GERMANY: WITTENBERG

 May 17, 2025

About 50 miles northwest of the sleepy little town of Torgau and also positioned on the Elbe River is Wittenberg, a somewhat larger city with 45,000 inhabitants. A university was established here in 1502, which attracted two important luminaries to its faculty line-up: Martin Luther and his friend and fellow reformer Philip Melanchthon.

Luther's and Melanchthon's portraits were painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder,
the most famous German portraitist of his day, who painted at least ELEVEN portraits
of Luther and over THIRTY of Melanchthon..

Wittenberg is a typical charming German town, maybe even more charming than most because unlike many other German cities of any size, it was spared destruction during World War II. Its religious history protected it from the Allies' bombs. However, it was occupied by the Soviets after the war and became part of East Germany in 1949.

Germany has their own version of "George Washington Slept Here." Two windows in this pretty building are marked with this information: Karl August (1757-1828), who was the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, visited the city in 1820, and Napoleon I, aka Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), King of France, slept here in 1806 and 1813. 

POLAND, WARSAW: OKOPOWA STREET JEWISH CEMETERY

We continued our Walk through Warsaw alongside these old brick walls that enclose the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, established in 1806. 

Covering 83 acres, it is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the world. 

A map of the Ghetto and dedication plaque are affixed to the gate.

The cemetery has over 250,000 marked graves and an untold number of unmarked graves. The section closest to the entrance has been more or less restored.

POLAND, KRAKOW: OSKAR SCHINDLER MUSEUM

June 23, 2019

I have to throw in one picture of a building that is next door to the Oskar Schindler Museum. Any guesses what "MOCAK" stands for? 

MOCAK = Museum Of Contemporary Art Krakow. That was easy, right? It was built in 2011 on a piece of land where part of Oskar Schindler's factory once stood.

The Schindler Museum is actually not a museum about Oskar Schindler and his personally dangerous attempt to save as many Jews as possible. Rather, it is a museum about World War II, including the Holocaust and with a little bit of Schindler. Our guide told us that many people are really disappointed by that fact, but I thought it was one of the best WWII museums I've seen.

I'm pretty sure most people today know who Oskar Schindler was, due largely to the 1993 Steven Spielberg movie Schindler's List. Much of the movie was shot in the Jewish Quarter of Krakow, with some of it filmed in Schindler's factory itself. The factory manufactured enamelware--dishes made of metal covered with a porcelain-like material.

POLAND, KRAKOW: JEWISH QUARTER

June 23 2019

Our next stop was the Jewish Quarter of Krakow, known locally as Kazimierz because it was founded in the 14th century by King Kasimir as a gathering place for Jews. By 1939, the Jewish population of Krakow was 70,000, about 25% of the population.  In less than 18 months, the Jewish population was about 15,000, and in March 1941, the Krakow Ghetto was established to house what was left of the Jews. More about that later. By the end of the war, the Jewish population of Krakow had been essentially decimated.

After the war, this neighborhood was largely neglected in rebuilding efforts. It was a poor area with a high crime rate. In 1988 a Jewish Cultural Festival was started, and the neighborhood began to turn around. Then the movie Schindler's List was filmed here in 1993, and the place became a tourist attraction.

Today, the Jewish Quarter is the second-largest tourist attraction in Krakow after Old Town. It's a busy, famous part of the city, but the Jewish population remains quite small.

When we were there, a flea market was drawing a lot of people to the square around what was once the kosher slaughterhouse:

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA: JEWISH SYNAGOGUE AND MUSEUM

The oldest Jewish congregation in South Africa, founded in 1841, is Gardens Shul (formerly Cape Town Hebrew Congregation). It is considered the "Mother Synagogue" of South Africa. It includes two buildings, an 1863 synagogue and a 1905 synagogue. (The originally 1849 building is gone.)

A guide told us that this orthodox synagogue seats 1,100.  Since there are only 800 Orthodox Jews in Cape Town, it's probably never hard to find a seat.

