Our first day in Budapest

 

We left Minneapolis on Sunday and flew to Amsterdam. After a short layover, we took a two-hour flight to Budapest. We got settled in our hotel and then spent the afternoon out exploring Budapest as we wanted to try to acclimated to the new time zone.

Before we left Minneapolis, we did a quick review of our European history to get some background on Budapest, Vienna, and Prague. All three of these cities' history is tied closely to World War I, World War II, and the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe.

 

This afternoon we did a walking tour of the Jewish "ghetto" that was forcibly created in Budapest towards the end of World War II. Over 10,000 Jewish who were detained in the ghetto died over a 6-week period (December '44-January '45) before the remaining Jews in the ghetto were "liberated" by the Soviet Forces in Janauary '45. Liberated is in quotes because our guide told us that upon arriving in Budapest, the liberating Russian forces raped many women and children they were freeing.

 

 

 

There is a memorial garden where there are mass graves of many of the Jewish people who perished in the ghetto. All told, ten percent of all the Jews who died in the Holocaust were Hungarians. Many of the Jewish people who lived in the rural areas were sent directly to the death camps.

It was a somber day learning again about the tremendous suffering of the Jewish people in Hungary. In the midst of the evil, there were extraordinary individuals who risked their lives to save Jews in a variety of ways. Part of the memorial includes a special part to honor those brave individuals.

The memorial also had a beautiful weeping willow (symbolizing weeping for the Jewish people of Hungary) - each leaf was etched with a name of someone lost.

After a very long day, now, it's off to sleep and to see if we are successfully on Budapest time!

 

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