May 6 - Budapest Jewish Interest Tour

May 4 2012 - Copenhagen to Budapest

May 5 2012 - Gate 1 Budapest

May 6 part 1 - Budapest Jewish Interest Tour

May 2012 - Budapest Hungary

I will split today's post into two sections.

 We had not planned on taking the optional Jewish Interest Tour but signed up for it once we arrived in Budapest.
It is a Sunday morning tour before we board our ship the Sound of Music later in the afternoon. We need to have our bags out before we leave on the tour.

I must mention, before I start, that we had to go through security checks before entering the synagogue and the Holocaust museum.

The tour starts at Budapest Great Synagogue (Dohany utcai Zsinagoga). Our guide is very informative. Kate mentions that as a child growing up under communism she had no idea that she was Jewish, there was no history lessons in school about Nazis or World War II. She said she was 20 before she began reading about the atrocities and she learned about her religion when her children went to school.

Jews were banned from the city in the 18th century so they established a Jewish quarter just outside the old city boundary. Remains of the old Pest city walls run on the opposite side of the road.

The Jews built their main synagogue in a residential area. Theodore Herzl, founder of modern Zionism was born in one of the buildings. This stunning temple was constructed between 1844-59 according to Ludwig Förster's plans. The second largest synagogue (the largest stands in New York although some Hungarians would disagree) in the world can hold 3,000 people. Two onion-shaped domes sit on the twin towers at 43 m height. The towers symbolize the two columns of Solomon's Temple.

The spacious interior has equally rich decorations. A single-span cast iron supports the 12-m wide nave. The seats on the ground-floor are for men, while the upper gallery has seats for women. Surprisingly the synagogue has an organ, pulpits and kneeing benches though these features are normally found in Christian churches,not synagogues.
According to our guide, the elders couldn't agree on an architect so they hired a Christian hence some of the Christian elements. It was built between 1854 and 1859 by Ludwig Forster, a German-born Austrian architect. The original was bombed by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party in 1939, also mentioned in my past post..

The organ was played by Franz Liszt during the synagogue's inauguration.

The synagogue avoided serious damage during the war, likely because the Nazis protected it for their own uses: they put radio antennas on the two towers, stabled their horses in the nave, and according to some sources may have had a Gestapo base in the balcony.

During the Communist period, many windows were broken and the Jews boarded up the synagogue. An ambitious restoration was recently completed, funded in large part by famous Americans Tony Curtis and Estée Lauder, who are of Hungarian-Jewish descent. The building's original splendor is now fully apparent.

Its ark contains 25 torah scrolls taken from other synagogues destroyed during the Holocaust. The torahs were saved by Christian priests and ministers who entered the ghetto and rescued the torahs and buried them in Christian graveyards until they were returned after the war.

The second part of the tour, and the most heart wrenching is the memorial garden and the remembrance garden. 

Budapest's great synagogue witnessed many tragic events in WW II.

In March 1944, Adolf Eichmann arrived in Budapest with the occupying Nazi forces to supervise the establishment of the Jewish ghetto and the subsequent deportations. For a time, Eichman had an office behind the rose window in the women's balcony.

Up to 20,000 Jews took refuge inside the synagogue complex during the war, but 7,000 people perished during the bleak winter of 1944-45. These victims are buried in the courtyard, where you can also see a piece of the original brick ghetto wall.


Next to the main building is the Jewish Heroes' Mausoleum and Temple in memory of the thousands of Jews who died during the Second World War. The Memorial Garden contains monuments to Jews who died in the Holocaust and to non-Jews who protected their Jewish neighbors.

Like many of the Nazi occupied territories, the Jews were driven into a ghetto surrounding this synagogue. Sadly, many of these people froze and starved to death, and their bodies were left in piles within the synagogue walls. The Soviets, after liberating Budapest, devised a system of mass graves in which to place all 2,228 bodies that were in the ghetto, at the time. It looks like a peaceful place, but in 1945, this was a very different matter.

There is a huge metal weeping willow tree called The Tree of Life which contains leaves engraved with the names of  Jews who perished under the Nazis. You can also see a piece of brick from the original ghetto wall in the garden.

The inscription reads "is there a bigger pain than mine?". It resembles an upside down menorah.

At the end of each branch is a Roman numeral to assist families in locating their leaf.

