Three Days in Budapest

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Amy

Although leaving Poland was hard, arriving in Budapest was delightful. We weren’t even ripped off by the cabbie this time. We arrived at our hotel at 9 am after another overnight train, and when we walked into our hotel, the Boscolo, we were a bit in awe. We’ve never been in a hotel as beautiful as the Boscolo. The atrium in the lobby is glamorous and gorgeous. It may be a bit ornate for our usual taste, but there was no denying the way that large, well-lit, and finely decorated space made us feel. After a breakfast in their famous New York café, we were able to get an early check-in to our room, which also stopped us in our tracks—-a very large and well-appointed room with a little balcony. It felt like we were in some fantasy world.

The Boscolo

Breakfast at the New York Cafe in the Boscolo

Although it would have been tempting just to enjoy our surroundings, we had things to see and do. Although the concierge at the hotel warned us that our destinations would require a long walk, we were not intimidated. And as it turned out, although we walked quite a bit, we did not regret it. We love walking in cities (and beaches and just about anywhere); only by walking do you get a feel for the scale of a city and its buildings and only by walking do you make eye to eye contact with the people around you. So we ventured out for our first day in Budapest.

First, we went to the House of Terror, a museum that primarily tells the story of what life was like in Budapest under Soviet domination. The museum is in the building which the Soviets used as their headquarters and where they also imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured prisoners. The cells and the instruments of torture are still there. It is a powerful museum; the use of symbols is particularly effective. We were very moved by our experience there.

Our next stop was the Budapest Opera House, where we had tickets for a tour and a mini-concert. The opera house was impressive and uplifting, especially after the darkness of the House of Terror. The gold and red colors which ran throughout the building gave it a truly regal feeling. And the mini-concert was fun—one opera singer came out and performed two arias for us. (Don’t ask me what they were—-I am not really an opera fan.)

Hungarian State Opera House

We headed to our final stop for the afternoon, the Parliament, where we also had tickets for a tour. The Parliament is huge—I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a large building. It sits right on the Danube River, extending fairly far along its shore, and there is a huge open plaza surrounding the building. We strolled around, looking at the not-at-all blue Danube and across the river to Buda and then entered the building in time for our tour.

Hungarian Parliament

Danube River

The security to enter the building was more intense than what we had gone through at any airport, which was a bit unnerving. But once we were in, the guide led our group through the building, which was originally intended to be finished for the 1896 Millennial Celebration, but was not finished in time. Hungarians believe that the Magyars arrived from Asia to the Carpathian plains where Hungary is located around 895, but because plans for the millennial could not be completed in time for 1895, they postponed it a year and claim now that the country was founded in 896. Like so many countries in Central Europe, Hungary was subjected to many invasions and wars over the year, eventually becoming part of the Austria-Hungary Empire as the result of a compromise with the Habsburgs in 1867. The Parliament building was originally meant to be the Habsburg’s palace, but after World War I and the end of the Austria-Hungary Empire, it became the home of the Hungarian Parliament.

Like the Opera House and the hotel and many of the other buildings we would see in Budapest, it is an ornate and beautiful building, conveying a sense of prosperity and power. The crown jewels sit in a case under a large dome (we were not allowed to photograph them), evidence of the royalty who once ruled the land. We also saw the chambers of the Parliament, equipped with modern digital voting machines at each desk—a strange mix of the old and the new. It was a very interesting tour and gave us a quick overview of Hungarian history.

By that time we were a bit tired and hungry and ready to find a place to eat. We strolled along the river watching the Viking Cruise and other companies’ “river boats,” then turned to walk through the center of the city, where we happened upon a restaurant called Rezkaka. The menu looked creative, and the atmosphere seemed relaxing, so we took a chance. It was our best meal of the trip. The violin and piano playing in the background didn’t hurt either.

As we left the restaurant, the night sky was getting dark (it was about 9 pm), the ferris wheel in the city center was lit up as were many of the buildings. It was magical. We decided to keep on walking (despite what the concierge had said), and we passed the Dohany Synagogue, all lit up. We were using the GPS on my iPhone to guide us back to the hotel, and it led us through the Jewish quarter, which has become a hip place, filled with “ruin bars” patronized by 20-somethings. It was an entertaining walk back, and by the time we reached the hotel, we were quite proud of ourselves for the distance we had walked and quite enamored with Budapest.

St Stephen’s Basilica, Budapest

Dohany Synagogue

Our next day started with a tram ride (we decided to give our feet a little break) to the Central Market in Budapest—an amazing place filled with fresh fruit, vegetables, meat of all kinds, paprika, and flowers. And it’s a real market—not a tourist joint. We could see regular people with shopping bags and carts, buying their groceries.

From there we walked somewhat aimlessly through several streets and squares, passing the university buildings, a street of touristy shops, a street of high fashion designer shops, and the second McDonalds to open behind the Iron Curtain.

We were aiming for the Holocaust Memorial on the river. During the Holocaust, Jews were rounded up and brought to the river, where three people would remove their shoes, be tied together, and one would be shot, forcing all three to fall into the river and die. The memorial captures this atrocity very simply and poignantly with sculptures of many pairs of empty shoes, lining the wall that abuts the river.

Holocaust Memorial, Budapest

For the afternoon we had signed up for a tour of the Budapest Jewish Quarter with Budapest Jewish Heritage Tours. It was supposed to be a group tour, but luckily for us, no one else had signed up at that time, so we ended up with a private tour. We actually had three guides. Ann, our first guide, gave us a general introduction; she then brought us to the Jewish Museum, which is right next to the Dohany synagogue. At the museum we were guided by Esther, who works for the museum. After we finished at the museum, Fatima met us to take us to see the synagogues in the quarter. Each guide was knowledgeable and personable, and we learned a great deal about the history of Budapest’s Jewish community.

There were Jews in Budapest from as early as Roman times, though not a permanent settlement. As in the other countries in Central Europe we visited, Jews came to Hungary as traders and bankers. They faced a great deal of violence and anti-Semitism, and for a long time were required to live on the Buda side of the river while working on the Pest side. Eventually they were allowed to live on the Pest side, but outside the city walls. The area where they settled in the 18^th century became the Jewish Quarter where even today there are numerous active synagogues, kosher restaurants, and other Jewish institutions. The community flourished in the 19^th century, and by the 1930s there were over 200,000 Jews in Budapest.

