 3,600 admission): This museum presents the events leading up to the Holocaust in Hungary – through newsreels, photos, and objects, the exhibition traces the disenfranchisement, expulsion, and murder of Hungarian Jews. Located in District 9, the complex also contains Budapest's second biggest synagogue, a memorial garden with a wall of victims, and a tower listing all Hungarian settlements where Jewish communities have ceased to exist as a result of the deportations.

#5 - Kozma Street Jewish cemetery (location; 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed on Saturday; free admission): Reachable in forty minutes with tram #28, the Kozma utca cemetery is Hungary’s biggest burial ground for Jewish people. The vestibule of the funerary home contains plaques and memorials rescued from Jewish buildings in Hungary. To the left of the entrance stands a modernist Holocaust memorial designed in 1949 by architect Alfréd Hajós, listing the names of tens of thousands of victims by location of death. Above each section appears a heart-wrenching excerpt from the Torah, such as “Even the stone will cry out from the wall” ("A kő is kiált a falból" in Hungarian).

Once here, you might want to also glimpse the eye-catching Art Nouveau tomb of Sándor Schmidl, designed in 1903 by the star architect duo, Ödön Lechner and Béla Lajta.

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#6 - Remains of the Jewish ghetto's wall at 15 Király Street (location; located in the courtyard of a private apartment building, no admission fee): In November 1944, most Jewish residents of Budapest were herded into a makeshift ghetto enclosed by Király, Kertész, Dohány, and Rumbach streets in the Jewish Quarter. Several thousand people died here before the Soviet Army liberated the ghetto in January, 1945 (some of the victims are buried in the garden of the Dohány Street Synagogue). A small section of the ghetto’s wall still stands as a reminder inside the courtyard of a private apartment building (15 Király utca). There's a hole on the entry door to peek in; one can also access the wall via the neighboring building by following the signs.

#7 - Carl Lutz Memorial (location; accessible at all times, no admission fee): Carl Lutz, a Swiss diplomat, saved the lives of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. As Vice-Consul of the Swiss Embassy of Budapest, he issued protective documents and placed more than 70 buildings under foreign jurisdiction to keep the Nazis away, including the famous Glass House. Erected in 1991, the memorial shows Lutz in the form of a descending angel who rescues a fallen victim. “Whoever saves a life is considered to have saved an entire world,” reads the caption.

#8 - Raoul Wallenberg Street and memorial plaque (location; accessible at all times, no admission fee): Similar to Carl Lutz, Raoul Wallenberg was a foreign diplomat in Budapest who became famous for his heroic activism during the winter of 1944. Wallenberg, a young and energetic envoy from Sweden, fearlessly confronted German and Hungarian Nazis at the risk of his own life. Tragically, in 1945 he was sent to a Soviet prison and died there. Budapest has two additional Wallenberg memorials; one in the nearby Szent István Park, the other on the Buda side.

#9 - Stolpersteine / Stumbling Blocks (thousands spread across Budapest): As in other European cities, thousands of Stolpersteine scatter across Budapest. Each cobblestone-sized brass plate shows the name of the Holocaust victim, date of birth, year of deportation, and cause of death. Both subtle and attention-grabbing, the stumbling blocks are paved into the sidewalk outside the building where the victims once lived.

#10 - Holocaust Memorial at the Faculty of Arts of the Eötvös Loránd University (location; accessible during the day, no admission fee): This memorial consists of a narrow bronze band that stretches along the exposed brick walls of Budapest's Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE). Made in 2014, the plate lists the university's students and teachers who died in the Holocaust. Some people criticized the memorial for being too subtle and impossible to notice.

#11 - Memorial for Jewish victims of forced labor service (location; accessible at all times, no admission fee): The two stone walls closing in on one another depict the fate of the thousands of Jewish Hungarian men who were drafted into forced labor service units (munkaszolgálat) during WWII. Jewish men weren't allowed to fight in the regular Hungarian army, instead doing hard labor or being sent on the front lines without proper clothing and equipment. The monument stands outside what used to be the Jewish school for the deaf in District 7 (today the building houses the US-based McDaniel College).

#12 - Sidewalk markers of the walls of the Jewish ghetto (accessible at all times, no admission fee): More than 70,000 people were crammed into Budapest's Jewish ghetto before being liberated by the Soviet army in January 1945. These white markers, 32 in total, were planted into the sidewalks to show the location of the ghetto's walls. They are located in the side streets between Dohány and Wesselényi, and Király and Dob streets. I am not sure why the text appears in Hebrew since Budapest Jews generally did not speak Yiddish; it should probably have been in English or German to inform tourists.