Tag: world war ii

Postcard from Bordeaux, France: Lady Liberty breaks free of shackles on both sides of Atlantic

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While the use of the guillotine symbolizes a reign of terror during the early days of the French Revolution, its usage was adapted in the late 1700s as a more humane way to carry out public executions. It was regarded as both efficient and fast, sparing the sentenced unnecessary pain. It is said that before it was sanctioned as the official executioner’s tool, King Louis XVI (1754-1793) suggested improving the design to utilize an angled straight blade instead of the original curved one. He himself, along with his queen, Marie Antoinette (1755-1793), benefitted from the enhanced efficiency when they were beheaded.

The tool became a hallmark of the political maneuverings carried out by one of the leaders of the revolution, Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794). Robespierre definitely established himself as a kind of “if-you’re-not-with-me-you’re-against-me” kind of guy, placing those who found themselves in that category labeled as enemies of France. He was also adept at rallying the masses, the sans-culottes tradesmen in Paris, to protest against these enemies.

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Postcard from Budapest, Hungary: A palatial neighborhood

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Saint Sebastian (?-288) generally is depicted as turned into a bristling porcupine by arrows shot into him upon orders of Roman Emperor Diocletian (244-312). Although left for dead, Sebastian managed to recover from these seemingly mortal wounds, surviving to taunt the emperor about abuses against Christians on another day. Offended, Diocletian ordered Sebastian clubbed to death. The second brutal sentence brought the results the emperor desired.

It is not surprising that a saint capable of recovering from the archers’ multiple piercings of his body was turned to for aid by those suffering from an incurable disease wiping out multitudes in Europe – the plague. In 1706 near the Matthias Church, Buda erected a column in honor of the Holy Trinity to protect the city’s residents from the Black Plague. But the plague returned, so the council reasoned the first column had not been grand or tall enough. A more impressive column was built in 1709 including the above figure of Saint Sebastian. Bigger proved better according to the belief of the city’s inhabitants of the time, with Saint Sebastian receiving credit for keeping the disease at bay these centuries since.

An impressive equestrian statue featuring Saint Stephen (975-1038), the first king of Hungary, stands nearby. Saint Stephen guides the way to Fisherman’s Bastion, a fairytale-like overlook added to this perch above the Danube at the dawn of the 1900s after the extensive remodeling of Matthias Church. The landmark was built upon the bastion protected by the fishermen’s guild during the Middle Ages.

Ascending up the hill toward Buda Castle, one encounters a sculptural fountain lorded over by a statue of Matthias Corvinus (1443-1490) dressed for the hunt. The vizla dogs are the best part of this grouping, also completed in the early 1900s, but the woman on the lower right is the heart of the tableau. She represents a young peasant who supposedly fell in love with the king while he was hunting, not realizing he was king and, as such, unavailable, to her.

The Buda Castle is among the dropdead-gorgeous Budapest photo-ops viewed from the river below. Things look pretty palatial now, but the castle has had a life as tortuous as Saint Sebastian.

Matthias Fountain
The tural, a mythological bird of prey symbolic of Hungary
Statue of Saint Stephen backed by tower of Fisherman’s Bastion
Statue of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736)
Holy Trinity pillar (1709) outside Matthias Church
Matthias Fountain (1904) in courtyard of Buda Castle
World War I exhibition at Varkert Bazaar
Varkert Bazaar below and leading up to Buda Castle
Galeotto Marzio, the Italian court historian of King Matthias
Taming a wild horse, a statue originally in the Royal Riding School
Buda Castle
Statue of Saint Stephen
Buda Castle
Statue of Saint Stephen
King Matthias celebrating the hunt
statue outside Varkert Bazaar
The raven, a symbol of King Matthias
Varkert Bazaar below Buda Castle
Matthias Fountain
Gate approaching Buda Castle

King Bela IV (1206-1270) first built walls to fortify the hilltop against invasions by Mongols under the command of Batu Khan. King Sigismund (1368-1437), who at one point during rather tumultuous European times served as Holy Roman Emperor, expanded the royal residence into the largest Gothic palace of the Middle Ages to demonstrate his importance among the European leaders. Later, King Matthias Corvinus rebuilt the palace to reflect the trends of the early Renaissance.

In the 1500s, the Turks managed to conquer Buda and claim it as part of the Ottoman Empire. The extensive compound was damaged during the invasion, but palace maintenance was not among the priorities of the new rulers. Portions of the castle were relegated to serve as barracks, storage halls and stables. Several failed efforts by the Habsburgs to liberate Buda from Ottoman control inflicted more damage, but the great siege of 1686 proved the most devastating.