Perhaps the best indication of the size and prosperity of the Jewish community in Budapest is the Dohany Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in the world and a magnificent structure built in the middle of the 19^th century. It was built for a congregation that wanted to be more modern in its practice of Judaism. They called themselves Neologs (new law). Although men and women were still separated for services, there was an organ (played by Franz Liszt at the inauguration of the building), and the interior was designed to be more church-like than like a traditional synagogue. Like the Spanish Synagogue in Prague, the design reflects a Moorish influence both inside and out.

Dohany Synagogue

Our guides pointed out, however, that Hungary had a long history of anti-Semitism, and in the 1920s a law was passed establishing quotas at the universities. In the 1930s. Hungary adopted laws stripping Jews of their rights even before the Nazis began their occupation of the country. Although Hungarian Jews were among the last to be deported to concentration camps, our guide in Poland, Tomasz, had explained that that was simply because the Hungarians wanted to exploit the Jews for free labor, not because they were trying to protect them. In the end, most of Hungary’s 600,000 Jews were killed, 400,000 of them at Auschwitz on some of the last transports to arrive there.

The Dohany Synagogue survived the war because it was used by the Nazis both for storage and as a place for radio towers since it had the two high spires on its roof. Behind the Dohany Synagogue is a memorial garden dedicated to those who were killed in the Holocaust. I found the sculpture of the Tree of Life that resembles an upside down menorah particularly moving.

We saw two other synagogues after leaving the Dohany. First we visited the Orthodox synagogue, built in 1912, another very beautiful building, and then we saw the Rumbach Street synagogue. From what Vatima told us, this last synagogue was formed by a group that spit off from the Neologs; they felt the Neologs had moved too far away from traditional Judaism, but they also did not agree with the strict practice of the Orthodox synagogue. This building was under renovation and not open to visitors, so we only got to see its exterior, which was quite beautiful.

Rumbach Synagogue

Overall, our experience in the Jewish Quarter in Budapest was much more uplifting than in either Prague or Krakow in large part because we learned that there is still a very substantial and active Jewish community in Budapest, consisting of about 80,000 people. Although that is less than half of the Jewish population of Budapest in 1939, it is nevertheless a promising sign of rebirth and hope for the future.

Our day in Budapest ended with a quick dinner and an organ concert at St. Stephen’s Basilica, the largest church in Budapest—and yet again, a magnificent building.

St Stephen’s Basilica

For our third and last day in Budapest, we had arranged for a driving tour to see those sites that really are too far for walking, even for us. Our guide Magdi took us out to Heroes Square and through the City Park, two more spaces that were developed specifically for the Millennial Celebration in 1896. We saw Hungarian soldiers practicing for a parade while we were there.

Legend says if you touch this guy’s pen, your writing will be successful. FIgured it was worth a try….

Then we crossed the Danube to Buda where the Castle is—where once again we learned that almost everything there was either built or redone for the Millennial Celebration. What impressed us most were the incredible panoramic views we could see from the Fishermen’s Bastion and from the Castle itself. Magdi did point out some older buildings in Buda that dated back to earlier times, but overall most of what we saw dated from 1896 or so. The glaring (literally and figuratively) exception was the Hilton, a modern building of reflective glass that just does not fit into the setting.

Finally we went to Gellert Hill, where we were able to view Budapest from yet another perspective and see the fortress built there.

Our tour ended by dropping us off at the Gellert Spa and Baths. Everyone had told us that we had to try the baths while in Budapest, and so we did. It was an interesting experience—soaking in a hot pool with a bunch of elderly Hungarian women who did not really look so pleased to have us invading their space. But we were glad we tried it, and that hot water was very relaxing. After all the walking we had done in our three days in Budapest, our feet certainly deserved the break!

Looking back on our time in Budapest, I would say it was the city where we had the most light-hearted moments in our trip. Maybe we just needed to focus more on the beauty, less on the tragic, after seeing Terezin, Krakow, and Auschwitz. Maybe it was the Hungarian people or the energy of the city, where the streets were crowded with young people at night. Maybe it was all the beautiful buildings and breath-taking views and sights we saw. For whatever reason, we left Budapest the next morning feeling uplifted.

Our trip was almost over. We had a train ride to Vienna and a day and a half in that city before returning home. And home was starting to sound like a good place to be.

Walking in the Shadows of My Brotman Great-Grandparents

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Amy

My third day in Poland was undoubtedly the highlight of the trip for me. Visiting the town where my great-grandparents lived was the initial motivation for going to Central Europe in the first place. The stops in Prague, Budapest, and Vienna were the icing on the cake, but the cake was Poland and, more specifically, Tarnobrzeg. (I finally learned how to pronounce it, thanks to our guide Tomasz: TarNOBjeg.) I had high and emotional expectations; they were exceeded by the reality.

First, some background. When I first started doing genealogy research, I had no idea where my maternal grandmother’s family had lived in Europe other than they were Galitzianers—from Galicia. My mother had no idea what town in Galicia had been their home, and for a long time the only location given on the records I could find was Austria, which made sense since Galicia was part of the Austria-Hungary Empire when the Brotmans lived there.

Then a few pieces came together—first, I obtained my great-uncle Hyman Brotman’s naturalization application giving his home town as Jeekief, which is a decent phonetic spelling of Dzikow, once a separate village but later incorporated into Tarnobrzeg, a much larger town. Then I found a ship manifest for Yossel Brod, most likely my great-grandfather, from Tarnobchiek, another phonetic spelling, this time of Tarnobrzeg. The ship manifests for my great-uncles Abraham and David Brotman gave their home town at Grebow, a small village less than ten miles from Tarnobrzeg. It seemed clear to me that Tarnobrzeg was the area where my Brotman ancestors had lived in Galicia. And I had to go there.

SelectedU.S.NaturalizationRecords-OriginalDocuments1790-1974ForHermanBrotman

Hyman Brotman’s Naturalization Application (Click twice to zoom in.)