This was erected in 1990 soon after the fall of communism made it possible to acknowledge the Holocaust.

 Our guide, Kate, showing us the leaf engraved with her grandmother's name.

The small stones are typical of Jewish cemeteries evoking the age-old tradition of placing pebbles over desert graves to cover the body and prevent animals from disturbing it.

The best known Righteous Gentile honoured by Jews around the world is Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat and businessman who rescued around 60000 Hungarian Jews during World War 2. He was considered a rich playboy and got the job because no one else wanted it.
In July 1944 the Swedish Foreign Ministry, at the request of Jewish and refugee organizations in the USA, sent Wallenberg on a rescue mission to Budapest as an attache to the embassy there.
When Wallenberg reached the Swedish legation in Budapest in July 1944, the campaign against the Jews of Hungary had already been underway for several months. Between May and July 1944, Eichmann and his associates had successfully deported over 400,000 Jews by freight train. Of those deported all but 15,000 were sent directly to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in southern Poland. By the time of Wallenberg’s arrival there were only 230,000 Jews remaining in Hungary.
Wallenberg immediately began issuing Swedish ‘protective passports’ with the less well-known diplomats Carl-Ivan Danielsson (1880-1963) and Per Anger (1913-2002). He also set up a series of safe houses placing flags of neutral countries on houses where Jews could seek asylum. He even followed deportation trains, distributing food and clothing and actually pulling some people off the cars along the way.
When the Soviet army entered Budapest in January 1945, the authorities arrested Wallenberg for espionage and sent him to Moscow. In the early 1950s the Soviet Union announced that he had in fact died of a heart attack in 1947. Several reports later suggested that Wallenberg was still alive, but none was ever confirmed.
It is commonly believed that Wallenberg was executed by the Soviets, who suspected him of spying for the USA.
The memorial is also etched with the names of other Righteous Gentiles who helped save Jews. According to the Talmud "whoever saves one life, saves the world entire".

This stained glass represents the Holocaust as a wall of fire (removal of hope) and a snake (Fascism) to remind all of the terror that was felt by the Jewish people of Budapest and the rest of Europe.

These alcoves are labeled for victims and contain lights that come on when darkness falls.

And finally to make you smile after reading this gruesome post, there is always a souvenir shop!

The tour continued with a stop at the Holocaust Museum. Unfortunately, we did not have a lot of time and you could easily spend a whole day here. Some people, however, cannot handle it and often come back out immediately. 

The museum was created around a synagogue which is no longer in use as there are not enough Jews left in Budapest to support the number of synagogues they had before the Holocaust. The Holocaust Memorial Center pays tribute to the victims of the Hungarian Holocaust. The complex, inaugurated in 2004, houses a synagogue, a museum and an inner courtyard with a glass memorial wall dedicated to the over 500,000 victims with their names inscribed on the wall. The museum's permanent exhibition tells the history of the Holocaust through the stories of individuals in an interactive way. Original documents and personal belongings are on display.
It was an eerie, disturbing place to visit. It also includes the gypsies, Romas as part of the displays as the Nazis included them in their persecutions as well.When the Soviet Army captured Budapest on January 17-18, 1945, it was too late to save the lives of 564,500 Jews who had been sent to the various death-camps run by the Nazis. The Budapest SS headquarters, however, was over-run by the Soviets before the Nazis were able to destroy a huge number of papers which documented their efforts to annihilate the Hungarian Jews. These documents, together with many of the photographs that are part of this essay, were bundled up by the Soviets and stored in the basement of the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior where they remained unseen for over forty years.

 As you walked around in partial darkness, you could hear footsteps following you.

 One of the priests who saved many Jews.

Glass chairs represent the victims in the unused synagogue.

Outside in the courtyard.

 We make one more stop at a very sad memorial that will send shivers up your spine. It is called Shoes on the Danube and is located in front of the parliament and between the two bridges along the Danube.

