Dohany Street Great Synagogue

We visited the Great Synagogue today. We listened to the story of the Hungarian Jews sent to death camps in 1944. It's amazing to be here where the things I've read about have actually happened. Here are some images I took while I was there.

Inside the synagogue.

Outside the synagogue there is a courtyard that was used as a cemetery when the ghetto was closed off and the people could not bury their family members in an outside cemetery. There are the remains of over 3000 people in the courtyard. 

The guide told the story of how the sacred Torah were saved by 2 Catholic priests who took them out into the countryside and hid them for years while the war was going on.  She said that no one knows the names of the priests, but that the texts are some of the oldest in existence and are priceless. 

Out in the gardens there is this memorial stained glass representing the Holocaust.  Behind it is a statue or sculpture of a Weeping Willow with the names of people killed in the death camps. 

There were over 500,000 Jews removed from Hungary and killed by the Nazis. 

There is also a memorial wall where people can remember the dead.

A memorial to Raoul Wallenberg and the others who protected the Jews from deportation to the death camps by setting up sovereign houses within Budapest to shelter people.