David and Abe Brodmann on the Portia 1889

Joseph Brotman ship manifest

I had originally hoped that there might be some records left in Tarnobrzeg that had not yet been digitized and put on line by JewishGen, Gesher Galicia, or JRI Poland, but our guide Tomasz warned me that he believed that whatever records still existed had in fact been found already and that we would not find any more in the town. I adjusted my expectations accordingly, and I decided to enjoy the trip for the experience of being there rather than as a research opportunity.

Tomasz picked us up at our hotel at 9 am that morning, and we got to meet my recently found cousin Phyllis for the first time. Phyllis and I had connected through DNA testing, which showed us as third cousins and showed her aunt Frieda and my mother as second cousins. By comparing our family trees we had reached the conclusion that the likely connection was through my great-grandmother Bessie Brot Brotman and her grandmother Sabina Brot, whose father we believe was my great-grandmother’s brother. Sabina’s home town in Galicia was Radomysl nad Sanem, another town about ten miles from Tarnobrzeg, which we would also visit that day. The common surname and the proximity of residences seemed to support our hypothesis. We quickly connected in person, chatting excitedly about our research, our travels, and our hopes for that day.

As we drove from Krakow to Tarnobrzeg, Tomasz spoke about the history of Jews in Poland. By the 19^th century Jews made up 10% of the population of Poland, and they lived all over the country—in the cities and in small towns and in villages. The land we drove through was mostly rural even today, and Tomasz said that Jews were often invited by the kings or the aristocracy to live in the towns to support the local economy; Jews had the education and the skills to provide bookkeeping, trade, banking, and other economic necessities to the farmers who lived in these regions. In Tarnobrzeg it was the Tarnowski family that owned the land and invited the Jews to come live there.

Castle of the Tarnowski family in Tarnobrzeg

When I asked him about the level of religious observance of the Jewish residents who lived in places like Tarnobrzeg, Tomasz said that there was a diverse range of religious observance—-from Hasidim to more traditional Orthodox to more liberal Jews and to secular Jews. Other sources point out that Tarnobrzeg was an important Hasidic center with well-regarded Hasidic leaders and rabbis.

Tomasz also spoke about the fact that Tarnobrzeg was one of the leading Jewish population and industrial centers in Galicia outside of Krakow. The main industry aside from agriculture was the production of sulfur, a product that it still important to the local economy of the region. Tarnobrzeg is located where two rivers meet—the Vistula (which also runs through Krakow) and the San, and thus was an important trade location. It also is very close to what was once the border with the Russian Empire, and when Russia obtained that land, families were often separated, some living in Austria-Hungary, some in the Russian Empire. In the 19^th century when my great-grandparents lived there, the population of Tarnobrzeg was more than 75% Jewish. There were about 2800 Jews living there in the 1880s when my great-grandparents decided to leave.

I asked Tomasz why people like my great-grandparents would ever have left a place like Tarnobrzeg, where Jews were doing well and treated well and were more than a majority of the town’s residents. He said that in the late 19^th century, there was both an economic crisis in Poland and a significant increase in the population. (There was also a great deal of anti-Semitism in Poland, as other sources describe.) Jews and non-Jews left for greater economic opportunities. When I pondered how a family would be able to tear themselves away from their home, both emotionally and financially, Tomasz explained that there were emigration agents facilitating these departures. They would circulate brochures touting the advantages of going to America, and the fact that many others were leaving made it easier for a family like mine to make a similar choice. I asked how they would actually leave, and Tomasz said there was a train that came to Tarnobrzeg that would take them to one of the port cities, like Gdansk or Hamburg, where they would catch a ship for America. It would be costly, but the potential benefits made it all seem worth the risk.

Finally we arrived in Tarnobrzeg itself. It was not exactly what I expected, as it is a large town, not a little shtetl, and it is a thriving town—lots of people, lots of stores, lots of cars. Not a quiet little romantic village out of Fiddler on the Roof at all. There was even a Lego store right on the main square.

Lego store on main square in Tarnobrzeg

But once we got out of the car and started to walk around, I felt some almost eerie connection—that this was a place where my great-grandparents had walked, had shopped, had worked. Many of the buildings that surround the square were there back in the 1870s and 1880s when my great-grandparents and their children lived there. Maybe one of those buildings contained a shop where my great-grandfather worked (on that ship manifest his occupation was given as “kaufmann” or merchant). Maybe my family lived in one of them.

Main square in Tarnobrzeg

I stood in that square, imagining it 150 years ago as a place filled with families like my own, Jewish families of all sorts, living in a safe and comfortable way in a safe and comfortable place. I could imagine my great-uncle Chaim who became Hyman and then Herman and my great-aunt Tema who became Tillie, just small children, holding their mother’s hands as they walked through that square. I could block out the Lego store and the ugly modern supermarket and see just the old buildings as they might have looked in the 1880s.

Our guide Tomasz Cebulski leading the way in Tarnobrzeg

Tomasz took us to the building which was once the synagogue. According to the official Tarnobrzeg website, it was heavily damaged by the Nazis and used to store grain. It was renovated in the 1970s into a public library, and there is almost no sign today that it was ever a synagogue building. The windows were changed, and inside where there was once a prayer hall and aron kodesh are now stacks filled with books. When we asked in the library whether they had any photographs or books or records about the synagogue or the former Jewish community, all they could find was one copy of a brochure that had only been created a few years ago.

IMG_2659 where the prayer hall stood, now a library

Space where the prayer hall once was in the Tarnobrzeg synagogue

Exterior of building where the synagogue entrance had been

Tarnobrzeg Synagogue (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here are some photographs of the building when it was a synagogue:

murals inside synagogue http://www.kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/Tarnobrzeg/html/synagogue.htm

Exterior of synagogue http://www.kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/Tarnobrzeg/html/synagogue.htm

The only visible sign that the building was built as a synagogue is a small plaque on the exterior of the building in a location that almost no one could ever see or read if they were not looking for it. We had to walk around the building through the lawn to get this photograph. The only small comfort was that the building was being used for books and education, not for commerce or worse.

IMG_2660 marker on library marking it as location of synagogue

Memorial plaque on the former synagogue building

Tomasz also pointed out that the first Jewish cemetery was located just a block away, but was now a parking lot for the shopping area that now exists there. According to this video prepared in 2008, the Nazis destroyed the synagogue and used the headstones to pave a road. (I suggest downloading the hi-def version and watching it; it will give you a better sense of the town and its history.)

