Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives (Magyar Zsidó Múzeum és Levéltár)

Before World War II, Budapest had a thriving Jewish population centered around the largest synagogue in Europe on Dohány Street in District VII. Jewish Budapest was wealthy, with many other synagogues, grand houses and kosher stores, and the Hungarian Jewish Museum opened in 1896 to celebrate this success, moving into the same building as the beautiful Moorish Revival Dohány Street Synagogue in 1932. During the Holocaust, Budapest Jews were forced into a ghetto before being murdered in mass shootings, the gas chambers of the extermination camps or the icy wastes of Ukraine. In 1942 the contents of the museum where smuggled out of the city, and post-war District VII edged towards disrepair but was given a new lease of life following the fall of Communism in 1989. The renowned Jewish Museum is open once more, boasting one of the richest collections of Jewish ephemera in Europe, from Jewish gravestones dating from the Roman Empire to hand-engraved silver torah scrolls and rare manuscripts by Jewish scribes preserved in the Archives. Permanent displays spotlight the history of the Jewish Quarter and temporary exhibitions showcase subjects such as Jewish emigration or haunting imagery of the ghetto in World War II.

Practical Info

Dohány utca 2, H-1077 Budapest. Open Nov–Feb Sun–Thur 10am–6pm, Fri 10am–4pm; Mar–Oct Sun–Thur 10am–6pm, Fri 10am–3.30pm. Admission adults 3,000 HUF, students 2,000 HUF, children aged 6–14 800 HUF. Tickets include access to the neighboring Dohány Street Synagogue and are reduced with the Budapest Card. Metro Line 2 to Astoria.