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Monuments and Memories in Budapest, Hungary

06/07/2015 By Eric H. Doss Leave a Comment

Our full trip to Budapest and the rural areas of Hungary is a story for another time, but I wanted to share  some images and thoughts from our trip through Memento Park.

My first recommendation is for you to pick up Rick Steves’ Budapest Guide Book. Steves is a wonderful writer and digs into such depth in his books that you can frequently skip the paid tours and self-guide. We decided to skip the guide and depend instead on Rick’s step-by-step instructions for getting the most from Memento Park.

Memento Park

When the Communist regime began to fall apart in 1989, Budapest officials immediately started to remove the statues and plaques that memorialized Communist leaders such as Lenin and Marx. I’m a bit surprised that the officials had enough foresight to hold on to many of these statues instead of destroying them. These mementos (see what I did there?) were moved to a park above Pest and organized into a moving, awe-inducing statement on communism. I would never do the full tour justice by trying to retell it here, so I won’t, but I will let you know that everything about the park is deliberate. Whatever you are looking at, even if it looks like an afterthought or a mistake, is designed to look exactly as it does and generally has a deeper meaning.

For example, when you arrive at the park, you’ll see a large beautiful entrance made of brick. However, the doors are locked and you must look around for a small side door. Once inside, you will notice that the beautiful entrance is just a facade. The message is that communism was simply a facade and, in spite of the beautiful appeal, the benefits of communism was mostly closed to the average person.

To get to Memento Park, you should take the Number 150 bus to Memento Park. The stop is labeled, but it’s always best to ask the bus driver or another passenger to make sure you don’t go on the Number 150 bus tour of the city. There are also private bus options, but public transit in Budapest is pretty solid, so we never saw the need to use anything else.

One of the first things we saw at the park was a striking example of communist art, a large statue of the idealized Soviet worker. Hindsight being 20/20, I think communist art is almost farcical, but can easily understand the power of these large, imposing statues, especially to a generation of people scarred by war and upheaval.

Man with Flag Statue

It is important to have some understanding of what these statues symbolize. If you look at these statues, you will easily understand the power of the art, but you will miss the beauty of the details. For example, the statue below, featuring Bela Kun, is full of motion and urgency. You can easily imagine a voice, calling out over the soldiers, the rattling of shield and sword, or the firm strike of boots on the ground.

Statue with Lightpost

Bela Kun was a Hungarian communist leader. This statue shows Kun overseeing the transition of the Magyar people through the decades. You see Kun standing in a podium speaking, but may not immediately notice the lightpost to his right. For many people, the lightpost might just seem like a detail, but in Hungarian symbolism the lightpost symbolizes execution, which was Kun’s fate in 1938.

There are so many intriguing statues that I simply cannot include them all here, but if you’re going to be in Budapest, you should make time to visit the park. Expect to take about 1.5 hours to fully view the entire park.

Other monuments and symbols

While Memento Park is large and moving, the most striking memorial I noticed in Budapest was “Shoes on the Danube Bank”, a memorial created to commemorate the death of Jews shot by the Arrow Cross, a fascist militia, in 1944. The story is as simple as it is horrifying. The Arrow Cross rounded up Jews, took them to the edge of the Danube River, and shot them, their bodies falling a few feet to the water below.

Jewish Shoes

As we wandered around Buda before heading to the Hungarian parliament, we stumbled upon this statue:

Just Reagan

Of course, the fall of communism and the retreat of Soviet forces from Hungary are recent and important memories for the average Hungarian, so it’s perhaps unsurprising to find the Reagan statue. Though, admittedly, a bit surreal to happen upon a lifesize statute in a nondescript park.

Terror Museum

We also visited the House of Terror, a museum that commemorates the terror experienced by Hungarians during the fascist and communist governments. The museum was opened in 2000 and is housed in a building used by both fascists and communists to detain, interrogate, and kill opponents of the regimes. Outside the museum, you will find a number of pictures of the victims of each regime.

budapest museum

You could easily spend half a day inside the museum. The floors are well organized and should be visited in the order recommended by the tour booklet. The House of Terror is open everyday, except Monday, from 10am to 6pm and admission is 2000 HUF, or about $9.