We then drove to the other Jewish cemetery in Tarnobrzeg, which was opened in the 20^th century and where there is still an ohel with a Star of David. Sadly, the cemetery is not maintained at all, and there are just a handful of headstones still standing, most covered with weeds and snails. I took photographs of as many as I could and now hope to get these translated.

After visiting the cemetery, we went to a small museum Tomasz knew about, where we met with an incredibly helpful woman who did not speak any English, but when Tomasz explained why I was there, she was very excited and anxious to help. She provided us with some books with drawings and photographs of Tarnobrzeg before World War II.

The woman at the museum also explained where Dzikow had been located before it merged into Tarnobrzeg, so we drove there and saw some very old homes, built almost like log cabins. I was enchanted and wondered whether one of these buildings had once been my great-grandparents’ home.

As we left Tarnobrzeg, Tomasz told us what had happened to the Jews there during the Holocaust. Many were shot and killed just outside of town and buried there. Many others were taken to the San River and shot, their bodies falling into the water. The rest were eventually transported to a concentration camp or a death camp. If any survived, they have not returned to Tarnobrzeg. There are no known Jews living there today. What would my great-grandparents, both of whom died before the Holocaust, have thought if they returned to their hometown today? It would no longer be the place they knew in almost any way, except for the old buildings that survive.

Nazis rounding up the Jews of Tarnobrzeg 1939

Nazis rounding up the Jews of Tarnobrzeg near the San River 1939

I could have stayed and wandered around Tarnobrzeg for hours, but we had two more stops to make: Radomysl nad Sanem and Grebow. We headed first to Radomysl nad Sanem, where Phyllis’ grandmother had lived. It is on the other side of the San River and is a very small little town with a small town square and municipal building and perhaps fifty homes, if that many. Its Jewish population before World War II was less than 400 people, and the village was mostly Jewish. We drove from one end of the town to the other, and it took only a few minutes. Even more so than in Tarnobrzeg, there is no sign that there were ever Jews there. Phyllis was able to obtain some brochures about the town from the library there, but nothing that discussed the former Jewish community.

Our last stop was a quick one in Grebow, a town even smaller than Radomysl nad Sanem where there was not even a library we could visit. I don’t know whether this was where Abraham and David Brotman were born or simply where they were living at the time they emigrated. Perhaps they had moved here for greater opportunities than they could find in Tarnobrzeg. I don’t know. It’s such a tiny village that all I can do is imagine them living there and then wonder what they must have thought when they landed in a place as large and crowded and dirty as late 19^th century New York City’s Lower East Side.

We then headed back to Krakow. I was exhausted and emotionally drained and filled with thoughts and feelings. We were taking another night train that night, this time to Budapest. As we ate a quick dinner at our hotel, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion in a way that surprised me. My eyes filled with tears—tears for the people who had been killed, tears for my great-grandparents who had left this country for better things, tears of gratitude that they had done that, and tears of sadness that I was leaving a place that part of me truly felt was my homeland.

Auschwitz

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Amy

I have really been struggling to figure out how to write about our second day in Poland, which started with a trip to the ghetto established by the Nazis in Podgorze, across the river from Krakow, and ended with a trip to Auschwitz. We had an incredible guide, Tomasz Cebulski from Polin Travel. He is a scholar in the field of the history of Polish Jewry and the Holocaust as well as an articulate, thoughtful, and sensitive person, and he wanted us to understand on a deeper level the methodology used by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Without Tomasz and his way of preparing us for Auschwitz, I do not think we would have fully appreciated the horror of what we were seeing.

The ghetto in Podgorze. The empty chairs evoke the chairs that were left behind by those who had been sitting while awaiting the transports that took them to the camps

Having said that, there is just no way that I can do the same for anyone reading this post. Most of us have seen photographs; we’ve seen movies and read books about Auschwitz. Many of us have been to Yad Vashem and/or the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We think we understand what happened there. But we don’t. Even being there, I still don’t. The more you learn about it, the less you understand.

What we learned from Tomasz was how ingenious the Nazis were in using psychology and technology and the instinct for greed to enlist not only Germans but citizens of other countries including France, Austria, Hungary, and Poland into their program for annihilating the Jewish population of the world. And Jews weren’t helpless sheep being led to the slaughter; they also were the victims of the Nazi propaganda machine and its use of psychology to create the impression that somehow all would be fine in the end. Corporations like IBM and many others saw the opportunities for making fortunes in developing the technology and equipment needed to facilitate the operation of the Nazi death machine. Jews were also used as slave labor in the companies of many industrialists; Oskar Schindler was the exception, doing something to protect these people who were being forced to work in his factory across the river from Krakow and close to the concentration camp at Plaszow, which we also visited.

Ghetto Wall in Podgorze, built to look like headstones to demoralize the Jewish residents

And the world sat back and let it happen, pretending that things could not be that bad, that focusing on the war effort itself was sufficient, and that there really could not be such things as death camps. That a place like Auschwitz could not exist. Are we any better today? Just as the Jews could not believe that they would be slaughtered like animals but that things would be okay in the end, so do we all. We delude ourselves over and over again into believing that we can’t do anything to stop genocide, just as the world did during World War II. We bend to the profit motive, and we buy into propaganda. We forget, and we move on.

But Auschwitz is still there. Although the other death camps were destroyed by the Nazis when they realized that they were losing the war (see Note below), Auschwitz survived more or less intact. The Nazis did bomb the gas chambers and the crematoria, but there was enough evidence left to show the world what happened there. And the fact that the Nazis made one serious error—placing the gas chambers and crematoria adjacent to barracks for concentration camp prisoners who could witness how they were being used—also ensured that history would not allow the Nazis to cover up their satanic ways completely.

Auschwitz is still there. You can stand on the watchtower, and you can see the foundations of hundreds of barracks almost as far as the eye can see. You can see the crematoria, the remains of the gas chambers, the barracks, the train tracks. You can see the confiscated property of the people who were killed there—glasses, suitcases, clothing, ritual objects. Their hair and their prosthetic devices. The glass case exhibiting baby clothes made me weep. The clothes of children younger than my grandsons—evidence of the complete evil of these animals who watched babies get carried to their deaths with their mothers. More than anything else, that devastated me.

