A Sunday Stroll Through the Jewish Cemetery on Salgótarjáni Street

Getting anywhere early on a Sunday morning takes a lot of work. A 10-minute wait for a tram, another 10-minute wait for a metro, paying way too much for a coffee and a croissant cause that overpriced cafe is the only place open at such an antisocial hour, then sprinting for another tram cause the next one is in 20 mins. I made the tram, which rattled down Népszínház utca. Eventually, it turned onto a track wedged between a brick wall to one side and an overgrown fence leading to some abandoned-looking industrial land to the other. Right beside the empty stop stood the castle gate leading into the old Jewish cemetery.

In its heyday, this Jewish cemetery was the place to be buried if you were a Jew. Although the Kozma Street Cemetery in Kőbánya is much larger (and later), the one on Salgótarjáni Street is more densely packed and closer to the centre, as it was the only active Jewish cemetery until 1892. Graves and mausoleums jostle together as trees shed their leaves onto the paths, and ivy tries its best to consume the stone. This cemetery was once in demand. It opened adjacent to the main cemetery on Fiumei Street in 1874, housing a who’s who of Budapest’s industrial elite. However, its newest graves date to 1945; slabs of stone unceremoniously paved the ground commemorating the mass grave of 2,300 buried here, primarily those who were shot in the Shoah on Népszínház street and were brought here via the same tram line I arrived on.

Since 1950, the cemetery has been abandoned. In the 1970s, people with an addiction and the unhoused squatted among the tombs. It was only recently started to get cared for again and is now under the care of the National Heritage Foundation, which also oversees the main Kerepesi Cemetery next door. Even ten years ago, you couldn’t just come here as many of the graves were targeted for antisemitic vandalism, but today, the cemetery is peaceful, and some of the graves have been restored. While restoration is underway, you’ll still spot a few caves in tombs and mausoleums propped up with wood scaffolding.

I joined up on a tour with Hosszúlépés of the old cemetery. We were a small group, and it just turned nine on the Sunday. The heat didn’t burn yet, but the mosquitoes treated my ankles like an all-you-can-eat buffet as we stood outside the cemetery gates, where the trams coming the other way didn’t stop, and the platform stood empty.

The gate was designed by architect Béla Lajta, one of Budapest’s leading art nouveau and deco architects. He also held significant prominence in Budapest’s Jewish cemeteries, as one of my favourite mausoleums by him can be found in the Kozma Street Cemetery in Kőbánya. This turquoise art nouveau grave is now surrounded by foliage. Inside this cemetery, there were a few of his graves, some with art nouveau accents like the swerves of pomegranate on the first grave in the row of Rabbis and a couple of other tombs on the other side of the cemetery designed in a more art deco style. However, most of the mausoleums were designed by Sándor Fellner and Zsigmond Quittner, with some tombs and graves being designed by Alfréd Hajós, Ignác Alpár, and Emil Viador.

Stepping through the gate, the roofless ceremonial building by Béla Lajta, dating back to 1908, stands in place, once the spot where the bodies would come for the last service for deceased members. A dome roof once covered this building clad in Zsolnay tiles, but it collapsed in the 1980s, and today, it’s open to the sky. On the other side, the ivy curls around Hebraic text above the gate.

The cemetery is not large, measuring 4.8 hectares, but its graves are densely packed, with some 12,000 buried here. The oldest part–which not much is known about, but some sources say was brought here from an older cemetery close to Lehel Market in the XIII District as the plot where the old cemetery was located and demolished to make way for development– is more modest, with oval headstones lined up to signify we’re all the same after death. Next to this plot lie the placards commemorating those who were brought here in 1945 during the Holocaust when Jews were shot en masse in Budapest.

Nearby, the humble grave of Ede Horn from 1875 was perhaps the first Jewish person of note to be buried here; he was the first state secretary of Jewish origin and was buried here a year after the cemetery opened.

However, the cemetery’s perimeter is fringed with collonaded mausoleums and neo-classical or Egyptian columns. Although the most striking are the marble structures that evoke something from Ancient Rome, belong to Manfréd Weiss’s family—who founded the Csepel Works and had a food conserve factory—-and the Hatvany-Deutsch family (a sugar and conserve tycoon), some of the more prominent industrial names have more modest graves. The Herz family, famed for their not-so-kosher business of producing Italian-style salamis and hams, have a simple grave; the same can be said of Joseph Zwack, the founder of the iconic Unicum bitter liqueur you’ll find in every Hungarian bar or restaurant, who has a simple black headstone with his name and details inscribed with gothic-German script. A couple of graves down, the Goldberger family, famed for their textile factory in Óbuda, also have a simple grave marker.

But on the path between the Hatvany-Deutsch mausoleum, which rises more like a Greek temple to the Weiss tomb, are several striking necropolises, many in a dilapidated state. Some cave in, while others have broken iron gates or wooden beams propping up the caving stone. The names didn’t come with a story here, but these monuments are the most moving to me. The former grandeur of families that appear has now been forgotten.

The one that’s most beautiful to me is at the entrance, but the last one we passed is an art nouveau mausoleum with the name “Ehrenfeld” inscribed in secessionist lettering above the door and a stained glass Star of David. Inside are signs of old mosaics that once burst with colour, most notably a chipped-away mosaic of Moses’s tablets with the numbers of the commandments in Roman numerals. It reminds me of the vandalised graves in Kozma Street that had the Zsolnay tiles plucked from them and taken home (I hate that I have to say this, but please don’t steal or vandalise from cemeteries).

Although no one is buried here now, there are still some 30 families who come here to pay respects to their loved ones. You’ll spot stones left on the graves, a few left for famous names, but others for names most of us won’t recognise. Jews don’t bring flowers to remember their dead, which die and wither, but instead, they use stones to honour the deceased as stones endure and are a symbol of everlasting memory.

You can visit the cemetery Monday to Thursday, Sunday from 9 am to 4 pm (until 3 pm in the winter), and Friday from 9 am to 2 pm. Men must cover their heads and women their shoulders, and you must stay strictly within the cordoned areas or go in the company of a guide. You can access the cemetery via the 37 and 37A tram (Salgótarjáni utcai temető stop).