Our weather continues to be sunny and hot. I remember my mother always evaluated a trip by the quality of the weather. I resented the emphasis on elements so out of our control and yet I find myself doing the same thing.
We head to the zoo early to avoid the crowds . The bus delivered us to “Hero’s Square” and Lorena got to photograph it with only two groups of Chinese tourists. We walked up right to the zoo ticket counter at 9:00 am. The funny thing was that most of the exhibits did not open till 10:00. The zoo was a bit sad. It was not that well kept up and a lone sea otter in an exhibit cried out for company. We rushed away feeling distressed and I tried to feel better remembering that river otters ate Star and Mary’s koi fish. It didn’t work.
We really did enjoy watching them feed the polar bears from under the water.. It was one of those underground glass cave areas and the keepers were thowing out chicken pieces. The ravenous bears would grab the food chewing like mad while floating down and them scramble up to the surface to grab another piece. The children were shriking in delight along with the adults.
Our next stop was the “House of Terror”. It is a museum that chronicled the German and Soviet occupation of Hungry. They had newsreels, propaganda, clothes and the acutal rooms that people were interigated in. It was sobering. But Lorena’s back was hurting her from the slow pace of the zoo walk so I found myself with many reasons for just wanting to get out of there. We took an easy afternoon and read in the apartment. (The new Olive Kittridge novel is out!) I found a restaurant that served grilled chicken and salads. Boy, that sounded appealing after all this heavily sauced food.
We got another reality check after dinner when we stopped at a Ruin bar for a drink. We sat with an Israeli man and his daughter. We chatted and he told us the story of his family. I will let Lorena tell that story as she followed the details.
He begins by admitting to being “wine happy,” and then asks our permission to tell us his story as he is a Jew of Hungarian origin. I lean in. His family came from a small town and his grandfather worked for the Hungarian railways and was therefore was a man of some stature. Nevertheless, he no power when two of his sons were recruited for hard labor, clearing mine fields during the war. It was so cold, the skin on their feet stuck to the earth. His father watched his brother freeze to death. The grandfather was able to intervene and bring his son out of labor and back home, but the mother was so aggrieved by her son’s death that she blamed the brother for not doing more. His father couldn’t endure his mother’s blame, so he left home. When the Nazi’s came to power, his remaining uncle and his grandfather were shipped to Auschwitz. No food. Starvation. Somehow his uncle survived as this was the end of the war.
Essentially, he wanted us to understand that the Hungarians sold out the Jews to the Nazis who then killed all the Jews in Hungary. After the war father returned to Budapest and lived on Dob Utca 21 (just around the corner). He managed to flee the Communist regime by defecting to London during an academic conference and move with his brother and children to Israel. He said “I was not in the Holocaust, but I feel as though I had lived it. My father suffered terribly. My uncle wore the tattoo from Auschwitz. I had an aunt whose husband was killed at the bank of the Danube. One of those pairs of shoes were his.”
K & L's Travel Blog 
Dear Kitty and Lorena: what a joy it has been to travel with you vicariously! Thank you for all your beautiful stories but especially this one. As generations flow on it is too easy to forget this evil that overcame and fooled so many. Today we have similar evil on many fronts and we need to see that. We must always remember this story and tell it forward so it is never forgotten. To help people see. I am deeply moved by this story and think: how do we oppose evil today?. Love Susan
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
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Hi Susan and Bill, So pleased to hear you are enjoying the blog. We are spending our Sat. night in our oversized apartment here in Graz. History has been a theme and we’ve spent much time thinking through how the sins of the past are lining up (and not) with the sins of the present. Both Austria and Hungary are quite conservative these days with politics I find troubling, though the recent Budapest elections saw the Greens gaining ground. Austria has more diversity than Hungary and it feels less homophobic. At any rate, it is good to broaden horizons and have some base of comparison for our own…our own…times. Thanks for following!
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You never know what stories may unfold when connecting with “wine happy” people – who become fast friends and confidants. Perhaps Kitty will start drinking wine one day – we might learn more about her.
😉
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Kitty asks if this is Richard or Eric speaking? K is working on her wine drinking, and will surely have some stories to share when we return!
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Glad you are having nice weather. Wow, that encounter at the Ruin Bar was amazing! What an honor to meet someone like him and hear his story in person!
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You are so right about feeling honored.
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This is all rather overwhelming, I imagine. Just going into the Holocaust Museum in DC was terribly sad. The shoes are amazing. So great to have met that Jewish man and talk to him. Kitty, can’t wait to read that novel.
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Hi Jane, We haven’t been to the DC museum, but need to do that. My general impression is that Austria and esp. Hungary could do more to highlight their ignoble and inhumane pasts. I’m wondering how I can do more to actively counter our ignoble and inhumane present!
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I am a friend of Peter Pirozzi from high school days, he sent me your blog, very interesting. There is a wonderful synagoue in Budapest which tells more of the Nazi story. They took over the city, and the synagogue which was used as a meeting house for Nazis. Our Rabbi in Berkeley, Ca was a kid at this time, and recalls hiding out and starving as well. He is now a part time Rabbi in Budapest after living in the US a long time. There is now a small Jewish community and they all have a story , very sad the history of what happened there. But thanks for the lovely photos, I loved BUdapest, but it was not kind to the Jews.
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Hi Lilikoi, I’m glad to hear you are enjoying the blog. We did make it to the Dohany Street Synagogue. It was a good tour and some amazing monuments. I was shocked to hear how small the community is in BDP given the vibrancy of the neighborhood, though the more we learned, the more that made sense. Thanks for your comment!
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Hi Helen! Nothing like a jaunt through Hungarian history to help put humanity’s capacity for cruelty into perspective. I am hoping the US can make it through 2020 without any more unnecessary violence. As always, our gratitude to you for igniting our Wanderlust those many years ago.
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Amazing day. Reality check of how horrid groups can be to others. ( this short message has taken me ten minutes to write….. just didn’t know HOW to comment on these events)
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