How do you walk away from this and still have faith in humanity? How can you have hope that good and beauty and love will prevail when there is so much capacity for evil? How can you ever trust anyone to be compassionate, fair, understanding?

You just have to. Because it is just too painful to think that people can be so evil. Because in fact most of us are good and loving and compassionate and fair. Because we have no choice but to see the beauty and the love and the hope or we would all just give up and fall into the darkness. We have to walk away, and we have to get up the next day and embrace life. Otherwise, the Nazis and all the other evildoers in the world defeat us. Yes, we need to stand up to evil. Yes, we cannot close our eyes and hide. But we also have to go on seeing the good in each other and loving each other as best we can.

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Important Note: Although the other death camps were substantially destroyed by the Nazis to hide their genocidal activities, there is a movement to preserve the limited remains of the Belzec death camp in eastern Poland. You can read about that project here. It’s in German, but you can use Google Translate to read it in English. There is some urgency as the property is to be sold at a public auction on June 22. Please help preserve this place as another reminder us of our potential for evil and our need to fight against it.

UPDATE: Due to public pressure, the auction has been cancelled, and the money already collected will be used for preservation. The organization is no longer collecting donations.

Krakow

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Amy

We arrived in Krakow after a pretty much sleepless night on the train, and the weather was nasty—very cool and raining hard. Once again, we overpaid a cabdriver (though not by nearly as much) to get to our hotel at 7 am, where our room was, as expected, not ready. (Check-in wasn’t until 3 pm.) But the young man at the reception desk was so friendly and helpful that it immediately changed my outlook. I highly recommend the Metropolitan Boutique Hotel in Krakow—a small and friendly hotel with an incredibly professional, efficient, and friendly staff. Although the location on a small side street at first seemed odd, we soon realized how ideal that location was—about ten minutes from the main square in Krakow and even closer to the Jewish Quarter in Kazimierz.

Our sleeping accommodations from Prague to Krakow

After breakfast at the hotel, we decided to venture out and see the city. We took umbrellas, but fortunately we never had to open them; the skies never turned blue, but the rain was gone. We walked to the market in the main square of Krakow where we had planned to go on two group walking tours that day, one of the Old Town, the other of the Jewish quarter. When we got to the main square, vendors were just starting to open their stands, and the square itself was fairly empty. The square is magnificent in size—reportedly, the largest public square in Europe. There are cafes and shops surrounding the square as well as a number of churches and government buildings. We wandered around a bit, and there was almost a Fanueil Hall feel to the place—a large indoor market lined with souvenir stands. Unfortunately, the weather really was not great, but we did take a few photographs.

After some deliberation, we decided to go on a tour of the Jewish Quarter in the morning and Old Town in the afternoon with SeeKrakow. Our tour guide was a middle-aged Polish man who spoke English well, and the group of about sixteen people was quite diverse in background. We were the only people from an English speaking country. There were people from Spain, France, Belgium, and Switzerland. They all understood English; it was embarrassing. We were the only people in the group who could not speak a second language. Most of the others could speak three. The American educational system is an utter failure in preparing our children for the global world we live in.

Anyway, we marched off with our leader (whose name escapes me, perhaps for good reason), and after a few stops, I realized that he was not a good fit for me. Maybe it was the contrast to Andrea and Helena, our guides in Prague; maybe it was the nature of being on a group rather than private tour. The tour leader was knowledgeable and pleasant, but I felt that he had a personal agenda to promote instead of providing an in-depth and historical view of the Jewish Quarter. Over and over his message seemed to be that Poland had always been tolerant and accepting of its Jewish citizens and that the Polish people were also victims of the Holocaust. What he said is historically accurate in many ways, but it was the way he delivered his message and his seeming defensiveness that troubled me.

After about the first hour, I started to think that (a) I didn’t want to go on the Old Town afternoon tour with this guide, and (b) I didn’t want to continue on the Jewish Quarter tour with this guide. When we realized that his tour would not give us a chance to enter into any of the synagogues we passed (which he did describe, but at times showed us only the back or side of the building), we made a decision to leave the tour and explained to the guide that we wanted to spend more time in the Quarter rather than continue with the group.

Unfortunately, I had made one serious error in planning our itinerary—I had failed to check a Jewish calendar beforehand, and I had not realized that our one day in Krakow would be the holiday of Shavuot. That meant that many of the synagogues, at least those still operating as synagogues, would not be open to the public for tours that day. (It was also the Catholic holiday Pentecost, meaning that many stores and offices were also closed that day.) If I could have changed one thing on our trip itinerary, I would have added at least another day to our stay in Krakow—not only because of the conflict with Shavuot, but also because we just did not have enough time to do the city justice.

But when you are traveling, you do what you can do. So over lunch, we realized that we did not have time to see many of the sites in Krakow outside the Jewish Quarter—the Wawel Castle and the churches and other buildings we’d only glimpsed in Old Town. We also realized that our sleepless night was catching up with us. So we spent the afternoon wandering through the Jewish Quarter, soaking up what we could, and visiting the places we could enter. I hope that someday we can return to Krakow and see the city in more depth.

Unlike the Jewish Quarter in Prague, which as I wrote was substantially torn down in the late 19^th century, most of the structures from the original Jewish Quarter in Krakow are still standing—the winding cobblestones streets and old worn buildings have been there for hundreds of years. As our guide said, Krakow’s Jewish quarter is much more “authentic” than that in Prague because it reflects the way the ghetto looked when it was a ghetto. It also reflects more of the wear and tear of time, neglect, and the war. Here are some photos of the square where the Jewish market once operated; it still operates as a market—a flea market when we were there, although, of course, there are no Jewish vendors or customers today.

We saw six still-existing buildings in the Krakow Jewish Quarter that were once operating synagogues. As with the synagogues in Prague, the only reason they are still standing is that the Nazis found the spaces useful for storage. The oldest of the existing synagogue buildings, appropriately referred to as the Old Synagogue, was built at the beginning of the 15^th century. Its interior was destroyed by the Nazis, and it was then used for storage during their occupation of Poland. Today the building is operated as a museum, displaying Jewish ritual objects and a historical exhibition of Krakow before and during the Nazi occupation.

