The Holocaust Memorial Center ( hu, Holokauszt Emlékközpont) is a renovated synagogue that dates back to the 1920s and serves as a memorial and

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

for and about Hungarian Jews that were murdered in

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. While largely focused on Jews, the museum also mentions the discrimination and killings of Romani, of homosexuals, and of the disabled. It is located in

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 ...

, Hungary. The Holocaust Memorial Center is a former synagogue, the Páva Synagogue, at 39 Páva Utca, Budapest. It is a national institution established by the Government in 1999 and renovated and opened as the memorial and museum in 2004. It is the first Holocaust Memorial Center in Central Europe founded by a state. The museum was designed by

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

István Mányi and Attila Gáti. Architecturally, the building is

asymmetrical Asymmetry is the absence of, or a violation of, symmetry (the property of an object being invariant to a transformation, such as reflection). Symmetry is an important property of both physical and abstract systems and it may be displayed in pre ...

. A set of stairs lead visitors to the exhibitions, meant to "symbolize the distorted and twisted time of The Holocaust." There are permanent and temporary exhibits, and a research center. The research center offers people to search for their family member and have the chance to add to the list of names, increasing their database. A wall in the courtyard of the Holocaust Memorial Center is inscribed with the names of 60,000 of Hungary's approximately 600,000 victims of the genocide.

Controversy

Following the victory of

Viktor Orbán Viktor Mihály Orbán (; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian politician who has served as prime minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has presided over Fidesz since 1993, with a brief break between ...

's Fidesz Party in the

2010 Hungarian parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Hungary on 11 and 25 April 2010 to elect the members of the National Assembly. They were the sixth free elections since the end of the communist era. 386 Members of Parliament (MPs) were elected in a combined ...

, Andras Levente Gal was appointed to head the center. Paul A. Shapiro of the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...

stated that Gal set out to eliminate any reference to Miklos Horthy, the Hungarian head of state who allied Hungary with

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. Gal was accused of denying the involvement of the Hungarian state in the Holocaust, placing all the blame for the destruction of Hungarian Jewry on Germany. This led to an international outcry, following which Gal was sacked.

References

External links

Official website

Pava St. Synagogue in the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Synagogues in Budapest Museums in Budapest Jews and Judaism in Budapest Monuments and memorials in Hungary Holocaust museums 2004 establishments in Hungary Museums established in 2004 {{Hungary-stub

Controversy

See also

References

External links