The Shoes on the Danube is a memorial to the Budapest Jews who were shot by Arrow Cross militiamen between 1944 and 1945. The victims were lined up and shot into the Danube River. They had to take their shoes off, since shoes were valuable belongings at the time.
The Nazis had installed the fascist Hungarian Red Arrow Party as the country’s national government. Herds of Red Arrow members, mostly teenage boys, would rampage the streets of Budapest firing at will at Jews. The most notorious massacres were when mobs of supporters would round up groups of Jews and march them to the banks of the Danube. Here, after being made to take off their shoes, they would be blasted into the icy waters. Around 10,000 to 15,000 were killed in this way.
The memorial was created by Gyula Pauer, Hungarian sculptor, and his friend Can Togay in 2005. It contains 60 pairs of iron shoes, forming a row along the Danube. Each pair of shoes was modeled after an original 1940's pair.

Eastern Europe and Balkans Unveiled CANCELLED

 October 2026 

This is the river cruise that wasn't!! We knew about the low water levels and were aware that the ships would be used as our hotels (being moved to other stranded ships) and we would be bussed for excursions. All the cruise lines were doing the same things on the Rhine and the Danube.

Extreme heat and prolonged drought pushed Europe's second-longest river to its lowest levels in roughly 30 years.

I followed all the river cruise FB pages to keep up with the status.

We weren't happy but knew they were offering discounts and we would already be in Europe a week before and a week after the cruise so we figured we'd make the best of it.

However, the Hungarian government issued a "no cruise" mandate which meant they had to cancel. We were extremely pleased that they offered a full refund, some lines only offered credits for other cruises, I would not have been happy with that.

VIDEO

My draft version originally.

I'm calling this the "best of both worlds" river cruise. John really wanted a river cruise, bus tours can be so tiring, moving every day and spending hours on a bus in close quarters.

I wanted to go to Eastern Europe. I thought we had exhausted all the river cruises, click here for our list.

I looked for one that didn't start somewhere we had already been, but settled on this one departing from Budapest Hungary.

Eastern Europe & Balkans Unveiled

Route & Key Stops

• Budapest (Hungary): Journey start point featuring grand architecture along the Danube.

• Mohács (Hungary): Gateway for local traditions and regional access.

• Vukovar & Osijek (Croatia): Stops showcasing well-preserved Baroque architecture and local heritage.

• Belgrade (Serbia): An eclectic capital at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, featuring Kalemegdan Fortress and a private crypt choir performance at St. Sava Church.

• The Iron Gates (Serbia/Romania): Scenic daytime navigation through narrow gorges and soaring limestone cliffs along the natural border.

• Bulgarian Stops (Svishtov, Rousse, Silistra): Access points for historical tours, local village visits, and ancient fortresses.

• Bucharest (Romania): Trip conclusion in the vibrant capital known as the "Paris of the East".

Lavazza

 Linking up with Marg at The Intrepid Reader

Weekend Coffee Share
Sunday Salon

Sherry's Pickings

Monday Morning Blog Club at Sticky Mud and Belly Laughs

T Stands for Tuesday

Small Pleasures

2 October 2026 - Toronto ON

KING ST. W TORONTO ON

SEPTEMBER RECAP

Last Week's Post

SATURDAY

We slept well after the cell phone panic!! The hotel had a complimentary breakfast buffet.

We then went for a walk around noon, along Rue St. Denis, known as the Latin Quarter.

Murals found. And some signs.

The historic bell tower of the former Saint-Jacques Cathedral, also known as the UQAM Bell Tower. Built between 1822 and 1825, it served as the city's Roman Catholic cathedral from 1825 to 1852. The main church building suffered severe damage from multiple fires in 1852, 1858, and 1933.  The surviving bell tower and portal were later integrated into the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) campus.

Beautiful old buildings converted into restaurants and bars with international tastes.

Quiet at this time of day, the area becomes lively late afternoon on.

The Saint-Sulpice Library (Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice), designed in the Beaux-Arts style by architect Eugène Payette and built between 1912 and 1914. Opened in 1915 as the first major French-language library in Montreal, commissioned by the Sulpicians. 

It was designated a Historic Monument of Quebec in 1988. The building is being repurposed to house La Maison de la chanson et de la musique du Québec, a cultural center celebrating Quebec's musical and song heritage.

.

The Pavillon Athanase-David is the oldest building on the central campus of Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM).

1903: The building was designed in the elegant Beaux-Arts style with classic elements by the prominent architect and engineer Joseph-Émile Vanier.1905–1958.

It originally served as the home of the École Polytechnique de Montréal before the engineering school relocated to the main Université de Montréal campus on Mount Royal.1958–1973.