The second oldest synagogue still standing is the Remu’h Synagogue. It is still an active congregation, so we were not able to enter it during our visit, nor we could enter the Old Jewish cemetery that is located adjacent to the synagogue building. All I could get was the one photograph through the gate. The Remu’h synagogue was built in the mid-16^th century, and its interior also was substantially destroyed by the Nazis and then used for storage.

Remu’h Synagogue

Both the Old and the Remu’h synagogues are located on what was the main square in the Jewish quarter where today there are numerous restaurants, many providing “Jewish” dishes on their menus (but not kosher) and klezmer music at night. It’s a very pretty square, but the faux Jewishness is clearly intended to manipulate Jewish tourists like us, coming to see a world that no longer exists.

The High Synagogue was the third synagogue built in Krakow, sometime after the Remu’h but also in the 16^th century. It was called the High Synagogue because the prayer hall was located upstairs. We were able to climb those stairs and visit the former prayer hall because today it is a museum. The exhibit there was very moving. Several families of former Krakow Jews provided photographs to the museum of their families, depicting what their lives were like in the 1920s and 1930s before the Nazis arrived. I was surprised to see very modern-looking families, engaged in activities like skiing and boating, as opposed to the images I had had in my head of ultra-Orthodox men with payes and long black coats. As in Prague, by the early 20^th century Jews in Krakow were full citizens, no longer required to live in a ghetto. Many were quite successful merchants, and their families lived very comfortable and modern lives.

Of course, it doesn’t matter whether they were Hasidim or assimilated, but I have to admit it made it easier for me to identify with these people, knowing their lives were not unlike mine. Reading the stories of what happened to these families was heartbreaking. Even though someone survived in these families and was thus able to preserve the photographs and the stories, each of these families lost many members during the Holocaust.

The only other synagogue building we could enter was that of the former Kupa Synagogue. It was built in the 17^th century, and like the other synagogues, was severely damaged by the Nazis. We were able to enter the building and see the prayer hall, where people seemed to be setting up for some event. We are not sure exactly how this synagogue is used today since it was open for visitors on the holiday.

Back of Kupa Synagogue showing the ghetto wall

We also stopped to see the outside of the Isaac Synagogue, also built in the 17^th century and now the headquarters for Chabad in Krakow, and the newest of the synagogues, the Tempel Synagogue, a Reform synagogue built in the mid-19^th century. Neither was open to visitors.

Tempel Synagogue

Isaac Synagogue

But next to the Tempel Synagogue is the JCC of Krakow, which was open and where we spoke with a woman at the reception desk. She told us that they have 500 members, although only 120 are “registered” Jews. The JCC provides educational and cultural programming, Shabbat dinners, and holiday celebrations, and aims to revive a Jewish community in Krakow. It was uplifting to be in this new building and see some signs of hope for the very small Jewish community that exists today in Krakow.

We ended our walk through the Jewish Quarter on that somewhat high note. We later returned for dinner at the Klezmer Huis, where we ate “Jewish-style” food and listened to Klezmer music (sung by three young people who I assume are not Jewish, but who were excellent).

But although that was fun (if somewhat corny), it did not really cover up the reality. Before World War II, there were about 65,000 Jews in Krakow, and they made up about 25% of the city’s population. Today, as I said, there are 120 Jews living in Krakow. Walking those streets and seeing the old houses once occupied by Jewish families, entering those once flourishing synagogues that are now just museums, seeing those photographs of the families who were destroyed, I could not help but feel thousands of ghosts following us around. What would Krakow be like today if the descendants of those 65,000 people were alive? My day in Krakow left me angry and very sad.

The second day of our visit to Poland we learned more about what happened to those people. More on that in my next post.

Prague, Part III: Italian Music and Italian Food in the Czech Republic?

Posted on June 7, 2015 by Amy

Our last day in Prague we were on our own and revisited Old Town and the Charles Bridge and then meandered around Lesser Town, the district below the Castle. It was a day to recover from the experiences we’d had the day before and to absorb all we had seen in Prague.

We climbed (yes, we actually climbed) the clock tower in Old Town where we had views of Prague in every direction.

We crossed the river and saw the wall covered with graffiti dedicated to John Lennon and the ornate St. Nicholas Church in Lesser Town.

Vtlava River

John Lennon wall

IMG_2598 St Nicholas Church in Lesser Town 5 23

Inside St. Nicholas Church, Lesser Town

We wandered through the Wallenstein gardens, where we saw peacocks and a very weird grotto wall with sculptures of animals hidden throughout.

In the Wallenstein Gardens

We had lunch at a restaurant on the river; the walkway from the street to the restaurant was so narrow that they had a “traffic light” at either end so that two people wouldn’t get stuck in the middle, neither being able to pass. Of course, we didn’t notice that on our way down. Fortunately, the man coming up was only a few steps up and graciously went back down.

Walkway from Cafe Certenova

We also experienced the way that music permeates everything in Prague. We had been to a concert our second night at the Municipal House’s Smetana Hall, hearing the Prague Symphony Orchestra play Gustav Mahler’s 5^th Symphony, a moving and emotional piece of music that I’d never really heard before in its entirety. For our last night we decided we would try and get to another concert. Walking through Prague we discovered that wherever we went, people were handing out flyers for concerts at churches and other venues. What was a bit bizarre though was that in many of these venues the program included Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. We were baffled—was it Vivaldi’s birthday? He was Italian, not Czech. Why would all these places be playing the same piece of music? My best guess is that it’s a piece that is well-known and well-loved and thus a good selection to attract an audience. We returned to Smetana Hall that night, and yes, we heard the Four Seasons. It was lovely.

Street performers—can anyone tell me how they do this??

We were also surprised by how good the food was in each of the other places we ate while in Prague—-Giovanni’s Trattoria, RYBI (great fish), and Pasta Fresca (yeah, we like Italian food, as apparently does most of the world since every city we visited seemed to have more Italian restaurants than anything else, other than their own local cuisine).

