Budapest, Hungary
During the occupation of Budapest, my immediate family and I moved five times; a specific event caused each relocation.
This, my first case study, is intended to demonstrate the importance of the PLACES we occupy in our understanding of HISTORY.
I don’t know if, given the available technology, anyone could have created a better map of the physical restriction of the Jews of Budapest than this map by Blinken OSA.
It is accessible online at https://www.yellowstarhouses.org with considerable additional information, including a chronology.
This is, in my humble opinion, an outstanding example of geo-mapping the relationships among PLACES (i.e., the location of Yellow-Star and Protected buildings), EVENTS and a specific population (the Jewish population of Budapest).
This map of the Budapest area indicates all the Yellow-Star and Protected buildings during the occupation period. The Yellow-Star buildings were selected from the areas where the residential density of the Jewish population was the highest.
The first Yellow-Star building to which we moved was at Kossuth Lajos utca (street) no. 15 (see red arrow). It was next door to the building where we lived, at no. 17 (a small sliver of it can be seen to the left in the picture). This move was decreed.
Our second Yellow-star building was at Szervita tér (square) no. 5, not far from there. The pink area on the right of the picture is part of the large ghetto. This location replaced the previous decreed one.
You can read about our moves here.
About November, we moved from Szervita tér to a Swiss-protected building on Tátra St. in the International ghetto (Tátra St is indicated by a red line in the general North-South direction). This move was caused by fear of the Arrow-Cross atrocities and the potential security of the Protected buildings.
From Tátra St., we moved to a Swedish-protected building on Katona József Street (indicated by a red line in the general East-West direction). This move was caused by increased Arrow-Cross actions, and hope for higher security in a Swedish-protected building.
At Tátra utca (street) no. 6 (above), Jews stood in line to obtain access to Swedish-protected buildings.
Following the Soviet occupation, we returned to our own apartment at Kossuth Lajos Street no. 17.