By Sophia Braccio
What is the first thing you learn on a Budapest city walking tour? Hungary’s capital has two sides, once two separate cities divided by the Danube river- Buda and Pest (there is also Óbuda, but it tends to get grouped in with Buda). See, I paid attention on the tour! After our stay here, I found that Budapest contains two cities in one in a different, more abstract way: a city of the past, and a city of the present. While the famous chain bridge links together Buda and Pest, past and present Budapest are linked together by the people who shoulder the responsibility of building a modern Budapest while preserving the memories of a dark history.
Remanents of the past
St. Stephen’s Basilica looks over the tightly packed buildings and stone streets, announcing with grandeur its role not only as a place of worship, but also as the home for a prominent relic in Hungarian history: the blackened right hand of Hungary’s first king St. Stephen, called the Holy Right, safely displayed to the world on an alter in an ornate glass box. Even in height with the basilica, to represent the equality of power between church and state, the massive gothic parliament rises above the water on the bank of the river with black spires and a red dome roof. Budapest, like many cities we have visited, has lingering remnants of the Austro-Hungarian empire. A park and statues commemorate the famous Empress Elisabeth of Austria, whose reputation as an elegant ruler for the people, a popular legacy we had already heard in Vienna. The Buda Castle overlooks the river atop Castle Hill.
The more recent history of Budapest haunts the city, and a ghostly presence lingers on the streets. Among these installations of wealth remaining from the end of the 18th century, other buildings slouch glumly with worn scaffolding and neglect. Grim memorials of the holocaust turn stomachs. Along the river, 60 pairs of bronze shoes are a memorial for the men and women who were forced to first remove their shoes and then shot into the Danube by the fascist Hungarian Arrow Cross Party. Next to the largest synagogue in Europe, the Dohany Street Synagogue, is a mass grave with 2000 corpses collected haphazardly off the streets of the Budapest Ghetto in February of 1945. I found myself breathing heavily standing beside the synagogue, thinking about old newspaper photos of the mass Hungarian Jewish deportation. Starvation and suffering are not tangible to me, I cannot grasp that level of pain, but the people who lived through it walked where I stood. Seeing the neighborhood from which they were forced away brought me a greater sense of reality and awareness than pages of history books. The House of Terrors Museum reminds visitors of the atrocities committed in Budapest during World War II as well as during Hungary’s post-war Communist period, in the building where rebels from both parties and champions of freedom were once imprisoned, tortured, and executed. In the basement I walked through a labyrinth of cells, displaying means of torture and photographs of victims.
Preserving history
For me, one of the hardest facts about Hungarian history to grasp was that the communist period did not end until 1989. This small gap in time connects the communist past and the democratic present. The people of Budapest, especially ones who we met working in the tourist industry, are charged with respectfully commemorating the past and modernizing the city. A tour guide at the synagogue shared the customs of a dwindling religiously Jewish community, keeping them alive, and our hostel owner was quick to remind us that every ruin bar and trendy street has a story that should not be overlooked. This urgency towards remembrance takes shape in the museums and memorials that moved me during the trip.
Budapest today
The present Budapest is a party city fit for the backpacker’s budget. We heard tales of the vibrant nightlife there from many travelers before our visit, and many after. Within the Jewish Quarter, now a central location for a variety of restaurants, bars, and hostels, we attended a Latin Dance Social where locals and visitors met over a love for dance. We spent time in this area with new friends from our hostel. Ultimately, the city was the ideal environment for an exchange of cultures, ideas, and laughter. In the square outside of our hostel, which was in a quiet building closer to the Central Market Hall, we witnessed two separate peaceful demonstrations surrounding multiple social justice topics. To me, this exemplified the city’s current role as the capital of Hungary in advocating for the dialogue of thoughts and ideas throughout the country. With its ruin bars, memorials, and architecture fit to both imperial and communist standards, our visit to Budapest was the exploration of an immersive timeline that warranted grief, celebration, and reflection.
References
“Holy Right.” Szent István Bazilika – Budapest, Szent István Bazilika, https://www.bazilika.biz/en/holy-right.
“Shoes on the Danube.” The Travelbunny, Suzanne Jones, 24 Feb. 2021, https://thetravelbunny.com/shoes-on-the-danube-memorial/#:~:text=The%20Shoes%20on%20the%20Danube%20is%20made%20up%20of%20sixty,are%20among%20the%20memorial%20shoes.
“Budapest Ghetto Mass Graves, Holocaust Cemetery.” Great Synagogue, https://www.greatsynagogue.hu/gallery_cemetery.html.
“Hungary.” Hungary | Communist Crimes, Communist Crimes, https://communistcrimes.org/en/countries/hungary.