All of this heavy history had us a bit depressed, or at least in a solemn mood, so we then headed over to the Great Market Hall to look around and grab a quick meal. In our experience, every country and every culture has a meal based on great fried dough, and the Magyars are no exception. Called langos, this meal is a plate sized portion of yeasty fried dough topped with anything you might imagine. In my case, I chose one with a thin layer of cream cheese and topped with almost every veggie you can imagine, including corn, peppers, onions, olives, and a feta-like cheese.

Fried Dough Lunch

Filed Under: Hungary Tagged With: bela kun, budapest, hungary, momento park, ronald reagan, terror museum

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Oranienburg, Germany

04/07/2015 By Eric H. Doss Leave a Comment

We left Berlin early in the morning and caught the train up to Oranienburg, a small town about 30 minutes out of Berlin and the home of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. You may be aware that there were numerous types of camps, including forced labor camps, transit camps, and extermination camps. The extermination camps, camps designed purely, or primarily, to murder people were built outside Germany, in occupied Poland. If you’re interested in learning more about the types of camps, the Wikipedia article is very helpful. Now, you shouldn’t be confused about the nature of concentration camps; almost all of them had facilities to kill and dispose of bodies, but the extermination camps were designed primarily to accomplish Hitler’s Final Solution, the complete annihilation of the Jewish People.

Sachsenhausen was located in the same town, Oranienburg, as the headquarters of the Nazi concentration camps and was also used to train SS officers for service in other camps. There were many famous prisoners housed at Sachsenhausen, including Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi theologian who is best known for his work “First they came…”

It seemed fitting that the morning was overcast and a bit rainy as we made our way from the train station to the entrance of the concentration camp. Leaving the train station, you should head towards Bernauer Strasse. Turn right on Bernauer Strasse and walk less than half of a mile to turn left on Strasse der Einheit. This is a neighborhood street, which makes the presence of the concentration camp even more surreal. You’ll walk a bit more than a quarter of a mile before turning right on Strasse der Nationen. The road will wind around to the left, maybe a quarter of a mile down, and before the turn, you’ll see the entrance to Sachsenhausen.

sachsenhausen entrance

If you want to plan your tour of the camp, you can go to the Sachsenhausen website and select the maps option at the top left. I’d give you a direct link, but the site doesn’t provide direct URLs.

As you’ll find at every concentration and extermination camp, the propaganda slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work makes you free) is prominent on some of the gates around the camp.

sachsenhausen gate

The camp had been partially destroyed towards the end of the war, but the camp was later used by Soviets as a special camp for political prisoners during the occupation of post-war Germany. Many of the original structures remain, however, including the barracks seen here that were part of the Sonderlager, a special camp for trouble prisoners or prisoners who attempted to escape from here or other camps.

sachsenhausen barracks

The barracks for prisoners were made of wood and were less protective from the elements. Inside one of the open prisoner barracks, we discovered Martin Niemöller’s cell:

niemoller cell

Continuing to wander around the grounds without a guide, we found a watchtower used to supervise the prisoners:

watchtower

As we continued our tour, I was unnerved by the lack of evidence of the horrors of the camp. Coming through the gate and wandering around, it was clear this was a prison camp, but the true horrors of the camp were not immediately visible. However, as we continued away from the entrance, we soon discovered the darker history of the camp.

Sachsenhausen was not, as I mentioned earlier, a death camp. However, the camp was used for killing prisoners, first in an execution trench where prisoners were shot or hanged. It is estimated that over 30,000 prisoners were murdered here, including 100 Dutch resistance fighters.

execution pit

Leaving the execution trench and walking back towards the entrance of the camp, we discovered the remains of the crematory and gas chambers. Originally installed in 1943, the chambers and crematory is largely gone, but enough of the structures remain to understand the horrible nature of this camp.

ovens sachsenhausen

As we prepared to leave to catch our train back to Berlin and on to Nuremberg, we passed a moving tribute to the murdered prisoners.

sachsenhausen memorial

Filed Under: Germany Tagged With: berlin, concentration camp, germany, holocaust, martin niemoller, nazi, political prisoners, sachsenhausen, shoah

