Szegő Dóra - Szegő György: Synagogues - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2004)

The Synagogue in Berzeviczy utca

■ The synagogue in Berzeviczy utca, the Holocaust Memorial

horn struck a perfect balance between the eclecticism of the existing elements with the ''modern" style of the Art Nouveau. The Ark with the rabbi's pedestal and the Torah-reading table are accentuated by a gilt-framed triple vault in front of the Eastern wall. Next to and above the Ark, the sanctuary is topped with railing decorated with a star of David. Impressive highlights of the interior are the stained-glass windows with Jewish symbols and Hebrew inscriptions.

After the war the windows were given additional inscriptions commemorating the names of the Holocaust victims. On the garden wall surrounding the synagogue is a series of reliefs made by Edit Kis (Bán), Marianna Kőrössy and János Blaschberger in 1947 to commemorate the deported Jewry of Újpest, who had come under the jurisdiction of the gendarmerie in charge of the as yet provincial settlement. Represented on the four reliefs are the death march, the forced-labour service, the herding of women and children into gas chambers and, eventually, the liberation of the ghetto. Carved in marble slabs on the garden-side are the names of the victims.

Serving as the rabbi of the Újpest synagogue from 1897 was Lajos Venetianer, a learned historian of the European and Hungarian Jewry and professor of the Rabbinical Seminary with a secular as well as ecclesiastic renown. A street bears

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