After the engineering school left, the building housed various institutions, including the Institut des arts appliqués and the Cégep du Vieux-Montréal.

1969: The building was renamed in honor of Athanase David, a prominent Quebec lawyer and politician who spearheaded the creation of the provincial National Archives and the École des beaux-arts.

1973–Present (UQAM Acquisition): UQAM acquired the property in August 1973. Following a massive restoration project in 1989 that revitalized its historic stone architecture, it reopened in 1992 as the primary administrative headquarters and rectorate for the university.

Back on St. Catherine in the heart of the Gay Village.

The historic Tessier Building (Édifice Tessier) was constructed in 1895 during a period when Sainte-Catherine Street East was transitioning into a primary French-language commercial artery.

 The building was constructed as a four-story, multi-unit stone structure to serve as mixed-use commercial space on the ground floor with offices or workshops above, matching the burgeoning clothing, textile, and retail trade of the area.

We didn't find any viable open options for lunch so we were reduced to burgers at A&W.

This English sign puzzled me as we are deep in the east end of Montreal which has always been French in my time.

The prominent "Northeastern Lunch" ghost sign carved into the building's stone façade links it to a distinct chapter of Montreal's cultural, wartime, and literary history.

The Northeastern Lunch Co. Ltd. was a popular local diner chain that first opened in 1912. At its peak, the company operated multiple busy branches across major thoroughfares in Montreal, including locations on St-Jacques Street, Queen Mary Road, the Sun Life Building, and several along Sainte-Catherine.

Between World War I and World War II, the chain became an iconic refuge for working-class Montrealers, who would famously queue outside for five-cent plates of pork and beans. The chain ultimately filed for bankruptcy in 1934 during the height of the Great Depression.

My favourite part.

The location holds particular cultural value for its direct tie to legendary Montreal poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen.

At the age of 20 in 1954, Cohen wrote one of his earliest poems, titled "Les vieux" (The Old Men).

The poem was directly inspired by the working-class elderly men he watched huddling inside the diner, opening with the lines:"Northeastern Lunch / with rotting noses and tweed caps, / huddling in thick coats..."

The stone sign itself became a piece of local news when it reappeared in 2015. For decades, the historic stone engraving had been hidden behind heavy plastic signs from modern commercial tenants, including a local adult boutique and peep-show shop. Following a nearby fire and subsequent structural restoration work, the modern storefront was removed, uncovering the original 100-year-old masonry underneath and preserving a physical window into Montreal's past.

Hotel Eureka: For a significant portion of its history, the venue operated under the name Hotel Eureka.

It later rebranded to Hotel Arena Palace, transitioning to fit the vibrant, casual atmosphere of the surrounding Gay Village neighborhood.

 It serves as an example of a traditional urban residential hotel. Historically, these structures offered compact, unpretentious, no-frills lodging options—including setups with shared hallway bathrooms—catering strictly to budget travelers, workers, and transit passengers coming through the nearby Berri-UQAM transport hub. The old bus terminal is now being torn down and replaced.

While many historic Montreal hotels have been thoroughly modernized into sleek boutique stays, the Arena Palace has fundamentally resisted major updates.

Vintage Hardware: Guests frequently note that the building still uses hallway water closets and hardware.

No-Frills Setup: Many rooms only contain a standalone sink right next to the bed, relying entirely on communal hallway bathrooms—a rare glimpse into how basic transit hotels operated a century ago.

 An Accidental "Horror Movie" Aesthetic 

Because the interior features heavily layered, painted-over brick, incredibly narrow corridors, dim lighting, and a lack of modern amenities like televisions, the hotel has gained a bit of a cult reputation online. Reviewers frequently describe the property on travel forums as having an accidental, eerie "horror movie" or "murdery" vibe. It serves as a fascinating spot for backpackers looking for a raw, eccentric glimpse of old-school urban Montreal rather than a polished vacation.

John's daughter picked us up at 2 and we spent the rest of the day and evening visiting and eating.

SUNDAY

One Word Sunday

We were lazy Sunday morning, not bothering to go out until John's son picked up for another family evening.

