Audible gasps can be heard when visitors
enter Budapest's cavernous Dohany Street
Synagogue, a vast, cathedral-like Moorish
structure that seats 3,000 worshippers and
is the second-largest synagogue in the world.
The story is somewhat different here. Hun-
gary's estimated tallies range between
80,000 and 110,000 Jews today, almost all of
them in the capital. However, with the rise
of the anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic Jobbik
political party, the community, explains our
guide, Kathy, has split into three camps: The
young and trendy, who are not afraid; the
"philosophers and thinkers" who feel Jews
have a place in Hungary; and those over 70,
who don't feel secure "because they see a
repetition of old patterns."
Among several here, by far the most
haunting monument to the Holocaust,
which claimed 565,000 Hungarian-speaking
Jews, lies on the west bank of the Danube, a
stone's throw from the ornate parliament
building. It can be easily missed. Over the
length of a football field lie 60 pairs of
bronzed shoes (real ones imported from the
museum at Auschwitz), a memorial to thou-
sands of Jewish men, women and children
shot into the river, after being forced to
remove their footwear, in late 1944 and early
1945 by members of the pro-Nazi Arrow
Cross militia. Unveiled a decade ago, it is
heartbreaking yet simple.
This sort of trip can be informative, even
fun. Although I certainly have no regrets,
I found it intensely personal, by turns emo-
tionally draining and exhilarating, a showcase
of the mostly vanished. However, the heavy
hand of history is buoyed by hope, a state of
affairs perhaps best reflected by Hannah
Landsmann, a member of Vienna's Jewish
community, who replies to a question about
the Jewish situation succinctly: "Despite all
odds, we are still here."
DREAMSCAPES WINTER 2015/2016
54
DS
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:
The graves of Bratislava's most prominent rabbis lie
in a mausoleum beneath city streets.
102-year-old Marko Feingold is the self-described
"conscience of Salzburg's Jewish community,"
which numbers between 30 and 50 members.
The exterior of Salzburg's synagogue.
T R A V E L P L A N N E R
For more information, visit:
Avalon Waterways Jewish Heritage European River Cruises:
avalonwaterways.ca/jewish-heritage-river-cruises
Budapest's "Shoes on the Danube" memorial: visitbudapest.travel/articles
/one-of-budapests-most-moving-memorials-shoes-on-the-danube
Chatam Sofer Memorial, Bratislava: chatamsofer.sk
Jewish Prague: jewishprague.info
Romantic Danube Jewish Heritage Tour:
amawaterways.com/the-romantic-danube-jewish-heritage-2015
Vienna Jewish Museum: jmw.at/en
Viking Danube River Cruise: vikingrivercruisescanada.com/cruise-destinations
/Europe/romantic-danube/2015-budapest-nuremberg/explore.html
