Walking Tour of the Old Jewish Quarter

I hired myself a private walking tour about Districts 7 (the Jewish Quarter) and 8 to see some street art and learn a few things. My guide, Attila Hofle, was a great companion and guide. I can highly recommend him (visit Budapestflow.com). One of the first places we walked to was Rumbach Sebestyén utca where we find this grand synagogue. Designed by Otto Wagner in a moorish style, the interior is octagonal.

Across the street is this mural honoring Erzsébet, the beloved queen. The artist cleverly painted it around the existing window. Unfortunately, he/she had no control over the placement of the McDonald's sign.

Another famous Hungarian is Ernõ Rubik, inventor of the eponymous Rubik's Cube. Rubik invented this device in 1974 when, as an architecture professor he wanted to teach his students about three-dimensional spaces. This mural shows a cube in a way that really gives a sense of depth and three dimensionality to it.

The next mural depicts Angel Sanz Briz. From Wikipedia we learn,

Ángel Sanz Briz (28 September 1910 – 11 June 1980) was a Spanish diplomat who served under Francoist Spain during World War II. He saved the lives of some five thousand Hungarian Jews from deportation to Auschwitz.^[1][2] Sanz Briz is sometimes referred to as "the angel of Budapest".^[3][4][5]

This is a significant accomplishment that happened near the end of WWII. Remember, Hungary was only invaded by the Germans in 1944.

On 19 March 1944 German troops occupied Hungary, prime minister Miklós Kállay was deposed and soon mass deportations of Jews to German death camps in occupied Poland began. SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann went to Hungary to oversee the large-scale deportations. Between 15 May and 9 July, Hungarian authorities deported 437,402 Jews. All but 15,000 of these Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau,^[23] and 90% of those were immediately killed. It has been estimated that one-third of the murdered victims at Auschwitz were Hungarian.^[31]

The area in which we stood was then part of the Jewish ghetto that was roughly one square mile in size. As many as 70,000 Jews were forced into this area to await deportation.

The mural is painted by a Spanish muralist named Okuda, hence he signs his work (which you cannot see in the image below) Okudart.

Born Oscar San Miguel Erice in Santander, Pain on November 19, 1980, Okuda is a painter and sculptor internationally known for his distinctive style.

Okuda’s work can be classified as pop surrealism with a clear essence of street art or urban art. His artwork is composed of geometric prints and multicolored ephymeral architectures that help blend with grey bodies and organic forms. These pieces of artwork often raise contradictions about existentialism, the universe, the infinite, the meaning of life, and the false freedom of capitalism. They help ignite conversations about the clear conflict between modernity and our roots.