Day Hike in the Cinque Terre

30/06/2014 By Eric H. Doss Leave a Comment

Sometimes, less is more. In 2013, we visited Italy for about two weeks, part of the time in Verona and part of the time in the Italian Alps. One day, we drove down to the Cinque Terre to visit some family and decided to take a quick hike from Vernazza to Monterosso. Of course, the hike was a bit longer than we expected, and I probably wouldn’t recommend wearing Rainbow Sandals, but whatever. The trail between Monterosso and Vernazza is the hardest of them all, but rewards hikers with a spectacular view that is certainly worth your efforts.

If you’re interested in hiking in the Cinque Terre, you should make sure to check out the trail status before you plan your hike. The Italian government is making many updates and restorations to the trails and it’s possible that the trails between cities may be closed. I recommend checking WikiTravel’s page on hiking in the Cinque Terre, but you may want to check with the government too.

We had a great lunch in Levanto and grabbed a train in to Vernazza. The summer is the busiest time of the year, so the trains were packed. And, of course, the train station was being renovated, so there were only a few egress options. Instead of getting bent out of shape, we hung out for a bit and let the crowds die down.

Just a Little Crowded

Now, it’s important to know that the Cinque Terre towns are really small. They’re generally only one street, maybe a couple, but when the trains arrive, you’re dealing with crowded streets. No need to rush, everyone is going the same place, everyone is hot, and everyone wants to see everything, so just relax and enjoy the trip.

We headed down the main street in Vernazza and enjoyed a little gelato before finding the start of the trail. As with all streets in Italy, you’re going to struggle to find the start of the trail. You’ll end up heading towards the water, and then if you look to your right, you’ll see stairs that lead up to the hills. It’s easiest to keep your eyes open for people coming into Vernazza from Monterosso. The first bit of the trail has a lot of elevation gain, but it’ll level out after a bit and you’ll be rewarded with some amazing views.

Vernazza Departing

The shot above was taken just as we climbed out of Vernazza, looking back to the town and the cathedral. The trailhead starts just to the left of the cathedral, between the houses.

As we continued along, we stopped frequently to look back over the amazing little town that we’d just left.

Leaving Vernazza

Here’s a better view of the hike out of Vernazza.

We continued on a bit and came across this guy, living La Dolce Vita at the highest point on the trail.

Hard Cat Life

I love how the locals take care of this cat, making sure he has food, and a safe place to sleep that’ll keep him dry.

As we continued, the terrain changed. We got the elevation gains out of the way and enjoyed the rest of the views, the Med on our left, and a long trail in front of us. As we crested the hill and started down towards Monterosso, the path became steep again, but heading down now. As we started to see more people, we knew we were closer to Monterosso and we started to notice small farms and vineyards.

Vineyards and Pool

What a hard life it must be to swim in a pool overlooking the Med.

As we finished up our hike, Monterosso came into view. By this time, the day was quite hot and a bit of haze had set in, so pardon the pictures here, but I think you can understand the sheer beauty of the place, even with the bad pictures.

Entering Monterosso

Though most of our trip was in different parts of Italy, we loved our day trip to the Cinque Terre. If you’re looking to visit, you can save quite a bit of money by staying outside the five towns, choosing to stay in Levanto or La Spezia. Both towns are amazing, right on the water, and much less expensive than the Cinque Terre towns. Of course, you’ll be able to get into the Cinque Terre easily, via train. I wouldn’t recommend driving in. It’s possible, sometimes, but you’re going to hate life if you bring a car.

Filed Under: Italy Tagged With: cinque terre, hiking, hiking in the cinque terre, la spezia, levanto, monterosso, vernazza

Your Traveled Guides

Eric and Heather Doss Heather is literally a "born" traveler; she was born abroad to military parents. Her love of traveling has taken her across the United States, to Central America, southern Africa and the Middle East.

Eric's international adventures began shortly after meeting Heather when they traveled together to Israel and Palestine. In addition to enjoying travel to Germany, Italy, Hungary and the Middle East, Eric is the default driver for their cross country road trips.

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