The Turks used a remaining tower on the grounds to store their supply of gunpowder. When bombarded, the explosion was reputed so huge as to have killed as many as 1,500 of the Turkish soldiers and created a massive wave on the Danube that swallowed more upon its banks. The Christian allies were successful in their quest, but the palace fared poorly. A new Baroque structure was begun but was partly destroyed by fire in 1723.

In order to pay tribute to Queen Maria Theresa (1717-1780), the only woman ruler during the centuries of the Habsburg dynasty, the Hungarian Chamber laid the foundation stone for a new palace on the queen’s birthday in 1749. Unfortunately, the nobles’ plans were grander than the depth of their pockets, and the project remained incomplete.

After visiting in 1764, Queen Maria Theresa allotted funds for finishing the project, despite having no desire to reside in Buda. She presented one wing to the Sisters of Loreto, but it was apparent the palace was too fancy for a nunnery. A university was established there, but later moved to the Pest side of the river. After Archduke Alexander Leopold (1772-1795) of Austria tapped it for use as his royal residence in 1791, the castle again became a bustling, fashionable center of society in Buda.

Efforts to keep the Austrians and Hungarians in harmony faltered. The Hungarian army revolted in May of 1849, with the Austrians holed up in the castle atop the hill. Heavy artillery fire was required to unseat them, and the resulting flames once again destroyed much of the palace.

Work once again commenced to make it grand enough to accommodate all of the archdukes, duchesses and officials connected to royalty. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, things settled down rather comfortably for a while under the rule of Emperor Franz Joseph (1830-1916). Buda and Pest became one city in 1873, and both benefitted during this period of peace and affluence from a considerable boom in building and urban improvements, including some of the enhancements above.

The Varkert Bazaar, or Royal Garden Pavilion, was built at the base of the Castle Hill on the river’s banks in the late 1800s, with elegant stairways leading upward to new gates. So many wings were needed to accommodate comings and goings, the castle outgrew its narrow hilltop footprint. A three-story substructure was constructed to provide a base for an addition on the west side. Royal stables and elaborate gardens contributed to the grounds, and the newly decorated palace was inaugurated in 1912.

The castle survived for several decades until World War II. The last stand of Axis forces during the siege of Budapest in 1944 and 1945 was Buda Castle. The heavy artillery fire and intense fighting required by the Soviet forces to evict them, left the palace in ruins once more.

Reconstruction Communist-style was different; modernization eliminated much of the former ornate ornamentation.

Restoration work continues on various wings of the castle even today, with Buda Palace now home to several major museums and a library.

Postcard from Budapest, Hungary: Striking synagogue enshrines tragedies of surrounding ghetto

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Moorish. Byzantine. Gothic. Oriental. The striking architectural mash-up of the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest is referred to as Moorish Revival.

Franz Liszt played the 5,000-pipe organ during the 1859 opening of the what is still the largest synagogue in Europe. Upper galleries flanking the center section of the temple were built to accommodate seating for women.

On the site of the former homestead of Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), widely regarded as the father of Zionism, the gracefully arched Jewish Museum opened in 1931 to display a rich collection of religious artifacts.

The Great Synagogue’s role at the center of a thriving community changed dramatically with the German invasion in March of 1944. Under the plan developed by Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962), hundreds of thousands of Jewish Hungarians were deported to extermination camps.

Approximately 70,000 members of the Jewish faith were herded into the ghetto surrounding the synagogue. During the following brutal winter as World War II drew to a close, many died from cold and hunger. With the liberation of Budapest from German control, the courtyard behind the synagogue became a makeshift cemetery for more than 2,000 of those who perished in the ghetto.

Soviet control brought a different set of issues and religious restrictions to the neighborhood.

Freedom to renovate the Great Synagogue and its grounds did not arrive until the 1990s when Hungary finally secured independence from Soviet control.

One of the major contributors to the makeover of the Great Synagogue built the base for her fortune by cooking up cosmetic creams in her kitchen and attractively bottling them for sale. She spent much of her life trying to distance herself from her parents’ roots:

I loved them both so much – their beauty and their character, but I didn’t love feeling different because of their old country ways.

Late in her life, Estee Lauder (1908-2004), whose mother was a Hungarian immigrant, paid tribute to those origins by contributing $5 million toward the renovation of the Dohany Street Synagogue.