MONDAY

Monday Mural

Foto Tunes

We had breakfast at the hotel before checking out at 11 and took an Uber to Central Station (Gare Centrale)

Our departure time was 1:22. I had veal meatloaf and John had salmon, both were surprisingly good. We were 30 minutes late arriving but we were able to catch the 7:45 bus.

Waiting for the shuttle.

.

We started watching Last Seen, an Australian thriller television miniseries. Ian, an alcoholic former police officer, now emergency dispatcher, receives a call about a body found near his home; he thinks it may be his daughter, who went missing 11 years previously.

TUESDAY

Tuesday Treasures

T Stands for Tuesday

John golfed and I ran to Longo's for a few groceries.

Great expression from A Place to Call Home - "I hope you're hungry, because I could eat the arse of a low flying duck"!

And "I may be an old lady, but I didn't come down in the last shower"!

WEDNESDAY

Signs Montreal

National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

We have spent a lot of time planning our October European trip which includes a river cruise. That said, we are not sure what will happen to the river cruise as Danube (and other rivers) are at really low water levels. From what I've seen online from people booked on ours and others with other cruise companies, we will be offered options about five days before the sailing date. Since we will already be in Europe at that time we will have to make some decisions.

Since the ships can't sail, one option offered is using the ships as hotels and being bussed to the sights and switching to an identical ship upriver. There are also discounts being offered. Some people are like us, they will already be there. Others have non-refundable flights booked. There seems to be a "it is what it is" attitude among passengers and making do. In some cases people are cancelling but I don't know what the details are about that as the fine print states that low water levels are parts of the T and C.

We will see... Update below.

John did a quick Costco run, look at that! under $100!!

John played golf and then went to his end of season banquet.

We were invited to an international wine and food tasting celebrating a company's 25th anniversary. I went on my own.

I came across this pretty coffee signs in Union Station.

Walking there I saw this new interesting coffee shop in Scotiabank Plaza.

 It was well done, set up in their corporate office, they used the conference rooms to represent various countries serving wines and food.

Waiting for the bux. CN Tower was lit up in orange for National Truth and Reconciliation Day.

Blue Jay uniforms have been replaced by Maple Leafs, playing their second game of the season tonight.

THURSDAY

Random Repost

Well river cruise problem solved! They have cancelled it now. I'm glad it is decided for us before we leave and we can make our own plans.

Unfortunately, European river levels continue to decline due to ongoing warm temperatures and very little precipitation. In addition to these challenging river conditions, the Hungarian authorities have announced a complete shipping closure at Paks, located between Budapest and Mohacs. The closure is required to support water management works associated with the operational safety of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant.

Image found of Book of Faces.

John took the car in for servicing and I had a mission to get a sweater I had spotted last night in Uniqlo at Union. It wasn't in my size however, I did buy two others, for fall and winter.

Royal York Hotel seasonal display.

THEN we spent the entire afternoon working out a plan for the days of our cancelled cruise. We almost have it finalized. It is a lot of work.

FRIDAY

We are both fighting colds since the train on Montreal. Other than John going a grocery run we stayed in. We had planned to go to the market.

We finalized our trip and all hotels are booked, we are happy, very happy with our revision.

The river cruise confirmed that we will get our refund WOO HOO! I am very pleased with our new plan and it cost a lot less than a river cruise.

We watched Dead Man's Wire,  2025 American crime thriller film based on true events.

On February 8, 1977, Tony Kiritsis entered the office of Richard Hall, president of the Meridian Mortgage Company, and took him hostage with a sawed-off shotgun wired with a "dead man's wire" from the trigger to Tony's own neck. The verdict left me shaking my head.

We also watched a documentary Top of the World, it tells the story of the legendary restaurant located on the 106th and 107th floors of the World Trade Center's North Tower through the firsthand accounts of its diverse, predominantly immigrant staff.

COOKING

Definitely nothing much on the menu this week!

Saturday - Montreal family pasta

Sunday - Montreal family steak

Monday - late lunch train

Tuesday - hamburger stew

Wednesday - out

Thursday - pork chops, mashed potatoes and beans 

Friday - steak frites

READING

I spent so much time on line planning our revised itinerary I barely read.

I did finish Our Beautiful Mess,perfectionist mother, family secrets, and a story told over the 11 days surrounding Christmas, what could be better. I really enjoyed it.

I started Sudden Death, but haven't got any thoughts as yet.