I loved the stained glass windows, not something I usually associate with Judaism:

Close-up of two of the panes:

BUKHARA, UZBEKISTAN: MONUMENTS, MOSQUES, AND MAUSOLEUMS

As a major stop along the Silk Road, Bukhara had exposure to many different cultures. That is still apparent today in their architecture and diet and appearance. Bukhara even has a Jewish synagogue, built in the 16th century:

The land for this synagogue was granted to the Jews in exchange for a piece of property owned by some local Jews and on which the local vizier wanted to build a madrasa. A deal was cut and the beautiful Madrasa of Nadir Divan-begi was built on the site in 1622:

It is best know for this unusual depiction of two phoenixes and a sun with a face on the entrance portal:

MARRAKECH, MOROCCO: LAZAMA SYNAGOGUE

Bob is a terrific trip planner and really hit the jackpot with his guide selections for Morocco. He researched the best guides on the internet, relying especially on Trip Advisor recommendations. The best of all our guides was Abdul, our guide in Marrakech.

We were so impressed with not just Abdul's knowledge about his city, but also his thoughtful approach to planning our time. He assessed our interests as we went along, and he adjusted his plans for us accordingly. A very intelligent man, he also has a good grasp of historical and international issues, and his English is excellent.

The first place Abdul took us was to the Jewish quarter, which was quite close to our riad. Jews were once 10% of the population of Marrakech, but the total Jewish population is now only about 200. Abdul said that there is no discrimination in Morocco based on religion, but I wondered why, if that were the case, there weren't more Jews in Marrakech. Abdul said that had to do with past issues and with the gathering of Jews in Israel.

Anyway, we visited the old Lazama Synagogue, which is now a museum. It is unmarked on the outside and located down a narrow side street, and it would have been a challenge to find on our own.

The first Jews arrived in Marrakech as early as the days of King Solomon, and the population grew slowly by steadily through the centuries. In the 15th century, the sultan moved the Jews into what is known as the "mellah," or walled Jewish quarter of the city. There were as many as 35,000 Jews in Marrakech, and there were many synagogues and great rabbis in the mellah, as well as a complete array of shops, craftsmen, and schools.

BUDAPEST, PART 2: Hungarian Jews and the War

Traveling often raises a lot of questions.  I have learned that there is nothing like going somewhere new to realize that I really know very little about the world.  Then it is fun to come home and do some research to give context to what I've seen.

Hungary was that way for me.  I knew that it had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire prior to World War I, and because I had read Michael Meyer's book The Year That Changed the World, I knew about it starting the chain of events that led to the collapse of the Iron Curtain, but that's about it. The years in between were pretty unknown to me.  Since coming home, I have learned that after World War I, Hungary lost 70% of its territory, all of its seaports, two-thirds of its total population, and a third of its ethnically Hungarian population.  No surprise, then, that it joined the Axis powers in 1940.

In 1941 Hungary invaded Russia, doing well at first but then suffering growing losses until finally trying to negotiate surrender to the Allies in 1943.  However, this ticked off Hitler (not a good thing) and he sent Nazi troops to occupy Hungary to prevent the surrender.  Unfortunately, once the Nazis were there, they immediately began identifying and collecting the Jews, and in May and June of 1944, the Nazis deported 444,000 Hungarian Jews, mostly to Auschwitz.  Because it was so late in the war, many of these Jews suvived, but at least 200,000 died.  There was a very strong underground movement that saved a number of Jews, particularly in Budapest, and ultimately about half of the city's Jews survived the Holocaust.  (By comparison, only 10% of Poland's 3,000,000 Jews survived.)

Arrow Cross flag

In November 1944, just six months before the end of the War, the Arrow Cross government, the Hungarian branch of the Nazi party, ordered all remaining Jews into the Ghetto.  During the next two months, the ruthless Arrow Cross took as many as 20,000 Jews from the Ghetto to the banks of the Danube.  They had them remove their shoes so that they could be passed on to others, and then they shot them and let their bodies fall into the river.

Which brings me to our visit to Budapest.

Sixty years later, two Hungarian artists created a stirring remembrance of the atrocity, and they called it "Shoes on the Danube Bank."  Sixty iron pairs of 1940s-style shoes--men's, women's, and children's--are attached to the stone at the edge of the Danube, forming a border that runs about forty-three yards.

The memorial plaque is written in three languages, including English:
Moving in its simplicity, this memorial is a must-see for any visitor to Budapest.

