Final Excursion Post: Hungarian Holocaust Museum

      It’s hard to believe the time has finally come, but sadly this is the last field excursion blog of our trip. For our last adventure, the gang and I went to the Hungarian Holocaust Museum. It was a heavy-hearted trip but a necessary and important one. With all the fun we’ve been having and all of the cool experiences we’ve had I sometimes forget about the important events of modern human history that occurred in the city we’ve been lucky enough to call home for the last few months. We must take time to reflect about what happened here, as sad as it may be, because it would be an insult to each and every victim if we just pranced around the city without at least taking the time to understand that this place hasn’t always been such a nice place. The fact of the matter is that innocent people lose their lives in both Budapest and all over Europe. We live in a place where some very dark moments in mankind history occurred, and leaving here without an understanding of that would be insulting to the people who went through so much for no rhyme or reason

           

                                       We must never forget what happened in the 1940's                        

   The museum itself was extremely well-organized and neatly put together. The building and the exhibits were pristine and the layout was done from a chronological standpoint giving visitors a good understanding of the entire timeframe. We had a wonderful tour guide who explained to us quite thoroughly the unfortunate series of events which occurred during the 1940’s in as sensitive as a way possible without leaving out any of the important (and hard to swallow) details. We learned about the different propaganda the Nazi’s and the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party used to try to convince the people that the Jewish people were enemies. We saw videos of people being taken from their homes and stripped from their belongings. On the walls there were descriptions of different phases and aspects of Jewish people’s plight, and it was all very interesting and informative.

          

                         An example of propaganda was used to hurt the Jewish people

          One of the things that wrenched my gut the most was when she explained to us the story of the now infamous Dr. Mengele, also known as Dr. Death. I had heard about him before in high school, but I had for the most part forgotten about him before until I was refreshed in all the awful things he did. He used to use twins for all sorts of horrific tests with one of his main goals being to try to replicate the genes that cause women to birth twins in an attempt to get Aryan mothers to birth more children. In high school my professor also said that he used twins to have an accurate idea of what a subject looked before and after an experiment. As most of you probably know I am a twin myself, and the talk of all that made me sick. One always hears that the best way to truly understand what someone’s going through or went through is by trying to relate to what they went through, and when I thought about someone doing that to my brother and I when we were innocent small children I had to keep myself from getting emotional.

                                                      The portrait of evil: Dr. Mengele

          It does not take a poet to explain why the Holocaust was bad. I need not go into depth about each and every aspect of the Holocaust because they are engrained in us. We are all humans and when it comes down to it we’re all in this together. Some of us (The Nazi’s and the perpetrators) committed monstrous acts against another faction of us (The Jews, Gypsies, Handicapped, and all the other people affected by Holocaust). To reference Mark Twain in his story “Letters From Earth”, one observing our planet from above would only see what happens on our planet and wouldn’t understand the who, what, when, or why. All they would see is that one group of humans senselessly murdered countless numbers of another group. Therefore we should all feel remorse, anger, and pain for what happened and how a country as advanced as Germany would so quickly turn to something as horrible as Nazism. Hopefully these events will not repeat themselves, although events in Syria and other parts of the Middle East make me uneasy. All we can do is try to keep fighting the good fight in honor of all who have perished for no rhyme or reason, and hope that one day everyone will listen.

The long awaited Synagogue trip post

Quick sidenote: To my many fans that I have let down with the lateness of this response I apologize. I know you all turn to my blog for the best insights the world has to offer, and I can only imagine the supreme dissapointment you must have felt when you discovered that there was no post. I will try to emerge from this stronger, and this type of negligence will not happen again!

Today the gang and I visited the famous Jewish synagogue in Budapest. After walking by it many times on our way to watch the Patriots play at a nearby pub, it was about time we finally stepped in and saw what this building was all about. It is a massive brick building with a intricate designs of colors spread out on its walls, and it is a building that instantly catches the eye of anyone who walks by it. We arrived at the building right as it opened, and waited excitedly for the tour to begin. When the moment finally arrived the men in the group were told that they must put on hats or wear a yarmulke, for men were forbidden to go barehead into the holy place. I thought this was pretty cool and in direct contrast with the usual social norms regarding headwear and the indoors.

Sadly we were not able to wear a yarmulke on our visit!

                                

        Upon entering the building we were amazed to see how beautiful the synagogue was. Since arriving in Europe we have been lucky enough to see an array of all different types of amazing churches, and this was right on par with any we’ve seen so far. It was absolutely massive, we later learned it could seat over six thousand people! Our tour guide was a jovial young lad who explained to us the ins and outs of the synagogue. We learned that it is a traditional synagogue in the sense that only men are allowed to sit on the ground floor, while women must sit in the second and third levels. We also learned that the synagogue was designed to resemble a Christian church, in an attempt to better fit in with the Hungarian community.

                                                                     

                                           The beautiful inside of the synagogue

       When we exited the synagogue we were taken to the gravesites of many Jewish people who were killed during the atrocities of WWII/Halocaust. It was one of those moments that just sticks with you, there’s no real way to describe in words what you’re seeing. We were then taken to several memorials to the people who lost their lives and another for non-Jewish Hungarians who did the bravest deed of all and risked their own lives to help save some Jewish people. The entire memorial area was both beautiful and touching, and it I can’t imagine a nicer and more appropriate memorial for what it entails.

   When we left the memorial site we were then taken to the local Jewish Museum, where we were given a tour of both Jewish heritage and tradition and also more interesting/gut-wrenching facts about the plight of the Jewish people during the twentieth century. It was a really cool place and there were tons of cool exhibits and information that kept everyone interested and involved. Overall it was an educational and enlightening day. It made us take a break from our daily lives and spare a thought for the innocent people who lost their lives in perhaps the most senseless thing that mankind has ever done. It is not an easy thing to think about or grasp, but we owe it to all the victims to continue to spread the word of these atrocities so they are never repeated again.

                           This is the memorial tree that stands outside the synagogue. It is a touching tribute to the many who lost their lives, and it was donated by famous actor Tony Curtis