Gyöngyös (; german: Gengeß) is a town in Heves county in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

, east of

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...

. Situated at the foot of the Sár-hegy and Mátra mountains, it is the home of numerous food production plants, including milk production and sausage factories. It is also the home of many

vineyard A vineyard (; also ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is known as viticulture. Vineyard ...

s on the slopes of the Sárhegy. The Art-Nouveau and Baroque buildings around the main square were reconstructed after a disastrous fire started in the local hospital in 1917, destroying a number of buildings housing important Jewish institutions and leaving in all around 8,000 homeless.

Name

The meaning of the town's name is "Made of

Pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

s"; Croats from Hungary call this city ''Đunđuš'' . The 16/17th-century historian Miklós Istvánffy wrote that the name of the town comes from the Hungarian word for

mistletoe Mistletoe is the common name for obligate hemiparasitic plants in the order Santalales. They are attached to their host tree or shrub by a structure called the haustorium, through which they extract water and nutrients from the host plant. ...

(''fagyöngy'' literally "wood-pearl"), which is abundant in the local woods.

History

Gyöngyös was home to a large Jewish community before World War II. In 1942, anti-Jewish laws were adopted in the province, affecting the Jews of the town. Following the occupation of Hungary by the German army in March 1944, 1800 Jews were locked in a

ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished ...

. Some were saved by Hungarian

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

personnel but most of them were deported to

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed int ...

where they were murdered.

Sights to visit

There are many monuments and places of interest in the town, such as the Orczy mansion, home of the Mátra Museum, Saint Bartholomew's Church ( Saint Bartholomew Church, Gyöngyös, Hungary) in the center of town, and its Treasury.

Notable residents

* Gyöngyi Horváth, sociologist, conference organiser * Rudolph Ritter von Brudermann (1851–1941), general of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

Béla Kerékjártó Béla Kerékjártó (1 October 1898, in Budapest – 26 June 1946, in Gyöngyös) was a Hungarian mathematician who wrote numerous articles on topology. Kerékjártó earned his Ph.D. degree from the University of Budapest in 1920. He taught a ...

(1898–1946), mathematician * Sandor Kenyeres (born 1949), property developer, scientific philanthropist, and cultural visionary * Gedeon Richter (1872–1944), pharmacist, business magnate, philanthropist, founder of Gedeon Richter plc, pioneer of the Hungarian pharmaceutical industry * Soma Visontai (1854–?), lawyer, deputy * Paul Vay de Vaya (1735–1800), Major General (1794), Feldmarschall-leutnant (1799–1800) * Margit Gréczi (born 1941), painter * Zita Pataki (born 1973), weather presenter

Politics

* Gábor Vona (born 1978), politician, leader of the political party Jobbik * Gábor Fodor (born 1962), jurist, politician, leader of the Hungarian Liberal Party * Pál Almásy (1818–1882), lawyer, politician, Speaker of the House of Representatives (1849) * Károly Kamermayer (1829–1897), jurist, councillor, the first mayor of Budapest (1873–1896) * József Balázs (born 1965), politician * Gabor Horváth, (born 1963) brigadier general, army carrier officer, promoter of NATO and EU membership, commander

Sports

* Viktor Szabó (born 1986), footballer * Dárius Csillag (born 1995), footballer * Dávid Ficsór (born 1986), footballer *

Gergő Gohér Gergő Gohér (born 16 June 1987) is a Hungarian footballer who plays for Szolnok. Club career In July 2021, Gohér returned to Szolnok Szolnok (; also known by other alternative names) is the county seat of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok coun ...

(born 1987), footballer * András Herczeg (born 1956), football manager, former player, manager of

Debreceni VSC Debreceni Vasutas Sport Club is a professional football club, based in Debrecen, Hungary, that competes in the Nemzeti Bajnokság I, the first tier of Hungarian football. They are best known internationally for reaching the group stages of the ...

* Zsófia Kovács (born 1988), professional triathlete * József Éles (born 1969), former handball player, handball coach of the Dominican Republic women's national team * Attila Szekrényessy (1913–1995),

pair skater Pair skating is a figure skating discipline defined by the International Skating Union (ISU) as "the skating of two persons in unison who perform their movements in such harmony with each other as to give the impression of genuine Pair Skating a ...

* Gabriella Csépe (born 1973), swimmer *

László Polgár László Polgár (born 11 May 1946) is a Hungarian chess teacher and educational psychologist. He is the father of the famous Polgár sisters: Zsuzsa, Zsófia, and Judit, whom he raised to be chess prodigies, with Judit and Zsuzsa becoming ...

(born 1946), educational psychologist and developer of educational method to develop "stars" (whom he calls "geniuses"). He and his wife Klára used his method to develop daughters Zsuzsa Susan Polgár, Zsófi Sofia Polgár and Judit Polgár into the world's leading chess players, Olympic champions. His paternal grandfather in yöngyös was a great Talmudic scholar. * Energia SC Gyöngyös (1992–present), football club

Twin towns – sister cities

Gyöngyös is twinned with: *

Luohe Luohe (; postal: Loho) is a prefecture-level city in central Henan province, China. It is surrounded by the cities of Xuchang, Zhoukou, Zhumadian and Pingdingshan on its north, east, south and west respectively. Its population was 2,367,490 ...

, China *

Manisa Manisa (), historically known as Magnesia, is a city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province. Modern Manisa is a booming center of industry and services, advantaged by its closeness to the international port ci ...

, Turkey *

Pieksämäki Pieksämäki () is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the Southern Savonia region, about north of Mikkeli, east of Jyväskylä and south of Kuopio. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is wa ...

, Finland * Ringsted, Denmark * Sanok, Poland *

Štip Štip ( mk, Штип ) is the largest urban agglomeration in the eastern part of North Macedonia, serving as the economic, industrial, entertainment and educational focal point for the surrounding municipalities. As of the 2002 census, the city ...

, North Macedonia * Târgu Secuiesc, Romania * Zeltweg, Austria *

Shusha / hy, Շուշի , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = ShushaCollection2021.jpg , image_caption = Landmarks of Shusha, from top left:Ghazanchetsots Cathedral • Yukhari Govha ...

, Azerbaijan

Gallery

File:Víztorony - Gyöngyös.jpg, Aerial photograph of the water tower, built in 1927.

References

External links

* . * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gyoengyoes Populated places in Heves County Orczy family