Overall, our time in Prague was fascinating—fun, uplifting, educational, upsetting, insightful, entertaining, and stimulating. It was good to end the trip seeing all the beauty and good that human beings can create and appreciate instead of the evil and horrors we’d witnessed the day before. Prague is a wonderful city, and we definitely could have spent more time there. But it was time to move on to our next stop.

We boarded an overnight train to Krakow. It wasn’t the most comfortable sleeping accommodation on the trip, but when we woke up, we were in what was once Galicia, the homeland of my Brotman ancestors.

Prague, Part I—A Fairy Tale Setting

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Amy

We arrived in Prague after an overnight flight and a four plus hour train ride from Vienna, where we had landed. Although we slept a bit on the flight and on and off on the train, we were nevertheless a bit groggy when we arrived and were greeted by a cab driver who mercilessly ripped us off by charging 699 Czech crowns (about $30) for a ten minute ride to our hotel, the Prague Marriott (it should have been about a third of that). It was gray and cool, and my first views of Prague were about the same. The Marriott is a large and very American seeming hotel, so at first, we could have been anywhere. A generic room in a generic hotel, a crooked cab. I was not initially sure why so many people had loved Prague.

But then our guide Andrea Reznickova arrived at 5:30, and everything changed. Like a good fairy godmother, she waved her magic wand and suggested we walk to Old Town Square to see the famous Prague clock strike the hour at 6 o’clock. By this time it was raining fairly heavily, so I was skeptical. The cobblestones along the way were slippery, and I was mostly watching my feet, not the surroundings. Once we walked through the gate at the Powder Tower at the entrance to Old Town, however, I knew we were no longer in Kansas, as Dorothy said to Toto. We were in a place that seemed almost as fantastical as Munchkinland seemed to Dorothy.

Old Town

The buildings of Old Town do look like something out of a medieval fairytale—ornate and colorful and built at unpredictable angles that make it seem as if they were created as part of a dream, not a result of any city planning. The medieval clock with its many faces only adds to the aura of fantasy. Despite the rain and the many umbrellas raised by the numerous tourists crowding the square, it was enchanting to watch the skeleton start to nod his head and the other three figures—humans defying death—move as the clock began to strike six. Unlike the clock in Cinderella which ended her magical time, this clock began our magical time in Prague.

Clock Tower, Old Town Square, Prague

Andrea then took us to a non-touristy pub in New Town for some beer and fresh bread while she gave us an overall orientation to her home town and laid out the plan for the following day. Then she left us on our own, where we wandered back to Old Town, now feeling somewhat grounded, and walked along the street called Paris Street (as translated from Czech, which I can’t even pretend to try and spell or pronounce), passing all the fancy designer stories on our way to dinner in the Jewish Quarter. We had reservations at Dinitz, a kosher restaurant, and although it was nothing fancy at all, it was a good way to start the trip. We were still jetlagged, and some bowtie noodles with chicken was just the right comfort food for a quick and quiet meal.

In fact, it gave us some new energy, and we decided to walk a bit more through Old Town, following the winding streets without consulting a map, just following the crowd until we ended up at the Vtlava River and the Charles Bridge. It was about sunset (around 8:45), and it was gorgeous. The entire scene—the river, the bridge itself, the views of the Castle across the river, and those fairy-tale building around us. We crossed the bridge and then turned back, finally ready to head back for the night.

Sunset at the Charles Bridge, Prague

Of course, like Hansel and Gretel, we got lost once we had no tourist breadcrumbs to follow on the way back, but eventually we somehow ended up at the Old Town Square where the lights on the Tyn Church and on the Clock Tower added to my sense that we were living in a place of fairy tales. We then easily found our way back to the Marriott.

IMG_2466 Prague Old Town Square at night

Clock Tower and Tyn Church, Old Town Square

Clock in Old Town at night Prague

Old Town Square at night

IMG_2470 Night view of Prague Old Town Square

Tyn Church (some say it was the inspiration for Cinderella’s Castle in Disneyland)

The next morning we met up again with Andrea and took the tram across the river to the Castle District, where along with numerous large touring groups, we entered the Castle area and then beat the crowd to the St. Vitus Cathedral, a huge awe-inspiring Gothic structure that was first built in medieval times and then expanded in the early 20^th century, although done so seamlessly that you would never know.

Main Square in Castle District

Interior of St VItus Cathedral

exterior St Vitus

The only clue that part of the building was built in the 20th century was the stained glass window by Alfons Mucha that seemed far too contemporary for a Gothic cathedral. We had never heard of Mucha before, but would later that day visit the Mucha Museum, a small museum dedicated to the life and work of this Czech artist. Mucha lived from 1860-1939 and may be best known for his posters of Sarah Bernhardt, but it was his posters promoting Czech pride that moved me the most.

Mucha Stained Glass Window in St Vitus

Anyway, back to the Castle district—we wandered through the many squares and streets as Andrea told us about Czech history and politics, both before and after the Communist era. The Castle was built for the king in medieval times, but is today the residence of the President of the Czech Republic. When I asked about the presence of the Cathedral in the midst of what was otherwise a government building, Andrea talked about the controversy that arose after the Velvet Revolution and the end of Soviet domination concerning whether the Cathedral would return to the control of the Catholic Church. In the end it did, so there is a Church-owned property in the middle of the property where the President works and lives. According to Andrea, religion plays a very minor role in the lives of the Czech people; given the number of beautiful churches we saw throughout the city, that does seem a bit strange. Perhaps that is one legacy of Communist times—a decline in interest in religion.

Overlooking Lesser Town from the Castle

This topic brought us to the whole question of life in Prague during the forty-plus years of Communist control, and over coffee as we exited the Castle area, Andrea suggested we take the tram back to New Town and talk about the 20th century and the Communist era in Prague. At that point the fairy tale aura seemed to dissipate, and the reality of the history of the Czech people became more clear. As Andrea described Czech history, the Czech people were historically more progressive than those in many other places in Europe. According to Andrea, it was a Czech, Jan Hus, who really started the Reformation, about a century before Martin Luther. The Czech people were historically more tolerant of other religions than in many other places, she said. But Andrea said that throughout Czech history different countries grabbed control over their land—including when the Nazis seized Sudetenland in 1938. Andrea described the failure of the Czechs to fight against that taking as the biggest “black mark” in Czech history. The Nazi control followed by the Soviet control was demoralizing to the people, but they also were less willing to accept Communism than some of the other countries behind the Iron Curtain. (I heard similar assertions in Budapest and in Poland, so I take them all with a grain of salt, but it’s not for me to debate the perspectives of the people who live in these countries.)

