Obj. ID: 33550
Jewish Architecture  Holocaust memorial next to the Neolog Synagogue in Újpest, Budapest, Hungary, 1948

To the main object: Neolog Synagogue in Újpest, Budapest, Hungary

Who is Commemorated?

Jewish victims of the Holocaust from Újpest

Description

The memorial consists of two joined structures opening onto a grassy open courtyard next to the (now restored) Újpest Neolog synagogue. The distinct but adjacent pavilions contain memorial plaques.

A portico structure which backs up against Jozef Attila utca has a single continuous wall of joining plaques that list the names of Jews from Újpest who were deported in 1944 and killed (mostly at Auschwitz). The portico is built of square stone blocks. Rectangular stone piers support a Hebrew inscription below the cornice. Inside the portico, on the rear wall, are installed black slabs inscribed with the names of more than 12,000 victims. The slabs were designed by Marianne Korosi and installed in 1947. Beside the names of the victims are their ages, showing those murdered ranged from one-year-old infants to people in their nineties. A space at the western edge of the portico has 25 "private" plaques with name of individual peaople or families. 

An enclosed structure facing Bereviczy Gergely utca, with a large arched entrance, is designed as a kind of a prayer space/hall. Its street facade is surmounted by the Tablets of the Law and has two elongated windows that also allude to the Tablets. Window traces feature a menorah. The courtyard facade is also surmounted by the Tablets of the Law and the upper glass at the arched entrance bear a Hebrew and a Hungarian citation from Isaiah 40:1. The structure contains memorial plaques to the Jews of Szentendre, Rákospalota, and the Mandel family.

On the outer wall of the portico section, beginning at the intersection of Bereviczy Gergely utca and Jozef Attila utca, and continuing down Attila utca, are four large white stone narrative reliefs that face the public street and tell the story of the deportation. Through the detailed insignia carved on the figures, the perpetrators (local gendarmes, Arrow Cross militias, and Nazis) who carried out the atrocities are clearly identified, as are the liberators (Red Army).

The reliefs depict four scenes illustrating the fate of Újpest Jews.

1. deportation (gendarmes with crane feathers on their caps, push Jews into railway cars);
2. forced labor service (militia with Arrow Cross armbands oversee the forced laborers);
3. death at Auschwitz (soldiers wearing swastikas drive women and children with shaved heads into the gas chambers, and the chimneys of the crematoria are shown);
4. liberation of the ghetto (soldiers of the Red Army).

This memorial is the work of Hungarian-Jewish artist Edith Kiss and was unveiled in July 1948. The narrative of deportation and forced labor reflects Kiss’s own experience.

The narrative sculptures are carved in high relief but set deep into the stone so that the edge of each block frames each scene. The style of the relief is representational and illustrative and meant to be realistic. The scenes include a mix of men, women, and children. The figures are arranged in a linear fashion, always moving from right to left, except in the liberation scenes where the movement of the Jewish victims is stopped by the Soviet Red Army soldiers. Many figures are shown expressing fatigue grief, terror, and mourning. The overall effect recalls ancient Greek temple friezes, and even more so Roman and Early Christian carved sarcophagi. These reliefs were unveiled the same year as the better-known Warsaw Uprising monument by Natan Rapoport, which also includes a low relief of Jews being led to death by soldiers.

Inscriptions

Hebrew inscription below the cornice of the portico: 

לזכר אחינו שנהרגו שנשרפו שנשחטו ושנחנקו על קדוש השם

Translation: To memory of our brothers that were killed and slaughtered and asphyxiated for the sanctification of God's name.

The wall of plaques in the portico has 64 columns of names of Újpest Jews. In its center, between columns 32 and 33, there is a wider plaque with a Hungarian inscription:

VI NE ÖLJ!
[inscribed inside the Tablets of the Law]

Gyászoló testvérünk!
Ki könnyeket ontasz
családod mártirjaiért
áldozd a kegyelet
egy percét azoknak,
kik küzdöttek, harcoltak,
együtt szenvedtek veled
és életük feláldozásával
kisérelték megmenteni
az üldözötteket:

Balla Gyuláné 52
37 testvérünket mentve áldozta életét
Balla Gyula 74

Translation: The 6th Commandment: Though shalt not kill! / Our grieving brother! You who shed tears for the martyrs of your family, dedicate a minute of reverence to those who struggled, fought, and suffered together with you and sacrificed their lives trying to save the persecuted: / Balla Gyula, 52 [at the time of her death] sacrificed her life to protect the lives of 37 of our brothers and sisters / Balla Gyula, [was] 74 [when he died].

Gondolj a szabadság
az emberi haladás
és az igazi emberiesség
névtelen vértanuira.

Translation: Remember the nameless martyrs [who sacrificed their lives] for freedom, for human progress and for true humanity.

The Hungarian inscription in a frame reads:

Idegen földben porladó, agyonhajszolt
ujpesti munkaszolgálatos testvéreink
emlékére
nevüket egyedül isten őrzi,
szenvedésüket megörökiti kegyeletünk.

Translation: In memory of our brothers from Újpest crushed in companies for forced labor, whose dust lies in a foreign land only God keeps their names, their suffering is perpetuated by our piety.

A Hebrew and Hungarian inscription at the glass covering the large arched entrance to the hall reads: 

נחמו נחמו עמי

Vigasztaljátok, vigasztaljátok, Népemet…

Translation: Comfort, comfort my people [Isaiah 40:1]