Budapest Synagog

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This is a beautiful large synagog in Budapest.  The stained glass and tire work on the sides, mostly in the pattern of star-of-David, are very beautiful.  Also along the side is a long row of important Jewish members of the Budapest community – famous writers, singers, professors, etc., many with lives that ended in 1944.  The building is now a museum.

Budapest Streets

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I have previously posted photos of streets in Szczecin, Warsaw and Poznan, but Budapest is the best of those put on steroids.  No way to get photos of these.  Big, incredibly fancy late 19th century buildings everywhere, block after block of them.  The late 19th century was a period of great prosperity for Budapest, and I am sure I will find Vienna as well.  This was the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and of course all this ended with World War I.  There is also statuary everywhere.  Of all the places that I have seen in Europe, this in the one place I know I need to return to, there is so much.

Holocaust Memorial

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Along that avenue is this fairly recently built Holocaust Memorial.  This covers the area of a city block – another portion that became available after The Wall came down.  The Memorial consists of rows and rows – there must be thousands – of large concrete blocks of various sizes, all in neat rows without sign or explanation.  There are many people just walking among all this.  This is easily the most evocative memorial, of any kind, that I have ever seen.

Route of the old Wall

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This is a very large avenue, with walking trails and bike paths on both sides.  Where did they get all of this room – from The Wall.  There was behind the eastern side of the wall, a 100 meter “killing zone” with machine gun emplacements and obstacles to prevent people from crossing (still, hundreds tried and died in the attempt).  There is a lengthy display along this path of photos that show what this route used to look like.  The Communists in Germany were only marginally better than the Nazis.

Checkpoint Charlie and The Wall

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I meet Kate at the airport in Berlin for a ten day tour of capitals in Eastern Europe – Budapest, Brataslawa & Vienna (capitals of Hungary, Slovakia, Austria).  And we start in Berlin, capital of Germany of course., at least since The Wall came down.  We have a few hours before the plane to Budapest so we go to … Checkpoint Charlie, the old Cold War crossing between East and West Germany in the Bad Old Days.  This is now a tourist attraction, with people dressed in period American Uniforms (your picture with him for 3 Euro) and so forth.  Second picture is of me at a preserved section of The Wall.  I am facing the eastern side, and a MacDonald’s.