The other significant Jewish site we visited was the Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe and the fifth largest in the world:

Completed in 1859, it has an interesting Moorish style that reminded me of the Spanish Synagogue we had seen in Prague. Our guide pointed out that it has two towers "like Solomon's Temple."

It was bombed and seriously damaged at the beginning of the War, then the Nazis used it as a radio station and a barn, and finally it was further damaged during the Soviet invasion at the end of the War.  During the Soviet occupation, the government allowed it to be used as a prayer house, which at least kept it from being torn down.  A seven-year restoration project began in 1991 after Hungary's return to democracy, funded in part by Tony Curtis and Estee Lauder, both descendants of Hungarian Jews.

These t-shirts sold in the synagogue gift shop made me chuckle. That one on the right says "Winnie the Jooh."

I really developed a thing for interesting/beautiful doors on this trip.

           

I also loved the geometric windows, and I got a kick out of Stan in his cap.  Bob was always wearing a hat he purchased in Prague, so he didn't have to don one of these. Too bad.

The very unorthodox interior is almost shocking in its gaudiness. Men's seats are on the ground level, and women are seated in the balconies. In 1944, the evil Nazi Adolf Eichmann had an office on one of these balconies:

More Moorish touches in the inside:

    The aisle floor looks like a quilt:                 Fresh flowers tied to the end of the pews:

There were also some interesting touches not usually seen in synagogues: an organ and a central pulpit. As our guide put it, "This is the most beautiful Catholic synagogue in the world," and it was "built to impress Gentiles." 

As in so many Jewish sites, there are many references to the Holocaust.  Behind the synagogue is a beautiful courtyard with a sad history. In the winter of 1944-1945, thousands of Jews were kept in inhumane conditions in a ghetto that included this area.  When the ghetto was liberated, thousands of bodies of Jews who had frozen, starved to death, or been brutalized by the Arrow Cross were found in the streets.  More than 2,000 of those Jews were buried in twenty-four mass graves here, behind the synagogue:

It is called "The Garden of Remembrance," and a sign says it is "a memorial to an era when all human feeling was lost."

Just beyond the garden is an unusual weeping willow tree made of steel:

On closer examination, we saw that it was a broken-looking upside-down menorah, The Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs.

On the leaves are engraved the names of Hungarian Jews known to have died in the Holocaust: a number that ranges from 400,000 to 600,000, depending on the source.

An inscription at the base of the statue in Hungarian is translated as "Whose agony is greater than mine?"

Facing the willow from across the courtyard is this dramatic stained glass window. The swirling flames are the perfect symbol of the Holocaust; the snake coiling upward out of the flames represents the evil of Fascism.

The word on this grave marker is the Hungarian word for "Remember."

There is also a memorial to the non-Jews who risked their lives to save the Jews.  As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, they were particularly active and successful in Budapest.  The first name on this marker is that of Raoul Wallenberg, Sweden's special envoy in Budapest in 1944, who issued protective passports to thousands of Jews and hid thousands more in safe houses designated as Swedish territory, saving tens of thousands of Jews all by himself.  In 1945 he was accused of spying by the Soviets and shipped off to a KGB prison in Moscow, where it is thought he died in 1947.  Among those he saved was Tom Lantos, who went on to become a United States Senator from California.

While Wallenberg is not actually buried here, this symbolic grave is a reminder that a single person can have a great impact in the war against evil.

ANOTHER BOOK TO READ:

The Seamstress, by Sara Tuvel Bernstein, is the memoir of a very feisty Romanian Jew who lived and worked in Budapest in the days leading up to the Holocaust. She recounts the growing tension in Budapest as fascism gains power, the increasing number of anti-Semitic laws, and finally the open persecution of Jews that led to the establishment of the Jewish ghetto. This first half of the book provides poignant  insight into the Jewish venues in Budapest.

Sara, her sister Esther, and two friends end up in Ravensbruck, a brutal women's concentration camp about 60 miles north of Berlin, where 19 out of 20 prisoners eventually died because of the horrible conditions. Although one of Sara's group dies, Sara, her sister, and one of the friends miraculously manage to survive, due in large part to Sara's street-smarts and courage.

Time to move on for some gelato.