As we sat in Wenceslas Square in New Town, Andrea then talked about the 1968 Prague Spring, the movement to lift some of the Communist restrictions on life in Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet invasion that followed and brought greater repression; twenty years after that came the Velvet Revolution in 1989, led by students marching into Wenceslas Square, the crowd eventually growing to half a million people. Although Andrea was just a small child when this occurred, it was clear to us that these events had left their mark on her and that she was very grateful to live in Prague today where there is more freedom to live and work and express oneself as one wishes.

Prague, Wenceslas Square during the Velvet Revolution. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Wenceslas Monument in November 1989 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At her suggestion as she left us on our own, we then visited first the Mucha Museum, mentioned above, and then the Museum of Communism, which is situated on the main street in New Town between a McDonald’s and a casino. It’s a small museum consisting mostly of reading materials with some visual displays, but it effectively evokes the persecution and repression exercised by the Communists during their long reign over the Czech people. Visiting the museum made us better appreciate just how courageous those protesters had been in their attempts to improve their lives and the lives of their fellow Czechs.

English: museum of communism in Prague Deutsch: “museum of communism” in Prag (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Looking up and down the street in New Town after leaving the museum, we could clearly see that capitalism had arrived. There were chain stores all over—McDonalds, BurgerKing, KFC, H&M, and so on. Although Andrea said that the locals all spent their free time in New Town, not Old Town, for me New Town was nothing special. It could have been almost any commercial street in any American city, except for the foreign language, the statue of King Wenceslas, and the older buildings. But that’s my American point of view. What is boring and mundane to me may still be new and exciting to the citizens of Prague. What intrigued me as a tourist—Old Town and the Castle—may just seem touristy and old-fashioned to those who live in Prague.

Wenceslas Square By Peter Stehlik - PS-2507 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Wenceslas Square
By Peter Stehlik – PS-2507 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s all just a matter of perspective. And perspective is what makes traveling so valuable; you get to see the world through the eyes of those who have lived in a different place with a different culture and a different history. My fairy tale setting is their ordinary setting; my ordinary setting is their fairy tale come true.

***************

Next—our visit to the Jewish Quarter in Prague.

Home Sweet Home

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Amy

We are back from our trip, and I have so much to say that I don’t even know where or how to start. Traveling to a different place can change your whole view of the world, of your place in the world, and of yourself. This trip did that in so many different ways. I have hundreds of photographs to sort and label, a lot of notes to transcribe and ponder, and so many thoughts and memories floating through my head that I need to write them all down before I forget them. So I can’t just start blogging in detail about the trip right away. I will certainly report about the parts of the trip that related directly to my own family—the trip to Poland in particular—once I have it all digested.

For now I have these overall thoughts and a few photographs to share. First, standing in the former Jewish quarters in Prague, Krakow, Budapest, and Vienna, some of which still have several synagogues (a few even still in operation), is a chilling and horrifying experience. For me, these places that once bustled with Jewish grandparents, mothers, fathers, and children, going to work and going to school and going to shul, were a graphic and vivid reminder of what the world lost in the Holocaust. Had it not been for the Nazis, these Jewish communities could and likely would still exist, adding to the culture and economy of these places and of the world just as they did for hundreds of years before their Jewish citizens were murdered.

A street in the former Jewish Quarter of Krakow

Nothing made this more painfully vivid for me than standing in Tarnobrzeg, the town where my Brotman great-grandparents lived, a town that was once 75% Jewish and where not one Jew lives today. The only signs that there were once Jews there were a small plaque on the library, a building that had once been the synagogue, and a Star of David near the gate to the neglected Jewish cemetery, where only a handful of headstones remain.

gravestone on the ground in the Jewish cemetery in Tarnobrzeg

Second, every person, Jewish or not, should visit Terezin and Auschwitz. I cannot say more. The places say it all. You cannot go to these places and not be changed. No matter what you may have read or seen or heard about the Holocaust, you cannot be prepared for what you experience walking in those places of terror and death. I have only two photographs of Terezin and no photographs of Auschwitz. I could not bear to think about taking a photograph while standing where so many were slaughtered.

Terezin

Third, I had little idea what life was like under Soviet domination in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary until we met several people who had lived during that era. We were lucky to have guides in Prague, Poland, and Budapest who had witnessed the changes and were able to describe to us how different life was before and after the Soviets left in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Today all these places are clearly capitalist, for better in many ways, for worse in others. Seeing Starbucks and McDonalds and KFC everywhere amidst the old buildings in these gorgeous cities is jolting, but much better than seeing empty store windows and children forced to march at rallies to support the “state.”

Old Town Square Prague

Despite all the sadness that we felt as we learned about the past in these places, overall we experienced these cities as places of joyfulness, liveliness, and overall comfort. Yes, there were beggars and homeless people, especially in Budapest, and I am sure that outside the areas where tourists congregate there is plenty of poverty and misery. But each of the cities we visited were beautiful places filled with incredible and fascinating architecture, a huge number of cafes and restaurants and bars, museums teeming with people, cobblestone streets crowded with tourists and tour groups, and the sounds of happy, excited people. There was music everywhere—in the streets, in the churches, and in the concert halls.

Dohany Synagogue in Budapest

We had an incredible time. Our tears and sadness were well-balanced with times of pure joy—climbing the tower to see all of Prague, clapping to Klezmer music in Krakow, walking along the river in Budapest, and eating unbelievable pastries in Vienna. We heard music in every city, we stood in awe in Gothic cathedrals, we watched people laughing and drinking and eating in the cafes, and we walked and walked and walked until our feet were numb. We had an incredible time.

Musikverein in Vienna

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Category Archives: Travel

Three Days in Budapest

Walking in the Shadows of My Brotman Great-Grandparents

Auschwitz

Krakow

Prague, Part III: Italian Music and Italian Food in the Czech Republic?

Prague, Part I—A Fairy Tale Setting

Home Sweet Home

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