Another Sobering Day

 

We woke up to a cold drizzly day - luckily, the rain stopped by the time we finished breakfast.

I forgot to mention that a small group of us (8 people) came a few days ahead of the rest of the tour group, so we've been on our own to explore the city. This morning, a few of us decided to walk to the Danube River then hike up to the Citadella located on top of a hill. Citadella is the Hungarian word for citadel, a kind of fortress.

The views at the top of the Danube and the city were great. The fortress itself had evidence of bullet holes from the time the Nazis were holed up in it as the Soviets were attacking towards the end of World War II.

 

After our morning hike, we went back, picked up the rest of the group, and then headed to The House of Terror, a museum located at on Andrassy Street. While House of Terror is a museum now, it was a "witness" to two tragic periods in Hungary's 20th century history - terrible acts took place there.

 

In 1944, the building was the party headquarters for the Hungarian Nazis, the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party. Then between 1945 and 1956, the notorious communist terror organizations, the AVO and the AVH, took up residence in the building. The museum commemorates the victims of all those years of terror.

The museum was really well done but extremely sobering. We all came away with feelings of sorrow for the Hungarian people who endured the terror of the Nazis (ending the lives of 600,000 Jewish Hungarians) followed by four decades of Soviet atrocities. The Hungarians attempted an uprising in 1956 after a decade of Soviet rule following World War II, but the Soviets crushed the revolutionaries. As a result, only eleven years after the war, Budapest was once again in ruins - 20,000 were wounded, 2500 died, and 200,000 left the country.

In 1989, the Wall came down in Germany triggering a retrenchment of the Soviets and a re-structuring of the Soviet-block countries including Hungary. The last Soviet troops left Hungary in 1991.

After spending the entire afternoon at the museum, we decided to go back to a place in the Jewish quarter to try Rachel's Flodni - our guide yesterday had assured us that Rachael made the best Flodni, a traditional Hungarian Jewish cake. As we tasted this sweet treat, we talked about the experience of going through the museum and seeing how the Hungarians had suffered over the years. I think we all agreed that it made today's concerns with Putin's apparent aggression even more troubling.

 

After our sobering day, we had an uplifting evening at a traditional Hungarian restaurant complete with musicians who seranaded us - we enjoyed our conversations that ranged from the American political scene to our impressions thus far of Budapest. We did agree than in spite of all the problems that exist in our country, we were happy to live in America and not under a terroist dictator.

 

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