Holocaust Memorial Centre
City: Budapest
Area: District 9.
Phone: 455-3320
Opening Hours: Tue-Sun: 10–18
This Neolog Synagogue, inaugurated in 1924, is the work of architect Lipót Baumhorn, who designed no less than 22 synagogues in the territory of historical, pre-WWI Hungary. The temple functioned until 1944, when it was turned into an internment station.
Its permanent exhibition bears the title „From Deprivation to Genocide", displaying the typical stages persecution instead of the chronological view (rights deprivation, assets deprivation, incarceration, dignity deprivation, extermination). The inner courtyard, with walls eight metres tall, features the Victims' Memorial Wall, which shows the names of all Hungarian Holocaust victims. The Tower of Lost Communities, standing in the middle of the same courtyard, displays the names of 1441 Hungarian settlements, where entire Jewish communities had perished.
After the year 1990, the Jewish youth organizations Kidma and Hashomer were accommodated in the main building. By this time, the temple was in a bad state of deterioration. In 1999, the Alliance of the Jewish Communities of Hungary has offered that the building give home to the Holocaust Documentation and Memorial Centre Foundation. The restoration works began in 2003.
A photograph from the 1930-s served as a model for the reconstruction of the original parts of the temple. The walls were reinforced and the whole building was nicely renovated. A smaller part of the temple still serves as a prayer house, seating about 80 worshippers.
